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Francesco Crispi

Francesco Crispi (4 October 1818 – 11 August 1901) was an Italian patriot and statesman. He was among the main protagonists of the Risorgimento, a close friend and supporter of Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi, and one of the architects of Italian unification in 1860. Crispi served as Prime Minister of Italy for six years, from 1887 to 1891, and again from 1893 to 1896, and was the first prime minister from Southern Italy. Crispi was internationally famous and often mentioned along with world statesmen such as Otto von Bismarck, William Ewart Gladstone, and Lord Salisbury.

Originally an Italian patriot and democrat liberal, Crispi went on to become a bellicose authoritarian prime minister and an ally and admirer of Bismarck. He was indefatigable in stirring up hostility toward France. His career ended amid controversy and failure: he got involved in a major banking scandal and fell from power in 1896 after the devastating loss of the Battle of Adwa, which repelled Italy's colonial ambitions over Ethiopia. Due to his authoritarian policies and style, Crispi is often regarded as a strongman and seen as a precursor of the Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.

Early life
Crispi's paternal family came originally from the small agricultural community of Palazzo Adriano, in south-western Sicily. It had been founded in the later fifteenth century by Orthodox Christian Albanians (Arbëreshë), who settled in Sicily after the Ottoman occupation of Albania. His grandfather was an Arbëreshë Orthodox priest; the parish priests were married men, and Arbëreshë was the family language down to the lifetime of the young Crispi. Crispi himself was born in Ribera, Sicily, to Tommaso Crispi, a grain merchant and Giuseppa Genova from Ribera; he was baptised as a Greek Catholic. Belonging to a family of Arbëreshë descent, he spoke Italian as his third or fourth language, alongside Arbëresh (variant of Albanian), Greek and probably Sicilian. His uncle Giuseppe wrote the first monograph on the Albanian language. In a telegram from 1895 on the Albanian question, Francesco Crispi said of his origins that he was "an Albanian by blood and heart" and an Italo-Albanian from Sicily. Crispi was a staunch philhellene, having always wanted to visit Greece, to which, he noted, owed a part of his origins ("alla quale devo in parte la mia origine" ). He was also interested in a union between Greece and Albania, i.e. a unified Greek-Albanian state; he was the initiator of a philhellenic committee in Rome which worked toward this end. He believed that this unified state would "draw Italy and Greece more closely together".

At the age of five, he was sent to a family in Villafranca, where he could receive an education. In 1829, at 11 years old, he attended a seminary in Palermo, where he studied classical subjects. The rector of the institute was Giuseppe Crispi, his uncle. Crispi attended the seminary until 1834 or 1835, when his father, after becoming mayor of Ribera, encountered major difficulties in health and finances.

In the same period, Crispi became a close friend of the poet and doctor Vincenzo Navarro, whose friendship marked his initiation to the Romanticism. In 1835 he studied law and literature at the University of Palermo receiving a law degree in 1837; in the same year, he fell in love with Rosina D'Angelo, the daughter of a goldsmith. Despite his father's ban, Crispi married Rosina in 1837, when she was already pregnant. In May Crispi became the father of his first daughter, Giuseppa, who was named after his grandmother. It was a brief marriage: Rosina died on 29 July 1839, the day after giving birth to her second son, Tommaso; the child lived only a few hours and in December, also Giuseppa died.

Between 1838 and 1839, Crispi founded his own newspaper, L'Oreteo, from the name of the Sicilian river Oreto. This experience brought him into contact with a number of political figures including the Neapolitan liberal activist and poet, Carlo Poerio. In 1842 Crispi wrote about the necessity to educate poor people, about the huge damage caused by the excessive wealth of the Catholic Church and regarding the need for all citizens, including women, to be equal before the law.

In 1845 Crispi took up a judgeship in Naples, where he distinguished himself for his liberal and revolutionary ideas.

1848 Sicilian uprising
On 20 December 1847, Crispi was sent to Palermo along with Salvatore Castiglia, a diplomat and patriot, to prepare the revolution against the Bourbon monarchy and King Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies.

The revolution started on 12 January 1848, and therefore was the very first of the numerous revolutions to occur that year. Three revolutions had previously occurred on the island of Sicily starting from 1800 against Bourbon rule. The uprising was substantially organized from, and centred in, Palermo. The popular nature of the revolt is evident in the fact that posters and notices were being handed out a full three days before the substantive acts of the revolution occurred on 12 January 1848. The timing was deliberately planned, by Crispi and the other revolutionaries, to coincide with the birthday of Ferdinand II.

The Sicilian nobles were immediately able to resuscitate the constitution of 1812, which included the principles of representative democracy and the centrality of Parliament in the government of the state. Vincenzo Fardella was elected president of Sicilian Parliament. The idea was also put forward for a confederation of all the states of Italy.

The constitution was quite advanced for its time in liberal democratic terms, as was the proposal of an Italian confederation of states. Crispi was appointed a member of the provisional Sicilian Parliament and responsible for the Defence Committee; during his tenure, he supported the separatist movement that wanted to break ties with Naples.

Thus Sicily survived as a quasi-independent state for sixteen months, with the Bourbon army taking back full control of the island on 15 May 1849 by force. The effective head of state during this period was Ruggero Settimo. On capitulating to the Bourbons, Settimo escaped to Malta where he was received with the full honours of a head of state. Unlike many, Crispi was not granted amnesty and was forced to flee the country.

Exile
After leaving Sicily, Crispi took refuge in Marseille, France, where he met the woman who would become his second wife, Rose Montmasson, born five years after him in Haute-Savoie (which at that time belonged to the Kingdom of Sardinia) in a family of farmers.

In 1849, he moved to Turin, the capital of the Kingdom of Sardinia, where he worked as a journalist. During this period he became a friend of Giuseppe Mazzini, a republican politician, journalist and activist. In 1853 Crispi was implicated in the Mazzini conspiracy and was arrested by the Piedmontese policy and sent to Malta. Here, on 27 December 1854, he married Rose Montmasson.

Then he moved to London where he became a revolutionary conspirator and continued his close friendship with Mazzini, involving himself in the exile politics of the national movement, abandoning Sicilian separatism.

On 10 January 1856, he moved to Paris, where he continued his work as a journalist. On 22 August, he was informed that his father had died and that three years earlier also his mother had died, but that news had been hidden by his father who did not want to increase his sorrows.

Assassination attempt on Napoleon III
On the evening of 14 January 1858, as the Emperor Napoleon III and the Empress Eugénie de Montijo were on their way to the theatre in the Rue Le Peletier, the precursor of the Opera Garnier, to see, rather ironically, Rossini's William Tell, the Italian revolutionary Felice Orsini and his accomplices threw three bombs at the imperial carriage. The first bomb landed among the horsemen in front of the carriage. The second bomb wounded the animals and smashed the carriage glass. The third bomb landed under the carriage and seriously wounded a policeman who was hurrying to protect the occupants. Eight people were killed and 142 wounded, though the emperor and empress were unhurt.

Orsini himself was wounded on the right temple and stunned. He tended his wounds and returned to his lodgings, where police found him the next day.

Of the five conspirators, only one remained unidentified. In 1908 (seven years after Crispi's death) one of them, Charles DeRudio, claimed to have seen, half an hour before the attack, a man approaching and talking with Orsini, and recognized him as Crispi. But no evidence has ever been found regarding Crispi's role in the attack. Anyway on 7 August 1858, he was expelled from France.

Expedition of the Thousand
In June 1859 Crispi returned to Italy after publishing a letter repudiating the aggrandizement of Piedmont in the Italian unification. He proclaimed himself a republican and a partisan of national unity. He travelled around Italy under various disguises and with counterfeit passports. Twice in that year he went the round of the Sicilian cities in disguise preparing the insurrectionist movement of 1860.

He helped persuade Giuseppe Garibaldi to sail with his Expedition of the Thousand, which disembarked on Sicily on 11 May 1860. The Expedition was formed by a corps of volunteers led by Garibaldi, who landed in Sicily in order to conquer the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, ruled by the Bourbons. The project was an ambitious and risky venture aiming to conquer, with a thousand men, a kingdom with a larger regular army and a more powerful navy. The expedition was a success and concluded with a plebiscite that brought Naples and Sicily into the Kingdom of Sardinia, the last territorial conquest before the creation of the Kingdom of Italy on 17 March 1861.

The sea venture was the only desired action that was jointly decided by the "four fathers of the nation" Giuseppe Mazzini, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Victor Emmanuel II, and Camillo Cavour, pursuing divergent goals. Crispi utilized his political influence to bolster the Italian unification project.

The various groups participated in the expedition for a variety of reasons: for Garibaldi, it was to achieve a united Italy; for the Sicilian bourgeoisie, an independent Sicily as part of the kingdom of Italy, and for the mass farmers, land distribution and the end of oppression.

Garibaldi dictatorship
After the fall of Palermo, Crispi was appointed First Secretary of State in the provisional government; shortly a struggle began between Garibaldi's government and the emissaries of Cavour on the question of timing of the annexation of Sicily by Italy. It established a Sicilian Army and a fleet of the Dictatorship Government of Sicily.

The pace of Garibaldi's victories had worried Cavour, who in early July sent to the provisional government a proposal of immediate annexation of Sicily to Piedmont. Garibaldi, however, refused vehemently to allow such a move until the end of the war. Cavour's envoy, Giuseppe La Farina, was arrested and expelled from the island. He was replaced by the more malleable Agostino Depretis, who gained Garibaldi's trust and was appointed as pro-dictator.

During the dictatorial government of Garibaldi, Crispi secured the resignation of the pro-dictator Depretis, and continued his fierce opposition to Cavour.

In Naples, Garibaldi's provisional government was largely controlled by Cavour. Crispi, who arrived in the city in mid-September, tried to increase his power and influence, at the expense of Cavour's loyalists. However, the revolutionary impulse that had animated the Expedition was fading, especially after the Battle of Volturnus.

On 3 October 1860, to seal an alliance with King Victor Emmanuel II, Garibaldi appointed pro-dictator of Naples, Giorgio Pallavicino, a supporter of the House of Savoy. Pallavicino immediately stated that Crispi was unable and inappropriate to hold the office of Secretary of State.

Meanwhile, Cavour stated that Southern Italy would not accept anything but the unconditional annexation to the Kingdom of Sardinia by plebiscite. Crispi, who still had the hope to continue the revolution to rescue Rome and Venice, strongly opposed this solution, proposing to elect a parliamentary assembly. This proposal was also supported by the federalist Carlo Cattaneo. Garibaldi announced that the decision would have been taken by the two pro-dictators of Sicily and Naples, Antonio Mordini and Giorgio Pallavicino, who both opted for the plebiscite. On 13 October Crispi resigned from the government of Garibaldi.

Member of the Parliament

The general election of 1861 took place on 27 January, even before the formal birth of the Kingdom of Italy, which took place on 17 March. Francesco Crispi was elected as a member of the Historical Left, in the constituency of Castelvetrano; he would retain his seat in all successive legislatures until the end of his life.

Crispi acquired the reputation of being the most aggressive and most impetuous member of his parliamentary group. He denounced the Right for "diplomatising the revolution". Personal ambition and restlessness made him difficult to cooperate with and he earned himself the nickname of Il Solitario (The Loner). In 1864, he finally deserted Mazzini and announced he was a monarchist, because as he put it in a letter to Mazzini: "The monarchy unites us; the republic would divide us."

In 1866 he refused to enter Baron Bettino Ricasoli's cabinet; in 1867 he worked to impede the Garibaldian invasion of the papal states, foreseeing the French occupation of Rome and the disaster of Mentana. By methods of the same character as those subsequently employed against himself by Felice Cavallotti, he carried on the violent agitation known as the Lobbia affair, in which sundry conservative deputies were, on insufficient grounds, accused of corruption. On the outbreak of the Franco-German War, he worked energetically to impede the projected alliance with France, and to drive the Giovanni Lanza cabinet to Rome. The death of Urbano Rattazzi in 1873 induced Crispi's friends to put forward his candidature to the leadership of the Left; but Crispi, anxious to reassure the crown, secured the election of Agostino Depretis.

President of the Chamber of Deputies
After the general election in 1876, in which the Left gained almost 70% of votes, Crispi was elected President of the Chamber of Deputies.

During the autumn of 1877, as President of the Chamber, he went to London, Paris and Berlin on a confidential mission, establishing cordial personal relationships with British prime minister William Ewart Gladstone and Foreign Minister Lord Granville and other English statesmen, and with Otto von Bismarck, by then Chancellor of the German Empire. In 1877 during the Great Eastern Crisis Crispi was offered Albania as possible compensation by Bismarck and the British Earl of Derby if Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia, however, he refused and preferred the Italian Alpine regions under Austro-Hungarian rule.

Minister of the Interior
In December 1877 he replaced Giovanni Nicotera as Minister of the Interior in the cabinet of Depretis. Although his short term of office lasted just 70 days, they were instrumental in establishing a unitary monarchy. Moreover, during his term as minister, Crispi tried to unite the many factions which were part of the Left, at that time.

On 9 January 1878, the death of Victor Emmanuel II of Italy and the accession of King Umberto enabled Crispi to secure the formal establishment of a unitary monarchy, the new monarch taking the title of Umberto I of Italy instead of Umberto IV of Savoy.

On 7 February 1878, the death of Pope Pius IX necessitated a conclave, the first to be held after the unification of Italy. Crispi, helped by Mancini and Cardinal Pecci (afterwards Leo XIII), persuaded the Sacred College to hold the conclave in Rome, establishing the legitimacy of the capital.

Bigamy scandal and political isolation
The statesmanlike qualities displayed on this occasion were insufficient to avert the storm of indignation of Crispi's opponents when he was accused of bigamy. When he remarried, a woman he had married in 1853 was still living. But a court ruled that Crispi's 1853 marriage on Malta was invalid because it was contracted while another woman he had married yet earlier was also still alive. By the time of his third marriage, his first wife had died and his marriage to his second wife was legally invalid. Therefore, his marriage to his third wife was ruled valid and not bigamous. He was nevertheless compelled to resign office after only three months in March 1878, bringing down the whole government with him.

For nine years Crispi remained politically under a cloud, leading the "progressive" opposition. In 1881 Crispi was among the main supporters of the universal male suffrage, which was approved by the government of Agostino Depretis.

Pentarchy
In 1883 the leaders of the Left, Agostino Depretis, and the Right, Marco Minghetti, formed an alliance based on a flexible centrist coalition of government which isolated the extremes of the left and the right; these politics was known as Trasformismo. Crispi, who was a strong supporter of two-party system, strongly opposed it and founded a progressive and radical parliamentary group called Dissident Left. The group was also known as "The Pentarchy", due to its five leaders, Giuseppe Zanardelli, Benedetto Cairoli, Giovanni Nicotera, Agostino Magliani, Alfredo Beccarini and Crispi.

The party supported authoritarian and progressive internal policies, expansionism and Germanophile foreign policies, and protectionist economy policies.

After the general elections in May 1886, in which the Dissident Left gained almost 20% of votes, Crispi returned to office as Minister of the Interior in the Depretis cabinet. Following Depretis's death on 29 July 1887 Crispi, abandoned the Dissident Left and became the leader of the Left group; he was also appointed, by the King, Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs.

First term as Prime Minister
On 29 July 1887, Francesco Crispi was sworn in as the new prime minister. He was the first one from Southern Italy. Crispi immediately distinguished himself, for being a reformist leader, but his political style provoked many protests from his opponents, who accused him of being an authoritarian Prime Minister and a strongman.

True to his initial progressive leanings he moved ahead with stalled reforms, abolishing the death penalty, revoking anti-strike laws, limiting police powers, and reforming the penal code and the administration of justice with the help of his Minister of Justice Giuseppe Zanardelli, reorganising charities and passing public health laws and legislation to protect emigrants that worked abroad. He sought popular support for the state with a programme of orderly development at home and expansion abroad.

Internal policy
One of the most important acts was the reform regarding the central administration of the State, with which Crispi strengthened the role of the Prime Minister. The bill aimed to separate the roles of the government from those of parliament, trying to untie the first by the political games of the second. The first point of the law was to give the cabinet the right to decide on the number and functions of the ministries. The prospect was also to keep the King (as well as provide the Albertine Statute) free to decide on the organization of the various ministries. Moreover, the reform provided the establishment of secretaries, who were supposed to help ministers and, at the same time, do them as spokesmen in parliament. The reform was heavily criticized by the Rightist opposition but also by the Far Left. On 9 December 1887, it was approved by the Chamber of Deputies.

In 1889 Crispi's government promoted a reform of the magistracy and promulgated a new penal code, which unified penal legislation in Italy, abolished the death sentence and recognised the right to strike. The code was regarded as a great work by contemporary European jurists. The code was named after Giuseppe Zanardelli, then Minister of Justice, who promoted the approval of the code.

Another important reform was that of local government, or comuni, which was approved by the Chamber in July 1888, in just three weeks. The new reform almost doubled the local electorate, incrementing the suffrage. But the most controversial part of the law was related to the mayors, who were previously appointed by the government, and who would now be elected by the electors, in the municipalities with more than 10,000 inhabitants and in all the provincial capitals. The law also introduced the office of the prefect. The reform was approved by the Senate in December 1888 and entered into force in February 1889.

On 22 December 1888, the Freemason Crispi enacted the first Italian law for the national healthcare system including the cremation after a cholera pandemic in 1884–1885 cholera pandemic killing approximately 50,000 persons, with a serious outbreak in the city of Naples in August-September 1884. Crispi was also the first politician to have implemented the role of the Italian lay state in the fields of charity and solidarity which till then had been traditionally kept a monopoly of private citizens and organizations, mainly of the Italian Roman Catholic Church that strongly adversed his reforms.

Foreign policy
As prime minister in the 1880s and 1890s Crispi pursued an aggressive foreign policy to strengthen Italy's beleaguered institutions. He saw France as the permanent enemy and he counted heavily on British support. Britain was on good terms with France and refused to help, leaving Crispi perplexed and ultimately disillusioned about what he had felt was a special friendship between the two countries. He turned to imperialism in Africa, especially against the independent kingdom of Ethiopia, and the Ottoman province of Tripolitania (in present-day Libya).

Relations with Germany
One of his first acts as premier was a visit to the German chancellor Otto von Bismarck, whom he desired to consult upon the working of the Triple Alliance.

Basing his foreign policy upon the alliance, as supplemented by the naval entente with Great Britain negotiated by his predecessor, Carlo Felice Nicolis di Robilant, Crispi assumed a resolute attitude towards France, breaking off the prolonged and unfruitful negotiations for a new Franco-Italian commercial treaty, and refusing the French invitation to organize an Italian section at the Paris Exhibition of 1889. The Triple Alliance committed Italy to a possible war with France, requiring a vast increase in the already heavy Italian military expenditure, making the alliance unpopular in Italy. As part of his anti-French foreign policy, Crispi began a tariff war with France in 1888. The Franco-Italian trade war was an economic disaster for Italy which over a ten-year period was to cost two billion lire in lost exports, and was ended in 1898 with the Italians agreeing to end their tariffs on French goods in exchange for the French ending their tariffs on Italian goods.

Colonial policy
Francesco Crispi was a patriot and an Italian nationalist, and his desire to make Italy a colonial power led to conflicts with France, which rejected Italian claims to Tunisia and opposed Italian expansion elsewhere in Africa.

Under Crispi's rule, Italy signed the Treaty of Wuchale; it was a deal reached by King Menelik II of Shewa, later the Emperor of Ethiopia with Count Pietro Antonelli in the town of Wuchale, on 2 May 1889. The treaty stated that the regions of Bogos, Hamasien, Akkele Guzay, and Serae were part of the Italian colony of Eritrea and is the origin of the Italian colony and modern state of Eritrea. Per the Treaty, Italy promised financial assistance and military supplies.

Albanian question
Balkan geopolitics and security concerns drove Italy to seek great power status in the Adriatic sea and Crispi viewed a future autonomous Albania within the Ottoman Empire, or an independent one, as a safeguarded for Italian interests. Crispi believed the Albanians' interests against Pan-Slavism and Austro-Hungarian expansion were best served through a Greco-Albanian union and he founded in Rome a philhellenic committee that worked toward that goal. Crispi, after becoming prime minister, stimulated and intensified ethnocultural relations between Italo-Albanians and Albanians of the Balkans, moves which were considered as extending Italian influence over Albanians by Austria-Hungary. To counteract Austro-Hungarian influence in northern Albania, Crispi took the initiative and opened the first Italian schools in Shkodër in 1888. Prominent Albanians involved with the Albanian National Awakening such as Abdyl Frashëri and Thimi Mitko corresponded with Crispi over the Albanian question.

Resignation
The general election in 1890 was an extraordinary triumph for Crispi. Out of 508 deputies, 405 sided with the government. But already in October, the first signs of a political crisis grew up. Emperor Menelik had contested the Italian text of the Wuchale Treaty, stating that it did not oblige Ethiopia to be an Italian protectorate. Menelik informed the foreign press and the scandal erupted. A few days after the Finance Minister and Crispi's long-time main political rival, Giovanni Giolitti, abandoned the government.

However, the decisive event was a document published by the new Minister of Finance Bernardino Grimaldi, who revealed that the planned deficit was higher than expected; after that, the government lost its majority with 186 votes against and 123 in favour. Prime Minister Crispi resigned on 6 February 1891.

After the premiership
After the fall of Crispi's government, Umberto I gave the task of forming the new cabinet to the Marquis Antonio Starabba di Rudinì. The government faced many difficulties since the beginning and in May 1892, Giolitti, who became the new Left leader after Crispi's resignation, decided not to support it anymore.

After that, King Umberto I appointed Giolitti as the new prime minister. The first Giolitti cabinet, however, relied on a slender majority and in December 1892 the Prime Minister was involved in a major scandal.

Banca Romana scandal
The Banca Romana scandal surfaced in January 1893 in Italy over the bankruptcy of the Banca Romana, one of the six national banks authorised at the time to issue currency. The scandal was the first of many Italian corruption scandals, and, like the others, it discredited the whole political system.

The bank had loaned large sums to property developers but was left with huge liabilities when the real estate bubble collapsed in 1887, but feared that publicity might undermine public confidence and suppressed the report.

Even Umberto I was involved in the scandal and Crispi's reputation emerged greatly strengthened: he could overthrow Giolitti's government at any time or impair the reputation of the King. Giolitti and his allies defended themselves by trying to collect compromising news against Crispi, but the judicial inquiry into the Banca Romana left the latter essentially harmless.

Return to power and second term
In December 1893 the impotence of the Giolitti cabinet to restore public order, menaced by disturbances in Sicily and the Banca Romana scandal, gave rise to a general demand that Crispi should return to power.

Fasci Siciliani
The Fasci Siciliani were a popular movement of democratic and socialist inspiration, which arose in Sicily in the years between 1889 and 1894. The Fasci gained the support of the poorest and most exploited classes of the island by channelling their frustration and discontent into a coherent programme based on the establishment of new rights. Consisting of a jumble of traditionalist sentiment, religiosity, and socialist consciousness, the movement reached its apex in the summer of 1893, when new conditions were presented to the landowners and mine owners of Sicily concerning the renewal of sharecropping and rental contracts.

Upon the rejection of these conditions, there was an outburst of strikes that rapidly spread throughout the island, and was marked by violent social conflict, almost rising to the point of insurrection. The leaders of the movement were not able to keep the situation from getting out of control. The proprietors and landowners asked the government to intervene. Giovanni Giolitti tried to put a halt to the manifestations and protests of the Fasci Siciliani, his measures were relatively mild. On 24 November, Giolitti officially resigned as prime minister. In the three weeks of uncertainty before Crispi formed a government on 15 December 1893, the rapid spread of violence drove many local authorities to defy Giolitti's ban on the use of firearms.

In December 1893, 92 peasants lost their lives in clashes with the police and army. Government buildings were burned along with flour mills and bakeries that refused to lower their prices when taxes were lowered or abolished.

On 3 January 1894, Crispi declared a state of siege throughout Sicily. Army reservists were recalled and General Roberto Morra di Lavriano was dispatched with 40,000 troops. The old order was restored through the use of extreme force, including summary executions. A solidarity revolt of anarchists and republicans in the Lunigiana was crushed as well.

The repression of the Fasci turned into outright persecution. The government arrested not just the leaders of the movement, but masses of poor farmers, students, professionals, sympathizers of the Fasci, and even those simply suspected of having sympathized with the movement at some point in time, in many cases without any evidence for the accusations. After the declaration of a state of emergency, condemnations were issued for the paltriest of reasons. Many rioters were incarcerated for having shouted things such as "Viva l'anarchia" or "down with the King". At Palermo, in April and May 1894, the trials against the central committee of the Fasci took place and this was the final blow that signalled the death knell of the movement of the Fasci Siciliani.

Financial crisis and assassination attempt
Crispi steadily supported the energetic remedies adopted by his Minister of Finance Sidney Sonnino to save Italian credit, which had been severely shaken by the financial crisis of 1892–1893 and the Banca Romana scandal. Sonnino's proposals were harshly criticized both by members of the Left and the Right, causing his resignation on 4 June 1894; on the following day Crispi resigned too, but the King gave him again the task to form a new government.

On 16 June 1894, the anarchist Paolo Lega tried to shoot Crispi but the attempt failed. On 24 June an Italian anarchist killed French President Carnot. In this climate of increased fear of anarchism, Crispi was able to introduce a series of anti-anarchist laws in July 1894, which were also used against socialists. Heavy penalties were announced for "incitement to class hatred" and police received extended powers of preventive arrest and deportation.

The whole parliament expressed solidarity with the Prime Minister who saw his position considerably strengthened. This favoured the approval of the Sonnino law. The reform saved Italy from the crisis and started the way for economic recovery.

Giolitti and Cavallotti's accusations
In 1894 he was threatened with expulsion from the Masonic Grande Oriente d'Italia for being too friendly towards the Catholic Church. He had previously been strongly anticlerical but had become convinced of the need for rapprochement with the Papacy.

At the end of 1894, his long-time rival Giovanni Giolitti tried to discredit Crispi by submitting to parliament a few documents that were supposed to ruin it. It was actually some old papers attesting loans contracted by Crispi and his wife with the Banca Romana.

Moreover, Crispi's uncompromising suppression of disorder, and his refusal to abandon either the Triple Alliance or the Eritrean colony, or to forsake his Minister of the Treasury, Sidney Sonnino, caused a breach with the radical leader Felice Cavallotti. Cavallotti began a campaign of defamation against him. Cavallotti himself proposed to establish a commission, which should investigate the relations between Crispi and Banca Romana.

On 15 December the commission published its report and this caused some riots in the Chamber. Crispi, in defence of the institutions, submitted to the King a decree to dissolve parliament. On 13 January 1895 Umberto I dissolved the parliament and Giolitti, who was under trial for the bank scandal, was forced to move to Berlin, because his parliamentary immunity expired, and the risk of being arrested.

Giolitti and Cavallotti's attacks were soon renewed more fiercely than ever. They produced little effect and the general election of 1895 gave Crispi a huge majority of 334 seats out of 508. On 25 June 1895, Crispi refused a request to allow a parliamentary inquiry into his role in the Banca Romana scandal, saying as a prime minister he felt he was "invulnerable" because he had "served Italy for 53 years". Despite his majority, Crispi preferred to rule via royal decree instead of getting legislation passed by parliament, leading to concerns about authoritarianism.

Italo-Ethiopian War and resignation
During his second term, Crispi continued his colonial expansionist policy in East Africa. King Umberto I commented that "Crispi wants to occupy everywhere, even China and Japan". Crispi was strongly supported by the king, who alluding to his personal dislike of him, stated "Crispi is a pig, but a necessary pig", who despite his corruption, had to stay in power for "the national interest, which is the only thing that matters". Crispi took a very belligerent line on foreign policy as he, during a three-month period in 1895, talked quite openly about attacking France, sent a naval squadron to the eastern Mediterranean to prepare for a possible war with the Ottoman Empire in order to seize Albania, wanted to send an expeditionary force to seize a city in China, and planned to send a force to South Africa to forcibly mediate the dispute between Great Britain and the Transvaal Republic. Crispi, who favoured a militant anti-French line, wanted to revise the Triple Alliance as the preamble to the Triple Alliance spoke of preserving peace in Europe while "for Italy, it must be the opposite; for us, the Triple Alliance must mean war!" Those who knew him by this stage of his life considered Crispi to be almost mindlessly bellicose as he broke off diplomatic relations with Portugal over a supposed slight, saying he deserved more respect from this "entirely unimportant country" ruled over by a "minuscule monarchy".

The main event which occurred during his premiership was the First Italo-Ethiopian War, which originated from a disputed treaty which, the Italians claimed, turned Ethiopia into an Italian protectorate. Much to their surprise, they found that Ethiopian ruler Menelik II, rather than opposed by some of his traditional enemies, was supported by them, and so the Italian army, invading Ethiopia from Italian Eritrea in 1893, faced a more united front than they expected. In addition, Ethiopia was supported by Russia with military advisers, army training, and the sale of weapons. France supported Ethiopia diplomatically in order to prevent Italy from becoming a colonial competitor.

Full-scale war broke out in 1895, with Italian troops under the command of General Oreste Baratieri having initial success until Ethiopian troops counterattacked Italian positions and besieged the Italian fort of Meqele, forcing its surrender. In April 1895, Crispi withdrew part of the Italian army from Ethiopia to save money. He told General Baratieri that if he needed more money to just impose more taxes on the Ethiopians and "copy Napoleon who made war with the money of those he conquered". Crispi did not understand that Ethiopia was a poor country and the money necessary to sustain a modern army could not possibly be raised from taxing the Ethiopians, causing major problems for the Italian Army in Ethiopia. Through Crispi fought the war against Ethiopia on the cheap, he used secretly used public money to bribe journalists to write pro-war articles in the Italian newspapers while those foreign journalists who reported critically about the war were expelled from Italy. Italian newspapers that reported critically about the war with Ethiopia were heavily fined by the Crispi government with the offending editions of the papers being burned under the grounds that it was "unpatriotic" to criticize the government in wartime.

On 22 February 1896, Umberto dismissed General Baratieri as commander of the Italian expeditionary force, ordering him to remain in command until his successor arrived. On 25 February Crispi sent a telegram to Baratieri veiledly accusing him of cowardice and incompetence by engaging in small skirmishes and avoiding decisive battles ("[yours] is not so much a war, but the military version of consumptive disease"), and ended with demanding he took decisive action "whatever the cost to save the honour of the army and the prestige of the monarchy". In response to Crispi's telegram, on the evening of 29 February Baratieri met with his brigadier generals and with their support decided to ignore his own doubts and attacked a much larger Ethiopian force on 1 March 1896 near Adwa. In the Battle of Adwa the Ethiopian army dealt the heavily outnumbered Italians a decisive loss and forced their retreat back into Eritrea. General Baratieri took no responsibility for the defeat, blaming his men, saying they were cowards who had let him down at Adwa. By contrast, the British military observer stated the ordinary Italian soldiers at Adwa "were as good as fighting material as can be found in Europe", but they had been let down by their officers who had shown no leadership abilities whatsoever.

The casualty rate suffered by Italian forces at the Battle of Adwa was greater than any other major European battle of the 19th century, beyond even the Napoleonic Era's Waterloo and Eylau. More Italians were killed in one day's fighting at Adwa than in all the wars of the Risorgimento. Crispi announced after Adwa that he planned to continue the war against the "barbarians" of Ethiopia, and would be sending more troops to the Horn of Africa, which prompted a public backlash against the unpopular war. After the humiliating defeat of the Italian army, riots broke out in several Italian cities, and within two weeks, the Crispi government collapsed amidst Italian disenchantment with "foreign adventures". In Rome, people demonstrated under the slogans "death to the king!" and "long live the republic!" as the war had badly damaged the prestige of Umberto who had backed Crispi so forcefully and strongly. Crispi was opposed to making peace with Ethiopia, saying he regarded it as humiliating for the Italians to make peace with "barbarians" as he called the Ethiopians and said he did not care about the lives of almost 3,000 Italians taken prisoner by the Ethiopians who were being held as hostages, saying they were "expendable" compared to the "glorious" national mission of conquering Ethiopia.

Downfall and death
The ensuing Antonio di Rudini cabinet lent itself to Cavallotti's campaign, and at the end of 1897, the judicial authorities applied to the Chamber of Deputies for permission to prosecute Crispi for embezzlement. A parliamentary commission of inquiry discovered only that Crispi, on assuming office in 1893, had found the secret service coffers empty, and had borrowed money from a state bank to fund it, repaying it with the monthly instalments granted in regular course by the treasury. The commission, considering this proceeding irregular, proposed, and the Chamber adopted, a vote of censure, but refused to authorize a prosecution.

Crispi resigned his seat in parliament, but was re-elected by an overwhelming majority in April 1898 by his Palermo constituents. For some time he took little part in active politics, chiefly on account of his growing blindness. A successful operation for cataract restored his eyesight in June 1900, and notwithstanding his 81 years, he resumed to some extent his former political activity.

Soon afterwards, however, his health began to give way and he died in Naples on 11 August 1901; according to many witnesses, his last words were: "Before closing my eyes to life, I would have the supreme comfort of knowing that our homeland is beloved and defended by all its sons".

Legacy
Crispi was a colourful and intensely patriotic character. He was a man of enormous energy but with a violent temper. His whole life, public and private, was turbulent, dramatic and marked by a succession of bitter personal hostilities. According to some Crispi's "fiery pride, almost insane touchiness and indifference to sound methods of government" were due to his Albanian inheritance. Although he began life as a revolutionary and democratic figure, his premiership was authoritarian and he showed disdain for Italian liberals. He was born as a firebrand and died as a firefighter. At the end of the 19th century, Crispi was the dominant figure of Italian politics for a decade. He was saluted by Giuseppe Verdi as 'the great patriot'. He was a more scrupulous statesman than Cavour, a more realistic conspirator than Mazzini, and a more astute figure than Garibaldi. His death resulted in lengthier obituaries in Europe's press than for any Italian politician since Cavour.

As prime minister in the 1880s and 1890s, Crispi was internationally famous and often mentioned along with world statesmen such as Bismarck, Gladstone and Salisbury. Originally an enlightened Italian patriot and democratic liberal, he went on to become a bellicose authoritarian prime minister and ally and admirer of Bismarck. He is often seen as a precursor of Benito Mussolini. Mussolini portrayed the Liberal era (1861–1922) as a perversion of the idealist vision of Mazzini and Garibaldi, and Crispi was the lone prime minister of the Liberal era whom Il Duce depicted in favourable terms. In particular, Mussolini praised Crispi as the inventor of "Italian imperialism" as opposed to "western imperialism", presenting his foreign policy as the inspiration for Fascist foreign policy, and the period after 1896 was excoriated as a period of decline caused by the alleged pusillanimous policy of Giolitti. Mussolini presented his foreign policies such as conquering Ethiopia to "avenge Adawa" and making an alliance with Nazi Germany as a continuation of Crispi's foreign policy who likewise tried to conquer Ethiopia and made an alliance with the German Empire. His reputation was a victim of Italian Fascism, which awarded him an abundance of street names, most erased after 1945. With the collapse of Fascism, Crispi's reputation was left fatally tarnished.

Historian R.J.B. Bosworth says that Crispi:
 * pursued policies whose openly aggressive character would not be equaled until the days of the Fascist regime. Crispi increased military expenditure, talked cheerfully of a European conflagration, and alarmed his German or British friends with this suggestions of preventative attacks on his enemies. His policies were ruinous, both for Italy's trade with France, and, more humiliatingly, for colonial ambitions in East Africa. Crispi's lust for territory there was thwarted when on 1 March 1896, the armies of Ethiopian Emperor Menelik routed Italian forces at Adowa ... In what has been defined as an unparalleled disaster for a modern army. Crispi, whose private life (he was perhaps a trigamist) and personal finances...were objects of perennial scandal, went into dishonorable retirement.

title: Francesco Crispi


text:
George Town, Tasmania

George Town (palawa kani: kinimathatakinta ) is a large town in north-east Tasmania, on the eastern bank of the mouth of the Tamar River. The Australian Bureau of Statistics records the George Town Municipal Area had a population of 6,764 as of 30 June 2016.

It is the regional centre of the George Town Council local government area and is well served with a Regional Hospital, supermarkets, and infrastructure.

History

The area now occupied by George Town has been inhabited by Aboriginal Tasmanians since, at least, 7000 BP and possibly as long ago as 43000 BP.

European settlement
Early observation of the Tamar River occurred in 1798 when Bass and Flinders sailed into the river during their circumnavigation of Tasmania. The estuarine river was named Port Dalrymple and the location that would become George Town was referred to as Outer Cove. William Collins, in January 1804, led an 18-day exploration of the river to determine the best site for a settlement. In November 1804, Colonel William Paterson arrived with four ships with 181 people, convicts, soldiers, and one free settler and the settlement was established at Outer Cove. Subsequently the main settlement moved to the west arm of the river and then to the river head, some 50 km south, named Launceston. When, in 1811, Governor-In-Chief Lachlan Macquarie toured Tasmania he moved the settlement back to Outer Cove and named it George Town after King George III. The populace were reluctant to relocate and building the town in earnest did not begin until 1819. Because of the needs of maintaining a defensible position at the mouth of the river, regardless of the notional main settlement location, the George Town area has been continuously occupied since 1804, making it one of the earliest European settlements in Australia.

Early communications
1822 - George Town Post Office opened, Mr. W Brown is appointed postmaster on 11 October 1822

1825 - Tamar Valley semaphore system

1869 - Eastern Extension Telegraph Cable connects Tasmania to the Australian mainland

Geography and landmarks

 * Mount George
 * Tamar Valley Semaphore
 * Low Head and Low Head Lighthouse
 * Batman Bridge - Joining the George Town Municipality to the West Tamar
 * kanamaluka/Tamar River

Infrastructure
The Basslink 400 Kilovolt high-voltage direct current submarine cable connecting Tasmania to the National Electricity Market, terminates in George Town.

In 2007 Alinta built the Tamar Valley Power Station a 200 MW gas-fired power station in the vicinity of George Town creating 200 direct and 100 indirect jobs during construction, and generating electricity from 2009.

Nearby Bell Bay has an aluminium and manganese smelter, as well as the port.

George Town has 3 schools:
 * South George Town Primary School
 * Star of the Sea College
 * Port Dalrymple School

Bell Bay pulp mill
Gunns Limited had proposed a pulp mill to be built in the area in 2006, however Gunns entered receivership in 2013, with large debt and the mill did not proceed as the company assets were sold.

Mountain bike trail
George Town Council is developing 80 km of purpose built mountain bike trails over two separate networks - one on the flanks of Mount George near the town centre and the second in the Tippogoree Hills, five-kilometres south of the township. The project is anticipated to be completed by December 2021.

Attractions
"The Grove" Georgian home built in 1829 attracts many visitors, as does the 1805 convict built pilot station at Low Head.

George Town is also a popular seaside destination for swimming, surfing, and fishing and boating enthusiasts.

George Town is home to a Little Penguin colony at the nearby beach at Low Head.

The George Town Football Club, George Town Bowls Club, George Town Junior Soccer Club and the George Town Cricket Club are notable among its clubs and associations.

The Bass and Flinders Centre has a collection of historical boats including a replica of the 1798 sloop Norfolk.

The Watch House in Macquarie street built in 1843 was the town gaol. The building was refurbished and reopened in 2004 as a gallery and local history museum. It features a scale model of the town as it was in the early nineteenth century.

George Town is home to a vibrant arts community. The Lighthouse Regional Arts group hold a yearly art show, have local and interstate travelling displays at the Watch House and have permanent displays of art at the Bass and Flinders centre, the Low Head pilot station and the Jim Mooney Gallery.

The George Town RSL Military Museum/display in Macquarie Street is one of Tasmania's more diverse Military Museums and has a large static display from conflicts ranging from the 1880s to present day. The collection covers both Australian and overseas militaria and history as well as possibly the only collection of Third Reich artifacts on display in the state.

Media
George Town has a local radio station – Tamar FM 95.3 which is a community radio station generally playing music and advertising local businesses.

Events
Some main events that happen annually in George Town include:
 * The Tamar Valley Folk Festival, which takes place on the third full weekend in January (one week after the Cygnet Folk Festival) and features performances from local, interstate and sometimes even international musicians, as well as workshops, sessions and other festive events.
 * Steampunk Tasmania Festival
 * George Town New Years Eve Extravaganza hosted by The George Town Neighbourhood House and The Crazy Duck
 * Don Mario's Classic Cars and Coffee - classic car enthusiast meet-up and display, 1st Sunday of each month

Notable people
Notable people from or who have lived in George Town include:
 * John Youl, an early clergyman
 * Brendon Bolton, Coach of Carlton Football Club in the Australian Football League
 * Danny Clark, cyclist

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

title: George Town, Tasmania


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cagone

This page is an archive of the discussion surrounding the proposed deletion of the page entitled Cagone.

This page is kept as an historic record.

The result of the debate was to delete the article.

dicdef of a foreign word. -- Graham :) | Talk 11:48, 28 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Not a dicdef, worse - patent nonsense. Dunc Harris | Talk 11:55, 28 May 2004 (UTC).
 * Also a section of tanga by the same author. Dunc Harris | Talk 11:56, 28 May 2004 (UTC)
 * and also Desenrascanço which is another Portuguese word!!! Dunc Harris | Talk 12:08, 28 May 2004 (UTC) (at some earlier time)
 * Ah! but see talk:Desenrascanço; ppl talk about patent nonsense. Dunc Harris | Talk 12:08, 28 May 2004 (UTC)
 * and also CAVOK which should be sppedily deleted. Dunc Harris | Talk 12:01, 28 May 2004 (UTC)
 * I read it and I could not stop laughing, but I couldnt cause i'm at work. I almost died reading it. It is not a nice portuguese word, it has another meaning. LOL. about tanga there is also other "tangas" that are def. like that one. About desenrascanço, I disagree. There's an article about vodoo there isnt? -Pedro 15:19, 28 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Well, "cagão" really is used in the sense of a show-off, right, Pedro? See for example . Of course it means something else as well . So I don't think the cagone article is nonsense. It's trivial but entertaining. No vote yet. Wile E. Heresiarch 16:32, 28 May 2004 (UTC)
 * I like all of these articles; by their addition they don't seem to harm wikipedia at all. Always good to learn new things. Rhymeless 21:43, 28 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete from English Wikipedia. 1) Definitions belong in Wiktionary.  2) No evidence that this word is in use in English. Rossami 22:37, 28 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Agreed w/ Rossami. Wile E. Heresiarch 19:52, 29 May 2004 (UTC)
 * I know that tanga, at least, it present in heavily hispanic english-speaking communities.. Rhymeless 22:19, 29 May 2004 (UTC)
 * delete. It is an insult and nothing special. I thing nobody understands really what the word means, but Italians, Portuguese and Spanish (Romanised/original-latin cultures) will understand it perfecty, and they will laugh a lot. It is nonsence. it was good to laugh a bit. But I didnt like the comparison with Desenrascanço that is a cultural mather. Tanga is possibly from Angola. Althought the Brazilian meaning is also used. -Pedro 22:25, 29 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete! Please! With desenrascanco, tanga and now this one, the wikipedia is turning into a private joke for portuguese. MvHG 10:46, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue or the deletion should be placed on other relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.

title: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cagone


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Blimey

 * Discussion from Votes for deletion:

dicdef of a slang term -- Graham :) | Talk 11:48, 28 May 2004 (UTC)

 * Blimey! not enough good enough for Wiktionary Dunc Harris | Talk 12:26, 28 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Stone the crows, guv'ner! I've expanded this a bit to see if it deserves to stay. DJ Clayworth 16:45, 28 May 2004 (UTC)
 * I think it actually might have enough now to make it as a stub. The origins of the word bit is nicely encyclopædic.  blankfaze | &#9835 17:26, 28 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Certainly worth being in the Wiktionary, at least. Not sure about being in Wikipedia though. Average Earthman 18:05, 28 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Current content definitely belongs in Wiktionary. Dictionaries traditionally describe a word's origins.  I see no obvious way to ever expand this orphaned article past the definition, though.  Wiktionary and delete . Rossami 18:38, 28 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Move to Wiktionary. Agreed w/ Rossami. Wile E. Heresiarch 19:54, 29 May 2004 (UTC)
 * As above. Lev 18:55, 28 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Move to wiktionary. Thue 19:15, 29 May 2004 (UTC)
 * On second thought, redirect to Minced oaths. Thue 20:12, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * Good redirect, but also recommend sending the current version to Wiktionary. Rossami 21:20, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * I don't think Minced oaths describes blimey at all. I was very confused at the link when I first looked it up, as there is no reference at all. Stupidone0 05:49, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

title: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Blimey


text:
Holy of Holies

The Holy of Holies (קֹדֶשׁ הַקֳּדָשִׁים or Kodesh HaKodashim; also הַדְּבִיר hadDəḇīr, 'the Sanctuary') is a term in the Hebrew Bible that refers to the inner sanctuary of the Tabernacle, where the Shekhinah (God's presence) appeared. According to Hebrew tradition, the area was defined by four pillars that held up the veil of the covering, under which the Ark of the Covenant was held above the floor. According to the Hebrew Bible, the Ark contained the Ten Commandments, which were given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai. The first Temple in Jerusalem, called Solomon's Temple, was said to have been built by King Solomon to keep the Ark.

Ancient Jewish traditions viewed the Holy of Holies as the spiritual junction of Heaven and Earth, the "axis mundi".

As a part of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, the Holy of Holies was situated somewhere on Temple Mount; its precise location in the Mount being a matter of dispute, with some classical Jewish sources identifying its location with the Foundation Stone, which sits under the Dome of the Rock shrine. Other Jewish scholars argue that contemporary reports would place the Temple to the north or to the east of the Dome of the Rock.

The Christian Crusaders associated the Holy of Holies with the Well of Souls, a small cave that lies underneath the Foundation Stone in the Dome of the Rock.

Hebrew terminology and translation
The construction "Holy of Holies" is a translation of the Hebrew, which is intended to express a superlative. Examples of similar constructions are "servant of servants" (Gen 9:25), "Sabbath of sabbaths" (Ex 31:15), "God of gods" (Deut 10:17), "Vanity of vanities" (Eccl 1:2), "Song of songs" (Song of Songs 1:1), "king of kings" (Ezra 7:12), etc.

In the Authorized King James Version, "Holy of Holies" is always translated as "Most Holy Place". This is in keeping with the intention of the Hebrew idiom to express the utmost degree of holiness. Thus, the name "Most Holy Place" was used to refer to the "Holy of Holies" in many English documents.

A related term is debir, transliterated in the Septuagint, which either means the back (i.e. western) part of the Sanctuary, or derives from the verb stem ד־ב־ר "to speak", justifying the translation in the Vulgate as oraculum, which the traditional English translation "oracle" (KJV, 1611) derives from.

Tabernacle
According to the Hebrew Bible, in order that God may dwell among the Israelites, God gave Moses instructions for erecting a sanctuary. The directions provide for:
 * 1) A wooden ark, gilded inside and outside, for the Tablets of the Covenant, with a pure gold cover as the "mercy seat" for the Divine Presence;
 * 2) A gilt table for the "Table of Showbread", on which loaves of bread were arranged;
 * 3) A golden menorah, lampstand of 7 oil lamps for a light never to be extinguished;
 * 4) The dwelling, including the curtains for the roof, the walls made of boards resting on silver feet and held together by wooden bolts, the multi-colored curtain veiling the Holy of Holies (of blue, purple, crimson, white and gold), the table and candlestick, and the outer curtain;
 * 5) A sacrificial altar made of bronzed boards for its korban/sacrifice;
 * 6) The outer court formed by pillars resting on bronze pedestals and connected by hooks and crossbars of silver, with embroidered curtains;
 * 7) Recipe and preparation of the oil for the Lampstand.

According to the Bible, the Holy of Holies was covered by a veil, and no one was allowed to enter except the High Priest, and even he would only enter once a year on Yom Kippur, to offer the blood of sacrifice and incense. The Bible reports that in the wilderness, on the day that the tabernacle was first raised up, the cloud of the Lord covered the tabernacle. There are other times that this was recorded, and instructions were given that the Lord would appear in the cloud upon the mercy seat (kapporet), and at that time the priests should not enter into the tabernacle (Leviticus 16:2). According to the Hebrew Bible, the Holy of Holies contained the Ark of the Covenant with representation of Cherubim.

Upon completion of the dedication of the Tabernacle, the Voice of God spoke to Moses "from between the Cherubim".

Solomon's Temple
The Holy of Holies was the inner sanctuary within the Tabernacle and Temple in Jerusalem when Solomon's Temple and the Second Temple were standing. The parochet, a brocade curtain with cherubim motifs woven directly into the fabric from the loom, divided the Holy of Holies from the lesser Holy place.

The Holy of Holies was located at the westernmost end of the Temple building and was a cube: 20 cubits by 20 cubits by 20 cubits. The inside was in darkness and contained the Ark of the Covenant, gilded inside and out, in which was placed the Tablets of Stone. According to both Jewish and Christian traditions, Aaron's rod and a pot of manna were also in the ark. The Ark was covered with a lid made of pure gold, known as the "mercy seat", which was covered by the beaten gold cherubim wings, creating the space for the Shekhinah.

Second Temple

When the Temple was rebuilt after the Babylonian captivity, the Ark was no longer present in the Holy of Holies; instead, a portion of the floor was raised slightly to indicate the place where it had stood. In Jewish tradition, two curtains separated the Holy of Holies from the lesser Holy place during the period of the Second Temple. These curtains were woven with motifs directly from the loom, rather than embroidered, and each curtain had the thickness of a handbreadth (ca. 9 cm.; 3½"). Josephus records that Pompey profaned the Temple by insisting on entering the Holy of Holies in 63 BCE. When Titus captured the city during the First Jewish–Roman War, Roman soldiers took down the curtain and used it to wrap therein golden vessels retrieved from the Temple.

Yom Kippur
The Holy of Holies was entered once a year by the High Priest on Yom Kippur, to sprinkle the blood of sacrificial animals (a bull offered as atonement for the Priest and his household, and a goat offered as atonement for the people (this is where the term scapegoat originates from)) and offer incense upon the Ark of the Covenant and the mercy seat that sat on top of the ark in the First Temple (the Second Temple had no ark and the blood was sprinkled where the Ark would have been and the incense was put on the Brazen Altar of incense). The animal was sacrificed and the blood was carried into the most holy place. The gold was also found in the Most Holy Place.

In ancient Judaism
The Magdala stone is thought to be a representation of the Holy of Holies carved before the destruction of the Temple in the year 70.

In Rabbinical Judaism
Traditional Judaism regards the location where the inner sanctuary was originally located, on the Temple Mount (Mount Moriah), as retaining some or all of its original sanctity for use in a future Third Temple. The exact location of the Holy of Holies is a subject of dispute.

Traditional Judaism regards the Holy of Holies as the place where the presence of God dwells. The Talmud gives detailed descriptions of Temple architecture and layout. According to the Babylonian Talmud Tractate Yoma, the Kodesh Hakodashim (Holy of Holies) is located in the center of the esplanade from a North–South perspective, but significantly to the West from an East–West perspective, with all the major courtyards and functional areas lying to its east.

The Talmud supplies additional details, and describes the ritual performed by the High Priest. During the annual ritual, the High Priest would pronounce the Tetragrammaton, the only point according to traditional Judaism that it was pronounced out loud. According to Jewish tradition, the people prostrated themselves fully on the ground when it was said. According to the Talmud, the High Priest's face upon exit from the Holy of Holies was radiant.

While under normal circumstances, access to the Holy of Holies was restricted to the High Priest and only on Yom Kippur, the Talmud suggests that repair crews were allowed inside as needed but were lowered from the upper portion of the room via enclosures so that they only saw the area they were to work on.

Synagogue architecture
Judaism regards the Torah ark, a place in a synagogue where the Torah scrolls are kept, as a miniature Holy of Holies.

Modern location
The exact location of the Holy of Holies is a contentious issue, as elements of questioning the exact placement of the Temple are often associated with Temple denial. There are three main theories as to where exactly the Temple stood on the Mount: where the Dome of the Rock is now located; to the north of the Dome of the Rock (Professor Asher Kaufman); or to the east of the Dome of the Rock (Professor Joseph Patrich of the Hebrew University).

The location of the Holy of Holies is connected to the location of the Jewish Temple. The location of the Temple, however, had become uncertain already less than 150 years after the Second Temple's destruction, as detailed in the Talmud. Chapter 54 of the Tractate Berakhot states that the Holy of Holies was directly aligned with the Golden Gate, which would have placed the Holy of Holies slightly to the north of the Dome of the Rock, as Kaufman postulated. Chapter 54 of the Tractate Yoma and chapter 26 of the Tractate Sanhedrin, on the other hand, assert that the Holy of Holies stood directly on the Foundation Stone.

The Crusaders associated the Holy of Holies with the Well of Souls, which is located under the Foundation Stone of the Dome of the Rock. Most Orthodox Jews today completely avoid climbing up to Temple Mount, to prevent them from accidentally stepping on any holy areas. A few Orthodox Jewish authorities, following the opinion of the medieval scholar Maimonides, permit Jews to visit parts of the Temple Mount known not to be anywhere near any of the sanctified areas. Orthodox Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount, who come especially from those groups associated with the Temple Institute and its efforts to rebuild a Temple, seek to conform to the minimal requirements for coming near the Temple, such as immersing in a mikvah ("collection of water"; a ritual of purification), not coming during or following menstruation or immediately following a seminal emission, not showing their back towards its presumed location, etc.

To avoid religious conflict, Jewish visitors caught praying or bringing ritual objects are usually expelled from the area by police.

In apocryphal literature
According to the ancient apocryphal Lives of the Prophets, after the death of Zechariah ben Jehoiada, the priests of the Temple could no more, as before, see the apparitions of the angels of the Lord, nor could make divinations with the Ephod, nor give responses from the Debir.

New Testament
The Greek New Testament retains the pre-Christian Septuagint phrase "Holy of the Holies" hágion (sg n) tōn hagíōn (ἅγιον τῶν ἁγίων) without the definite article as "Holies of Holies" hágia (pl n) hagíōn (ἅγια ἁγίων) in Hebrews 9:3. In the Vulgate of Saint Jerome, these are rendered as sanctum sanctorum and sancta sanctorum, respectively. The Greek language was the common language upon Hellenization of much of the Middle East after the death of Alexander the Great, and the division of his empire among four generals. The Jews of the Diaspora spoke it; the Vulgate was a faithful translation for Christian Rome.

Christian traditions
Certain branches of Christianity, including the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church continue to have a tradition of a Holy of Holies that they regard as a most sacred site. The ciborium, a permanent canopy over the altar in some churches, once surrounded by curtains at points in the liturgy, symbolizes the Holy of Holies. Some Christian churches, particularly the Catholic Church, consider the Church tabernacle, or its location (often at the rear of the sanctuary), as the symbolic equivalent of the Holy of Holies, due to the storage of consecrated hosts in that vessel.

Catholic Church
The Latin Vulgate Bible translates Qṓḏeš HaqQŏḏāšîm as Sanctum sanctorum (Ex 26:34). Reproducing in Latin the Hebrew construction, the expression is used as a superlative of the neuter adjective sanctum, to mean "a thing most holy". It is used by Roman Catholics to refer to the Eucharist in the tabernacle which represents the presence of Christ.

The Vulgate also refers to the Holy of Holies with the plural form Sancta sanctorum (2 Chr 5:7), possibly a synecdoche referring to the holy objects hosted there. This form is also used more broadly in Catholic tradition with reference to sanctuaries other than the Temple in Jerusalem. A notable example is for the Chiesa di San Lorenzo in Palatio ad Sancta Sanctorum, a chapel in the complex of St John Lateran in Rome.

Eastern Orthodox Church
The Greek phrase refers to the Tabernacle or Temple. The name in Greek for the sanctuary of a church is Ἱερόν Βῆμα (Hieron Vema, see Bema), in Russian it is called Святой Алтарь (Svyatoy Altar – literally: "Holy Altar"), and in Romanian it is called Sfântul Altar.

Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church
A cognate term in Ge'ez is found in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church: Qidduse Qiddusan (or Bete Mekdes), referring to the innermost sanctuary of an Orthodox Christian church, where the tabot is kept and only clergy may enter. Every Ethiopian Orthodox church has one, and it is covered with a curtain. There are often three entry points, symbolising the Holy Trinity. In the middle, there is always an altar where the church's tabot is kept. There can be as many altars as the number of tabots.

Malabar Nasrani tradition

The Saint Thomas Christians (also known as Nasrani or Syrian Christians) from Kerala, South India still follow much Jewish Christian tradition. In Nasrani tradition the Holy of Holies is kept veiled for much of the time. The red veil covers the inner altar or the main altar. It is unveiled only during the central part of the main Nasrani ritual. The main ritual of the Saint Thomas Christians is the Qurbana.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
The Salt Lake Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) contains a Holy of Holies wherein the church's president—acting as the Presiding High Priest—enters to fulfill the relationship between the High Priest of Israel and God in accordance with the LDS Church's interpretation of the Book of Exodus and Latter-day Saint religious texts.

Seventh-Day Adventist Church
Seventh-Day Adventism (SDA) believes that the Holy of Holies on Earth was a copy of the true tabernacle in heaven, and this view can also be seen in other Christian denominations. Because in Hebrews, God commands Moses to make sure that all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the Mount Sinai (Heb 8:2, 5). After the "Great Disappointment", preacher O. R. L. Crosier, Hiram Edson, and F. B. Hahn published new insights into Christ's sanctuary ministry that Jesus began to minister in the heavenly sanctuary after His ascension (Heb 9:24). Seventh-Day Adventism (SDA) believes that just as the high priest completed the special ministry on Yom Kippur and blessed the Israelites. Christ will come and bless his people after cleaning the Holy of Holies in heaven (Heb 9:23).

title: Holy of Holies


text:
POST card

In computing, a POST card is a plug-in diagnostic interface card that displays progress and error codes generated during power-on self-test (POST) of a computer. It is used to troubleshoot computers that do not start up.

Working principle
At a minimum, if the CPU, BIOS, and the I/O interface upon which the POST card relies on are all working, a POST card can be used to monitor the system's Power-On Self Test (POST), or to diagnose problems with it. The system introduced on IBM PC computers sends 8-bit byte codes (usually displayed as two hexadecimal digits) to a specified I/O port (usually 80 hex) during startup, some indicating a stage in the startup procedure, others identifying errors. The description for each code must be looked up in a table for the particular BIOS. For example, for the 1984 IBM PC/AT code 1D is issued when about to Determine Memory Size Above 1024K, and code 2D in the event of 8042 Keyboard Controller Failure, 105 System Error. If startup does not complete successfully, either an error code, or the code of the last operation performed, is available.

POST cards provide information even when a standard display is not available, either because connecting a monitor is impractical, or because the failure occurs before the video subsystem is operational.

Operation
POST cards are inserted into an expansion slot, and are available with connectors for the ISA (also supporting EISA), PCI, PCI Express, Mini PCIe (for laptops), Universal Serial Bus, or Low Pin Count bus, or for a parallel port. A typical card for desktop computers has a different bus interface on each edge; a card for laptop computers may have both a miniPCI and a parallel port connector (plus USB to supply power).

Modern motherboards often do not broadcast POST codes to their PCI Express slots (PCIe switches only pass on transactions after having been configured to do so by the BIOS). On such motherboards, the Low Pin Count (LPC) bus, an ISA variant normally used to connect a Trusted Platform Module (TPM), may be the only bus where POST messages can still be seen. However LPC connectors are not standardized, with between 9 and 19 pins and both 2.54 mm and 2 mm pin headers commonly used. Therefore, an LPC POST card may have to auto-detect first the pin assignment used.

Another option are USB POST cards such as AMI Debug Rx, which use the debug port common on USB 2.0 EHCI controllers.

Information on the meaning of POST codes for different BIOSes is needed to interpret the codes. This may be supplied with cards, but becomes dated as later BIOSes are issued; more up-to-date information may be available on manufacturers' and independent websites.

In addition to displaying numeric codes, many cards monitor power supply voltages, clock and oscillator signals, reset signal, and other parameters.

Usage scenarios

Diagnostic cards are today mainly used by designers of motherboards and extension cards, along with logic analyzers and other debug tools and interfaces. They are less commonly used in the 21st century for computer repair and by system integrators, but remain available. POST cards for PCs, while originally high-priced, cost from just a few US dollars upwards in the 21st century.

Some motherboards have a built-in display to diagnose hardware problems. Most also report POST errors with audible beeps, if a PC speaker is attached. Such motherboards make POST cards less necessary.

When these diagnostic cards were first introduced motherboards were expensive and well worth troubleshooting and repairing. By the late twentieth century large scale integration, mass production made motherboards inexpensive components. Motherboards were rarely repaired, but replaced; the main purpose of a POST card is to determine that parts mounted on the motherboard itself, rather than plugged-in video cards, RAM, etc. are at fault.

title: POST card


text: Talk:Francesco Crispi

title: Talk:Francesco Crispi


text:
Tony Knowles (snooker player)

Anthony Knowles (born 13 June 1955) is an English former professional snooker player. He won the 1982 International Open and the 1983 Professional Players Tournament, and was a three times semi-finalist in the World Professional Snooker Championship in the 1980s. His highest world ranking was second, in the 1984/85 season.

Knowles was the British under-19 snooker champion in 1972 and 1974. He turned professional in 1980, and surprisingly defeated the defending champion Steve Davis 10–1 in the first round of the 1982 World Snooker Championship. In 1984, tabloid stories about his personal life were published, and he was fined £5,000 by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association for bringing the game into disrepute. His other tournament victories included the 1984 Australian Masters and, as part of the England team with Davis and Tony Meo, the 1983 World Team Classic.

Career
Tony Knowles was born in Bolton on 13 June 1955. He began playing snooker at the age of 9 on the tables at the Tonge Moor Conservative Club, which was run by his father, Kevin. He went on to win the UK Junior Championship twice, in 1972 (against Matt Gibson) and in 1974. His application to the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) to become a professional player was accepted in 1980, after a rejection in November 1979. He did not win a match in his first year, before progressing through two qualifying rounds to reach the first round of the 1981 World Snooker Championship where he lost 8–10 to Graham Miles. He reached the quarter-finals of the 1981 UK Championship by eliminating Geoff Foulds, Fred Davis and Doug Mountjoy from the competition before being defeated 5–9 by Terry Griffiths. Later that season, Knowles gained attention when he won 10–1 against defending champion Steve Davis in the first round of the 1982 World Snooker Championship, after staying out late at a nightclub following the first day's play when he had built an 8–1 lead. He defeated Miles 13–7 in the second round, before losing 11–13 to Eddie Charlton in the quarter-finals.

In the 1982–83 snooker season, he followed up his performance in the World Championship by winning the 1982 International Open with a 9–6 victory against David Taylor. He had eliminated Eddie Sinclair 5–2 in the first round, Ray Reardon by the same score in round two, Cliff Wilson 5–4 in the quarter-finals, and Kirk Stevens 9–3 in the semi-finals. In the final, he led Taylor 5–3 after the first, after the pair had been level at 2–2. He compiled a of 114, the highest of the tournament, to win the ninth frame, before Taylor claimed the next two frames to leave Knowles one ahead at 6–5. Breaks of 63 and 43 in the next two frames saw Knowles restore a three-frame advantage. Taylor made a break of 74 to win the 14th frame, but Knowles secured his first major title by claiming the 15th frame with a break of 76. It was the first tournament apart from the World Snooker Championship to count in the snooker world rankings. He won only one match in four tournaments between the 1982 International Open and the 1983 World Snooker Championship. At the World Championship, he progressed to the semi-finals by defeating Miles, Reardon (the second seed), and Tony Meo. In the semi-final he led Cliff Thorburn 15–13 before losing 15–16 in the after Thorburn  the final  and went on to take the frame. He moved to fourth place in the 1983/1984 world rankings.

The next season, he defeated Meo and Thorburn to reach the final of the 1983 Scottish Masters, which he lost 6–9 to Davis. Having failed to successfully defend the International Open title, losing 4–5 to John Spencer in the second round, Knowles started the 1983 Professional Players Tournament with a 5–1 win against Paul Medati and a 5–4 defeat of Rex Williams, then a 5–0 whitewash of Silvino Francisco. The same day as his match against Francisco, Knowles won 5–3 against John Campbell in the quarter-finals, after losing the opening two frames. In the semi-final, Knowles and Willie Thorne were level at 4–4 after the first session, with Knowles going on to prevail 9–7. In the final, he faced Joe Johnson and established a 6–1 lead, which Johnson reduced slightly to 6–2 by winning the last frame of the first session with the tournament's highest break, 135. Johnson was two frames behind at 4–6 and 5–7, but Knowles went three frames up with four to play at 8–5. Johnson won three successive frames to equalise at 8–8. In the deciding frame, Knowles won on the final to take the title.

Just before the 1984 World Snooker Championship, Knowles appeared in a series of three articles in tabloid newspaper The Sun, in which he boasted of his sexual adventures, describing himself as "the hottest pot in snooker" and was dismissive of most other competitors in the tournament. He received £25,000 from the newspaper for the articles, and was subsequently fined £5,000 by the WPBSA for bringing the game into disrepute. He lost 7–10 to John Parrott in the first round.

At the start of the 1984–85 snooker season, he won the 1984 Australian Masters by defeating John Virgo 7–3 in the final, and was the runner-up, 7–9 to Jimmy White, at the 1984 Carlsberg Challenge. He was the losing finalist to Davis, by a margin of 2–9, at both the 1984 International Open and the 1985 English Professional Championship. He reached the 1985 World Snooker Championship semi-final where he was eliminated 5–16 by Dennis Taylor.

He reached two ranking tournament semi-finals, in the 1985–86 snooker season, at the Grand Prix and the World Championship, and the semi-finals of the Masters, but an inconsistent season included losses to lower-ranked players such as Williams, Jim Wych, and Patsy Fagan. The following year, he dropped from fourth to tenth in the rankings, with a semi-final place at the 1987 British Open the furthest he reached in a ranking tournament in a season that included a 6–10 first round defeat by Mike Hallett at the 1987 World Snooker Championship.

He was ranked 21st for the 1990/1991 season, the first time he had not been in the top sixteen since 1982/1983 after a season where he only reached one quarter-final, at the 1989 Grand Prix. At the 1991 Dubai Classic, he defeated Gary Natale 5–1 in the qualifying competition, then Eugene Hughes 5–2, and Neal Foulds 5–0. A 5–2 win against Dennis Taylor in the quarter-final saw Knowles reach his first ranking semi-final since the 1988 Classic. He then gained his first ranking final place since the 1984 International Open by eliminating Steve James 6–2. in the semi-final. Facing reigning world champion Parrott in the final, Knowles fell 0–3 behind, but won three of the next four frames to trail 3–4 at the end of the first session. Parrott then won five consecutive frames in the next session to claim victory at 9–3.

For the 1997–98 snooker season, only the top 64 players in the rankings at the end of the previous season retained full professional status. Those who finished from 65th to 192nd, including Knowles who was 72nd, played in a new WPBSA Qualifying School series which allowed qualifiers to regain full professional status. Knowles, however, lost his first match at each of the four Qualifying School events, and so was eligible to enter only the World Championship, the Benson and Hedges Championship, and the new "UK Tour" events during the season. He finished tenth in the UK Tour standings, which meant he regained his full professional status for 1998–99 snooker season, losing it again at the end of 2000–01. He continued to play on the Challenge Tour and in World Championship qualifying.

In 2009, Knowles won the inaugural Snooker Super 6s tournament, which played as one-frame matches, with six red balls, rather than the usual fifteen reds, at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield. He defeated Neal Foulds in the semi-final, and 13-year-old Ross Muir in the final.

He has entered competitions including World Championship qualifying, Players Tour Championship and Q School in the 21st century. In 2021, he announced that he would enter Q School in an attempt to regain his professional snooker status. He failed to regain his professional status, but reached the last 32 of event 3 of the 2021 Q School, where he lost 2–4 to Mark Lloyd.

During his professional career, Knowles reached the World Championship semi-finals on three occasions (in 1983, 1985 and 1986), but never the final. His highest ranking was second, in 1984/1985, and his highest tournament break was 139. As one of three members of the England Team alongside Davis and Meo, he was a winner of the 1983 World Team Classic, and was runner-up at the 1982 World Team Classic and 1985 World Cup. He partnered White at the 1983 World Doubles Championship, where they were the losing finalists to Davis and Meo. He was a director of the WPBSA in the early-to-mid-2000s. He manages a wine bar in the Lake District. The club in the comedy programme Phoenix Nights had a room named the "Tony Knowles Suite" after him.

title: Tony Knowles (snooker player)


text:
Talk:David Carson (graphic designer)

Older discussion
copy vio from here http://www.fontshop.de/typo98/enhanced/sprecher/e_carson.html

probably delete page? rewrite npov? He does sound mildly noteworthy although the contention that he was only the second american ever to give a talk in Yugoslavia sounds unlikely in the extreme. Its also well out of date Monk Bretton 12:01, 28 May 2004 (UTC)

a decent site is http://virtual.parkland.edu/gds/131/e3/kearney.htm

He is a notable graphic designer, but the original author was confusing him with another designer with a similar name. Tried to edit all references to that designer.

After a little googling, it seems to me that the only references to a "Hanz-Rudolph Lutz" on the internet are in a few very similiar (ie blatantly copied) articles floating around on "free essay" sites and the like. The only things these articles mention about Lutz are here -- the fellow appears to not exist beyond as an influence to Carson.

In fact, the article here bears a striking resemblance to some of these "free essays", and as they all seem to feed off each other, I feel that makes much of the information here rather dubious. Thoughts? ~ Irrel 09:40, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

David Carson, though this slightly hype-ridden page may make you doubt it, is a verifiable design god. Here are some relevant articles on him [via a Google search]:

 * http://www.complink.net/greg/designsite/carson.htm
 * http://graphicdesign.about.com/od/davidcarson/

--Cursif 19:04, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

 * agree with above. he's a very influential designer. i'm removing the vanity template, and putting in a cleanup template. --Quiddity 23:20, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Can anyone verify the content about "Lefty Lexington" and Carson? In fact, the whole bit about Carson's visual impairment and its effect on his work seems related to his book cover design for Albert Watson's Cyclops, the title of which reflects the fact of Watson's being blind in one eye. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cursif (talk • contribs) 7 December 2005

Carson's personal page says he was the #9 surfer in the world, this page disagrees. I'm inclined to believe his own site. --81.101.140.42 11:11, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Greatest
'Carson is almost universally acknowledged as the greatest and certainly the most influential graphic designer of the nineties' By who? Joeking wp 20:30, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Why, by the almost universe, naturally. —RVJ 12:53, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

'Carson is almost universally acknowledged as the greatest and certainly the most influential graphic designer of the nineties'

If you asked 100 graphic designers, 'who was the greatest graphic designer of the nineties', what percentage would choose David Carson? How big is 'almost universally...'?

http://www.complink.net/greg/designsite/carson.htm gives page not found Joeking wp 20:57, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

 * I don't know, but it sounds almost impressive. ~ RVJ 16:31, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Clean-up?
I'm just wondering if someone has the time to go through this and clean up some of the typography, replace hyphens with en dashes in numbers, and so on. Also, I'm kinda wondering if we shouldn't write (for example) 1992–94 instead of 1992–1994? What's the English standard way of doing this? Optrirominiluikus (talk) 10:25, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
 * See MOS:DATE and WP:MOSDASH for details (go for it, and we always use full years). -- Quiddity (talk) 17:54, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Fo sho. When I have the time ^_^ Optrirominiluikus (talk) 21:24, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

That's funny...'clean up the typography' in an article about David Carson. ;o) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 156.98.170.193 (talk • contribs) 18:50, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 12:55, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: History of Modern Design
— Assignment last updated by Fallencj18 (talk) 23:26, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:David Carson (graphic designer)


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Polyface Farm

This page is an archive of the discussion surrounding the proposed deletion of the page entitled Polyface Farm.

This page is kept as an historic record.

Consensus was not reached, so the article was kept.

Orphaned vanity stub last edited in 2002. Fredrik 11:58, 28 May 2004 (UTC)

 * delete. Dunc Harris | Talk 12:05, 28 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. Google shows a good deal of hits, among others . Thue 13:45, 28 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. If it's good enough for the magazine of the Smithsonian institute, it deserves a mentioning in Wikipedia. Abigail 15:31, May 28, 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. List on Cleanup -- it needs expansion to explain why it's notable.  RickK 19:35, 29 May 2004 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue or the deletion should be placed on other relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.


text:
Dixie Carter

Dixie Virginia Carter (May 25, 1939 – April 10, 2010) was an American actress. She starred as Julia Sugarbaker on the sitcom Designing Women (1986–1993) and as Randi King on the drama series Family Law (1999–2002). She was nominated for the 2007 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for her role as Gloria Hodge on Desperate Housewives (2006–2007).

Carter made her professional stage debut in a Memphis production of the musical Carousel in 1960 and made her Broadway debut in the 1974 musical Sextet. After appearing for two years as District Attorney Brandy Henderson on the CBS soap The Edge of Night (1974–1976), she starred in the 1976 Broadway revival of the musical Pal Joey. Her other television roles included the sitcoms On Our Own (1977–1978), Filthy Rich (1982–1983) and Diff'rent Strokes (1984–1985). She returned to Broadway to play Maria Callas in the play Master Class in 1997 and to play Mrs. Meers in the musical Thoroughly Modern Millie in 2004.

Early life
Dixie Virginia Carter was born May 25, 1939, to Esther Virginia (née Hillsman) and Halbert Leroy Carter in McLemoresville, Tennessee. Carter spent many of her early years in Memphis. She attended the University of Memphis and Southwestern at Memphis.

In college, she was a member of the Delta Delta Delta sorority. In 1959, Carter competed in the Miss Tennessee pageant, where she placed first runner-up to Mickie Weyland. Carter won the Miss Volunteer beauty pageant at the University of Tennessee the same year.

Career
In 1960, Carter made her professional stage debut in a Memphis production of Carousel, co-starring George Hearn, whom she would go on to marry 17 years later. She moved to New York City in 1963 and got a part in a production of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale.

In 1967, she began an eight-year hiatus from acting, to focus on raising her two daughters; she returned to acting in 1974, when she filled in for actress Nancy Pinkerton as Dorian Cramer on One Life to Live while Pinkerton was on maternity leave. She subsequently was cast in the role of Assistant D.A. Olivia Brandeis "Brandy" Henderson on the soap opera The Edge of Night from 1974 to 1976. Carter took the role though some advised her that doing a daytime soap might negatively affect her career. However, she was first noticed in this role, and after leaving Edge of Night in 1977, she appeared in several episodes of another soap opera, The Doctors as socialite Linda Elliott. She relocated from New York to Los Angeles and pursued prime-time television roles. In 1976, she won the Theater World Award for Jesse and the Bandit Queen.

She appeared in series such as Out of the Blue (as Aunt Marion), On Our Own (as April Baxter), Diff'rent Strokes (as the first Maggie McKinney Drummond, Phillip Drummond's second wife), The Greatest American Hero (playing a KGB spy) and as the stuck up and conniving Carlotta Beck on Filthy Rich (1982).

Carter's appearance in Filthy Rich paved the way for her most notable role, that of sharp tongued liberal interior decorator Julia Sugarbaker in the 1986–1993 television program Designing Women, set in Atlanta. Filthy Rich was created by Linda Bloodworth Thomason, who also created Designing Women. (In the beginning, without knowing the content of the show, Bloodworth-Thomason's only idea was to create a show starring Carter and fellow castmates Delta Burke, Annie Potts and Jean Smart. Filthy Rich also featured fellow Designing Women cast member Delta Burke in its cast.) After much persuasion from creators Linda Bloodworth-Thomason and her husband Harry Thomason, Hal Holbrook, Carter's real-life husband, had a recurring role as attorney Reese Watson. Carter's daughters Ginna and Mary Dixie Carter also had guest star roles as Julia Sugarbaker's nieces Jennifer and Camilla in the episode "The Naked Truth" in 1989.

In 1997, Carter starred as Maria Callas in Terrence McNally's play Master Class. She played the role from January to June. The role previously had been played by Zoe Caldwell and Patti LuPone.

Noted for portraying strong-minded Southern women, Carter provided the voice of Necile in Mike Young Productions' cartoon feature The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus. She was also in the voice cast of My Neighbors the Yamadas, the English language dub of Studio Ghibli's 1999 anime movie of the same.

From 1999 to 2002, she portrayed Randi King on the legal drama Family Law. From 1999 to 2000, she was a cast member on the short-lived sitcom Ladies Man, appearing as a regular on both Ladies Man and Family Law. In 2004, she made a guest appearance on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, playing a defense attorney named Denise Brockmorton in the episode called "Home", in which she defended the paranoid mother of two children (Diane Venora) who had manipulated her older son to kill the younger son after breaking her home rules.

In 2006–2007, Carter found a resurgence of fame with a new generation of fans portraying Gloria Hodge, Bree Van de Kamp's disturbed (and scheming) mother-in-law on Desperate Housewives. Creator Marc Cherry started in Hollywood as Carter's assistant on the set of Designing Women. Her first and only Emmy Awards nomination was for the 59th Primetime Emmy Awards under the category of Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for her role as Gloria Hodge.

Carter gave an interview in 2006 for the feature-length documentary That Guy: The Legacy of Dub Taylor, which received support from Taylor's family and many of Dub's previous coworkers, including Bill Cosby, Peter Fonda, Don Collier, Cheryl Rogers-Barnett and many others. The project was scheduled to have its world premiere at Taylor's childhood hometown of Augusta, Georgia on April 14, 2007.

Her final film was That Evening Sun, which she filmed with her husband Hal Holbrook in East Tennessee in summer 2008. The film, produced by Dogwood Entertainment (a subsidiary of DoubleJay Creative), is based on a short story by William Gay. That Evening Sun premiered at South By Southwest, where it competed for the narrative feature grand jury prize.

Personal life
In 1967, Carter married businessman Arthur Carter (no relation). Following the birth of her daughters, Carter left acting for eight years to raise her children with Arthur's three children, Jon, Whendy and Ellen Carter.

She divorced Arthur Carter in 1977 and married theater and TV actor George Hearn the same year. Two years later, she and Hearn divorced.

In 1996, Carter published a memoir titled Trying to Get to Heaven, in which she talked frankly about her life with Hal Holbrook, Designing Women and her plastic surgery during the show's run. She acknowledged, along with other celebrities, having used human growth hormone for its antiaging properties.

Political views
Carter was a registered Republican who described her political views as libertarian. She was interviewed by Bill O'Reilly along with Pat Boone at the 2000 Republican National Convention, and once jokingly described herself as "the only Republican in show business". However, Carter's Designing Women character, Julia Sugarbaker, was known for her liberal political views and related speeches, for which she was nicknamed "The Terminator." Carter disagreed with some of her character's beliefs, and made a deal with the show's producers that if Julia delivered a "Terminator" monologue, she would get to sing a song in a future episode. In later years she was also a libertarian Republican who supported civil rights and same-sex marriage.

Death and legacy
Carter died on April 10, 2010, in Houston, Texas. Holbrook said her death was caused by complications from endometrial cancer. Dixie Carter was interred in McLemoresville, Tennessee.

The Dixie Carter Performing Arts and Academic Enrichment Center (informally called "The Dixie") in Huntingdon, Tennessee, is named in honor of Carter.

A public service announcement made by Carter in 2003 describing and offering outreach to people with spasmodic torticollis/cervical dystonia began appearing in New York and New Jersey and then across the United States in 2010.

title: Dixie Carter


text:
User talk:172/History Committee

   votes

title: User talk:172/History Committee