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Pedro Arias Dávila

Pedro Arias de Ávila (1440 – 6 March 1531; often Pedro Arias Dávila) was a Spanish soldier and colonial administrator. He led the first great Spanish expedition to the mainland of the New World. There, he served as governor of Panama (1514–1526) and Nicaragua (1527–1531), and founded Panama City (1519). He died in 1531 aged around 90 or 91.

Family
Pedrarias was the son of Pedro Arias and María Ortiz de Cota. He was born into a prominent and well-connected Spanish family. His grandfather, Diego Arias de Ávila, was chief comptroller and a key adviser to King Enrique IV; his older brother was the Count of Puñonrostro; and his uncle was the Bishop of Segovia, a wealthy man who left Pedrarias a fortune.

Early life
As a boy, he was a page in the court of King Juan II of Castile. Physically imposing and athletic, he was nicknamed "the jouster" for his skill in tournaments and "the gallant" in reference to his extravagant wardrobe and spendthrift habits. In later life, he served in the war against the Moors in Granada (1482–1492) and distinguished himself as a colonel of infantry fighting in North Africa (1508–1511). When he returned to Spain, he received a promotion, a citation for valor, and another nickname: "the lion of Bugia".

Towards the end of 1485, he married an intimate friend of queen Isabella I of Spain, Isabel de Bobadilla y Peñalosa, the daughter of Francisco de Bobadilla who was appointed to succeed Christopher Columbus as the second governor of the Indies in 1499.

A few years before 1513, he collapsed of some unrecorded illness. As he was about to be lowered to his grave, a tearful servant who was embracing the casket was astonished to hear movement inside. Incredibly, Arias was breathing and very much alive. Thereafter, he ordered an annual Requiem Mass sung for him in the cathedral at Torrejón, and stood in his own unused grave to listen to it. He took his coffin everywhere he went, even to the New World.

In 1514, at the age of nearly seventy, he was made commander by King Ferdinand II of Aragon of the largest Spanish expedition (19 vessels and 1,500 men) hitherto sent to America.

America

They reached Santa Marta in Colombia in July 1514. They then proceeded to Darién, where Vasco Núñez de Balboa ruled as governor.

Arias Dávila superseded him and promised him his daughter in wedlock but he had Balboa judicially murdered at age 44 on 15 January 1519, being thus a potential bridegroom but never a son-in-law. Arias Dávila's daughter was known as "María de Peñalosa" to honor her female ancestors, something by no means uncommon between the High Spanish Nobility at the time. In 1524, she married Rodrigo de Contreras, (Segovia, 1502 - 1558). They had 11 children. María died at Ciudad de los Reyes on 25 May 1573.

Another of Arias Dávila's daughters, who was born when he was elderly, Isabel Arias or Isabel de Bobadilla (to mark the female ancestors of the family), was married in Valladolid, Spain, 1537, to his loyal lieutenant Hernando de Soto, the successful conquistador and explorer of Florida and Mississippi and Governor of Cuba.

In 1519, Arias Dávila founded Panama City and moved his capital there in 1524, abandoning Darién. Dávila sent Gil González Dávila to explore to the north. In 1524, he sent another expedition under Francisco Hernández de Córdoba, who was executed there in 1526 by order of Dávila, by then aged over 85.

María Ortiz Cota, the mother of Dávila, was the daughter of Toledo family member and Royal Treasurer Alonso Cota (died 1468) who was married to one Teresa Ortiz, their children being known however as "Ortiz Cota" under the Portuguese family style, whereas, following the Spanish succession style, they would have been known as "Cota Ortiz".

Moreover, he was a party to the original agreement with Francisco Pizarro and Diego de Almagro which brought about the discovery of Peru, but he withdrew (1526) for a small compensation, having lost confidence in the outcome. In the same year, he was superseded as Governor of Panama by Pedro de los Ríos and retired to León, Nicaragua, where he was named its new governor on 1 July 1527. Here he lived for the rest of his life until his death on 6 March 1531. He left an unenviable record, as a man of unreliable character, and who was cruel and unscrupulous.

Through his foundation of Panama, however, he laid the basis for the discovery of South America's west coast and the subsequent conquest of Peru.

Spanish references

 * Alvarez Rubiano, Pablo: Pedrarias Dávila. Contribución a la figura del "Gran Justador", Gobernador de Castilla del Oro y Nicaragua. Madrid, 1944.
 * Cantera Burgos, Francisco: Pedrarias Dávila y Cota, capitán general y gobernador de Castilla del Oro y Nicaragua: sus antecedentes judíos. Universidad de Madrid, Cátedra de Lengua Hebrea e Historia de los judíos. Madrid, 1971.
 * Gitlitz, David M., Los Arias Dávila de Segovia: entre la iglesia y la sinagoga (Baltimore: International Scholars Publications, 1996.
 * Mena García, Carmen: Pedrarias Dávila o la Ira de Dios: una historia olvidada. Publicaciones de la Universidad de Sevilla, Sevilla, 1992; ISBN 84-7405-834-1
 * Mena García, Carmen: Sevilla y las flotas de Indias. La gran armada de Castilla del Oro, 1513-1514. Universidad de Sevilla, Fundación cultural El Monte, Sevilla, 1998, 2ª edición Sevilla, 1999; ISBN 84-472-0459-6
 * Mena García, Carmen: Un linaje de conversos en tierras americanas. Los testamentos de Pedrarias Dávila, gobernador de Castilla del Oro y Nicaragua. León, 2004; ISBN 84-9773-137-9

title: Pedro Arias Dávila


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Differential analyser

The differential analyser is a mechanical analogue computer designed to solve differential equations by integration, using wheel-and-disc mechanisms to perform the integration. It was one of the first advanced computing devices to be used operationally. The original machines could not add, but then it was noticed that if the two wheels of a rear differential are turned, the drive shaft will compute the average of the left and right wheels. Addition and subtraction are then achieved by using a simple gear ratio of 1:2; the gear ratio provides multiplication by two, and multiplying the average of two values by two gives their sum. Multiplication is just a special case of integration, namely integrating a constant function.

History
Research on solutions for differential equations using mechanical devices, discounting planimeters, started at least as early as 1836, when the French physicist Gaspard-Gustave Coriolis designed a mechanical device to integrate differential equations of the first order.

The first description of a device which could integrate differential equations of any order was published in 1876 by James Thomson, who was born in Belfast in 1822, but lived in Scotland from the age of 10. Though Thomson called his device an "integrating machine", it is his description of the device, together with the additional publication in 1876 of two further descriptions by his younger brother, Lord Kelvin, which represents the invention of the differential analyser.

One of the earliest practical uses of Thomson's concepts was a tide-predicting machine built by Kelvin starting in 1872–3. On Lord Kelvin's advice, Thomson's integrating machine was later incorporated into a fire-control system for naval gunnery being developed by Arthur Pollen, resulting in an electrically driven, mechanical analogue computer, which was completed by about 1912. Italian mathematician Ernesto Pascal also developed integraphs for the mechanical integration of differential equations and published details in 1914.

However, the first widely practical general-purpose differential analyser was constructed by Harold Locke Hazen and Vannevar Bush at MIT, 1928–1931, comprising six mechanical integrators. Bush's differential analyser used mechanical integrators. The output of each integrator was intended to drive other parts of the machine; however, the output was too feeble to do so. Hazen recognized that a "torque amplifier", which had been invented in 1925 by Henry W. Nieman and which was intended to allow workers to control heavy machinery, could be used to provide the necessary power. See: Stuart Bennett, A History of Control Engineering 1930-1955 (London, England:  Peter Peregrinus Ltd., 1993), page 103. See also Nieman's U.S. patents: (1) "Servo mechanism", U.S. patent no. 1,751,645 (filed: 28 January 1925; issued:  25 March 1930); (2) "Servo mechanism", U.S. patent no. 1,751,647  (filed: 8 January 1926; issued: 25 March 1930); (3) "Synchronous amplifying control mechanism", U.S. patent no. 1,751,652  (filed: 8 January 1926; issued: 25 March 1930). In the same year, Bush described this machine in a journal article as a "continuous integraph". When he published a further article on the device in 1931, he called it a "differential analyzer". In this article, Bush stated that "[the] present device incorporates the same basic idea of interconnection of integrating units as did [Lord Kelvin's]. In detail, however, there is little resemblance to the earlier model." According to his 1970 autobiography, Bush was "unaware of Kelvin’s work until after the first differential analyzer was operational." Claude Shannon was hired as a research assistant in 1936 to run the differential analyzer in Bush's lab.

Douglas Hartree of Manchester University brought Bush's design to England, where he constructed his first "proof of concept" model with his student, Arthur Porter, during 1934. As a result of this, the university acquired a full scale machine incorporating four mechanical integrators in March 1935, which was built by Metropolitan-Vickers, and was, according to Hartree, "[the] first machine of its kind in operation outside the United States". During the next five years three more were added, at Cambridge University, Queen's University Belfast, and the Royal Aircraft Establishment in Farnborough. One of the integrators from this proof of concept is on display in the History of Computing section of the Science Museum in London, alongside a complete Manchester machine.

In Norway, the locally built Oslo Analyser was finished during 1938, based on the same principles as the MIT machine. This machine had 12 integrators, and was the largest analyser built for a period of four years.

In the United States, further differential analysers were built at the Ballistic Research Laboratory in Maryland and in the basement of the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania during the early 1940s. The latter was used extensively in the computation of artillery firing tables prior to the invention of the ENIAC, which, in many ways, was modelled on the differential analyser. Also in the early 1940s, with Samuel H. Caldwell, one of the initial contributors during the early 1930s, Bush attempted an electrical, rather than mechanical, variation, but the digital computer built elsewhere had much greater promise and the project ceased. In 1947, UCLA installed a differential analyser built for them by General Electric at a cost of $125,000. By 1950, this machine had been joined by three more. The UCLA differential analyzer appeared in 1951's When Worlds Collide, where it was called "DA".

At Osaka Imperial University (present-day Osaka University) around 1944, a complete differential analyser machine was developed (illustrated) to calculate the movement of an object and other problems with mechanical components, and then draws graphs on paper with a pen. It was later transferred to the Tokyo University of Science and has been displayed at the school's Museum of Science in Shinjuku Ward. Restored in 2014 is one of only two still operational differential analyzers produced before the end of World War II.

In Canada, a differential analyser was constructed at the University of Toronto in 1948 by Beatrice Helen Worsley, but it appears to have had little or no use.

A differential analyser may have been used in the development of the bouncing bomb, used to attack German hydroelectric dams during World War II. Differential analysers have also been used in the calculation of soil erosion by river control authorities.

The differential analyser was eventually rendered obsolete by electronic analogue computers and, later, digital computers.

Use of Meccano
The model differential analyser built at Manchester University in 1934 by Douglas Hartree and Arthur Porter made extensive use of Meccano parts: this meant that the machine was less costly to build, and it proved "accurate enough for the solution of many scientific problems". A similar machine built by J.B. Bratt at Cambridge University in 1935 is now in the Museum of Transport and Technology (MOTAT) collection in Auckland, New Zealand. A memorandum written for the British military's Armament Research Department in 1944 describes how this machine had been modified during World War II for improved reliability and enhanced capability, and identifies its wartime applications as including research on the flow of heat, explosive detonations, and simulations of transmission lines.

It is estimated that "about 15 Meccano model Differential Analysers were built for serious work by scientists and researchers around the world".

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

title: Differential analyser


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Champagne Castle

Champagne Castle is a mountain in the central Drakensberg range, and is the second highest peak in South Africa. It contains a series of subsidiary peaks, amongst them, Cathkin Peak (3149 m), Sterkhorn (previously called Mount Memory), Monk's Cowl and Dragon's Back.

It is said that when two intrepid mountaineers, David Gray and Major Grantham, climbed the peaks directly in front of Cathkin, they were about to celebrate their long haul by popping a bottle of champagne. But as fate would have it, the guide dropped the bottle on a rock – and in that moment Champagne Castle in the heart of the Drakensberg was christened.

Cathkin Peak was named after the residence of a Lanarkshire immigrant, Stephan Snyman, who named his home after Cathkin Braes, a hill in Glasgow.

As is the common trend in the Drakensberg, surrounding hotels and resorts have been named after Champagne Castle, Monk's Cowl and Cathkin Peak.

title: Champagne Castle


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Talk:Champagne Castle

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title: Talk:Champagne Castle


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Sultanate of Sulu

The Sultanate of Sulu (Kasultanan sin Sūg; Kesultanan Sulu; Sultanato ng Sulu) was a Sunni Muslim state that ruled the Sulu Archipelago, coastal areas of Zamboanga City and certain portions of Palawan in the today's Philippines, alongside parts of present-day Sabah and North Kalimantan in north-eastern Borneo.

The sultanate was founded either on 17 November 1405 or 1457 by Johore-born explorer and Sunni Sufi religious scholar Sharif ul-Hashim, a follower of the Ash'ari Aqeeda and Shafi'i Madh'hab. Paduka Mahasari Maulana al Sultan Sharif ul-Hashim became his full regnal name; Sharif-ul Hashim is his abbreviated name. He settled in Buansa, Sulu. After the marriage of Abu Bakr and a local dayang-dayang (princess) Paramisuli, he founded the sultanate after approval and recognition through the "Gibha" ceremony done by the Sayyid Balfaqi Alawi, this practice of "Gibha" ceremony was thereafter passed to his descendants among the family of Panglima Bandahala of Sulu and Ligaddung of Tawi-Tawi. The sultanate gained its independence from the Bruneian Empire in 1578.

At its peak, it stretched over the islands that bordered the western peninsula of Zamboanga in Mindanao in the east to Palawan in the north. It also covered areas in the northeast of Borneo, stretching from Marudu Bay, Sabah to Tepian, District of Sembakung, North Kalimantan. Another source stated the area included stretched from Kimanis Bay, which also overlaps with the boundaries of the Bruneian Sultanate. Following the arrival of western powers such as the Spanish, the British, the Dutch, French, Germans, the Sultan thalassocracy and sovereign political powers were relinquished by 1915 through an agreement that was signed with the United States. In the second half of the 20th century, Filipino government extended official recognition of the head of the royal house of the sultanate, before the ongoing succession dispute.

In Kakawin Nagarakretagama, the Sultanate of Sulu is referred to as Solot, one of the countries in the Tanjungnagara archipelago (Kalimantan), which is one of the areas that is under the influence of the mandala area of the Majapahit kingdom in the archipelago.

Pre-establishment

The present area of the Sultanate of Sulu was once under the influence of the Bruneian Empire before it gained its own independence in 1578. During the 13th century the people of Sulu began migrating to present-day Zamboanga and Sulu archipelago from their homelands in northeastern Mindanao. Scott (1994) writes that the Sulu are the descendants of ancient Butuanons and Surigaonons from the Rajahnate of Butuan, which was then Hindu, like pre-islamic Sulu. They moved south and established a spice trading port in Sulu. Sultan Batarah Shah Tengah, who ruled as sultan in 1600, was said to be an actual native of Butuan. The Butuanon-Surigaonon origins of the Tausugs are suggested by the relationship of their languages, as the Butuanon, Surigaonon and Tausug languages are all members of the Southern sub-family of Visayan. Later, the earliest known settlement in this area soon to be occupied by the sultanate was in Maimbung, Jolo. During this time, Sulu was called Lupah Sug. The principality of Maimbung, populated by Buranun people (or Budanon, literally means "mountain-dwellers"), was first ruled by a certain rajah who assumed the title Rajah Sipad the Older. According to Majul, the origins of the title rajah sipad originated from the Hindu sri pada, which symbolises authority. The principality was instituted and governed using the system of rajahs. Sipad the Older was succeeded by Sipad the Younger.

Some Chams who migrated to Sulu were called Orang Dampuan. The Champa civilization and the port-kingdom of Sulu engaged in commerce with each other which resulted in merchant Chams settling in Sulu, where they were known as Orang Dampuan in the 10th–13th centuries. In contrast to their cousins in the Butuan Rajahnate, who considered themselves diplomatic competitors of Champa for China trade, (under Butuan's Rajah Kiling); instead, Sulu freely traded with the Champa civilization. The Orang Dampuans from Champa however were eventually slaughtered by envious native Sulu Buranuns due to the wealth of the Orang Dampuan. The Buranun were then subjected to retaliatory slaughter by the Orang Dampuan. Harmonious commerce between Sulu and the Orang Dampuan was later restored. The Yakans were descendants of the Taguima-based Orang Dampuan who came to Sulu from Champa. Sulu received civilization in its Indic form from the Orang Dampuan.

During the reign of Sipad the Younger, a Sunni Sufi scholar and mystic named Tuan Mashā′ikha arrived in Jolo in 1280 CE. Little is known to the origins and early biography of Tuan Mashā′ikha, except that he is a Muslim "who came from foreign lands" at the head of a fleet of Muslim traders, or he was issued from a stalk of bamboo and was considered a prophet, thus well respected by the people. Other reports, however, insisted that Tuan Mashā′ikha together with his parents, Jamiyun Kulisa and Indra Suga, were sent to Sulu by Alexander the Great (who is known as Iskandar Zulkarnain in Malay Annals). However, Najeeb Mitry Saleeby, a Lebanese American doctor who wrote A History of Sulu in 1908 and other studies of the Moros, dismisses this claim by concluding that Jamiyun Kulisa and Indra Suga were mythical names. According to tarsila, during the coming of Tuan Mashā′ikha, the people of Maimbung worshipped tombs and stones of any kind. After he preached Islam in the area, he married Sipad the Younger's daughter, Idda Indira Suga, who bore three children: Tuan Hakim, Tuan Pam and 'Aisha. Tuan Hakim, in turn, begot five children. From the genealogy of Tuan Mashā′ikha, another titular system of aristocracy called "tuanship" started in Sulu. Apart from the Idda Indira Suga, Tuan Mashā′ikha also married another "unidentified woman" and begot Moumin. Tuan Mashā′ikha died in 710 A.H. (equivalent to 1310 AD), and was buried in Bud Dato near Jolo, with an inscription of Tuan Maqbālū.

A descendant of the Sunni Sufi Shaykh Tuan Mashā′ikha named Tuan May also begot a son named Datu Tka. The descendants of Tuan May did not assume the title of tuan, but instead, used datu. This was the first time datu was used as a political institution. During the coming of Tuan Mashā′ikha, the Tagimaha people (literally means "the party of the people") from Basilan and several places in Mindanao, also arrived and settled in Buansa. After the Tagimaha came the Baklaya people, (which means "seashore dwellers"), who are believed to have originated from Sulawesi, and settled in Patikul. After these came the Bajau people (or Samal) from Johor. The Bajau were driven towards Sulu by a heavy monsoon, some of them to the shores of Brunei and others to Mindanao. The population of Buranun, Tagimaha, and Baklaya in Sulu created three parties with distinct systems of government and subjects. In the 1300s the Chinese annals, Nanhai zhi, reported that Brunei invaded or administered the Philippine kingdoms of Butuan, Sulu and Ma-i (Mindoro), which did not regain their independence until later date. According to the Nagarakretagama, the Majapahit Empire under Emperor Hayam Wuruk invaded Sulu in 1365. However in 1369, the Sulus rebelled and regained independence and in vengeance assaulted the Majapahit Empire and its province Po-ni (Brunei), as well as the northeast coast of Borneo and thereafter went to the capital, looting it of treasure and gold. In the sacking of Brunei, the Sulus stole two sacred pearls from the Bruneian king. A fleet from the Majapahit capital succeeded in driving away the Sulus, but Po-ni was left weaker after the attack. Since Chinese historiographies later recorded there to be a Maharaja of Sulu, it is assumed that the Majapahit did not take it back, and it was a rival to it. By 1390 CE, Rajah Baguinda Ali, a prince of the Pagaruyung Kingdom, arrived at Sulu and married into the local nobility. At least in 1417, when Sulu rivaled Majapahit according to Chinese annals, three kings (or monarchs) ruled three civilised kingdoms in the island. Patuka Pahala (Paduka Batara) ruled the eastern kingdom (Sulu Archipelago) -- he was the most powerful; the western kingdom was ruled by Mahalachi (Maharajah Kamal ud-Din), ruler of Kalimantan in Indonesia; and the kingdom near the cave (or Cave King) was Paduka Patulapok from Palawan Island. The Bajau settlers were distributed among the three kingdoms. During this time, Sulu avenged itself for Majapahit Imperialism by encroaching upon the Majapahit Empire as the alliance of the three Sulu kings had territory that reached East and North Kalimantan, which were former Majapahit provinces.

Moumin's descendants the son of Tuan Mashā′ikha populated Sulu. After some time, a certain Timway Orangkaya Su'il was mentioned by the second page of tarsila; he received four Bisaya slaves (people from the Kedatuan of Madja-as) from Manila (presumably Kingdom of Maynila) as a sign of friendship between the two countries. The descendants of Su'il also inherited the title Timway, which means "chief". On tarsila's third page, it accounts the fact that the slaves were the ancestors of the inhabitants in the island to Parang, Lati, Gi'tung, and Lu'uk respectively.

The fourth page then narrates the coming of the Buranun (addressed in the tarsila as "the Maimbung people"), Tagimaha, Baklaya, and finally the drifted Bajau immigrants from Johor. The condition of Sulu before the arrival of Islam can be summarised as such: The island was inhabited by several cultures, and was reigned over by three independent kingdoms ruled by the Buranun, Tagimaha, and Baklaya peoples. Likewise, the socio-political systems of these kingdoms were characterised by several distinct institutions: rajahship, datuship, tuanship and timwayship. The arrival of Tuan Mashā′ikha afterwards established a core Islamic community in the island.

Islamisation and establishment
The Sulu Archipelago was an entrepôt that attracted merchants from south China and various parts of Southeast Asia beginning in the 14th century. The name "Sulu" is attested in Chinese historical records as early as 1349, during the late Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), suggesting trade relations around this time. Trade continued into the early Ming dynasty (1368–1644); envoys were sent in several missions to China to trade and pay tribute to the emperor. Sulu merchants often exchanged goods with Chinese Muslims, and also traded with Muslims of Arab, Persian, Malay, or Indian descent. Islamic historian Cesar Adib Majul argues that Islam was introduced to the Sulu Archipelago in the late 14th century by Chinese and Arab merchants and missionaries from Ming China. The seven Arab missionaries were called "Lumpang Basih" by the Tausug, and were Sunni Sufi scholars from the Ba 'Alawi sada of Yemen.

Around this time, a notable Arab judge, Sunni Sufi and religious scholar Karim ul-Makhdum from Mecca arrived in Malacca. He preached Islam, particularly the Ash'ari Aqeeda and Shafi'i Madh'hab as well as the Qadiriyya Tariqa, and many citizens, including the ruler of Malacca, converted to Islam]]. Sulu leader Paduka Pahala and his sons moved to China, where he died. Chinese Muslims brought up his sons in Dezhou, where their descendants live and have the surnames An and Wen. In 1380 CE, Karim ul-Makhdum arrived in Simunul island from Malacca, again with Arab traders. Apart from being a scholar, he operated as a trader; some see him as a Sufi missionary from Mecca. He preached Islam, and was accepted by the core Muslim community. He was the second person to preach Islam in the area, after Tuan Mashā′ikha. To facilitate conversion of nonbelievers, he established a mosque in Tubig-Indagan, Simunul, the first Islamic temple to be constructed in the area, or in the Philippines. This later became known as the Sheik Karimal Makdum Mosque. He died in Sulu, although the exact location of his grave is unknown. In Buansa, he was known as Tuan Sharif Awliyā. On his alleged grave in Bud Agad, Jolo, an inscription reads "Mohadum Aminullah Al-Nikad". In Lugus, he is referred to as Abdurrahman. In Sibutu, he is known by his name.

The differing beliefs about his grave's location came about because the Qadiri Shaykh Karim ul-Makhdum travelled to several islands in the Sulu Sea to preach Islam. In many places in the archipelago, he was beloved. It is said that the people of Tapul built a mosque honouring him and that they claim descent from Karim ul-Makhdum. The customs, beliefs and political laws of the people changed and adapted to adopt the Islamic tradition.

Sulu abruptly stopped sending tributes to the Ming in 1424. Antonio Pigafetta recorded in his journals that the sultan of Brunei invaded Sulu to retrieve the two sacred pearls Sulu had previously pillaged from Brunei. A sultan of Brunei, Sultan Bolkiah married a princess (dayang-dayang) of Sulu, Puteri Laila Menchanai, and they became the grandparents of the Muslim prince of Maynila, Rajah Matanda. Manila was a Muslim city-state and vassal to Brunei before the Spanish colonized it and converted it from Islam to Christianity. Islamic Manila ended after the failed attack of Tarik Sulayman, a Muslim Kapampangan commander, in the failure of the Conspiracy of the Maharlikas, when the formerly Muslim Manila nobility attempted a secret alliance with the Japanese shogunate and Bruneiean sultanate (together with her Manila and Sulu allies) to expel the Spaniards from the Philippines. Many Tausugs and other native Muslims of Sulu Sultanate already interacted with Kapampangan and Tagalog Muslims called Luzones based in Brunei, and there were intermarriages between them. The Spanish had native allies against the former Muslims they conquered like Hindu Tondo which resisted Islam when Brunei invaded and established Manila as a Muslim city-state to supplant Hindu Tondo.

Maritime power
The Sulu sultanate became notorious for its so-called "Moro Raids" or acts of piracy on Spanish settlements in the Visayan areas with the aim of capturing slaves and other goods from these coastal towns. Tausug pirates used boats known collectively by Europeans as proas (predominantly the lanong and garay warships), which varied in design and were much lighter than the Spanish galleons and could easily out-sail these ships, and also often carried large swivel guns or lantaka and also carried a crew of pirates from different ethnic groups throughout Sulu, such as the Iranun, Bajaus and Tausugs alike. By the 18th century, Sulu pirates had become virtual masters of the Sulu seas and the surrounding areas, wreaking havoc on Spanish settlements. This prompted the Spaniards to build a number of fortifications across the Visayan islands of Cebu and Bohol; churches were built on higher ground, and watchtowers were built along coastlines to warn of impending raids.

The maritime supremacy of Sulu was not directly controlled by the sultan; independent datus and warlords waged their own wars against the Spaniards and even with the capture of Jolo on numerous occasions by the Spaniards, other settlements like Maimbung, Banguingui and Tawi-Tawi were used as assembly areas and hideouts for pirates.

The sultanate's control over the Sulu seas was at its height around the late 17th to early 18th centuries when Moro raids became very common for the Visayans and Spaniards.

In Sulu and in the Mindanao interior, the slave trade flourished and majority of the slaves that were being imported and exported were of Visayan ethnicity; the term Bisaya eventually became synonymous to "slave" in these areas. Its maritime supremacy over the Spaniards, at the time, the Spaniards acquired steam-powered ships that began to curb Muslim piracy in the region, the Moro piratical raids began to decrease in number until Governor Narciso Clavería launched the Balanguingui expedition in 1848 to crush the pirate settlements there, effectively ending the Moro pirate raids. By the last quarter of the 19th century, Moro pirates had virtually disappeared and the maritime influence of the sultanate became dependent on the Chinese junk trade.

Spanish and British annexations
In the 18th century, Sulu's dominion covered most of northeastern part of Borneo. However areas like Tempasuk and Abai had never really shown much allegiance to its earlier ruler, Brunei, subsequently similar treatment was given to Sulu. Alexander Dalrymple, who made a treaty of allegiance in 1761 with Sulu, had to make a similar agreement with the rulers of Tempasuk and Abai on the north Borneo coast in 1762. The Sultanate of Sulu totally gave up its domain over Palawan to Spain in 1705 and Basilan to Spain in 1762. The territory ceded to Sulu by Brunei initially stretched south to Tapean Durian (now Tanjong Mangkalihat) (another source mentioned a southernmost boundary at Dumaring), near the Straits of Macassar (now Kalimantan). From 1726 to 1733, the Sulu sultanate restarted their tributary relationship with China, now the Qing Empire, about 300 years after it had ended.

By 1800–1850, the areas gained from Brunei had been effectively controlled by the Sultanate of Bulungan in Kalimantan, reducing the boundary of Sulu to a cape named Batu Tinagat and the Tawau River.

In 1848 and 1851, the Spanish launched attacks on Balanguingui and Jolo respectively. A peace treaty was signed on 30 April 1851 in which the sultan could only regain the capital if Sulu and its dependencies became a part of the Philippine Islands under the sovereignty of Spain. There were different understandings of this treaty; although the Spanish interpreted it as the sultan accepting Spanish sovereignty over Sulu and Tawi-Tawi, but the sultan took it as a friendly treaty amongst equals. These areas were only partially controlled by the Spanish, and their power was limited to military stations and garrisons and pockets of civilian settlements. This lasted until they had to abandon the region as a consequence of their defeat in the Spanish–American War. On 22 January 1878, an agreement was signed between the Sultanate of Sulu and British commercial syndicate of (Alfred Dent and Baron de Overbeck), which stipulated that North Borneo was either ceded or leased (depending on translation used) to the British in return for payment of five thousand Malayan dollars per year.

 * Sulu version

"...do hereby lease of our own freewill and satisfaction to...all the territories and lands being tributary to [us] together with their heirs, associates, successors and assigns forever and until the end of time, all rights and powers which we possess over all territories and lands tributary to us on the mainland of the Island of Borneo, commencing from the Pandassan River on the west coast to Maludu Bay, and extending along the whole east coast as far as Sibuco River on the south,..., and all the other territories and states to the southward thereof bordering on Darvel Bay and as far as the Sibuco River, ..., [9 nautical miles] of the coast."

 * British version

... hereby grant and cede of our own free and sovereign will to Gustavus Baron de Overbeck of Hong Kong and Alfred Dent Esquire of London...and assigns for ever and in perpetuity all the rights and powers belonging to us over all the territories and lands being tritutary to us on the mainland of the island of Borneo commencing from the Pandassan River on the north-west coast and extending along the whole east coast as far as the Sibuco River in the south and comprising amongst other the States of Paitan, Sugut, Bangaya, Labuk, Sandakan, Kina Batangan, Mumiang, and all the other territories and states to the southward thereof bordering on Darvel Bay and as far as the Sibuco river with all the islands within three marine leagues of the coast.

On 22 April 1903, Sultan Jamalul Kiram II signed a document known as "Confirmation of cession of certain islands", in which he granted and ceded additional islands in the neighbourhood of the mainland of North Borneo from Banggi Island to Sibuku Bay to the British North Borneo Company. The confirmatory deed of 1903 makes it known and understood between the two parties that the islands mentioned were included in the cession of the districts and islands mentioned on 22 January 1878 agreement. Additional cession money was set at 300 dollars a year with arrears due for past occupation of 3,200 dollars. The originally agreed 5,000 dollars increased to 5,300 dollars per year payable annually.

Madrid Protocol
The Sulu sultanate later came under the control of Spain in Manila. In 1885, Great Britain, Germany, and Spain signed the Madrid Protocol to cement Spanish influence over the islands of the Philippines. In the same agreement, Spain relinquished all claim to North Borneo which had belonged to the sultanate in the past to the British government. "The Spanish Government renounces, as far as regards the British Government, all claims of sovereignty over the territories of the continent of Borneo, which belong, or which have belonged in the past to the Sultan of Sulu (Jolo), and which comprise the neighbouring islands of Balambangan, Banguey, and Malawali, as well as all those comprised within a zone of three maritime leagues from the coast, and which form part of the territories administered by the Company styled the 'British North Borneo Company'."

Decline
The sultanate's political power was relinquished in March 1915 after American commanders negotiated with Sultan Jamalul Kiram II on behalf of Governor-General Francis Burton Harrison. An agreement was subsequently signed, called the "Carpenter Agreement". By this agreement, the sultan relinquished all political power over territory within the Philippines (except for certain specific land granted to Sultan Jamalul Kiram II and his heirs), with the religious authority as head of Islam in Sulu.

Status within the Philippines
In 1962, the Philippine government under the administration of President Diosdado Macapagal officially recognised the continued existence of the Sultanate of Sulu. It has been asserted that Macapagal was a cousin of the Sulu sultan due to his royal descent tracing to Lakandula of Tondo,  Lakandula was the uncle of the Muslim king of Manila, Rajah Sulayman, and they had a grandmother from Sulu in the person of the Tausug princess, Laila Mechanai, wife of Sultan Bolkiah of Brunei and ancestor of Rajah Matanda and Rajah Sulayman of Manila. On 24 May 1974, the reign of Sultan Mohammed Mahakuttah Kiram began and lasted until 1986. He was the last officially recognized Sulu sultan in the Philippines, having been recognized by President Ferdinand Marcos.

Pretenders
After the death of Mahakuttah A. Kiram, the Philippine national government has not formally recognised a new sultan. Mahakutta's crown prince Muedzul Lail Kiram, the heir to the throne according to the line of succession as recognised by the Philippine governments from 1915 to 1986, was 20 years old upon his father's death. Due to his young age, he failed to claim the throne in a time of political instability in the Philippines that led to the peaceful revolution and subsequent removal of President Marcos. The gap in the sultanate leadership was filled by claimants of rival branches. Therefore, the succeeding claimants to the sultanship were not crowned with the support of the Philippine government nor received formal recognition from the national government as their predecessors had until 1986. However, the Philippine national government decided to deal with one or more of the sultan claimants regarding issues concerning the sultanate’s affairs.

Muedzul Lail Tan Kiram was formally recognised as the legitimate successor as the 35th sultan of Sulu by Memorandum Order 427 of 1974, signed by Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos.

The then Acting Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of the Philippines officially further recognized the sovereignty of the Sultanate of Sulu over North Borneo (now Sabah), clarifying that "WHEREAS, for the last two hundred years or more the title of sovereignty and dominion over the Territory of North Borneo has been vested in the Sultanate of Sulu."

North Borneo dispute
The dispute is based on a territorial claim by the Philippines since the era of President Diosdado Macapagal over much of the eastern part of Sabah in Malaysia. Sabah was known as North Borneo prior to the formation of the Malaysian federation in 1963. The Eastern Sabah territory was allegedly gifted by the Brunei Sultanate to the Sulu Sultanate due to Sulu intervention in the Brunei Civil War. However Brunei historian Leigh R. Wright has claimed that Sulu never really provided assistance during the civil war. The Philippines, via the heritage of the Sultanate of Sulu, claim Sabah on the basis that Sabah was only leased to the British North Borneo Company with the sultanate's sovereignty never being relinquished. The dispute stems from the difference in the interpretation used on an agreement signed between Sultanate of Sulu and the British commercial syndicate (Alfred Dent and Baron von Overbeck) in 1878, which stipulated that North Borneo was either ceded or leased (depending on translation used) to the British chartered company in return for payment of 5,000 dollars per year. Malaysia views the dispute as a "non-issue", as it not only considers the agreement in 1878 as one of cession, but it also deems that the residents had exercised their act of self-determination when they joined to form the Malaysian federation in 1963. As reported by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the independence of North Borneo was brought about as the result of the expressed wish of the majority of the people of the territory as supported by the findings of the Cobbold Commission.

Moreover, a later 1903 Confirmation of Cession agreement between the sultan of Sulu and the British government, has provided reaffirmation regarding the understanding of the sultan of Sulu on the treaty in 1878, i.e. it is of the form of a cession. Throughout the British administration of North Borneo, the British government continued to make the annual "cession money" payment to the sultan and its heir and these payments were expressly shown in the receipts as "cession money". In a 1961 conference in London, a Philippine and British panel met to discuss the Philippine claim to North Borneo, the British informed the Congressman Salonga that the wording of the receipts had not been challenged by the sultan or his heirs. During a meeting of Maphilindo between the Philippine, Malayan and Indonesian governments in 1963, the Philippine government said the sultan of Sulu wanted the payment of 5,000 from the Malaysian government. The first Malaysian Prime Minister at the time, Tunku Abdul Rahman said he would go back to Kuala Lumpur and get on the request. Since then, the Malaysian Embassy in the Philippines issues a cheque in the amount of RM5,300 (approx. ₱77,000 or US$1,710) to the legal counsel of the heirs of the sultan of Sulu. Malaysia considers the settlement an annual "cession payment" for the disputed state, while the sultan's descendants consider it "rent". These payments however have been stopped as of 2013 in light of the attempted invasion of Sabah since Malaysia viewed that as an act of violation of the 1903 Confirmation of Cession agreement and its earlier 1878 agreement.

Republic Act 5446 in the Philippines, which took effect on 18 September 1968, regards Sabah as a territory "over which the Republic of the Philippines has acquired dominion and sovereignty". On 16 July 2011, the Supreme Court of the Philippines ruled that the Philippine claim over Sabah is retained and may be pursued in the future. , Malaysia maintains that their Sabah claim is a non-issue and non-negotiable, thereby rejecting any calls from the Philippines to resolve the matter in the International Court of Justice. Sabah authorities sees the claim made by the Philippines' Moro leader Nur Misuari to take Sabah to International Court of Justice as a non-issue and thus dismissed the claim.

In February 2022, an international court ruled that Malaysia had violated a treaty signed in 1878 of annual cession payment and would have to pay at least US$14.92 billion (RM62.59 billion) to the descendants of the Sulu sultan, which Malaysia ceased payment in 2013 as it deemed that the Sulu counterpart had first violated the treaty through the 2013 Sabah incursion. The award was reportedly issued in an arbitration court in Paris, France by Spanish arbitrator Gonzalo Stampa. In March 2022, Malaysia filed an application to annul the final award over claims by Sulu sultan’s heirs since the appointment of Stampa had itself been annulled by Madrid High Court in June 2021, rendering any decisions by him to be invalid including the 2022 award. Lawyers for the heirs indicated that they will seek the award’s recognition and execution, citing a 1958 U.N. Convention on Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards. In July 2022, court bailiffs in Luxembourg served Petronas Azerbaijan (Shah Denis) and Petronas South Caucus with a "saiseie-arret," or a size order or behalf of descendants of the Sulu sultan. Petronas said it would defend its legal position.

In June 2023, the Paris Court of Appeal ruled in favour of the Malaysian Government's appeal against the French arbitration court's 2022 decision to award US$15 billion to the claimants to the Sultanate of Sulu. The Court of Appeal also ruled that Stampa and the arbitration tribunal did not have jurisdiction over the case. In addition, the Court of Appeal annulled the US$15.9 billion award. The decision was welcomed by Malaysian law minister Datuk Seri Azalina Othman. Stampa also faces legal proceedings in Spain for ignoring the decisions of earlier Spanish courts. However, Stampa's award remains enforceable outside of France due to a United Nations treaty on international arbitration. The Sulu claimants have also filed claims to seize Malaysian assets in the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

On 27 June 2023, a Dutch court of appeal dismissed a bid by the claimants to the Sultanate to enforce the US$15 billion arbitration award against the Malaysian Government. While the Malaysian Government welcomed the court's ruling, the Sulu heirs' lawyer Paul Cohen expressed disappointment. On 9 November 2023, the Paris Court of Appeal dismissed legal attempts by the Sultanate's claimants to seize Malaysian diplomatic properties in Paris. On 10 November, the Madrid Court filed criminal charges against Stampa over his role in handing the US$14.92 billion arbitration award to the eight Sulu claimants. On 5 January 2024, Stampa was convicted for contempt of court. He was sentenced to six months in prison and banned from acting as an arbitrator for one year for “knowingly disobeying rulings and orders from the Madrid High Court of Justice”. According to Law360, the Spanish courts’ decision to move ahead with criminal proceedings against Stampa marked a significant “victory for the Malaysian government”.

On May 17, 2024 the Madrid Court of Appeal upheld the contempt of court conviction and sentence against Stampa, upholding his six-month prison sentence, and a one-year ban from practicing as an arbitrator.

The Madrid Court highlighted that the arbitrator's appointment was a judicial decision made before the arbitration process. Consequently, once the nullification of the appointment was confirmed, all subsequent arbitral proceedings stemming from that appointment were rendered invalid, as if they had never occurred.

Malaysian Minister Azalina Othman said, “In its judgment, the Madrid Court of Appeal confirms that Stampa knowingly and wilfully disobeyed the clear rulings and orders of the Madrid High Court of Justice resulting from the nullification of his appointment as arbitrator.”

Later on May 30, 2024, Malaysian state-owned petroleum firm Petronas moved a Manhattan court to seek directions for litigation funding firm Therium and its parent company to turn over subpoenaed financial documents and communications.

Petronas’ Azerbaijani arm said it would sue the companies and their lawyers in Spain over losses from the seizure of assets in Luxembourg.

Former Spanish Judge Josep Galvez — barrister at 4-5 Gray's Inn Square Chambers, which the lawyers of Sulu claimants Paul Cohen and Elisabeth Mason also associate with — said the Madrid Court’s ruling underscored the importance of rigorous compliance with procedural requirements and judicial orders under Spanish law, as failure to do so could invite severe penalties. “The conviction of Stampa serves as a lesson for international arbitration practitioners, emphasizing the paramount importance of adhering to judicial orders in Spain,” he wrote.

Other
Outside the North Borneo dispute, the heirs and claimants of the Sulu sultanate have been involved in contemporary Philippine politics such as the lobbying for the creation of a constituent state called Zambasulta within the Philippines under a federal form of government.

Weapons and slave trade
Chinese who lived in Sulu ran guns across a Spanish blockade to supply the Moro datus and sultanates with weapons to fight the Spanish, who were engaging in a campaign to subjugate the Moro sultanates on Mindanao. A trade involving the Moros selling slaves and other goods in exchange for guns developed. The Chinese had entered the economy of the sultanate, taking almost total control of the sultanate's economies in Mindanao and dominating the markets. Though the sultans did not like one group of people exercising exclusive control over the economy, they did business with them. The Chinese set up a trading network between Singapore, Zamboanga, Jolo and Sulu. The Chinese sold small arms like Enfield and Spencer Rifles to the Buayan Datu Uto. They were used to battle the Spanish invasion of Buayan. The datu paid for the weapons in slaves. The population of Chinese in Mindanao in the 1880s was 1,000. The Chinese ran guns across a Spanish blockade to sell to Mindanao Moros. The purchases of these weapons were paid for by the Moros in slaves in addition to other goods. The main group of people selling guns were the Chinese in Sulu. The Chinese took control of the economy and used steamers to ship goods for exporting and importing. Opium, ivory, textiles, and crockery were among the other goods which the Chinese sold.

The Chinese on Maimbung sent the weapons to the Sulu sultanate, who used them to battle the Spanish and resist their attacks. A Chinese-Mestizo was one of the sultan's brothers-in-law, the sultan was married to his sister. He and the sultan both owned shares in the ship (named the Far East) which helped smuggle the weapons. The Spanish launched a surprise offensive under Colonel Juan Arolas in April 1887 by attacking the sultanate's capital at Maimbung in an effort to crush resistance. Weapons were captured and the property of the Chinese were destroyed while the Chinese were deported to Jolo.

Pearling industry
After the destruction of the pirate haunts of Balanguingui effectively ending the centuries of slave raids, which the Sulu sultanate's economy had so depended on, along with the economy of mainland Mindanao, the sultanate's economy experienced a sharp decline as slaves became more inaccessible and the islands' agricultural produce wasn't enough, thus it became dependent on the Mindanao interior even for rice and produce. The Spaniards thought they had dealt the death blow for the sultanate when they captured Jolo in 1876, rather, the sultanate's capital and economic and trading hub was moved to Maimbung on the other side of the island. Up until the American occupation, this was the residence and economic centre of Sulu. This is where the Sultan Jamalul Kiram II and his adviser Hadji Butu began the Sulu pearling industry to increase the sultan's wealth, they organised the Sulu pearling fleet. The sultan's pearling fleet was active way into the early 20th century, when in 1910, the sultan reportedly sold a single giant pearl in London for $100,000.

Social class system
Among the people of the Sultanate of Sulu, nobility could be acquired only by lineage, a closed hereditary system.

The two main social classes of the sultanate were:
 * Datu (su-sultanun), acquired purely by lineage. All male members of the royal house of Sulu held this title and style "His Royal Highness (HRH)". Their spouses automatically held the title of dayang dayang (princess of the first degree). Adopted members of the royal house of Sulu were styled "His Highness (HH)" and their spouses would also hold the title of dayang dayang (princess of the first degree) and the style: "Her Highness".
 * Datu sadja, which may be acquired through confirming the titles (gullal) on the middleman of the sultan. The gullal is made if a commoner has achieved outstanding feats or services in line of duty through display of bravery, heroism, etc. Datu sadja is a life title of nobility and the title holders hold the style "His Excellency" and their spouses should hold the title of dayang the style "Her Excellency".

Commoners or maharlika do not trace their descent from royalty. The Wakil Kesultan's, Panglimas, Parkasa's and Laksaman's who are commoners hold responsible positions involving administrative matters.
 * Wakil Kesultanan – region representative outside the Sulu sultanate
 * Panglima – region representative inside the Sulu sultanate
 * Parkasa – aide-de-camp of region representative inside the Sulu sultanate
 * Laksaman– sub region representative inside the Sulu sultanate

The males who hold the offices above are addressed by the title of nobility tuan (the title is directly attached to the office), followed by the rank of the office they hold, their given name, surname and region. The females who hold offices above shall be addressed by the title of nobility Sitti (the title is directly attached to the office), followed by the rank of the office they hold, their given name, surname and region.

A very large part of the Sulu society, as well as in the Sultanate of Maguindanao were slaves captured from slave raids or bought from slave markets. They were known as the bisaya, reflecting their most common origin – the Christianized Visayans from Spanish territories in the Philippines – although they also included captured slaves from other ethnic groups throughout Southeast Asia. They were also known as banyaga, ipun, or ammas. It is estimated that as much as 50% of the population of Sulu in the 1850s were bisaya slaves and they dominated the Sulu economy. For the most part, they were treated like commoners, with their own houses and were responsible for cultivating farms and fisheries of Tausug nobility. But there were harsh punishments for attempts to escape, and a large number of the slaves were sold to European, Chinese, Makassar, and Bugis slavers in the Dutch East Indies.

Visual arts

The Sultanate of Sulu, along with the rest of Mindanao, has a long tradition of decorative arts known as okir or ukkil. Ukkil is the Tausug word for "wood carving" or "engraving". The Tausug and Maranao peoples traditionally carved and decorated their boats, houses and even grave markers with ukkil carvings. Aside from wood carvings, ukkil motifs were found on various clothing in the Sulu archipelago. Ukkil motifs tend to emphasise geometric patterns and a flowing design, with floral and leaf patterns as well as folk elements. The Tausug also decorated their weapons with these motifs, and various kris and barong blades have finely decorated handles as well as blades covered in floral patterns and the like. Bronze lantaka also bear some ukkil patterns.

Gallery
A yellow-colored flag was used in Sulu by the Chinese.

title: Sultanate of Sulu


text:
Grænalón

Grænalón (, "Green Lagoon") was one of the glacial lakes of the Icelandic glacier Vatnajökull. It was situated in the south of Iceland. Its surface measured 18 km2 during the 20th Century.

Grænalón was bound and naturally dammed by the northwestern edge of Skeiðarájökull glacier, which is a Southbound downhill glacial flow from the body of Vatnajökull. Because of the glacier's considerable thinning and shortening in the last few decades, Grænalón has almost completely drained and disappeared. At present, the lake does not exist as more than pond, as seen in Google Timelapse.

title: Grænalón


text:
Francisco Oller

Francisco Manuel Oller y Cestero (June 17, 1833 – May 17, 1917) was a Puerto Rican painter, the only Latin American painter to have played a role in the development of Impressionism. One of the most distinguished transatlantic painters of his day, Oller helped transform painting in the Caribbean.

Early years
Francisco Manuel Oller y Cestero was born in Bayamón, Puerto Rico, the third of four children of aristocratic and wealthy Spanish parents Cayetano Juan Oller y Fromesta and María del Carmen Cestero Dávila. When he was eleven he began to study art under the tutelage of Juan Cleto Noa, a painter who had an art academy in San Juan, Puerto Rico. There, Oller demonstrated that he had an enormous talent in art and in 1848, when Oller was fifteen years old, General Juan Prim, Governor of Puerto Rico, offered Oller the opportunity to continue his studies in Rome. However, the offer was not accepted as Oller's mother felt that he was too young to travel abroad alone.

When Oller was eighteen, he moved to Madrid, Spain, where he studied painting at the Royal Academy of San Fernando, under the tutelage of Don Federico de Madrazo y Kuntz, director of the Prado Museum. In 1858, he moved to Paris, France where he studied under Thomas Couture. Later he enrolled to study art in the Louvre under the instruction of Gustave Courbet. During his free time, Oller, who had a baritone type of singing voice, worked and participated in local Italian operas. He frequently visited cafés where he met with fellow artists. He also became a friend of fellow Puerto Ricans Ramón Emeterio Betances y Alacán and Salvador Carbonell del Toro, who were expatriates in France because of their political beliefs. In 1859, Oller exhibited some of his artistic works next to those of Bazille, Renoir, Monet, and Sisley.

For a short time, Paul Cézanne was one of Oller's students, although their professional relationship deteriorated with time. By 1865, Oller was the first Puerto Rican and Hispanic Impressionist artist. In 1868, he founded The Free Academy of Art of Puerto Rico.

Realism Period (1840–1903)
Oller’s paintings were a big contribution of history during this time. His paintings showed conflicts and daily lives of people outside of his home country as well as subjects internally. The author Edward J. Sullivan describes in his book, From San Juan to Paris and Back: Francisco Oller and Caribbean Art in the Era of Impressionism:"In the normal course of his day, the artist would have observed objects of quotidian use to the slaves and free persons of color with whom he regularly interacted. His world was not only the cultivated, Europeanized milieus of the Puerto Rican bourgeoisie, but also the realities of the relatively small city of San Juan, where he was born and where most of his career developed. Even during his many years of residence in Madrid and Paris, he would have carried with him the cultural baggage of his place of origin. His familiarity with the different strata of society on the Caribbean island of his birth was a constant reality as he intermingled with Realist and Impressionist artists and others who constituted his world on the other side of the Atlantic. This aspect of his personality cannot be easily separated from the other. Oller was a person of multiple cultural affinities, which allowed him to embrace what he saw abroad, but also to interiorize and reformulate those elements for purposes that conformed to his vision of tropical reality." Upon his return to Puerto Rico from France in 1866 he found himself face-to-face with slavery and he would create a number of works including El negro flageado (The negro being flogged), El castigo del negro enamorado (the punishment of the negro in love), and others depicting slavery in Puerto Rico.

Impression Period (1874–1893)

Oller spent nearly two decades in Europe working alongside the pioneers of Impressionism, and, through his travels, participated in a vibrant exchange of aesthetic ideas, forging his own brand of international modernism while engaging social issues unique to the Caribbean. During his three trips to Paris, Oller affiliated himself with Paul Cézanne, fellow Caribbean artist Camille Pissarro (born in St. Thomas), and other members of the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist movements.

Later years
Throughout his later life and after his death, Oller was compared to Jose Campeche as one of the most outstanding figures of the arts in his country. Campeche created an impressive body of portraits and religious subjects.

In 1884, he founded an art school for young women which was later to be known as the Universidad Nacional. In 1871, Spain honored Oller by naming him a member of the Caballeros de la Orden de Carlos III (which translates to Knighthood of the Order of Carlos III), and a year later he became the official painter of the Royal Court of Amadeo I. Oller developed an interest in bringing out the reality of Puerto Rico's landscape, its people, and culture through his works of art. Oller's paintings can be found in museums worldwide, including the Musée d'Orsay in France.

Oller died on May 17, 1917, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He was buried at the Santa María Magdalena de Pazzis Cemetery in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Styles and influences
Oller was a prolific painter with works ranging in topic from still-lifes and landscapes to historical events and portraiture. While he was involved with several painting movements, Realism, Naturalism and Impressionism; he is best known for his Impressionist works. Oller’s style of painting made him stand out among the many artists that took part in the depiction of Puerto Rico’s lush tropical landscapes of both rural and urban landscapes and provided a realistic image of Puerto Rico compared to the European artists that flocked over to the Caribbean to paint lush, idealized landscapes of the environment. Oller’s main subject matter of focus was everything within Puerto Rico, whether it was still life paintings of plantains and bananas or historical battle scenes. Oller's painting style provided a historical context for his painting, providing a cultural view through his own lens. Oller was involved with many art movements from the realist art movement, the naturalist art movement, and the impressionist art movement of which he is best known for. In his life, Oller spent nearly two decades in Europe working alongside the pioneers of these art movements, drawing influence from them in the evolution of his artwork. One characteristic that is quite apparent in his work that he drew influence from another artist is his sober, unidealized depictions of rural workers in Puerto Rico."The 'plantation portraits' by Oller, as well as those by Mendes Belisario in Jamaica and dozens of others throughout the Caribbean and the southern United States (where the plantations mostly served the cotton industry), were part of a long tradition of depictions of agriculture and servitude. Rarely, if ever, depicting the negative associations of enslaved or indentured labor, they attempted to create nostalgic views of the 'old homestead,' or a faraway venue of nostalgia. While Oller’s plantation pictures were executed in a somewhat different spirit, they nonetheless pertain to this genre that played a significant role throughout the development of visualization in a Caribbean context over a period of some 150 years." Oller was influenced by Barbizon school painter Jean-François Millet to paint in this way, allowing him to provide a realistic depiction of the life of Puerto Ricans in their historical context. In his early years, Francisco Oller was taught by European painters at the Academia, including French neoclassical painter Jean Baptiste Vermay. His main source of influence in his early years comes from two painters, the Spaniard Luis Paret y Alcázar and, most significantly, the Puerto Rican José Campeche y Jordán. The artwork of José Campeche provided Oller a major point of reference for him in his young years as a developing artist. Francisco Oller was compared to Campeche as one of the most prominent artists in his country’s history. Oller not only drew inspiration from the work of Campeche but copied works of art by him and even lived in the artist’s former house.

Selected works

 * El pleito de la herencia (1854–1856)
 * Retrato de Manuel Sicardó (1866–1868)
 * El Estudiante (1874)
 * Las lavanderas (1887–1888)
 * Battle of Treviño (1879)
 * Oller painted Colonel Juan Contreras as the central figure during a battle that took place on July 8, 1875. The battle was part of the Carlist Wars, a 19th-century war over the succession of the Spanish throne. Oller painted this during his final visit to Europe, where he was appointed as the official painter of the Spanish Court of King Alfonso XII.  The artist opposed the conventions of realism and precision of more traditional military paintings.  Instead, he uses Impressionistic style to capture the atmosphere and drama of the moment.  Dabs of color blend together to create an out-of-focus effect.  Oller also effectively used lines to draw attention to Colonel Contreras; the clouds, hills, and soldiers direct focus to the central figure.  The author Edward J. Sullivan wrote:

"The Battle of Treviño denotes a significant moment for Oller within the world of Spanish art. The painting represents an official theme of recent national history, through which the artist places himself in the tradition of military images that was of great importance in later nineteenth-century Iberian painting. The genre of battle painting is one of the least avant-garde artistic forms. Oller, an artist often associated with the 'new' in art, is here going against that grain and inserting himself directly within a mode most often practiced by artists of a decidedly conservative personality. Nevertheless, he used this form as a way to experiment with the possibilities of a spontaneity and pictorial freedom within the framework of traditional subject matter."

 * La Escuela del Maestro Rafael Cordero (1890–1892)
 * The subject of this painting, Rafael Cordero, was the founder of the first school in Puerto Rico for both the formerly enslaved and children of enslaved persons. By the late 1820s, the school admitted male children of all races and social strata. Cordero was both the sole instructor and manual laborer, making cigars and cigarettes in his workshop, where class took place. We can see his tobacco work table in the bottom right-hand corner. The children are of different socioeconomic classes and skin tones; the artist portrays the importance and accessibility of education to all races. The two children in the foreground, one holding an egg and the other holding bread, suggests the intermingling of race.  As an abolitionist himself, Oller portrays the acceptance of race in the developing country during this time. Cordero's expression is exasperated and exhausted; despite this, he persists to provide education to the children.  The setting is very conservative with religious symbolism on the walls. The walls are plain and cracked. Oller portrayed his subject as glamorous, as an "unsung hero".
 * El Velorio ("The Wake") (1893)
 * This 8-by-13-foot painting was one of the few that had survived while many of his works were lost or damaged beyond repair.  El Velorio was not seen as the most glamorous but was shown in the Paris Salon in 1895. Oller uses small, visible brush strokes and an emphasis on an accurate depiction of light and mastery of color in its changing qualities in his paintings. The painting depicts the wake or, in Puerto Rican Spanish, "baquiné" of a dead child laid on a table covered with flowers. Participants totally ignore the child and instead celebrate with food, drink, games, songs, dancing and prayer.  The reason for this is that they believe it is a time for celebration for the child has become an angel and should be properly sent off. All the while the parents are mourning over the loss of their child and some are consoling the mother.  Oller’s painting is considered a Puerto Rican national treasure and is not allowed to leave the Museum of History, Anthropology, and Art at the University of Puerto Rico's Río Piedras campus.
 * Bodegón con piñas
 * El Cesante
 * Hacienda La Fortuna de Ponce (1885)
 * La Ceiba de Ponce (1888)

Legacy and remembrance
Oller was responsible for bringing Realism and Impressionism to San Juan, Puerto Rico. Combining them with the artistic traditions of San Juan, he revolutionized the school of painting in Puerto Rico and throughout the Caribbean region. Oller also helped bring outside world events by drawing them and displaying them publicly. Many Puerto Rican artists have followed in Oller's footsteps, including Ramón Fradé (1875-1954) and Miguel Pou (1880-1968).

The town of Cataño in Puerto Rico, named a high school after him and the City of New York renamed P.S.61 in The Bronx P.S. Francisco Oller. There is also a Francisco Oller Library in the Escuela de Artes Plásticas (School of Plastic Arts) in San Juan. The Francisco Oller Museum where many artists, such as Tomás Batista, exhibit their work is located in the city of Bayamón. In Buffalo, New York there is a Francisco Oller and Diego Rivera Museum of Art where Manuel Rivera-Ortiz and other artists have exhibited their work.

title: Francisco Oller


text:
Acyclic coloring

In graph theory, an acyclic coloring is a (proper) vertex coloring in which every 2-chromatic subgraph is acyclic. The acyclic chromatic number $A(G)$ of a graph $G$ is the fewest colors needed in any acyclic coloring of $G$.

Acyclic coloring is often associated with graphs embedded on non-plane surfaces.

Upper bounds
A(G) ≤ 2 if and only if G is acyclic.

Bounds on A(G) in terms of Δ(G), the maximum degree of G, include the following:
 * A(G) ≤ 4 if Δ(G) = 3.
 * A(G) ≤ 5 if Δ(G) = 4.
 * A(G) ≤ 7 if Δ(G) = 5.
 * A(G) ≤ 12 if Δ(G) = 6.

A milestone in the study of acyclic coloring is the following affirmative answer to a conjecture of Grünbaum:

 * Theorem A(G) ≤ 5 if G is planar graph.

introduced acyclic coloring and acyclic chromatic number, and conjectured the result in the above theorem. Borodin's proof involved several years of painstaking inspection of 450 reducible configurations. One consequence of this theorem is that every planar graph can be decomposed into an independent set and two induced forests.

Algorithms and complexity
It is NP-complete to determine whether A(G) ≤ 3.

showed that the decision variant of the problem is NP-complete even when G is a bipartite graph.

demonstrated that every proper vertex coloring of a chordal graph is also an acyclic coloring. Since chordal graphs can be optimally colored in O(n + m) time, the same is also true for acyclic coloring on that class of graphs.

A linear-time algorithm to acyclically color a graph of maximum degree ≤ 3 using 4 colors or fewer was given by.

title: Acyclic coloring


text:
Giant's Castle

Giant's Castle is a mountain located within the Drakensberg range in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It includes a grassy plateau nestled among the deep valleys of the southern end of the central Drakensberg. Together, the shape of the peaks and escarpment are thought to resemble a sleeping giant's profile; hence, its name.

Giant's Castle is best known for its nature reserve and the bushman rock art preserved at its main caves, and the game reserve is home of the eland as well as the bearded vulture and Cape vulture. The area is considered one of South Africa's many adventure areas, and attracts hikers, nature enthusiasts, and other tourists. It also hosts the Giant's Challenge marathon in April each year. The Treverton Grade 10s take a 15 day hike to summit this peak in their 3rd term.

Hiking Trails
There are in excess of 25 walks in the Giant's Castle Game Reserve. The 285 km network of trails here includes 3 km to 30 km hikes, spanning from 1 hour to overnight.

There are currently 14 recognized escarpment passes in the region (listed north to south):
 * Corner Pass
 * Around the Corner Pass (variation route on Corner Pass with alternative summit)
 * Judge Pass
 * Gypaetus Pass (opened in September 2012)
 * Bannerman Pass
 * Thumb Pass (opened in 1997)
 * North Hlubi Pass
 * South Hlubi Pass
 * Langalibalele Pass
 * Bond Pass (opened in 2014)
 * North Jarding/Jarateng Pass
 * Central Jarding/Jarateng Pass
 * South Jarding/Jarateng Pass
 * Giant's Castle Pass

title: Giant's Castle


text:
Talk:Giant's Castle

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title: Talk:Giant's Castle


text:
User:Burgundavia/Monobook.css

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title: User:Burgundavia/Monobook.css


text:
Strong coloring

In graph theory, a strong coloring, with respect to a partition of the vertices into (disjoint) subsets of equal sizes, is a (proper) vertex coloring in which every color appears exactly once in every part. A graph is strongly k-colorable if, for each partition of the vertices into sets of size k, it admits a strong coloring. When the order of the graph G is not divisible by k, we add isolated vertices to G just enough to make the order of the new graph  divisible by k. In that case, a strong coloring of  minus the previously added isolated vertices is considered a strong coloring of G.

The strong chromatic number sχ(G) of a graph G is the least k such that G is strongly k-colorable. A graph is strongly k-chromatic if it has strong chromatic number k.

Some properties of sχ(G): Here, Δ(G) is the maximum degree.
 * 1) sχ(G) > Δ(G).
 * 2) sχ(G) ≤ 3 Δ(G) − 1.
 * 3) Asymptotically, sχ(G) ≤ 11 Δ(G) / 4 + o(Δ(G)).

Strong chromatic number was independently introduced by Alon (1988) and Fellows (1990).

Related problems
Given a graph and a partition of the vertices, an independent transversal is a set U of non-adjacent vertices such that each part contains exactly one vertex of U. A strong coloring is equivalent to a partition of the vertices into disjoint independent-transversals (each independent-transversal is a single "color"). This is in contrast to graph coloring, which is a partition of the vertices of a graph into a given number of independent sets, without the requirement that these independent sets be transversals.

To illustrate the difference between these concepts, consider a faculty with several departments, where the dean wants to construct a committee of faculty members. But some faculty members are in conflict and will not sit in the same committee. If the "conflict" relations are represented by the edges of a graph, then:

 * An independent set is a committee with no conflict.
 * An independent transversal is a committee with no conflict, with exactly one member from each department.
 * A graph coloring is a partitioning of the faculty members into committees with no conflict.
 * A strong coloring is a partitioning of the faculty members into committees with no conflict and with exactly one member from each department. Thus this problem is sometimes called the happy dean problem.

title: Strong coloring


text:
Category:Linear algebra

Linear algebra is the branch of mathematics concerned with the study of vectors, vector spaces (also called linear spaces), linear maps (also called linear transformations), and systems of linear equations. Vector spaces are a central theme in modern mathematics; thus, linear algebra is widely used in both abstract algebra and functional analysis. Linear algebra also has a concrete representation in analytic geometry and it is generalized in operator theory. It has extensive applications in the natural sciences and the social sciences, since nonlinear models can often be approximated by linear ones.

Related categories

 * Numerical analysis
 * Polynomials
 * Affine geometry
 * Vector calculus

title: Category:Linear algebra