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Varaždin

Varaždin ( or ; Varasd, also known by alternative names) is a city in Northern Croatia, 81 km north of Zagreb. The total population is 46,946, with 38,839 in the city settlement itself (2011).

The city is best known for its baroque buildings, music, textile, food and IT industry.

Name
In Hungarian the town is known as Varasd, in Latin as Varasdinum and in German as Warasdin. The name Varaždin traces its origin to varoš, a Hungarian loanword from város, meaning city.

Population
The total population of the city is 46,946 and it includes the following settlements:

 * Črnec Biškupečki, population 696
 * Donji Kućan, population 716
 * Gojanec, population 620
 * Gornji Kućan, population 1,139
 * Hrašćica, population 1,283
 * Jalkovec, population 1,309
 * Kućan Marof, population 1,388
 * Poljana Biškupečka, population 452
 * Varaždin, population 38,839
 * Zbeljava, population 504

12th-13th centuries
The first written reference to Varaždin, whose historical name is Garestin, was on 20 August 1181, when King Béla III mentioned the nearby thermal springs (Varaždinske Toplice) in a legal document.

Varaždin was declared a free royal borough in 1209 by the Hungarian King Andrew II. The town became the economic and military centre of northern Croatia. Due to Ottoman raids, the town was structured defensively around the old fortress, and acquired the shape of a typical medieval Wasserburg. In the early 13th century, the Knights Hospitaller (Ivanovci) came to Varaždin, where they built the church and a monastery. Mid 13th century, the church of St. John belonging to the Hospitallers was taken over by Franciscans, who extended it over several centuries, eventually replacing the medieval structures with early baroque.

14th-15th centuries
At the end of the 14th century, Varaždin fortress passed to the hands of the Counts of Celje. Over the following centuries Varaždin had several owners, the most influential being Beatrice Frankopan (1480–1510), wife of Margrave Georg of Brandenburg-Ansbach, who built the town hall; her successor was Baron Ivan Ungnad (1493–1564), who reinforced the existing fortification. At the end of the 16th century Count Thomas Erdődy became its owner, assuming the hereditary position of Varaždin prefects (župan), and the fortress remained in the ownership of the Erdődy family until 1925.

16th-17th centuries
The town was the seat of Slavonnian Military Border in late 16th century.

16th century is also the beginning of fires being recorded; starting with a fire in Varaždin in 1558, albeit no details are given.
 * Destructions by fires and fire fighting measures

We know more about the great fire of May 27, 1582, that had such dire effects that the Varaždin population counted time as "prior" and "after the Great fire". The losses include the parish church, the Franciscan church and a friary (subsequently the Franciscans left Varaždin), the chapels of St. Vid, Michael and Holy Trinity, the homes of the local tollhouse clerks and customs officers. The stronghold was spared but the fire jumped the city walls and ravaged the suburbs close to the river Drava. The citizens asked the king for help and were granted state tax exoneration for the following six years by the Hungarian royal chamber, relieved from tax duty for one year and were assigned free serf labor. Austrian archduke Ernest wrote to Varaždin County officials on July 9, 1582 to provide free lumber for the citizens who had lost their homes in the fire.

That fire prompted autorities, not only in Varaždin but also in other towns, to set up watch posts with guards on lookout for possible fire.

A fire on April 29, 1586, burned down a number of buildings. The following year, 1587, sees two fires: one on May 10 that burned 23 homes in the Royal street, and one on December 26 that burned only one home. At that time, Varaždin, contrary to some other towns, did not have any organized fire-fighting service. The next fire recorded, in 1592, brings in the town protocol the description of «pitiful and grieving town of Varaždin»; among the damages are noted that of several public buildings, including the town hall and St. Nicholas church. Another fire in 1599 destroyed 66 buildings in and around the street of St.Vid. 1599 also sees the town officials take the first fire fighting measures. This ordnance seems to have had some effect, as the next recorded fire dates from mid-17th century.

The great fire of 1646, that destroyed more than half the town and damaged many of the remaining buildings, did not deter the town's growth, as better buildings replaced the "ugly town district". Sigismund Trautmanstorf(de), a member of Austria's nobility, reports a fire on May 1st, 1648, fuelled by high wind, that destroyed more than a half the town within its walls - several hundred of houses disappeared. The town magistrate asked King Ferdinand III to relieve the town from Royal chamber taxes, due to the current devastation; the king granted that request and on 27 October 1649 he pardoned the town from paying overdue taxes of 500 Hungarian forint, with the specific reason of «half of Varaždin perishing in the fire of 1 May 1648». On Easter Monday of March 27, 1665, an extremely large fire started in Brodovski konec suburb (E-N-E of Varaždin ) and, due to a strong wind, crossed the town walls and spread all over town. It destroyed Varaždin churches (parish church, Jesuit church and Franciscan church), spared only eight homes and new stables belonging to Varaždin stronghold's military commander; it also destroyed several towers from the town walls, albeit sparing the one used as main armoury - a lucky escape, as that one held the gunpowder magazine; thus sparing some lives. Beside the inner town buildings, the entire suburb outside the upper gates was also destroyed in the fire, from the east all the way to the stronghold's toll gates; this included part of the main street and Vidovski konec street, toward Biškupec village (about 3 km south of Varaždin ); the next day the fire caught Vidovski konec and burned all its buildings down.

St. Florian's chapel was built in Varaždin in 1669, as a votive chapel after the 1665 fire (catholic patron saint St. Florian was believed to protect from fires, thus has many dedicated chapels and churches - such as that in Koprivnica, first mentioned in 1680, or in Križevci after their fire in 1735).

Fires in the 18th century include that of 1745, set up by soldiers spiteful of their lodgers, which destroyed a number of homes and a brewery.

In 1748 another fire destroyed much of the southern suburbs, including 119 homes and several hundred stables and barns.

In 1767, the Croatian Royal Council - newly installed in town - gave order to the Varaždin town authorities to uphold restriction on drying flax and hemp fiber on house stoves, on smoking around barns and stables, and on replacing wooden chimneys by brick-built ones, the latter an expensive task: 1768 records show that that concerned most of Varaždin's chimneys, a fire hazard compounded by that the people hardly ever cleaned them. In 1755, Varaždin had only one chimneysweeper, not even paid on a regular basis. The presence of the country's gouvernment in town somewhat changed the attitude towards fire. For example, upon another fire in 1769, there were records of efficiency in putting out the fire. Members of the town's administration showing up at fire sight were to take charge of the operation, duties were assigned to firefighters and their performance monitored.

A record from 1771 mentions 32 buildings and many stables and barns destroyed by fire. That year, the Hungarian Chamber representative proposed to the town authorities to help those who lost homes in fire rebuild in bricks and setting up stoves outside their houses - not only in Varaždin town center, but also further in the town outskirts. Thus in 1774, the Hungarian chamber demanded from Varaždin town authorities that burned-down homes of Sračinec village be replaced with raw brick buildings. Morever, in 1767 the town owned only one water-sprinkling device with a two- to three bucket capacity; in 1772 Queen Maria Theresa issued an ordnance listing necessary equipment that the town's authorities had to purchase for fire-fighting, and by 1773, the town owned most of this equipment. In 1771, Varaždin authorities made fire-fighting compulsory for all citizens.

But this did not spare the town from its next big fire, that of April 25-26, 1776. It started in the Sračinec suburb (west of Varaždin ) and, again due to strong wind - and the carelessness of a merchant who had stashed gunpowder in his house, which exploded and added fuel to the fire -, spread to Varaždin. Of the 113 buildings held within its walls, 70 were entirely destroyed and 11 partially destroyed; the northern suburb had held 256 buildings, of which 111 were entirely destroyed; and of the 245 homes in the southern suburb, 135 were destroyed : altogether, from the total of 614 homes, 316 were destroyed - more than half. Most of the nobility fled the town, and with it the country's government so recently installed there. But the commoners (primarily merchants and artisans) remained - and turned their town into one huge building site: by 1780 the number of homes equaled that prior to the fire.

After that fire, the town authorities decreed a public prohibition of wooden houses inside the town walls; even more specifically, brickmade chimneys became compulsory. The authorities ensured that adequate building materials were available. A committee was set up to inspect all chimneys and list down those which were fire hazards. Incentives were set up too, rewarding those citizens who were first to help in fire fighting; in the 18th century, there were public citations for citizens who showed up at fires with fire-fighting sprinkling equipment, as well as those who arrived on site with large amounts of water to put out fire. Later, fire insurance policies were set up with insurance companies.

In spite of all those set-backs, the 17th and 18th centuries saw Varaždin's economy and culture expand ; within that period it grew from around 3,000 inhabitants around the year 1600 to around 5,500 inhabitants by the end of the 18th century.

In 1756 or 1766, the Ban Ferenc Nádasdy chose Varaždin as his official residence, and Varaždin became the capital of all of Croatia. It hosted the Croatian Sabor and the Royal Croatian Council founded by Empress Maria Theresa.
 * Varaždin capital of Croatia... for a short time

The April 1776 fire put an end to that presence in town.

The periods of the Reformation and the counter-reformation had a great influence on Varaždin. With the arrival of the Jesuits, the school (gymnasium) and the Jesuit house were founded, and churches and other buildings were built in the Baroque style. In the 18th century Varaždin was the seat of many Croatian noblemen, and in 1756 it became the Croatian administrative centre. The fire of 1776 destroyed some 80% of the town, resulting in the administrative institutions moving back to Zagreb.
 * Post-capital

19th century
Varaždin was the seat of Varaždin County of the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia within the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, ruled by the Kingdom of Hungary after the compromise of 1867. The Hungarian stamp, issued in 1881 shows both names.

By the 19th century Varaždin had been completely rebuilt and expanded, with flourishing crafts and trade, and later the manufacture of silk and bricks. The theatre and the music school were founded. From the second half of 19th century, fire fighting was organized and specialized fire-fighting societies were established; the very first fire fighting volunteers in Croato-Slavonnian Kingdom was organized in Varaždin in 1864.

20th century
In the 20th century Varaždin developed into the industrial centre of Northwestern Croatia. The textile manufacturer Tivar was founded in 1918. On 12 July 1941, Varaždin was declared Judenfrei by the Ustaše, becoming the first city in Croatia to earn this dubious distinction.

The former village of Biškupec, whose population was tracked as a separate settlement between 1857 and 1948, when it reached 635 inhabitants, was integrated into the city of Varaždin since the 1953 census.

In the Croatian War of Independence, 1991, Varaždin suffered directly for only for a few days, because the huge Yugoslav People's Army base quickly surrendered after the Siege of Varaždin Barracks, resulting in a minimal number of casualties, and providing weapons (worth $600m) for the Croatian army.

Monuments and sights
Varaždin represents the best preserved and richest urban complex in continental Croatia. It aims for a Unesco listing as a World Heritage Site.

The Old Town (fortress) is an example of medieval defensive buildings. Construction began in the 14th century, and in the following century the rounded towers, typical of Gothic architecture in Croatia, were added. Today it houses the Town Museum. The fortress was depicted on the reverse of the Croatian 5 kuna banknote, issued in 1993 and 2001.

The Old and Contemporary Masters Gallery is located in the Sermage Palace, built in the rococo style in 1750.

In 1523, Margrave Georg of Brandenburg built the town hall in late baroque style, with the Varaždin coat of arms at the foot of the tower, and it has continued in its function until the present day. There is a guard-changing ceremony every Saturday.

Varaždin's Cathedral, a former Jesuit church, was built in 1647, and is distinguished by its baroque entrance, eighteenth-century altar, and paintings.

There are many baroque and rococo palaces and houses in the town. Worth particular mention is Varaždin's Croatian National Theatre, built in 1873 and designed by the Viennese architects Herman Helmer and Ferdinand Fellner.

A baroque music festival has been held annually in Varaždin since 1971, and attracts some of the finest musicians and their fans from Croatia and the world. Recommended to visitors is also the historical street festival Špancir fest every August.

The city features its old city guard, named Purgari, in various city ceremonies as well as the weekly ceremony of the 'change of the guards' in front of the city hall. Additionally, Varaždin police officers patrol on bicycles in the warmer months.

The Old Town (Stari Grad)
The Old Town keep is one of the biggest monuments in the city of Varaždin and one of its biggest tourist attractions. It is located in the north-western section of the city core. Today the keep houses the Varaždin City Museum.

The keep is first mentioned in the 12th century and it is believed to be the center of Varaždin county life. The keep underwent numerous ownership changes and reconstructions over the centuries. The Old Town was featured on the now defunct 5 Kuna bill.

Varaždin cemetery
The cemetery dates back to 1773 and it was long time an ordinary place until 1905, when Herman Haller had an idea to make it more park-like with large trees and alleys for citizens to stroll through. The reconstruction of the cemetery was done between 1905 and 1947, and its current landscape and architecture dates from these works, It is now a protected cultural and natural park.

Festivals

 * Špancirfest
 * Varaždin Baroque Evenings
 * International Children and Youth Animation Film Festival VAFI, since 2010

In 2023 Varaždin is the first croatian city to become a UNESCO Creative City in the field of music.

Museums

 * THE OLD TOWN (STARI GRAD) Museum houses the Cultural and Historic Collection. The Old Town Museum has been a part of the Varaždin City Museum organization since 1925.  Today is features: over 400 pieces from the glass, ceramics and clocks collection, 10 rooms furnished in chronological period style (renaissance, baroque, rococo, Empire, Biedermeier, historicism and art deco), a chapel and sacristy, and 2 rooms dedicated to two prominent men from Varaždin, Vatroslav Jagić and Ivan Kukuljević Sakcinski.
 * THE HERZER PALACE houses the Entomological Collection focusing on The World of Insects. There are over 4500 exhibits which clearly show the biology of bugs through several topics:In the forest, Near the forest and on the meadow, In the water and near the water, At night and underground.
 * THE SERMAGE PALACE houses the Gallery of Old and Contemporary Masters Art Gallery. It is home to over 5300 works of art separated in 10 collections with works ranging from the 15th to the 20th century.

Geography
The total area is 59.45 km2 (2001). The urban city settlement is 34.22 km2.

The centre of Varaždin County is located near the Drava River, at 46.312°N, 16.361°W.

Climate
Varaždin has a warm-summer humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification Dfb) bordering on a maritime climate (Cfb).

Economy and tourism

Varaždin is one of the few Croatian cities whose industry did not directly suffer from the war in 1991. Besides textile giant Varteks (Varaždin Textile), it also has nationally important food (Vindija), metal, and construction industries. The Information Technology and financial and banking sector as are well developed. Further economic development has been encouraged with the creation of a free investment zone.

Today Varaždin is a tourist destination for the summer holidays. The city has numerous areas of interests ranging from cultural areas (reflected by many museums, galleries and theaters in the area), shopping centers in the downtown core, various sports and recreation facilities, also a rich history in cuisine. The close of the tourist season is marked by two annual festivals. The annual ŠpancirFest begins at the end of August and ends in September (lasts for 10 days). At this time the city welcomes artists, street performers, musicians and vendors for what is called "the street walking festival".

The city also hosts the Varaždin Baroque Evenings festival, first held in 1971. The festival honours baroque music and culture, both of which hold a special place in Varaždin's identity.

Varaždin is also the host of the Radar Festival, which hosts concerts at the end of summer. It has hosted artists like Bob Dylan, Carlos Santana, The Animals, Manic Street Preachers, Solomon Burke and others.

Geothermal potential
In October 2023, the state-owned energy company, Bukotermal, announced the discovery of an underground lake of superheated water at an average 142 C, with the potential to support a 16MW geothermal power plant near the towns of Lunjkovec and Kutnjak.

Transportation
Apart from A4 highway that runs between Zagreb and Goričan (Hungarian border), there are three state roads that reach the area of Varaždin: D2, D3 and D35. The town is fully encircled by the Varaždin bypass. Varaždin is also a hub for bus transportation company "AP Varaždin" which offers significant number of county (local), inter-county and inter-city services, also offering international lines.

Varaždin's railway station is one of the largest and most important train stations in northern Croatia. It represents the intersection of three Croatian railway corridors that are used for both passenger and freight traffic - it lies on R201 railway (Zaprešić - Čakovec) and also represents the terminus for one local line (L201 connecting Golubovec) and one regional line (R202 connecting Dalj via Koprivnica, Virovitica and Osijek). All of the rail corridors that start, end or pass through Varaždin are single-tracked and non-electrified.

Sport

Varaždin is home to a number of professional and semi-professional sports clubs. Varaždin Arena, located near the Drava River, was one of the hosts of the 2009 World Men's Handball Championship held in Croatia.
 * Football: NK Varaždin (1931–2015), NK Varteks (2011), NK Varaždin (2012)
 * Handball: RK Varteks Di Caprio, RK Koka
 * Basketball: KK Vindi
 * Volleyball: OK Varaždin
 * Tennis: TK Varaždin
 * Baseball BK Vindija Varaždin
 * KK Varteks
 * Ice hockey: "KHL Varaždin"
 * Wrestling: "Vindija"
 * Water polo: "Coning"
 * Badminton: "BK KAJ"
 * Bicycling: "BD Sloga"
 * Track and field: "TK Marathon 95"

Schools
Varaždin has seven elementary schools, 10 high schools (2 public gymnasiums, 2 private gymnasiums, trade schools, and other specialized high schools for various paths). Varaždin 2 faculties (Faculty of Organization and Information Technology and Geotechnical faculty) that are part of the University of Zagreb and the University North.

Universities
There are 2 public universities currently operating in the city of Varaždin: Varaždin and Koprivnica took part in establishing the University North, a public national university that operates in both cities since 2015. University of Zagreb is present in the city with 2 displaced faculties from Zagreb itself.

Notable people

This list contains some of the notable people who were either born in Varaždin, lived in the city for a longer time or were in some significant way related to it.
 * Ivan Belostenec – linguist, lexicographer
 * Slavko Brankov – actor
 * Mirko Breyer – Croatian writer, bibliographer and antiquarian
 * Kristijan Đurasek – cyclist
 * Baltazar Dvorničić Napuly – Catholic cleric and lawyer
 * Ignaz Grossmann (1825–1897), rabbi
 * Juraj Habdelić – writer
 * Robert Herjavec – businessman, investor, and television personality
 * Hermann II of Celje – count
 * Saša Hiršzon (born 1972) - tennis player
 * Branko Ivanković – football manager
 * Luka Ivanušec – footballer
 * Vatroslav Jagić – philologist, linguist
 * Marija Jurić Zagorka – journalist, dramatist and novelist
 * Ljubomir Kerekeš – actor
 * Vjekoslav Klaić – writer and historian
 * Ferdinand Konščak – explorer, cartographer
 * Željko Krajan – tennis coach and former player
 * Ivan Kukuljević Sakcinski – historian, politician, writer
 * Maria Leitner - writer, journalist
 * Samuel Louis Mosinger – businessman and member of the "Varaždin charity society"
 * Miljenko Mumlek – footballer
 * Robert Murić – footballer
 * Ivan Padovec – guitar virtuoso
 * Franjo Rački – historian, politician and writer
 * Marko Rog – footballer
 * Radoslav Rogina – cyclist
 * Vjekoslav Rosenberg-Ružić – composer, conductor and music educator
 * Silvester Sabolčki – footballer
 * Tadija Smičiklas – historian and politician
 * Ignacije Szentmartony – theologian
 * Ksaver Šandor Gjalski – writer and civil servant
 * Karolina Šprem – tennis player
 * Krsto Ungnad – baron/mayor
 * Željko Vincek – track and field athlete
 * Davor Vugrinec – footballer
 * Johann Baptist Wanhal – composer

Twin towns – sister cities
Varaždin is twinned with:

 * 🇦🇹 Bad Radkersburg, Austria
 * 🇩🇪 Koblenz, Germany
 * 🇮🇹 Montale, Italy
 * 🇸🇮 Ptuj, Slovenia
 * 🇩🇪 Ravensburg, Germany
 * Schaffhausen, Switzerland
 * 🇸🇰 Trnava, Slovakia

 * 🇭🇺 Zalaegerszeg, Hungary

Notes and references

 * Notes

 * References

title: Varaždin


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Tạ Thu Thâu

Tạ Thu Thâu (1906–1945) in the 1930s was the principal representative of Trotskyism in Vietnam and, in colonial Cochinchina, of left opposition to the Indochinese Communist Party (PCI) of Nguyen Ai Quoc (Ho Chi Minh). He joined to Left Opposition to the United Front policy of the Commintern as a student in Paris in the late 1920s. After a period of uneasy co-operation with "Stalinists" on the Saigon paper La Lutte, he triumphed over the Communists in the 1939 elections to the Cochinchina Colonial Council on a platform that called for radical land reform and workers' control, and opposed defense collaboration with the French authorities. He was executed by the Communist Viet Minh in September 1945.

Early life
Tạ Thu Thâu was born in 1906 in Tân Bình, An Phú, (near Long Xuyên) in the French colony of Cochinchina (southern Vietnam), the fourth child of a large and very poor family: his father was an itinerant carpenter. As a scholar student he attended a high school in Saigon, and (with a Baccalauréat Franco-Indigène) in 1925 began work as a teacher. In 1926, at age 20 he joined the Jeune Annam (Young Annam), and wrote for the nationalist newspaper Annam. In April Thâu took part in a week of protests attended by thousands of workers, and by students, sparked by the death, after 18 years penal servitude, of the veteran nationalist Phan Châu Trinh and by the arrest of Nguyễn An Ninh.

Nguyễn An Ninh was an important influence on Thâu. From the pages of his journal La Cloche Fêlée (from Baudelaire's Broken Bell), Ninh exhorted young people to "leave the home of their fathers." Only then could they hope to shake off the "suffocating ignorance" in which they were trapped by obscurantism: "our oppression comes from France, but so does the spirit of liberation." In 1927 Thâu sailed for France, where he enrolled in the Faculty of Science, University of Paris.

"Nationalism or Socialism", Paris 1927–1930
Tạ Thu Thâu clashed with Moscow-aligned Communists from the very outset of his political engagement in Paris as a member, and from early 1928 as the leader, of the Annamite Independence Party (An Nam Độc lập Đảng). He accused "salaried Annamites of the Colonial Commission of the French Communist Party" of infiltrating his party in order to turn members into "puppets carrying out the Communist Party's dictates." If the oppressed of the colonies" were to secure their "place in the sun," Thâu argued they would have to "unite against European imperialism-against Red imperialism as well as White."

In 1929, after attending a conference of the Anti-Imperialist World Congress in Frankfurt, Germany, and contact with the philosopher and human rights activist, Felicien Challey, and the Communist Party dissidents Alfred Rosmer and Daniel Guérin, Thâu expressed his view of the Indo-Chinese revolution in the Left Opposition La Vérité. The revolution would not follow the precedent set by the Third International in China, where support for a broad nationalist front, the Kuomintang, had led Communists "to the graveyard." The "'Sun Yat-sen-ist' synthesis of democracy, nationalism and socialism" is "a kind of nationalist mysticism." It obscures "the concrete class relationships, and the real, organic liaison between the indigenous bourgeoisie and French imperialism," in the light of which the call for independence is "mechanical and formalistic." "A revolution based on the organisation of the proletarian and peasant masses is the only one capable of liberating the colonies ... The question of independence must be bound up with that of the proletarian socialist revolution."

Arrested during a public protest in front of the Élysée Palace over the execution of the leaders of the Yên Bái mutiny on 22 May 1930, Thâu and eighteen of his compatriots were deported back to Saigon.

"The Struggle" in Saigon, 1930-1939
Tạ Thu Thâu's first attempt to challenge to the Indochinese Communist Party (PCI) from the left, the Indochinese Communism Union (Đông Dương Cộng Sản), was broken up in 1932 with his arrest. On his release early in 1933 Thâu decided to explore the limited opportunities for "legal" political activity. To the surprise of some of his comrades, for this purpose he was willing to work not only with independent nationalists but also with "Stalinists"—with members of the PCI.

The focus for cooperation was the spring 1933 elections Saigon municipal elections. Thâu and his associates put forward a "Workers's List" and briefly published a newspaper (in French to get around the political restrictions on Vietnamese), La Lutte (The Struggle) to rally support for it. In spite of the restricted franchise, two of this Struggle group were elected (although denied their seats), the independent nationalist (later Trotskyist) Tran Van Thach and Nguyễn Văn Tạo, previously a member of the French Communist Party (PCF), now in the PCI.

In the autumn of 1934, partly through the intercession of Nguyễn An Ninh, the Struggle Group was revived with La Lutte being published as a regular weekly. In March 1935 Cochinchina Council elections their united "Worker's List" won no seats but 17 percent of the vote.

Those unwilling to accept the accommodations involved in this unique Trotskyist-Stalinist entente rallied to the League of Internationalist Communists for the Construction of the Fourth International (Chanh Doan Cong San Quoc Te Chu Nghia-Phai Tan Thanh De Tu Quoc). The die hards included Ngô Văn (Ngô Văn Xuyết), who in later exile was to memorialise Tạ Thu Thâu in his history of the revolutionary struggle.

Tạ Thu Thâu and Nguyễn Văn Tạo came together for the last time in the April 1937 city council elections, both being elected. Together with the lengthening shadow of the Moscow Trials, their growing disagreements over the new PCF-supported Popular Front government in France ensured a split.

The leftward shift in the French National Assembly in Thâu's view had brought little. He and his comrades continued to be arrested during labour strikes, and preparations for a popular congress in response to the government's promise of colonial consultation had been suppressed. Colonial Minister Marius Moutet, a Socialist commented that he had sought "a wide consultation with all elements of the popular [will]," but with "Trotskyist-Communists intervening in the villages to menace and intimidate the peasant part of the population, taking all authority from the public officials," the necessary "formula" had not been found.

Thâu's motion attacking the Popular Front for betraying the promises of reforms in the colonies was rejected by the PCI faction and the Stalinists withdrew from La Lutte. They established their own paper, L'Avant-garde, in which they denounced their erstwhile Trotskyist colleagues as "the twin brothers of fascism."

With La Lutte now as Tranh Dau (Struggle) an openly Trotskyist paper, Thâu and Phan Văn Hùm led a "Workers' and Peasants' Slate" into victory over both the Constitutionalists and the PCI's Democratic Front in the April 1939 Cochinchina Council elections. The lutteurs programme had been openly revolutionary (radical land redistribution, workers control). But the key was their opposition to the "national defence levy" that the Communist Party, in the spirit of Franco-Soviet accord, had felt obliged to support.

On May 20, 1939, Governor-General Brévié (who set the election results aside) wrote to Colonial Minister Mandel: "the Trotskyists under the leadership of Ta Thu Thau, want to take advantage of a possible war in order to win total liberation." The Stalinists, on the other hand, are "following the position of the Communist Party in France" and "will thus be loyal if war breaks out."

Such as it was, the political opening against he PCI closed with the Hitler-Stalin Pact of August 23, 1939. Moscow ordered a return to direct confrontation with the French. In Cochinchina the Party in 1940 obliged, triggering a disastrous peasant revolt.

Belatedly, the Luttuers, then numbering then perhaps 3000, and the smaller number of Octobrists united as the official section of the newly constituted Fourth International. They formed the International Communist League (Vietnam) (ICL), or less formally as The Fourth Internationalist Party (Trang Cau De Tu Dang).

With the outbreak of World War II, Communists of every stripe were repressed. The French law of September 26, 1939, which legally dissolved the French Communist Party, was applied in Indochina to Stalinists and Trotskyists alike. Tạ Thu Thâu was arrested and was incarcerated in the penal colony Poulo-Condore. He was held until March 1945 when the occupying Japanese finally dispensed with the Vichy French administration.

Northern mission, arrest and execution 1945
While Tạ Thu Thâu was in Poulo-Condore, in Tonkin, Nguyen Ai Quoc, now known as Hồ Chí Minh, was laying the foundations for national power. He created the Viet Minh (“Viet Nam doc lap dong minh hoi”—-Vietnam Independence League). A purportedly broad nationalist front, the Viet Minh remained (in contrast to the Chinese Kuomintang) entirely a creature of the Party (even after this was formally dissolved in 1945). Subordinating all other social interests, the objective was “To expel the French and Japanese fascists and to establish the complete independence of Vietnam."

On his release from Poulo-Condore, Ngô Văn records that Thâu and a small group secretly travelled north to Tonkin. They encountered a fraternal group publishing a bulletin, Chien Dau (Combat) and were received into clandestine meetings of mine workers and peasants. But famine was rife. On May 14 he managed to get an appeal published in the daily Saigon. He called on his "brothers in Cochinchina to eat only what you need to stay alive and to send here everything you possibly can, immediately. His young comrade, Ðỗ Bá Thế, drew on their northern mission in his 1960 novel, Thím Bảy giỏi ("The Good Auntie").

In August, hunted and pursued as "anti-worker elements" by the Viet Minh, Thâu and his group turned south. On September 14, at Quang Ngai, he fell into their hands. There were reports that Thau was put on trial before a “people’s court”, but that on the personal instruction of Hồ, Tran Van Giau, of the southern Viet Minh command, overrode the court when it refused to convict Thau, and had him summarily executed. His fate was shared at Quang Ngai by large numbers of Caodaists, independent nationalists and their families. Interviewed in 1989, Giau, who allowed that he had known Thâu since their days in Paris and been helped by him when on the run from the Sûreté in Saigon, refused to answer questions about the fate of Trotskyists at the hand of the Viet Minh and denied any connection to Thâu's death.

In September, during the general uprising in Saigon against the restoration of the French, Thâu's reconvened La Lutte grouping formed a workers' militia. Of these, Ngô Văn records two hundred alone being "massacred" by the French, on October 3, at the Thị Nghè bridge. Caught between the French and the Viet Minh, there were few survivors.

A year later in Paris, Daniel Guerin asked Ho Chi Minh about Tạ Thu Thâu's fate. Hồ Chí Minh had replied, "with unfeigned emotion," that "Thâu was a great patriot and we mourn him", but then a moment later added in a steady voice, "All those who do not follow the line which I have laid down will be broken."

Commemoration in South Vietnam
Up until the capitulation of the South Vietnamese regime to the North Vietnamese army and their Việt-Cộng auxiliaries in August 1975, streets in a number of southern towns and cities were named in honor of Tạ Thu Thâu. From March 22, 1955, these included the street leading to the East Gate of Bến Thành Market in old Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City, which now bears the name of the Hanoi-approved "patriotic intellectual" Lưu Văn Lang. There is, however, a small street in District 9 of the city, near the Thu Duc intersection, that continues as đường Tạ Thu Thâu.

The year before the fall of Saigon, in January 1974 a biography of Tạ Thu Thâu, Nhà cách mạng Tạ Thu Thâu, 1906-1945 (The Revolutionary Tạ Thu Thâu), was published in the city written by Phương Lan.

Thâu had a wife who died in Paris in 2010 at the age of 101.

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

title: Tạ Thu Thâu


text: File:Exeterplaque.jpg

title: File:Exeterplaque.jpg


text:
Wipeout (1988 game show)

Wipeout is an American game show. Contestants competed to eliminate correct answers to trivia questions from a game board without eliminating incorrect answers, known as "wipeout"s. It aired from September 12, 1988, to June 9, 1989, with Peter Tomarken as host. The series was produced by Dames-Fraser Productions, and was distributed in first-run syndication by Paramount Domestic Television.

First round
Three contestants competed on each episode. Initially, each game featured three new contestants. After several weeks, a returning champion and two new contestants competed.

The contestants were given a category and shown 16 possible answers on a four-by-four grid of monitors. Eleven answers were correct, while the five incorrect ones were referred to as "wipeouts". The contestant in the leftmost position began the round. The contestant in control chose one answer at a time; each correct answer awarded money, while finding a wipeout reset the score to zero and ended his/her turn. After each correct answer, the contestant could either choose again or pass control to the next contestant. The first correct answer of the round was worth $25, and the value of each subsequent answer increased by $25, with the last one worth $275.

The round ended once all eleven correct answers were found or if all five wipeouts had been selected. The two contestants with the highest money totals kept their earnings and continued on, while the third place contestant left with consolation prizes. If there was a tie for low score, the tied contestants were given a new category and shown 12 answers (eight correct, four wipeouts). They alternated choosing one answer at a time, with a coin toss to decide who would start, and the first contestant to find a wipeout was eliminated. If all eight correct answers were found, the contestant who gave the last one advanced.

One of the eleven correct answers was referred to as the "Hot Spot", with a bonus prize attached to it. Once the Hot Spot was uncovered, Tomarken would take a token from inside his podium and place it on the desk of the contestant that found it. In order to win the Hot Spot prize, a contestant had to both be in possession of the token at the end of the round and have a high enough score to advance to the Challenge Round. If the contestant holding the Hot Spot uncovered a wipeout, the token was taken away and another answer was designated as the Hot Spot.

Challenge Round
The two remaining contestants advanced to the Challenge Round, playing for a bonus prize and to become the day's champion.

For each category in the Challenge around, the contestants were shown a board with 12 answers, eight correct and four Wipeouts, and they bid back and forth as to how many correct answers they thought they could name. Bidding ended when one contestant either reached the maximum of eight or challenged the other. If the high bidder successfully completed the bid, he/she won the board. One mistake allowed the opponent a chance to steal the board by giving one of the remaining correct answers still on the board. If the opponent could not do so, the high bidder was given another chance to fulfill his/her bid.

The Challenge Round was played as a best two-of-three. The high scorer from the first round started the bidding on the first board, while his/her opponent led off for the second. If a third board was needed, the contestant that lost the previous board was given first bid. The first contestant to win two boards became champion.

Bonus round
The bonus round used a grid of 12 monitors arranged in three rows of four. The champion attempted to win a new car by identifying six correct answers in a category within sixty seconds. After the champion was shown the category and twelve possible answers, he/she selected six. The champion touched the border on the outside of the corresponding monitor and the screen illuminated. Once six monitors were lit, the champion ran and hit a buzzer to lock in the answers. If there were less than six correct, Tomarken told the champion how many he/she had correctly chosen and the champion made changes. The process repeated until all six correct answers were found or time ran out. If the champion managed to find all six answers within the time limit, he/she won the car and retired undefeated. Otherwise, the champion returned until beaten.

Broadcast
Reruns of the series later aired on the USA Network from 1989 to 1991.

title: Wipeout (1988 game show)


text:
Talk:Tony Randall

Atheist?
The "see my wife again... that's not going to happen" quote implies that he was, does anyone know if he discussed this further?

Article class
This article appears to qualify as at least Start Class. I have made this change for the Oklahoma project. Bruin2 (talk) 00:18, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Music
"Vo Vo De Oh Doe" was not Randall's only album. See also "Warm & Wavery" - http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2011/05/tony-randall-warm-and-wavery-mp3s.html  Asat (talk) 13:01, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Magic School Bus
He did the voice of R.U. Humerus in the Magic School Bus episode "The Magic School Bus Flexes Its Muscles" (season two, episode two), but it isn't listed anywhere in the article. 24.175.250.148 (talk) 03:28, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

title: Talk:Tony Randall


text: File:Exetercourts.jpg

title: File:Exetercourts.jpg


text:
Trakošćan Castle

Trakošćan Castle (pronounced, Dvor Trakošćan or Dvorac Trakošćan) is a castle located in northern Croatia (in Varaždin County) that dates back to the 13th century (although the first written mention of the toponym "Trakošćan" is dated to 1334).

History
Trakošćan was built in the 13th century within Croatia's northwestern fortification system, as a rather small observation fortress for monitoring the road from Ptuj to Bednja Valley.

According to a legend, Trakošćan was named after another fortification (arx Thacorum) that was alleged to have stood in the same spot back in antiquity. Another source claims that it was named after the knights of Drachenstein who were in control of the region in early Middle Ages.

The toponym was first mentioned in written records in 1334. It is not known who its owners were in the first years of its existence. As of the end of the 14th century, it was owned by the Counts of Celje, who were in charge of all of Zagorje County. The family soon became extinct, and Trakošćan shared the fate of their other burgs and estates that were divided and kept changing owners. In these divisions, Trakošćan was, as a whole, first owned by an army leader by the name of Jan Vitovac, then by Ivaniš Korvin, who gave it to his deputy warden Ivan Gyulay. The family kept the castle throughout three generations, and became extinct in 1566, after which the ownership was taken over by the state.

King Maximilian gave the estate to Juraj Drašković (1525–1587) for services rendered, first personally, and then as family heritage. This was how, in 1584, the Drašković family finally came into possession of Trakošćan.

In the second half of the 18th century, when the building of manors was flourishing in Hrvatsko Zagorje, Trakošćan was abandoned. Neglected, it fell quickly into dilapidation. It was only towards the middle of the 19th century that the family became interested once again in its estate, in the Romanticist spirit of return to nature and family traditions. In this spirit, the deputy marshal Juraj V. Drašković turned the castle into a residential manor-house, while the surrounding park was turned into Romanticist pleasure grounds. The generations that followed were staying at the castle from time to time all the way until 1944 when they were forced to emigrate to Austria. Soon after that, the castle became nationalized.

The Museum with collections on permanent display was established in 1953. The castle is today owned by the Republic of Croatia.

The castle itself reveals different phases of building. For several centuries, it used to be a fortification, so that the reconstructions undertaken during that period were functional rather than aesthetic. The facility's essential core is a Romanesque fortification consisting of a housing unit, a small fortified yard, and a massive high tower. The fortification's good location and its observation tower made it safe and easy to defend.

Rapid development of firearms and increasingly threatening Turkish attacks made additional construction and further fortifying urgently necessary. The Drašković family's second generation, Ivan II and Petar, added the western tower, which may be seen from the coat-of-arms and the accompanying inscription.

On the Great Genealogical Tree, the oldest visual presentation from 1668, the facility had three floors, and its basic dimensions could already be discerned. Over the next period, several defense facilities were added around it. At the time, it also had the highest number of inhabitants, as may be seen from the Small Genealogical Tree dating back to 1755. It was in this same century that the outbuildings were erected at the foothills of Trakošćan, and a stone bridge built over the river Bednja.

In the 19th century Trakošćan acquired its present appearance. In the 1840–62 period, during one among the first restoration undertakings in the country, the castle was reconstructed in Neo-Gothic style. This not only altered its exterior, but also finally brought to an end its five centuries long fortification purpose. The reconstruction also included the appearance of Romanticist pleasure grounds by Juraj V. Drašković, after the model of English parks. When the dam was built, the valley turned into a large lake. The uniqueness of style characterizing the facility equally includes the interior and its surrounding landscape. Count Drašković sold Klenovnik Castle, the largest castle in Croatia, then also held by the Draskovich Family in order to fund the restorations.

After the reconstruction, the castle was still inhabited by several generations of the Drašković family that did some additional constructions and adaptations. It was at the time that the northern tower appeared over the entrance, a large shingle cap added to the top of the tower (removed in 1961), and a southwestern vaulted terrace added. Environment of the Trakošćan was made in accordance with the plan of Franz Risig (1814-1896) and also can be considered an important factor of cultural heritage.

The end of World War II found Trakošćan in a neglected and dilapidated condition, which is why protective architectural and interior decoration works were immediately undertaken. Over the past few years, the castle has once again been undergoing more thorough reconstruction.

title: Trakošćan Castle


text:
Release (Pet Shop Boys album)

Release is the eighth studio album by English synth-pop duo Pet Shop Boys, released on 1 April 2002 by Parlophone. It was recorded between 2000 and 2001 and produced by the duo with Chris Zippel. The album produced three singles: "Home and Dry", "I Get Along", and "London", the latter of which was only released in continental Europe. It reached number seven on the UK Albums Chart and received positive reviews from critics.

Background
After the release of their previous studio album, Nightlife (1999), Pet Shop Boys originally planned to release a greatest hits collection in the autumn of 2000 with the two new tracks "Positive Role Model" and "Somebody Else's Business". While recording the new songs for the hits collection, it was decided to produce a full-length studio album instead.

The album reached number seven in the United Kingdom and number three in Germany. On its first release, a limited run of metallic effect embossed sleeves were available in a choice of four colours: grey, blue, pink or red. In the US, this limited run also came with a bonus CD including remixes and new tracks. The artwork was designed by Greg Foley of the New York design group and magazine publishers Visionaire and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Recording Package.

The album marked a significant departure from previous work, being guitar- and piano-driven. However, the album was made like their previous albums with most tracks mainly programmed on computers; however, the sampled or synthesised guitars and drum sounds chosen often sound "real" and the synthesisers always present are sometimes used to sound like guitars (the solo in "Birthday Boy", for instance, or the opening figure of "Home and Dry"). Ex-Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr was brought in later on in the sessions to play real electric and acoustic guitars on seven of the album's ten tracks in London, with "Home and Dry" being completed in Dublin, Ireland. Apart from the track "London", recorded in Berlin with producer Chris Zippel, Pet Shop Boys produced the album themselves and then commissioned Michael Brauer to mix it.

The original version of the album had eleven tracks but "I Didn't Get Where I Am Today" was removed from the album before release and later became a bonus track on the 2004 single "Flamboyant". Other tracks recorded during the sessions for the album which ended up as B-sides are "Between Two Islands", "Searching for the Face of Jesus", "Sexy Northerner" and "Always". Another track, "Time on My Hands", appeared on the 2003 release, Disco 3.

The directors for all three music videos for the album's singles are photographers by trade: Wolfgang Tillmans directed "Home and Dry", Bruce Weber directed "I Get Along" (following his previous work on the "Being Boring" and "Se a vida é" videos), and Martin Parr directed "London". The Tillmans video, consisting almost entirely of footage of mice filmed at Tottenham Court Road tube station in the London Underground, is considered by some to have significantly undermined the commercial potential of the lead single, due to being deemed nearly unplayable by MTV and other music video channels.

Perhaps partly because of the modest commercial success of this album, and perhaps partly because of the habit of distancing themselves musically from their most recent work, Tennant and Lowe have since returned to their dance roots. One year after the release of Release, Pet Shop Boys released Disco 3 which included remixes of some of the songs from Release along with new material that they were working on at the time of writing and producing material for Release.

The album re-entered the UK Albums Chart at number 30 in August 2017 following the Release/Further Listening 2001–2004 reissue.

Sample credits

 * "Birthday Boy" features a sample from the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge performing "In the Bleak Midwinter", written by Harold Darke and Christina Rossetti.
 * "Between Two Islands" contains an excerpt of "I Want You", written by Leon Ware and T-Boy Ross.
 * "I Didn't Get Where I Am Today" includes a sample from "Father's Name Is Dad", written by Dave Lambert and performed by Fire.

Personnel
Credits adapted from the liner notes of Release.

Pet Shop Boys

 * Neil Tennant – vocals, guitar, keyboards
 * Chris Lowe – keyboards, drum programming

Additional musicians

 * Pete Gleadall – programming (tracks 1–3, 5–10)
 * Johnny Marr – guitars (tracks 1–3, 5, 7, 9, 10)
 * Jody Linscott – percussion (tracks 1–3, 5, 7–10)
 * Steve Walters – bass guitar (tracks 2, 3, 9)
 * Chris Zippel – keyboards (track 4); spoken idea (track 5)
 * "Little Mike" – guitar, bass (track 4)
 * Richard Niles – string arrangement, string conducting (track 5)

Technical

 * Pet Shop Boys – production (tracks 1–3, 5–10)
 * Pete Gleadall – engineering (tracks 1–3, 5–10)
 * Michael Brauer – mixing
 * Rick Chavarria – mix assistance
 * Chris Zippel – production, engineering (track 4)
 * Kai Diener – premix (track 4)
 * Florian Richter – premix (track 4)
 * Mike Ross – string recording (track 5)
 * Andrew Nichols – recording assistance at Sony Music Studios
 * Philippe Rose – mixing assistance
 * Greg Calbi – mastering
 * Steve Fallone – mastering assistance

Artwork

 * Dan Forbes – photography
 * Pennie Smith – portrait
 * Greg Foley – art direction
 * Jake McCabe – design production
 * Tatiana Gaz – design associate

title: Release (Pet Shop Boys album)


text:
Talk:Johann Nepomuk Huber

Untitled
My summary
 * "Römisclse Briefe" --> "Römische Briefe" - OCR error??; see talk

reflects the original first word being unpronouncable, even in German, and my doing a series of searches that eventually turned up good hits for
 * "Römische Briefe" Huber OR quirinus

"ls" for "h" may be an OCR error, and thus the article deserves a review by someone familiar with the subject matter, rather than just the language. Since that person is likely to also be at least as German-aware as i, i've looked no further.

And copyvio could be an issue. --Jerzy(t) 15:58, 2004 May 18 (UTC)

title: Talk:Johann Nepomuk Huber


text:
Talk:Release (Pet Shop Boys album)

The album
Is it just me, or does anyone else think this album was worse than the previous ones? The songs don't sound like disco music any more, instead like whiny romance songs you'd expect from the likes of Take that or New kids on the block. 8:28, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

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Genre of 'Release' - and of Pet Shop Boys in general
Hello there. Someone keeps adding the genre of "soft rock" to this album. Pet Shop Boys have never been classified as such. They fall into synthpop, electronic, electronica, dance, dance pop and alternative. While 'Release' was indeed a departure from their previous sound, it is hardly considered "soft rock." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Whigged (talk • contribs) 20:04, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

 * Thank you for starting a discussion about your concerns. From what reliable source are you basing this on, or is this just your opinion ? -  FlightTime  ( open channel ) 21:36, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

 * Other than their being no indication, anywhere, that PSB are soft rock band, there's AllMusic, one of the most reliable and respected music review sites out there. Here is their landing page on Pet Shop Boys: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/pet-shop-boys-mn0000260212. This is their review for 'Release' which has applicable genres indicated: https://www.allmusic.com/album/release-mw0000217243. On the official Facebook page of the band, their genre is listed, simply, as "Synthpop": https://www.facebook.com/pg/petshopboys/about/

That sufficient or is more needed?

title: Talk:Release (Pet Shop Boys album)


text:
Iron City

Iron City is the name of three places in the United States: It is a minor nickname for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and the main nickname of Itabira, Minas Gerais, Brazil
 * Iron City, Georgia
 * Iron City, Tennessee
 * Iron City, Utah, a ghost town

Other

 * Iron City (novel), a book by Lloyd Brown
 * Iron City (album), an album by jazz guitarist Grant Green
 * Iron City Beer, a local beer in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, made by the Iron City Brewing Company

title: Iron City


text:
Bracket (tournament)

A bracket or tournament bracket is a tree diagram that represents the series of games played during a knockout tournament. Different knockout tournament formats have different brackets; the simplest and most common is that of the single-elimination tournament. The name "bracket" is American English, derived from the resemblance of the links in the tree diagram to the bracket punctuation symbol ] or [ (called a "square bracket" in British English). The closest British term is draw, although this implies an element of chance, whereas some brackets are determined entirely by seeding.

In some tournaments, the full bracket is determined before the first match. In such cases, fans may enjoy trying to predict the winners of the initial round and of the consequent later matchups. This is called "bracketology", particularly in relation to the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament. This prediction is not possible in tournaments such as the FA Cup and the UEFA Champions League knockout phase, in which the pairings for a later round might not be made until after the previous round has been played (UEFA Champions League makes its ultimate bracket draw at the quarterfinal stage ).

Usage in North America
Brackets are commonly found in major North American professional sports leagues and in U.S. college sports. Often, at the end of the regular season, the league holds a post-season tournament (most commonly called a playoff) to determine which team is the best out of all of the teams in the league. This is done because often in American professional sports there are at least two different conferences, and teams mostly play other teams in their own conference. Examples of this are the American Football Conference and the National Football Conference in the NFL, the American League and the National League in Major League Baseball, and the Eastern Conference and the Western Conference in the NBA or NHL.

When there are only two different conferences, there are two sides of the bracket. One conference is on one side, while the other is on the opposite side. Each side is organized according to a team's seeding; higher-seeded teams are matched against lower-seeded teams. Teams that qualify for the post-season tournament only compete against teams in their own conference, until only one team from each conference remains. These two teams, called the conference champions, play each other to determine the best in the league. Other leagues, like the NHL, have two conferences, each of which is divided into divisions, usually by region. In the post-season tournament, only the teams with the best records qualify, except the division winner (and also #2 and #3 in the division in the NHL) having an automatic entry into the tournament.

Some North American professional post-season tournaments are single-elimination format. If a bye is required, the top seeded teams usually get the bye. There is usually no third place match to separate the third and fourth place teams.

The concept is even more visible in college sports, most notably in reference to the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, in which millions of casual and serious fans "fill out brackets"—predict the winners of each game in the tournament—in both formal contests, sponsored by various corporations, and informal betting pools among friends or colleagues. The brackets are much larger than those in North American professional leagues—while no more than 16 teams qualify for the postseason in any major North American league (this is the case in the NBA and NHL), 68 teams (out of over 350) advance to the NCAA men's tournament, with most bracket contests involving 64 of these teams.

Examples
The diagrams for formats other than single-elimination are more complex than a simple tree.

Types of brackets

 * Single Elimination: Teams play "Pool Play" games in order to be "seeded" for the Brackets. Once in the brackets, teams play. Winners advance within the brackets to the right, whereas losers are eliminated in "Single Elimination"

 * Double Elimination: Teams play "Pool Play" games to gain their "seeding" going into the brackets. Each team plays its first games. Winners advance to play the winners. Losers play a consolation round.

Versions of advancement

 * March Madness Seeding (Best v Worst in a division): Divisions are broken into pools (e.g., North, South, East, West) and within each pool teams are ranked. The top seed plays the worst seed, the second best seed plays the 2nd worst seed within the pool, etc., until all teams play their first round. If the pool has an odd (not divisible by 2) number of teams, there will be a "play in" game of the worst vs the 2nd worst team. Such a seeding system produces a wide variety of matches, but requires many games to determine an outcome.

 * Jacobian Ladders (Best in pools play, 2nd best in pools play each other, 3rd best in pools play each other, etc.): Within each pool, the number 1 team plays all the other number 1 teams within the other pools. Number 2s play number 2s, numbers 3s play number 3s, etc.
 * Assuming an even number of pools (e.g., pool A, B, C, and D), each of the #1 ranked team based upon their pool play results play an initial game (A1 vs B1, C1 vs D1). Winners go to the championship. Losers play for 3rd and 4th place.
 * Assuming an odd pools number of pools (e.g., pool A, B, and C), Seed 1 from Pool A (A1) plays seed 1 from Pool B (B1). C1 plays the "Wildcard" from the second best finishers from within all 3 pools based upon the ranking criteria.
 * All #2, #3, etc., ranked teams play in "Consolation rounds" to determine their ranked order
 * Winners of these pools play at most two games to determine the champion of the division. The end result can be sensitive to ranking criteria and allocation of teams to pools.

title: Bracket (tournament)


text:
Talk:Prince of Beira

Beira - dab?
What is the origin of "Beira"? Presumably not a coincidence that there is a Beira in Mozambique? Stan 16:08, 18 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Beira is a province in Portugal. Since Mozambique was once Portuguese I assume the Mozambique province gets its name from the Portuguese one. MvHG 06:43, 19 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Ah - I guess that means Beira could use some disambigging! Stan 12:37, 19 May 2004 (UTC)
 * I guess it does :) MvHG 12:43, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

Year of creation
The title "Príncipe da Beira" was created in 17 December 1734, and not in the 17th century. See this book, page XXXIX. It also gives the year of creation of every single title of the Kings of Portugal and their heirs. For example, "Senhor da Guiné" (January 1485), "Senhor da Conquista, Navegação e Comércio na Etiópia, Arábia, Pérsia e Índia" (29 August 1499), etc, etc... --Lecen (talk) 04:59, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Blacklisted Links Found on the Main Page
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From your friendly hard working bot.— cyberbot II NotifyOnline 16:51, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

title: Talk:Prince of Beira


text:
User talk:Slidewinder

WikiProject Sports Car Racing
Due to your involvement in some Wiki pages that regard sports car racing of some sort, I would like to ask for you to look into the proposed WikiProject for Sports Car Racing. Any help you may have to offer to the project will be greatly appreciated. The359 03:24, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

American strong ale
I'm proposing a redirect to Pale Ale. SilkTork

The Gaddis Annotations
Why do you want to get into an edit war over this? Really, take a look at how many of the biography (and other) articles have, for example, a "Trivia" section, usually full of genuinely trivial stuff, which seems to be accepted practice. In the case of the article William Gaddis, we're talking about devoting a section to a site that a) is clearly relevant, b) provides unique resources beyond what the article itself would be expected to have, and c) has been, per the citation, noted for its significance by a third party. Why are you so dead-set against including it in the Gaddis article? -- ShelfSkewed [Talk] 13:39, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

A further thought: Would you find it acceptable if the information were removed as a separate section, reworded, and included in the body of the article? Something like, "Gaddis's life and work are the subjects of a comprehensive scholarly site, The Gaddis Annotations, which has been noted in academic journals...[etc]." -- ShelfSkewed [Talk] 15:41, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

 * That would be much better. Someone (could be you, for all I know) already worked in a mention of the WU archives at the end of the "Biography" section*, and it wasn't obtrusive in the least to me, the casual wiki-reader. And I don't object in any way to the mention of the williamgaddis.org site; it's obviously relevant, and, from what I've read of it, seems like a fine resource. I'd be satisfied with a more inviting "External links" label for it, but I'm not going to get into an "edit war" about that. Slidewinder 08:28, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

 * I thought the main article referred specifically to the online archives, but it actually doesn't.

 * I made the change. So, okay, I think it's better that way, too. -- ShelfSkewed [Talk] 15:50, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

title: User talk:Slidewinder


text:
User:En Passant

Art in Durham, NC; follower of Jesus Christ

title: User:En Passant


text:
Plana

Plana may refer to:

 * plural of Latin word Planum used in planetary geology

People

 * Giovanni Antonio Amedeo Plana (1781–1864) was an Italian astronomer and mathematician
 * Plana (crater), named after the astronomer, is a crater on the Moon
 * Israel Hernandez Plana (born 1970), Cuban judoka
 * Jaume Vallcorba Plana (1949–2014), Spanish philologist and publisher
 * Josefina Tanganelli Plana (1904–1966), Catalan cartoonist and painter
 * Tony Plana (born 1952), a Cuban-American actor

Places
Antarctica
 * Plana Peak, on Livingston Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica

Bahamas
 * Plana Cays, two small islands in the southern Bahama Islands

Bosnia and Herzegovina
 * Plana, Bileća, village in the municipality of Bileća, Republika Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bulgaria
 * Plana Mountain in western Bulgaria
 * Plana, Bulgaria, small village, situated along the Plana mountain ridge

Czech Republic
 * Planá (České Budějovice District), village in the South Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic
 * Plana (Tachov District), town in the Plzeň Region of the Czech Republic
 * Plana nad Luznici, town in the South Bohemian Region, Czech Republic

Montenegro
 * Plana, Kolašin, village in the municipality of Kolašin, Montenegro

Serbia
 * Plana (Kraljevo), village in the municipality of Kraljevo, Serbia
 * Plana (Paraćin), village in the municipality of Paraćin, Serbia
 * Plana (Sjenica), village in the municipality of Sjenica, Serbia
 * Velika Plana, town and municipality in the Podunavlje District, Serbia
 * Velika Plana (Prokuplje), village in the municipality of Prokuplje, Serbia

Spain
 * Plana Alta, comarca in the province of Castellón, Valencian Community, Spain
 * Plana Baixa, comarca in the province of Castellón, Valencian Community, Spain
 * Plana d'Utiel, comarca currently in the province of Valencia, Valencian Community, Spain

United States
 * Plana, South Dakota, former village

Other

 * Abel–Plana formula, a summation formula in mathematics
 * Synemon plana, commonly known as the golden sun moth, a diurnal moth native to Australia
 * Ecklonia kurome f. plana, a brown alga subspecies found in the Sea of Japan

title: Plana