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North Hills, Los Angeles

North Hills, known previously as Sepulveda, is a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles, California.

North Hills was originally part of an agricultural community known as Mission Acres. After WWII, the newly developed suburban community was renamed Sepulveda, after the prominent Sepúlveda family of California. In 1991, it was renamed North Hills.

Location
The neighborhood of North Hills is located in the central San Fernando Valley, a region of the city of Los Angeles. It is intersected by the 405 Freeway and lies between Bull Creek and the Pacoima Wash. By road, it is 21 miles northwest of downtown; In relation to the cities surrounding Los Angeles, the neighborhood is about 17 miles north of Santa Monica by road, 16 miles east of Simi Valley, 14 miles southwest of Calabasas, 13 miles northwest of Burbank, 12 miles south of Santa Clarita, and 4 miles southwest of San Fernando. Surrounding neighborhoods are Northridge to the west, Panorama City to the east, Van Nuys to the south, and Granada Hills and Mission Hills to the north.

Overlapping Area codes 747 and 818 serve the area. The North Hills ZIP code is 91343.

Neighborhood boundaries and area
While neighborhood boundaries in the Los Angeles are generally informal, the official boundaries used by the North Hills East and West neighborhood council districts would make the neighborhood a 4.31 sqmi area between Bull Creek and the Pacoima Wash on the west and east respectively. The southern boundary is Roscoe Boulevard, starting on Bull Creek and ending at the Pacoima Wash; North Hills East includes a panhandle of land south of Roscoe Boulevard to the Coast Line railroad between the 405 Freeway and Sepulveda Boulevard. The northern boundary is Lassen Street, west from the Pacoima Wash to Woodley Avenue. Since 2012, North Hills is bounded by the community of Woodley Hill in Northridge which occupies a square area at the northwest area of the neighborhood bounded by Woodley Avenue in the west and Plummer Street in the south. The North Hills East and West neighborhood councils are separated by the 405 Freeway; the West district has an area of 2.38 sqmi and the East has an area of 1.93 sqmi.

Other sources, notably the Los Angeles Times' Mapping L.A. project, extend the neighborhoods boundaries to Balboa Boulevard and Bull Creek ("the wash") on the west, and Devonshire and Lassen Street on the north, mostly to include the North Hills Shopping Center which is also claimed by Granada Hills.

History
In the late 18th century, the land of modern North Hills along with most of the San Fernando Valley became land under the jurisdiction of the Mission San Fernando Rey de España. After the independence of Mexico from Spain, an 1833 government decree led to the secularization of the missions in Alta and Baja California and the San Fernando Mission was officially secularized in 1834. The mission became the head of a parish and the government commissioned a mayordomo to oversee the process of secularization and to administer the former mission land.

Rancho land
In 1845, governor Pío Pico signed a 9-year land lease, at $1,120 per year, to his brother Andrés Pico and his business partner Juan Manso who used it for cattle ranching. In the wake of the American intervention in Mexico, the governor put the land up for sale as the Rancho Ex-Misión de San Fernando to raise funds. The ranch lands were sold to Spanish merchant Eulogio de Celis for $14,000 in June 17, 1846. A portion of land lying just north of modern North Hills surrounding the mission complex was reserved for Andrés Pico and became known as the Pico Reserve.

The Mexican armed resistance to the American intervention ceased in the beginning of 1848 and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ceded the California Territory to the United States. The Treaty provided that the Mexican land grants would be honored and American officials acquired Spanish and Mexican records to confirm titles.

Eulogio de Celis filed his claim to the rancho lands in October 1852, but the land grant was not formally upheld by the U.S. District Court until January 1873, after he had returned to Spain and four years after his death. In the mean time, Andrés Pico paid de Celis' lawyer, Edward Vischer, $15,000 for an undivided half-interest in the rancho in 1854, the same year Pico's lease expired. The land was divided along a line which roughly follows Roscoe Boulevard, now considered North Hills' southern boundary, and the southern half was sold to Pico. Andrés eventually sold his half-interest in the rancho to his brother Pío in 1862, retaining the 2,000 acre Pico Reserve; in turn, Pío sold the interest to the San Fernando Farm Homestead Association for $115,000 in 1869; this association went through several name changes, eventually becoming the Los Angeles Farming and Milling Company.

In a 1871 plat of the rancho, the North Hills area is shown to be an undeveloped land crossed by a road which led to the Pico Reserve and the mission in the north from the Rancho Los Encinos in the south. A sheep camp is shown to have been located just north of the ranch partition line on the west bank of the Pacoima Wash, which corresponds to the southeast end of modern North Hills. De Celis died in Spain in 1869 and his son Eulogio F. de Celis returned as the administrator of his father's estate which was later finally patented to his father by the government in January 8, 1873. After negotiations between the heirs of de Celis and the San Fernando Farm Homestead Association, the valley was formally divided into north and south. The heirs then sold the remaining northern half of the rancho, which includes present-day North Hills, to Charles Maclay and George K. Porter in 1875 for $125,000. With this, the Rancho era essentially ended in the San Fernando Valley; land divisions continued, what remained of the original mission agriculture fell into disuse, and the remaining indigenous population nearly disappeared from the region.

Porter land
The former rancho land was placed under Porter's name and he owned a three-fourths interest in the property, with Maclay owning the remaining quarter. Porter saw the valley as a site with potential for agricultural development, whereas Maclay was more focused on its colonization. In order to pay off the de Celis mortgage, they counted on the success of the town of San Fernando, which had then been newly platted along the Southern Pacific Railroad. A local bank failure and the departure of railroad workers led to a collapse in the real estate boom which made Maclay turn to renting land for sheep pasture and farming; then, a drought in 1876 and 1877 led to the failure of grain fields and the death of tens of thousands of sheep.

Maclay was unable to meet the mortgage and de Celis filed for foreclosure in July 1876; the Los Angeles district court found Maclay personally liable for the mortgage payment in June 1877 and ordered the sale of his quarter interest, and that if the sale was insufficient to meet the mortgage, then Porter's interest would also be sold. While they managed to delay the foreclosure for two years, the interest accumulated. In July 1879, the Maclay portion was sold to Benjamin F. Porter and, because the sale amount was insufficient, George Porter's remaining share was sold to Josefa A. de Celis. George managed to reobtain his interest in April 1880 thanks to his agent, Francis M. Wright, a valley farmer. In February 1881, Maclay and the Porters reached an agreement to partition the land. Maclay kept a third of the land lying north of the railroad and east of the Pacoima Wash called the Maclay Rancho, the Porters kept the remaining two-thirds to the west. In 1881, the Porter cousins split their holdings and George received the portion between the Pacoima Wash in the east and Aliso Canyon, about current-day Zelzah Avenue, in the west. George Porter's land included all of current North Hills.

In 1887, George K. Porter subdivided the land and established the Porter Land and Water Company to take advantage of a land sales boom. Nearly 17,000 acres were subdivided into ten and forty acre lots with an irrigation system sufficient for 4,000 acres. John B. Baskin, a partner and sales agent of the company began an extensive marketing and promotional campaign for the land subdivision; a frequent motif of the marketing is the remains of the mission which was surrounded by the tract. Baskin also hired California State Engineer William Hammond Hall to develop an irrigation plan for water derived from the local springs and arroyos like the Pacoima Wash. The boom began to fade by the end of 1888 and went bust the next year with internal company problems and declining national and local economies which preceded the Panic of 1893; the decline would also be exacerbated by severe droughts in the 1890s. In October of 1903, Porter sold his firm and transferred remaining lands to a syndicate led by Leslie C. Brand which was incorporated as the San Fernando Mission Land Company.

Community development
The 21st century began with important developments for the San Fernando Valley which led to its rapid settlement. In 1905, the City of Los Angeles announced its plans to bring water to the city from the Owens Valley and began construction on the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1908; the future arrival of water to the valley spurred development. The southern half of the former rancho lands were bought from the Los Angeles Farming and Milling Co. by a syndicate incorporated as the Los Angeles Suburban Homes Company, and the towns of Van Nuys, Marion, and Owensmouth were planned out along with a system of highways. The Pacific Electric Railway also began an expansion into the valley which reached the burgeoning community of Van Nuys in December 1911, and was completed with its arrival in the city of San Fernando in March 1913, allowing better connections to Los Angeles from the valley. The San Fernando Mission Land Co. began to market its then over 16,000 acres of land to the public in April 1912, advertising five, ten, and fifteen acre tracts adapted to citriculture and other agricultural uses.

In October 1912, The Angeles Mesa Land Company purchased Henry E. Huntington's one-tenth share in the Mission Land property holdings. The companies began to invest in the extension of the railway to San Fernando and the construction of a 4-mile boulevard, named Brand Boulevard, to connect San Fernando to Van Nuys on Sherman Way, hoping to open it for use when the Los Angeles Aqueduct is inaugurated. Work on Brand Boulevard advanced and workers began to spread asphalt on the first mile by mid-1913; one side of the road was designed for exclusive use by automobiles, while the other was multi-use for trucks, heavy wagons, and horse-drawn vehicles. The aqueduct water reached the valley in November, 1913.

Mission Acres was an agricultural community made by early developers who created 1 acre plots for agricultural activities, with irrigation supplied by the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913. The community was a stop for the Pacific Electric railway streetcars that transported passengers from downtown Los Angeles to the San Fernando Valley.

Residents of Mission Acres renamed the area Sepulveda in 1927. The Californio Sepulveda family, going back to the founding of the Pueblo of Los Angeles, is the source of various Los Angeles place-names, including the post-war community of Sepulveda. Sepulveda Boulevard is the primary north–south street through North Hills, crossing Sepulveda Pass to the south. The community saw significant growth between the 1930s and the 1950s.

In 1937, councilman Jim Wilson offered a resolution that instructed the city's real estate agent to make the right of way cost appraisal for diverting flood waters from Wilson and East Canyons into Pacoima Wash to protect the community of Sepulveda from floods that occurred during heavy storms. This same year, the Our Lady of Peace Catholic Church was built and the parish was established years later in 1944.

Post World War II
The area remained mostly rural through the 1940s, urbanization initiated during the 1950s during which the entire San Fernando Valley was experiencing a transition from semi-rural and agricultural uses into suburban development patterns. Multi-family residential units began to be developed in the 1960s.

Before the construction of the 405, Sepulveda Boulevard was a major highway and the neighborhood became a stopping point for travelers to and from Los Angeles. Motels began to be established along Sepulveda. Among these motels is the Good Knight Inn, which began construction in 1945 and featured a façade designed to resemble a castle; by 2023, the motel has continued to run and has retained much of its original form.

The Our Lady of Peace Catholic school was being built by 1951 and began to hold classes that year, the school building was officially completed in 1954, followed by various additions. Later that year of 1954, the new Our Lady of Peace church designed by Armet and Davis was completed; the former church structure was repurposed by the parish as Schneider's Hall. By 1956, the school was the largest elementary school in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and remained so for two more years.

Plummer Elementary School, designed in the International style by E. R. C. Billerbeck for LAUSD, was completed in 1952.

The Sepulveda Veterans Administration Hospital was completed in a 160-acre property in 1955.

After four years of construction, Francisco Sepulveda Junior High School, designed by architect Arthur Froelich in the International style, was completed in 1960.

In 1991, residents of the western half of Sepulveda, west of the San Diego Freeway, voted to secede from the eastern section to form a new community named North Hills. The City of Los Angeles soon changed the name of remaining Sepulveda to North Hills also. The city then formed a new sub-neighborhood of "North Hills West" which begins west of the 405 freeway and goes to Bull Creek Wash/Balboa Blvd. and from Roscoe Blvd. to Devonshire St. The eastern section became the sub-neighborhood of North Hills East.

North Hills East boundaries are east of the 405-San Diego Freeway, along the Pacoima Wash, South of Lassen, and North of Roscoe.

In June 1999, a damaged airplane landed safely on Hayvenhurst Avenue on its way to Van Nuys Airport.

By the year 2000, the neighborhood had a population of 52,333; Compared to 1990, North Hills had a population increase of 22% by the year 2000, among the highest total increase in the Valley, with a significant increase in Latino American (73.7%) and Asian/Pacific Islander (52.6%) residents.

Between January 2010 and January 2011, 300 residents of the community of Woodley Hill signed a petition, initiated by resident Estelle R. Goldman, to separate from North Hills, citing that their issues and property values relate more to Northridge. Woodley Hills is bounded by Lassen and Plummer on the north and south, and by Bull Creek and Woodley on the west and east. The petition was received and filed by the city in April, 2011. The Northridge East Neighborhood Council supported the petition; meanwhile, North Hills West opposed the renaming, stating that property values effects would be minimal and insignificant, that Woodley Hill is a desirable area along with western North Hills and that it would turn Woodley Hill into a less desirable part of Northridge, that stakeholders would potentially want to extend Northridge to the 405 Freeway, that their issues are substantially similar to those of North Hills, and that the change would cause confusion. In early 2012, Goldman stated that she then felt that her statement concerning property values and issues was naïve and she wished to correct it. She amended the reasoning, stating that residents' concerns were that they did not send their children to North Hills Schools, they did not shop in North Hills, and that the nature of the community is purely residential with no businesses or apartments compared to North Hills; she further stated that residents identify more with Northridge because of community interests and socio-economic background. The application eventually gained approval and was adopted on August 3, 2012. While it was initially claimed that neighborhood council boundaries would not be changed, the North Hills West Neighborhood Council approved the transfer of Woodley Hills to Northridge East on March 22, 2013, followed by approval by Northridge East on April 17, and the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners in July.

On December 6, 2014, a celebration was held for the opening of the over 13,000 square foot Nanak Sadan Sikh Temple and Community Center at Nordhoff Street, followed by the celebration of a regular evening diwan.

In late March 2016, a local man, Shehada Issa, murdered his wife, Rabihah, and later his son, Amir "Rocky" Issa, at their home on the 1500 block of Rayen Street in North Hills East. Prosecutors found that Amir's sexual orientation was a motivating factor for his murder, later also classified as a hate crime. It was the second killing of an LGBTQ person in the San Fernando Valley in two years, occurring a year after the murder of a trans woman in neighboring Van Nuys. The murder quickly drew attention from the gay community, and local community group Somos Familia Valle organized a rally on April 4 at Sepulveda Boulevard and Nordhoff Street calling for family acceptance towards LGBTQ children and an end to discrimination and violence in the valley's neighborhoods. In September 2017, Shehada Issa was convicted of two counts of first degree murder with Amir's murder being enhanced as a hate crime, and was sentenced to life in prison; there was an attempt to appeal the conviction, but the state appellate court ruled that there was overwhelming evidence of Issa's guilt and in May 2020 the state's Supreme Court refused to review the case.

As of 2020, about 242 (1.3%) of the approximately 17,977 occupied structures in North Hills were built in 1939 or earlier, 34.9% were built from 1940 to 1959, 34% from 1960 to 1979, 5.2% from 2000 to 2009, 0.9% from 2010 to 2013, and 1% from 2014 or later.

Local government
North Hills is governed locally by the City of Los Angeles and is represented in the Los Angeles City Council by the members elected for districts 6, 7 and 12; each district includes three different sections of the neighborhood.

Neighborhood Councils
Both North Hills East and North Hills West Neighborhood Councils work together to improve the overall quality of life in North Hills communities.

North Hills West Neighborhood Council was certified in 2003. Their slogan is "Fostering Community," and its logo is of a green tree in the city. The 2012-2014 North Hills West Neighborhood Council was seated into office on September 20, 2012. A northwestern section became part of the Northridge East Neighborhood Council in 2013.

North Hills East Neighborhood Council was certified in 2010. It has a growing, multicultural group of neighbors dedicated to service and community activism. In early 2014, North Hills East Neighborhood Council was approved as an Official Certifying Organization for the President's Volunteer Service Awards program, which is an initiative of the Corporation for National and Community Service, the same organization responsible for AmeriCorps and Senior Corps. This status as an Official Certifying Organization has enabled the North Hills East Neighborhood Council to verify hours and eligibility for volunteers to receive an award, which, depending on number of hours worked can range from a pin to a personalized letter from the President of the United States. More about the awards can be found here: www.presidentialserviceawards.gov Volunteers do not have to be a resident or stakeholder of North Hills East to qualify for a President's Volunteer Service Award.

Federal and State legislature representation
The neighborhood is represented federally by the congress member elected for California's 29th congressional district and both senators from California. On the state level, it is represented by the state assembly member elected for California's 46th State Assembly District and the state senator elected for California's 20th State Senate district.

2020 census
In the 2020 census, North Hills had a total population of 53,764 just within its Neighborhood Council boundaries. The population in the 91343 ZCTA was 62,595; this covers all of North Hills West and most of North Hills East boundaries, while including portions within Northridge East and Granada Hills South's boundaries. The average population density is about 10,591.4 per square mile within the ZTCA's 5.91 square miles. 31,132 people (49.7%) were identified as male and 31,463 (50.3%) as female. The 2020 age distribution was 14,684 people (23.5%) under 18, 6,599 people (10.5%) from 18 to 24, 17,925 people (28.6%) from 25 to 44, 15,458 people (24.7%) from 45 to 64, and 7,929 people (12.7%) who were 65 or older, The median age was 35.8.

Housing
There were 18,545 housing units, at an average density of 3,137.9 units per square mile, of which 18,117 units were occupied and 428 were vacant. 9,127 occupied units (50.4%) were owned; 7,470 (81.8% of owner-occupied units) were owned with a mortgage or a loan and the remaining 1,657 (18.2%) were owned free and clear. 8,990 units (49.6% of occupied units) were rented. In terms of household size, 2,828 units (14.6%) were 1-person households, 4,005 units (22.1%) had 2 people, 10,281 (56.7%) had 3 to 6 people, and 1,003 (5.5%) had 7 or more. 14,173 units (78.2%) were family households; 8,942 (63.1% of family households) were married couple family households and the remaining 5,231 (36.9%) were occupied by families with unmarried householders. 3,944 units (21.8%) were nonfamily households. Of vacant units, 211 were for rent and 13 were rented but not occupied, 17 were for sale and 21 were sold but not occupied, and 11 were for seasonal, recreational, or occasional use.

Race and ethnicity
In 2020, the makeup of racial identity in North Hills included: 16,580 (26.5%) people who identified as White, 2,704 (4.3%) as Black or African-American, 1,035 (1.7%) Native American, 9,606 (15.3%) Asian, 98 (0.02%) Pacific Islander, 23,701 (37.9%) identified as other races, and 8,871 (14.2%) as two or more races. 12,012 people identified as Non-Hispanic White (19.2% of total pop., 72.4% of White people).

36,701 people (58.6%) identified as Hispanic or Latino of any race. At 23,290 people, most Latinos (63.5%) identified as some other race, followed by 7,532 (20.5%) who identified with two or more races; 4,568 (12.4%) Latinos identified as White, 966 (3%) identified as Native American, and 166 (0.5%) identified as Black.

Other data
In 2009, the Los Angeles Times's "Mapping L.A." project supplied these North Hills community statistics: median household income: $52,456. Population size is 60,254 according to 2010 Census data. This summarizes both sides of the 405 freeway. The North Hills West neighborhood had 24,000 residents in 2009. The North Hills East neighborhood had nearly 40,000 residents in 2010.

According to Mapping L.A., Mexican (38.4%) and German (2.8%) were the most common ancestries. Mexico (47.3%) and El Salvador (12.2%) were the most common foreign places of birth in 2000.

The 91343 ZCTA had a 60.9% employment rate and had a median household income of $77,790 according to 2022 estimates.

Public schools
The community is served by schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Gledhill Street Elementary School, Langdon Avenue Elementary School, Mayall Street School, and Parthenia Street School serve North Hills.

Most students attend Sepulveda Middle School. Those students residing west of Woodley Avenue attend Holmes Middle School.

North Hills high school students attend James Monroe High School.

There are magnet programs in some schools, such as the Sepulveda Middle School which has a Gifted / High Ability Magnet, and Kennedy High School which has an Architecture/Digital Arts Magnet. A school bus is provided if pupils are more than 5 miles away from the school. North Hills West is also served by charter schools of all grades.

Local school district administration
North Hills schools are locally administered by the Regional Superintendent for LAUSD Region North. The neighborhood schools are represented in the LAUSD Board of Education by the members for district 3, which covers most of North Hills West, and district 6, which covers North Hills East and a portion of West including Gledhill Street Elementary and Monroe High.

Private schools
The private and parochial schools in North Hills include Valley Park Baptist, Valley Presbyterian School, Heritage Christian, Our Lady of Peace, and Church of the Living Word. Los Angeles Baptist High School also serves the community and in 2012, was combined with Heritage Christian High School.

Several North Hills residents serve as host families to international students studying in the US. As of early 2014, about 50 foreign exchange students are attending school in the North Hills area. Host families get to share their way of life and culture with the students, and at the same time learn more about the students and their home countries.

Public library
The Los Angeles Public Library Mid-Valley Regional Branch, one of the biggest in the San Fernando Valley, is located on Nordhoff Street at Woodley Avenue in North Hills.

Transport
California Interstate 405 has direct access to the neighborhood on two points: exit 68 on Roscoe Boulevard and exit 69 on Nordhoff Street. Main thoroughfares include Sepulveda and Roscoe Boulevards; Hayvenhurst, Woodley, and Haskell Avenues; Lassen, Plummer, and Nordhoff Streets. These thoroughfares, as is the case in the most of the San Fernando Valley, are arranged in a grid pattern with north–south ways labeled as avenues and east–west ways labeled as streets.

Bicycle infrastructure in the neighborhood includes marked street-side bike lanes on Devonshire Street, on Nordhoff Street starting eastward from Orion Avenue, Parthenia Street eastward from Burnet Avenue, and south–north lanes on Woodley Avenue. Plummer Street is designated as a bike route, allowing cyclists to share space with other vehicular traffic.

The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority operates Metro Bus local lines 152, 166, 167, 234, and 237 through the neighborhood and the Los Angeles Department of Transportation's Panorama City/Van Nuys DASH route also runs through part of the neighborhood.

Parks and recreation
There are few public parks and recreational facilities within the neighborhood. North Hills Community Park is a 3.895 acre recreational space in the more densely populated area of North Hills East, with a children's play areas and sports facilities which host several youth sports programs. The park was established in 2001 as Sepulveda Park West, and it continues to be the only proper recreational park within the neighborhood as of 2024. The Mid-Valley Library in North Hills West is in a 7.5 acre site which had been previously dedicated as the Nordhoff Recreation Center in 1978 before funds were available to build the library. The library building and parking spaces covered more than half of the original site when the park became the library campus in 1996, but an open grassy area with paved footpaths and benches remains.

More parkland and recreational facilities are located outside the neighborhood. The large, 10.587 acre, Sepulveda Recreation Center provides access to parkland and recreational facilities to residents, especially those in North Hills East. Despite sharing North Hills' former name, it is actually located in Panorama City, just outside the neighborhood's east boundary on the Pacoima Wash. Other parks near North Hills East include the Albert Piantanida Intergenerational Center, and Marson Street Pocket Park, both in Panorama City, as well as Devonwood Park in Mission Hills. To the west, Dearborn Park in Northridge also provides recreation and parkland to residents.

In 2022, there was an unsuccessful movement by community members and residents to prevent the construction of a new charter school on Plummer Street in North Hills East and promoting the creation of a park. They cited a desire to preserve and create a public use for a historic house on the site which dates to the settlement of Mission Acres and was designated as a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument, and the lack of green space in the neighborhood. While the house is to be preserved, plans went forward for the construction of the Valor Academy Elementary School.

Healthcare
North Hills is home to the large Veterans Administration Sepulveda Ambulatory Care Center campus, which serves veterans in the San Fernando Valley, with residential and outpatient care.

Films
There are many locations in North Hills that have been used for various films such as "Terminator 2: Judgement Day", "Halloween (2007 film)", "Halloween II (2009 film)", "American Beauty (1999 film)", and "Step Brothers (film)".

Many of the films were shot in the Sepulveda VA Clinic to shoot large shots to captivate wide scenes, such as in the movie Step Brothers, the area is used to show a large fight between two men and a large group of kids. In one of the most famous scenes in the film Terminator 2: Judgement Day, after thinking John the main protagonist finally escaped the T-1000, due to some help from the T-800, John is surprised when the T-1000 drives a semi truck through the overpass wall of Bull Creek, a flood control channel located in North Hills.

Notable people

 * Bart Andrus, professional football coach and former collegiate player
 * Kerry Rossall, stuntman and actor
 * Sharon Shapiro, gymnast

title: North Hills, Los Angeles


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Battle of Laswari

The Battle of Laswari took place on 1 November 1803 near Laswari village, Alwar. It was part of the Second Anglo-Maratha War.

The British under Gerard Lake were anxious to finish the war by neutralizing the last substantial force that the Maratha confederacy possessed, consisting of twelve battalions of regular infantry trained by the adventurer Chevalier Dudrenec. Dudrenec deserted the Marathas and command fell onto Ambaji Ingle, a veteran Maratha officer.

Lake decided to dispense first with his artillery and later with his infantry in a series of forced marches to catch up with the Maratha force. Lake initially encountered the enemy force with just three brigades of cavalry, but the British troopers by repeated charges were able to contain the Maratha Army until the British infantry arrived.

The British units, commanded by Lake, were about 10,000 men strong, opposing Sindhia's force of 9,000 veteran infantry and 5,000 cavalry under the command of Ambaji Ingle. The British units were also supported by additional allied troops from Alwar.

The Maratha infantry made a most gallant defence, standing their ground until the survivors laid down their arms. The cavalry also suffered heavily. The British captured 72 guns and a large quantity of ammunition and stores. Lake later wrote, "I never was in so severe a business in my life or anything like it… these fellows fought like devils, or rather like heroes".

"The casualties on both sides were very heavy. The Company lost many officers, including Maj. Gen. Weir, Col. Vandeleur and Maj. Griffith. Lake's son was also killed."

On 17 December 1803, Raghuji Bhonsale (II) of Nagpur signed the Treaty of Deogaon with the British after the Battle of Laswari and gave up the province of Cuttack including Balasore.

In this battle, the people of the Meena tribe of Shahjahanpur fought a lot and drove the British away.

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

title: Battle of Laswari


text:
National Security Council (Pakistan)

The National Security Council (reporting name: NSC) is a federal institutional and consultative body chaired by the Prime Minister of Pakistan as its chairman. The NSC is a principal forum that is mandated for considering national security and foreign policy matters with the senior national security advisers and Cabinet ministers. The idea and inception of National Security Council was first conceived in 1969 under the President Yahya Khan, its functions were to advise and assist the president and prime minister on national security and foreign policies.

The National Security Council was re-created by then-President and former General Pervez Musharraf in April 2004 under the National Security Council Act. Although, the NSC remains to as a statutory body, the National Security Council is not active since 2008, and the Cabinet Committee on National Security is fulfilling the role and purpose of the NSC. The first National Security Adviser was Tariq Aziz who was appointed in 2004 and was preceded by Major-General (retired) Mahmud Durrani in 2008. Since Durrani's deposing by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani in 2009, there has been no appointed new NSC adviser since then. The NSC was abandoned by the government of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), with a unified confirmations from the Parliament, and its functions has been taken under control by the Defence Cabinet Committee as of 2009.

The council was revived under Nawaz Sharif, who presides over meetings of the council when there is an emergency, such as hostilities between India and Pakistan, or a chance to discuss events related to the insurgency.

Former Constitution Basis
The Constitution of Pakistan in the past provided for the National Security Council. However, the provision was repealed by the 18th Amendment.

Permanent Officiates
The membership position does not depend on the will of the chairman, who is the elected Prime Minister of Pakistan. Depending on the agenda of the meeting, other concerned persons are also invited in the meeting of the NSC.

The usual cabinet-level meetings at the NSC takes the following agenda and members of the following authorities are usually invited:

Current Former
 * National Command Authority (NCA)
 * Cabinet Committee on National Security (C2NS)
 * Economic Coordination Committee (ECC)
 * Executive Committee of the Space Research Council (ECSRC) — deactivated since 1985.

Functions
The Council serves as a forum for consultation for the president and the federal government on matters of national security including the sovereignty, integrity, defence and security of the State and crisis management in general. It may also formulate recommendations to the president and the federal government in such matters.

Inception: 1969–1971

The Pakistan military has been sending many recommendations for the establishment of the National Security Council as akin and counterpart to the American National Security Council. A comprehensive report on NSC was written and submitted by the Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral S.M. Ahsan in 1968. Admiral Ahsan submitted his handwritten report to President Yahya Khan's staff in Islamabad in 1969 and emphasized support for the establishment of the military dominated national security council composed of senior civil and military officials who would advise the government on national security issues and propose strategies to overcome the challenges involving the foreign policy matters. The proposal was forwarded to President Office, and then to President Yahya Khan with strong recommendations for its approval.

In 1969, President Yahya Khan established the National Security Council, after signing and issuing the presidential decree to establish this consultative institution. Major-General Ghulam Omar was appointed NSC's first secretary and was posted at the General Headquarters (GHQ) to perform operations of NSC under President Yahya Khan. The NSC secretariat was part of the President Office and the Chief Martial Law Administrator (CMLA) and was directly under the control of the military establishment which then-functioned under President Yahya Khan's staff.

The NSC secretariat was highly unpopular in public and political circles of Pakistan, and it quickly gained notoriety in civil society due to its involvement in political and civilian affairs. The NSC secretariat did not figure in the decision-making of the military government because President Yahya Khan ran his government administration as personalized enterprise relaying heavily on his close and trusted military and bureaucratic advisers. The NSC Secretary, Major-General Ghulam Omar, was less focused on national issues whilst kept his interest in combat development. The NSC Secretariat under Yahya Khan was only a paper organization.

The Genesis: 1985–1999
The concept of National Security Council as a bridge of stabilizing the civil-military relations has always been favoured by the military spectrum of Pakistan since 1971. In 1973, Pakistan military has sent repeated recommendations of peculiar structure of the NSC in which senior military commanders of Pakistan Armed Forces are ensured a seat at the table. The proposal was met with heated criticism in the state parliament and Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto instead issued a white paper on Higher Defence Organisations (HDO) in May 1976, outlining the institutional arrangements for dealing with defence and security affairs. This led the ultimate creation of the Defence Committee of the Cabinet (DCC) which has the mandate of responsibility of national defence rested with the prime minister. The DCC conveys matters to other important organisations involved in the national security decision-making on security affairs included the Ministry of Defence (MoD), the JS HQ of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee and its Chairman, the Chiefs of Staff of the Pakistan Armed Forces.

After the enactment of the martial law by chief of army staff General Zia-ul-Haq in 1977, the DCC had remained active. After holding successful referendum, followed by non-partisan general elections in 1985, President General Zia-ul-Haq authored and inserted Article 152-A to the Constitution through the Revival of the Constitution Order (RCO), in March 1985. This led the establish a National Security Council for accommodating the high-ranking military leadership in policy making. The NSC was empowered to "make recommendations relating to the issue of a Proclamation of Emergency under Article 232, security of Pakistan and any other matter of national importance that may be referred to it by the President in consultation with the Prime Minister."

The NSC was opposed by most political circles and it had to be dropped as a part of the deal with the Parliament to get the parliamentary approval for the revised version of the Revival of the Constitution Order (RCO) as Eighth Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan, in October 1985. The NSC was dissolved by Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 1993 and reactivated the DCC operationalize in its place.

From 1998–99, there were only two NSC meetings took place which were chaired by the Prime Minister Sharif; first occasion when Sharif ordered Pakistan's nuclear tests in response to India's tests, as part of his tit-for-tat policy. At the NSC cabinet meeting, the Pakistani government, military, scientific, and civilian officials were participating in a debate, broadening, and complicating the decision-making process. Although, General Karamat debated towards presenting the national security and military point of view, the final decision was left on Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's say. After the decision was made, General Karamat was notified of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's decision and asked the military to be stand-by orders. After providing the joint military logistics, the nuclear tests were eventually carried out on 28 May 1998, as Chagai-I, and on 30 May 1998 as codename: Chagai-II. As dawn broke over the Chagai mountains, Pakistan became the world's seventh nuclear power.

Secondly, the NSC meeting took place during the heights of the Kargil War in 1999. Empowerment of the NSC at the bureaucratic level was the primary issue that led to the forced relieve of Chairman Joint Chiefs General Jehangir Karamat in 1998. In an absence of the forum, the upheavals in civil–military relations led to the dismissal of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in 1999 when he tried to dismissed then-Chairman Joint Chiefs Pervez Musharraf.

Reconstruction and developments: 2004–2008
After staging a coup d'état against the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in 1999, Chairman joint chiefs Pervez Musharraf announced the establishment of six member national security council in his first television speech. Through a presidential act, the concept of NSC was formally established under an order of the chief executive on 30 October 1999. The presidential order also led the establishment of the National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB) as a think tank. Although NRB gained quick constitutional establishment in 2000 the NSC's constitutional establishment did not really take off due to political consensus over the establishment of this institution. Finally in 2004, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz presented the National Security Council through an Act of Parliament and succeeded in constitutionally establishing the NSC for the first time in April 2004. Originally the NSC bill proposed that the NSC would also deal with the "matters relating to democracy, governance, and inter-provincial harmony." This sentence was later controversially replaced by President Musharraf with "crisis management" without explaining its operational. President and Chief of Army Staff General Pervez Musharraf created the office in Aiwan-e-Sadr, and appoint civil bureaucrat Tariq Aziz as the first National Security Advisor. According to PILDT, since its reestablishment, Musharraf conveyed very few national security meetings, and most meetings were conducted to discuss political situations only.

He resigned from the post of NSC secretariat when Musharraf resigned from presidency on 18 August 2008. He was succeeded by Mahmud Ali Durrani as the second National Security Advisor, directly reporting to the Prime minister Secretariat. Durrani was notably deposed by the Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani in January 2009 for "not consulting the Prime Minister while giving statements on foreign relation matters". The matter in question was the acceptance by the Government of Pakistan of the Pakistani nationality of the sole surviving terrorist Ajmal Kasab, who was involved in the 2008 Mumbai attacks and was in the custody of the Mumbai police.

Abolition and suspension (2008–2009)
After the incident, Prime Minister Gillani vowed to abolish the National Security Council in February 2009. The NSC remains to stay as statue on the constitution, however, the NSC secretariat is not active since 2008, but instead the Defence Committee of the Cabinet is re-activated in its place by the current government.

Since 2009, there has been no appointed new NSC adviser and no national security meetings have been conducted since then. Its operations and mandate has been integrated to the DCC meeting, and there has been ninth DCC meeting taken place since 2009.

Restorative status (2013–present)
Upon conclusion of the general elections in 2013, the PML(N)'s strategists indicated the restoration of the NSC to the news media. On immediate basis, Prime Minister Sharif appointed Sartaj Aziz as National Security Advisor (NSA). On 9 September 2013, Prime Minister Sharif proposed that dialogue with the Pakistani military would create a civil-military partnership, putting the military and an elected government on the same page for the first time in Pakistan's history. After reconstituting the Cabinet Committee on National Security (C2NS), with military gaining representation in the country's politics, the NSC came into effect as an influential policy institution.

Decision came from Prime Minister Sharif to reconstitute the NSC to improve coordination between the civil and military institutions in order to deal with a nagging far-right insurgency that has killed and maimed thousands of Pakistanis over the last few years.

According to the political scientist and civic-military relations expert, Aqil Shah, Sharif finally did what exactly former chairman joint chiefs General Karamat had called for in 1998. Since then, the NSC meetings with Prime Minister Sharif have been taking place frequently.

title: National Security Council (Pakistan)


text:
Battle of Argaon

The Battle of Argaon (also known as Battle of Argaum) took place on 29 November 1803, between the British under the command of Major-General Arthur Wellesley (later the Duke of Wellington) and the forces of the Bhonsles of Berar and the Scindias of Gwalior.

Prelude
After Raghoji II Bhonsle and Daulat Rao Scindia were defeated at the Battle of Laswari, they moved south on 28 November 1803. In 1803, Nizam Ali Khan fell gravely ill, prompting Daulat Rao Shinde and the Bhonsale to invade his territories.

Battle

British forces, under the command of Colonel Stevenson and Wellesley, defeated the Marathas at the Battle of Adgaon. This victory allowed the Nizam to regain control of all Maratha claims in Berar, thereby putting an end to the Bhonsales' rule over the region. Nizam Ali Khan passed away later that same year, and he was succeeded by his son Sikander Jah, also known as Asaf Jah III.

title: Battle of Argaon


text:
Assaye

Assaye is a small village in the Jalna district of the state of Maharashtra in western India. The village was the location of the Battle of Assaye in 1803, fought between the Maratha Empire and the British East India Company.

It became the first real victory for the young general Arthur Wellesley (later Duke of Wellington). Here he commanded a vastly outnumbered combined force of British and Sepoy regiments against a mixed modernised and tribal Maratha army. He always described this as his greatest military victory.

title: Assaye


text:
Draft:OpenTalk

OpenTalk is an open source teleconferencing software that is written in Rust in the backend and JavaScript/Redact and Redux in the frontend while the streaming is based on WebRTC. It is developed by the German company OpenTalk GmbH in Berlin. The company is associated with the Heinlein Group, which runs the privacy and security oriented email provider mailbox.org.

General features of teleconferencing software as audio and video streams, screen sharing, chat, voting, show-of-hands, break-out-rooms are present. The software is develeped as open source software under the EUPL license and available on the openCode plattform. It is designed to be privacy respecting and compliant to the GDPR. As OSS it can be self hosted or booked as SaaS. Additionally fuago is redistributing OpenTalk.

The software is aimed particularly at companies, plattforms and public authorities that want to break away from US providers such as Zoom, WebEx or MS Teams.

OpenTalk has a strategic partnership with the sharing and syncing solution OwnCloud. Another partnership with mgm, aims at integrating OpenTalk into their A12 business application solutions software. OpenTalk is also part of the Open Telekom Cloud of the Deutsche Telekom.

OpenTalk currently is conducting a CC-EAL4 certification by the German Federal Office for Information Security

Features

 * integrated chat (public and private)
 * participant view
 * speaker list
 * dashboard (organisation of meetings, creating and retrieving invite links)
 * breakout-rooms (by room number or by participant number)
 * (optional) waiting room
 * lobby with Audio, Video and Connection speed test
 * screen sharing
 * dial-in by phone
 * Virtual Backgrounds/Blur
 * stopwatch, timer
 * push to talk
 * Raise hands, clear all hands
 * whiteboard
 * voting, polls
 * coffee breaks
 * Conference and Speaker times
 * Multiple Moderators
 * offboarding (moderators and VIP can stay in the meeting for after-talk
 * "Talking Stick"-mode (only person "with the stick" can talk)
 * mute all by moderators
 * Meeting notes

 * Roadmap
 * session recording
 * Whispering (one-to-one audio stream withing an existing meeting)
 * sub-room meeting (one-to-one room within and existing meeting)
 * wheel of names, ball of yarn (display names of participants with next up for things like introduction rounds)
 * streaming
 * security zones and federation

Third Party Integrations

 * OwnCloud
 * A12 business application software
 * Open Telekom Cloud

title: Draft:OpenTalk


text:
Ilya Berezhnykh

Ilya Avtonomovich Berezhnykh (Илья́ Автоно́мович Бережны́х; birth date unknown – c. 1830), also known as Berezhnoy (Бережно́й), was a Russian Empire navigator.

In 1820, Berezhnykh took part in the northern expedition, led by Ferdinand Petrovich Wrangel. He explored the coastline and the islands of the Arctic Ocean, including Kotelny and Lyakhovsky Islands as an underpilot in 1826.

title: Ilya Berezhnykh


text:
Draft talk:OpenTalk

For an April 2005 deletion over this page see Votes for deletion/OpenTalk

Has this been at all confirmed? I think that we should wait until there is a press release of the fact at Apple PR, or they actually start to use the name to mean Rendezvous. If indeed it is a real change, then Rendezvous should be moved and redirected here. — David Remahl 10:49, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

OpenTalk Software: Developing the Draft
As I understand, the article was moved to DRAFT for insufficient non primary sources (As per the comment in the history). I tried to add some sources of larger media outlets, but articles about this software seem to be mainly concentrated in the German language are. Spiegel is a large German magazine (print and online), heise is a tech centred media company and online magazine, t3n is a magazine centred on technology and business. Therefore I hope this addition can lead to the sourcing of this article being acceptable. However I was never really active on the english Wikipedia, so I don´t know if thats enough. Pandora85 (talk) Pandora85 (talk) 19:25, 28 February 2024 (UTC)

title: Draft talk:OpenTalk


text:
User:Aliman

FOR UPDATED INFORMATION, SEE: http://alimansears.wordpress.com/

Subud USA: Click on the Map For Subud: State of Hawaii, Adult Mental Health Division: CPRP Certification (USPRA website): Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal Free High Quality PR Journal Articles: Center For Process Studies: Process Studies Journal Homepage: Process Philosophy Links:

title: User:Aliman


text:
Pontiac

Pontiac most often refers to:

 * Pontiac (automobile), a brand of cars marketed by General Motors
 * Pontiac (Odawa leader) (c. 1714 to 1720 – 1769), a Native American war chief

Pontiac may also refer to:

Canada

 * Pontiac, Quebec, a municipality
 * Apostolic Vicariate of Pontiac, now the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pembroke
 * Pontiac Regional County Municipality, Quebec, an administrative division
 * Pontiac (federal electoral district), in Quebec
 * Pontiac (provincial electoral district), in Quebec

United States

 * Pontiac, Illinois
 * Pontiac Correctional Center, a prison in Illinois
 * Pontiac, Indiana
 * Pontiac, Kansas
 * Pontiac, Michigan
 * Pontiac Silverdome, a stadium that was in Michigan
 * Pontiac, Rhode Island
 * Pontiac Building, a registered historic high-rise in Chicago, Illinois
 * Pontiac Mills, a historic textile mill complex in Rhode Island

Amtrak stations

 * Pontiac station (Illinois)
 * Pontiac Transportation Center, in Michigan

Other uses

 * Pontiac (album), 1987, by Lyle Lovett
 * USS Pontiac, any of several ships of the United States Navy
 * Marvin Pontiac, a fictional character created by musician John Lurie
 * "Pontiac fever", a less severe form of legionellosis

title: Pontiac


text:
Bishop of Tortosa

The bishop of Tortosa is the ordinary of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tortosa in Catalonia, Spain. The bishop is a suffragan of the archbishop of Tarragona.

List of bishops of Tortosa

 * Rufus 64–90?
 * Macianus (2nd century)
 * Quartus c. 156
 * Eustorgius (3rd century)
 * Exuperantius ?–369
 * Herodotus (4th century)
 * Lirios 364–399
 * Heros ca. 400
 * Ervicius (6th century)
 * Ursus 516–525
 * Assellus 525–546
 * Maurilius 546–580
 * Julian 580–589
 * Froisclo 589–599
 * Rufinus 614–633
 * John 633–638
 * Afrilla 653–683
 * Caecilius 683–688/90
 * Inviolatus 693–715
 * Muslim invasion
 * Paterno 1058
 * Berenguer (11th century)
 * Gaufroy d'Avignon 1151–1165
 * Ponç de Monells 1165–1193
 * Gombau de Santa Oliva 1194–1212
 * Ponç de Torrella 1212–1254
 * Bernat d'Olivella (Bernardo Olivella) 1254–1272
 * Arnau de Jardí 1272–1306
 * Dalmau de Montoliu 1306
 * Pere de Batet (Pedro de Beteto) 1307–1310
 * Francesc de Paulhac 1310–1316
 * Berenguer de Prat (Berenguer Prat) 1316–1341
 * Guillem de Sentmenat 1341
 * Arnau de Lordat 1341–1346
 * Bernat Oliver 1346–1348
 * Jaume Sitjó i Carbonell 1348–1351
 * Esteve Malet 1351–1356
 * Joan Fabra (Juan Fabra) 1357–1362
 * Jaume de Prades i de Foix (Jaime de Aragón) 1362–1369
 * Guillem de Torrelles 1369–1379
 * Hug de Llupià–Bages (Hugo de Lupia y Bagés) 1379–1398, Appointed, Bishop of Valencia)
 * Pero de Luna y de Albornoz (administrator) 1399–1403
 * Lluís de Prades i d'Arenós 1404
 * Francesc Climent dit Sa Pera (Francesco Climent Sapera, Pérez Clemente) 1407–1410
 * Pero de Luna (administrator) 1410–1414
 * Ot de Montcada i de Luna (Otón de Montcada y de Luna) 1415–1473
 * Alfons d'Aragó (Alfonso d'Aragona) 1475–1513
 * Juan de Enguera, O.P. (1512–1513 Died)
 * Fra Lluís Mercader (Luis Mercader Escolano), O. Cart. (1513–1516)
 * Adriaan Florenszoom Dedel (Adriaan Floriszoon Boeyens) (Papa Adrian VI) 1516–1522
 * William of Enckenvoirt (Willem van Enckenvoirt) 1523–1534
 * Fra Antoni de Calcena (Antonio Calcena) 1537–1539
 * Jeroni de Requesens (Jerónimo Requeséns) 1542–1548
 * Ferran de Lloaces 1553–1560
 * Martín de Córdoba Mendoza 1560–1574
 * Fra Joan Izquierdo 1574–1585
 * Joan Terès i Borrull 1586–1587
 * Joan Bta. Cardona 1587–1589
 * Gaspar Punter i Barreda 1590–1600
 * Fra Pedro Manrique 1601–1611
 * Fra Isidor Aliaga 1611–1612
 * Alfonso Márquez de Prado 1612–1616
 * Lluís de Tena 1616–1622
 * Agustín Spínola Basadone 1623–1626
 * Justino Antolínez de Burgos y de Saavedra 1628–1637
 * Giovanni Battista Veschi 1641–1655
 * Gregorio Parcero 1656–1663
 * Fra Josep Fageda 1664–1685
 * Fra Sever Tomàs i Auter 1685–1700
 * Silvestre Garcia Escalona 1702–1714
 * Juan Miguélez de Mendaña 1715–1717
 * Bartolomé Camacho y Madueño 1720–1757
 * Francesc Borrull 1757–1758
 * Luís García Mañero 1760–1765
 * Bernardo Velarde y Velarde 1765–1779
 * Pedro Cortés y Larraz 1780–1786
 * Victoriano López Gonzalo 1787–1790
 * Antonio José Salinas Moreno 1790–1812
 * Manuel Ros de Medrano 1815–1821
 * Víctor Damián Sáez y Sánchez-Mayor 1824–1839
 * Damián gordo y Sáez 1848–1854
 * Gil Esteve i tomàs 1858
 * Miquel Pratmans i Llambés 1860–1861
 * Benet Vilamitjana i Vila 1862–1879
 * Francisco Aznar y Pueyo 1879–1893
 * Pere Rocamora i Garcia 1894–1925
 * Félix bilbao y Ugarriza 1926–1943
 * Manuel Moll i Salord 1943–1968
 * Ricard–Maria Carles i Gordó 1969–1990
 * Lluís Martínez Sistach 1991–1997
 * Xavier Salinas i Vinyals 1997–2012
 * Enrique Benavent Vidal 2013 –2022
 * Sergi Gordo Rodríguez 2023

title: Bishop of Tortosa


text:
Toffler

Toffler is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:

 * Alvin Toffler (1928–2016), American writer and futurist
 * Larry Toffler (born 1963), American game show host and actor
 * Van Toffler (born 1958), American television executive

title: Toffler


text:
Albin Stenroos

Oskar Albinus "Albin" Stenroos (24 February 1889 – 30 April 1971) was a Finnish runner, who won the marathon at the 1924 Olympics.

Stenroos ran his first marathon in 1909, placing third at the national championships, but then moved to shorter distances, down to 1500 m. His would run his next marathon 1924. In 1910 he won the 10,000 m race at the Finnish nationals. In absence of Hannes Kolehmainen, Stenroos won the national titles over 5000 m and 10,000 m from 1912 to 1916 and the cross country title in 1915–1917.

At the 1912 Summer Olympics, Stenroos won the bronze medal over 10,000 m behind Kolehmainen. He also finished sixth in the cross country and aided his team to a second place. In 1915, he ran his first world record over 30 km (1:48:06.2), which he improved in 1924 (1:46:11.6). He also held the 20 km world record in 1923 (1:07:11.2). He skipped the 1920 Summer Olympics, but decided to run the marathon in 1924. He won the race in hot conditions, beating second-placed Romeo Bertini by almost six minutes. He placed second at the 1926 Boston Marathon, and retired after failing to finish in 1927.

title: Albin Stenroos


text: Category:Bishops

title: Category:Bishops


text:
John Taylor & Co

John Taylor Bell Foundry (Loughborough) Limited, trading as John Taylor & Co and commonly known as Taylor's Bell Foundry, Taylor's of Loughborough, or simply Taylor's, is the world's largest working bell foundry. It is located in Loughborough, in the Charnwood borough of Leicestershire, England. The business originated in the 14th century, and the Taylor family took over in 1784.

The company manufactures bells for use in clock towers, rings of bells for change ringing, chimes, and carillons. In 2005, Taylor's merged with Eayre & Smith Limited (bellhangers) and from 2005 until 2009 was known as Taylors Eayre & Smith Limited.

In September 2009, Taylor's went into administration but was bought out of administration by a consortium named UK Bell Foundries Ltd, led by Andrew Wilby, which re-financed the business. Since then, the company has re-established its presence both in the UK and in export markets.

The foundry has a museum of bells and bellfounding, which is the only one of its kind in the UK. It is one of the few Victorian purpose-built manufacturing sites still being used for its original purpose. Its campanile contains the most-pealed bells in the world.

History
The present company is part of a line of bellfounders dating back to Johannes de Stafford in the 14th century, who was also a mayor of Leicester. The Taylor family became involved in 1784 with Robert Taylor (1759–1830), and a foundry was established in Loughborough in 1839 by his son John Taylor (1797–1858), moving to the current site in 1859. The Taylors also had foundries in Oxford and St Neots between 1786 and 1854.

During much of the later 19th century, the foundry was under the management of John William Taylor (1827–1906). Taylor's was the first bellfounder to adopt "true-harmonic" tuning in the late 19th century. In 1963, Paul Taylor, last of the Taylor family in the business, appeared on the American TV panel show What's My Line?, challenging the panel with his occupation as a bell maker.

The foundry is based in buildings on Freehold Street, which are Grade II* listed. The National Twelve Bell Contest is competed for annually by the leading teams in England for "The Taylor Trophy".

On 18 September 2009, the company went into administration. Mazars, which had previously been acting as advisors to the company during attempts to secure extra funding, were appointed administrators. On 2 October 2009, it was reported that the administrators were "optimistic about its future." On 15 October 2009, in a statement released by UK Bell Foundries Ltd, a consortium of ringers, members of the bell industry and other investors, it was stated that the foundry would reopen on 19 October, reverting to the previous name of John Taylor & Co. Paul Taylor's widow, Mrs Merle Taylor, was honorary president of the new company until her death.

The board from 2015 to 2020 comprised Andrew W R Wilby (chairman and CEO), Laith R Reynolds, David E Potter, Michael J Semken, Simon E Adams, D Paul Mason and Andrew B Mills. In 2016, the directors of UK Bell Foundries Ltd founded the Loughborough Bellfoundry Trust and transferred ownership of the buildings, equipment, intellectual property and the museum to that body in perpetuity to safeguard it for the future. The Trust received emergency grants to restore several parts of the building from Historic England, as it was listed as a Grade II* building at risk. Further restoration was planned.

In 2018, the company established a subsidiary called John Taylor International, based in Australia, to serve the southern hemisphere markets. At the end of 2020, Andrew Wilby resigned as director and CEO; David Potter also resigned as director. Andrew's son Michael Wilby was managing director from October 2019 to August 2021.

Notable bells and rings
In 1881 at Loughborough, Taylor's cast "Great Paul" (the largest British cast bell in Britain) for St Paul's Cathedral in London, weighing 17002 kg or more than 17 metric tons. Rock band AC/DC used a 2000-pound cast bronze bell for the song "Hells Bells", which was originally used on the Back in Black Tour in 1980.

Many churches around the world have used bells cast at Taylor's bell foundry, including:

title: John Taylor & Co


text:
Vytautas Magnus University

Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) (Vytauto Didžiojo universitetas, VDU) is a public university in Kaunas, Lithuania. The university was founded in 1922 during the interwar period as an alternate national university.

Initially it was known as the University of Lithuania, but in 1930 the university was renamed to Vytautas Magnus University, commemorating the 500th anniversary of the death of the Lithuanian ruler Vytautas the Great, who is known for the nation's greatest historical expansion in the 15th century.

It is one of the leading universities of Lithuania, and has about 8,800 students, including Master's students and Ph.D. candidates. There are a little over 1000 employees, including approximately 90 professors.

Establishment of University
The beginnings of higher education in Lithuania go back to the 16th century when in 1579 the college founded by Jesuits in Vilnius became a higher school of education – Academia et Universitas Vilnensis. In 1832 in the aftermath of the November Uprising, Czar Nicholas I closed the university.

However, in 1918 with the establishment of the independent Republic of Lithuania, the State Council decided to reestablish Vilnius University. Since Vilnius was later under Polish administration and the Lithuanian government had to be transferred to Kaunas, this decision was not put into effect.

At the beginning of 1920, Higher Courses of Study were established in Kaunas, laying the foundation for the establishment of a university. The Lithuanian Cabinet of Ministers decided to establish the University of Lithuania in Kaunas, 13 February 1922. The ceremonial opening of the university took place 16 February 1922, while on the 12th of April the President of Lithuania confirmed the university's Statute along with six faculties: Theology-Philosophy, Humanities, Law, Mathematics and Sciences, Medicine and Technical Studies.

The affiliate Agricultural Academy was founded in 1924 on the basis of the Agronomy and Forestry sections of the Faculty of Mathematics and Sciences; in 1936 the Veterinary Academy was established in a similar fashion on the basis of the Veterinary section of the Faculty of Medicine.

On 7 June 1930, commemorating the 500th anniversary of the death of Vytautas the Great, the university was renamed in his honor (Vytautas Magnus University, Universitas Vytauti Magni).

Interwar period

In 1940, Vytautas Magnus University contributed to the reestablishment of Vilnius University. In the winter, the faculties of Humanities and Law were transferred to Vilnius whilst the Faculty of Mathematics and Sciences was moved in the summer. The occupation of Lithuania by the Soviet Union forced the university to be named the University of Kaunas in summer 1940. At the beginning of 1941, university professors took an active role in establishing the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences.

The controversial Lithuanian Provisional Government restored the name of Vytautas Magnus to the university after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in summer 1941. The German occupation government closed the university in March 1943, after some Lithuanians refused to form an SS battalion.

The university was reopened by the Soviet authorities of Lithuania in autumn 1944. Four faculties of History-Philology, Medicine, Construction, and Technology were established. The transfer of the Faculty of Philosophy to Vilnius was the reason why the University of Kaunas was closed in fall 1949. The university was restructured into Kaunas Polytechnic Institute and the Kaunas Medical Institute on October 31, 1950.

Re-establishment of University

The government passed the law on re-establishing the Vytautas Magnus University on 4 July 1989 and the cabinet registered the temporary Statute later that month. The first academic year began in the university's re-established Faculties of Economics, Humanities and Sciences on 1 September 1989.

The re-established university was the second in then Soviet-occupied Lithuania, and the first school of higher education that was independent of governmental institutions. The most important principle in the university's activity became academic freedom, while its main purpose was to prepare graduates with a broad humanistic orientation for Lithuania's needs in research, culture, education and economy.

A common program of study in humanities and general education for the first two years of study for all students appeared in 1990. Its aim was to develop well-rounded individuals who were free and creative.

In 1991 the university was the first in Lithuania to establish in a system of study based on several levels, the completion of which resulted in the granting of Bachelor's or Master's degrees, as well as Doctoral degrees. The feature of this university still remains exceptional in Lithuania today: this is a liberal policy for studies, according to which students are admitted not into specific specializations but into fields of study.

The students themselves put together their plan of study and make a final choice of their program after the first two years of study. Particular attention is given to foreign languages and computer skills, making this university different from other schools of higher education in the country.

During the university's first decade the number of students and teachers grew more than twenty times. It has become the center for academic work in the Humanities and Social Sciences, Theology and Fine Arts, Political Sciences and Law in Kaunas. Modern programs have been expanding in Informatics, Environmental Sciences, Biology, Mathematics and Physics.

Master's and Doctoral studies became a priority at the university and demanded a pedagogical staff with high qualifications. Therefore, the university invited to its classrooms and laboratories the most celebrated of scholars from Lithuania's research institutes, creating in 1993 the first Research and Study Association in Lithuania. Ten Lithuanian research institutes formed this association together with the university: the Institutes for Lithuanian History, Lithuanian Language, Lithuanian Literature and Folklore, Lithuanian Philosophy and Sociology, biochemistry, Mathematics and Informatics, Semiconductor Physics, Psychophysiology and Rehabilitation, Architecture and Civil Engineering, and Lithuanian Forestry.

The university has the right to grant doctoral degrees in nineteen scholarly fields and their branches and the Doctor Habilitus in eight fields. The pedagogical titles of professor and associate professor may be granted in the fields of Humanities, Social Sciences, Physics and Biomedicine.

Structure
The university has the following subdivisions:
 * Faculty of Economics and Management
 * Faculty of Natural Sciences
 * Faculty of Humanities
 * Faculty of Informatics
 * Faculty of Catholic Theology
 * Faculty of Arts
 * Faculty of Political Science and Diplomacy
 * Faculty of Social Sciences
 * Faculty of Law
 * Institute of Innovative Studies
 * Institute of Foreign Languages
 * Agriculture Academy
 * Faculty of Agronomy
 * Faculty of Bioeconomy Development
 * Faculty of Forest Sciences and Ecology
 * Faculty of Engineering
 * Education Academy
 * Music Academy
 * Botanical Garden

Ranking
Vytautas Magnus University is currently ranked 801-1000 among World top universities by 2020 QS World University Rankings.

International relations
The university has ties with numerous universities of North America and Europe, as well as East Asia.

Special student and teacher exchange programs have been set up with the following universities: A program in Baltic Studies for foreign students was initiated at the university in 1997.
 * In Europe: University of Bergen (Norway), ADA University (Azerbaijan), Roskilde (Denmark), Göteborg, Linköping and Växjö (Sweden), Greifswald, Hohenheim, Zittau/Görlitz (Germany), Poitiers, Du Maine, Pierre et Marie Curie University (France), UBS Vannes (France), Bologna, Parma, SDA Bocconi, University of Cagliari, University of Urbino (Italy), Aveiro (Portugal), University of Torun (Poland) and Tbilisi State University (Georgia);
 * In the United States: Alabama, Fordham, Creighton, Loyola, Seton Hall universities;
 * In East Asia: Kansai Gaidai, Akita International University, Waseda and the International Christian University (Japan), Kyung Hee University, Chung-Ang University, and Kangwon National University (South Korea).

It is a member of the European Colleges of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Club activities
Questions concerning students' academic, social and cultural rights are resolved through the Student Council. About thirty student corporations and clubs are active in the university. The university's artistic groups – the Women's Chamber Choir, the dance group "Žilvitis", the folkloric ensemble "Linago" and the Rhetorical Theatre – have won various contests in Lithuania and abroad.

Notable professors and alumni of Vytautas Magnus University
• Algirdas Antanas Avižienis, informatician, Professor at University of California, Los Angeles

• Jurgis Blekaitis, Lithuanian American poet, former editor for the Voice of America

• Bernardas Brazdžionis, poet

• Klawdziy Duzh-Dushewski, Belarusian architect, diplomat and journalist

• Algirdas Julien Greimas, French-Lithuanian literary scientist

• Jonas Jablonskis, linguist

• Paulius Jankūnas, basketball player

• Mantas Kalnietis, basketball player

• Vincas Krėvė-Mickevičius, writer, philologist, Assistant Professor at University of Pennsylvania

• Ivan Lappo, historian

• Jonas Mačiulis, basketball player

• Leonidas Donskis, philosopher

• Martin Lings, English writer

• Salomėja Nėris, poet

• Constantin Andreas von Regel, horticulturalist and botanist

• Robert van Voren, Dutch human rights activist and political scientist

• Jonas Vabalas-Gudaitis, psychologist, educator, and agronomist

title: Vytautas Magnus University


text:
Talk:Visegrád Group

Fall behind west
I deleted the sentence "After Slovenia, the Visegrád Group are the wealthiest post-Communist countries in Europe, but they still fall significantly behind the Western economies." because it's not true, at least not anymore. Look at countries like Portugal which are as wealthy as Czech Republic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.173.13.31 (talk) 19:23, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Yeah. Also Spain and Greece are even poorer than the v4 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.135.110.245 (talk) 08:34, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Function of the Visegrád Group
o, like, what does it do, what's it about? The term "furthering the integration" is very vague and the whole thing might be merely cordial... --Shallot 11:09, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * It is. Ausir 19:42, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * Anything new to update this article? I agree that there should be more to address the purpose of the group.  Perhaps along the lines of an alliance for common defense of member states from historical antagonists Russia and Germany?  This is pure speculation on my part, BTW.  --Dymaxion (talk) 22:14, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
 * In hindsight of Russia's recent actions, you may be right.142.105.159.60 (talk) 06:08, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

I am curious who were the kings of each country who took part in the meeting. Also, a pronunciation key for Visegrad would be nice, as it's not something that shows up in the dictionary (at least not on m-w.com).

 * The Hungarian king mentioned has to be Charles Robert since he was our king between 1308–1342. Wikipedia says the king of Poland was Casimir III and the king of Bohemia was John of Luxembourg at that time. -- Pronunciation: "i" is spelled as in "it", s = sh, "a" as in "father", I guess it's something like vi-sheh-grahd but I'm really not good at these. Alensha 23:49, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Slovenia?
Do you mean Slovakia, or are you confused?

 * No, it's correct. --Ton e 16:00, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Move page name to Visegrad Group
The web site and the treaty use the name Visegrad Group in English, so I think that this page should be under that name. (see WP:NC ) See: --Philip Baird Shearer 22:16, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
 * http://www.visegradgroup.org/ comes up in English! and uses "Visegrad Group"
 * http://www.visegradfund.org comes up in English. and uses "International Visegrad Fund"
 * http://www.visegradfund.org/download/statute.pdf in which the name used is Visegrad with no accent marks, but this is not a font restriction because the names of the town where it was signed and some of the signatories have accent marks on their names.

 * No, your speculation is completely wrong, e without the accent is nothing but a technical restriction. You could rename all less known European towns to versions without accents with the same "arguments". Juro 08:03, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

This is not about the town it is about the name of an organisation called "Visegrad Group". From http://www.visegradfund.org/download/statute.pdf
 * The international Visegrad Fund (herinafter...
 * Done at Štiřín on the ninth day of June in the year two thousand in a single original in the English Language to be deposited with the Government of the Slovak Republic.

It it is just a technical restriction how do you explain the Statute above which is a PDF document if it is a technical restriction? As I said the PDF includes accent marks on the town Stirin (Štiřín) and several of the signatories, but it does not have an accent mark on the word Visegrad. --Philip Baird Shearer 08:35, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the . Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

no consensus to move. — Mets 501 (talk) 16:44, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Requested move
Visegrád Group → Visegrad Group – "Visegrad Group" is the spelling used by the group's official English website.

Survey
Add "* Support" or "* Oppose" followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion with ~
 * Support as originator. Olessi 21:13, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose correct name is Viségrad. Website lacks perfectionism, but that doesn't imply Wikipedia has to follow. Curiously, the very first page of the website displays "Viségrad Group Official Website" on the browser tab.-- Hús  ö  nd  03:48, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Oppose. No harm done in keeping the proper spelling on. -- Asterion talk 16:50, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Support as it's what the group uses in English. FairHair 22:50, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Discussion
As mentioned in the earlier discussion, "Visegrad Group" is the phrasing used in the group's website and funding site. It is not an issue of simply removing the acute accent "á" for an English audience, as many diacritics are used elsewhere on the pages (such as Dolný Kubín at ; České Budějovice at ). The officials deliberately chose to use the phrase "Visegrad Group" without the diacritic. Olessi 21:13, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
 * I'm still not clear as to which usages of the word Visegrad/Visegrád should preserve the diacritic.Jimjamjak (talk) 16:13, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Very strange decision. This doesn't fit any of the spellings on the Visegrad Group's website:
 * Czech: Visegrádské skupiny
 * Hungarian: Visegrádi csoport
 * Polish: Grupy Wyszehradzkiej
 * Slovenian: Vyšehradskej skupiny
 * And of course English: Visegrad Group
 * Which is also the spelling that's used in every one of the Visegrad Group's logos, one of which is already included on the article page. Stefanmuc (talk) 10:48, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Economies
Is it useful to compare the V4 group's overall economy to that of an individual country (i.e. Slovenia)? It seems to me to be a rather unclear comparison - is this statement referring to the overall economic power of the group, the economies of all four states (individually) or the average of the economies? If this is resolved then the grammar issue in the statement introducing this information can be cleared up. Jimjamjak (talk) 16:18, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

In addition, the whole section needs sources and the subjective POV cleaned up Gerald Jarosch (talk) 01:33, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Visegrád Battlegroup
"On 14 March 2014, signed a pact" who signed a pact? the reference url is useless — Preceding unsigned comment added by Expectationlost (talk • contribs) 11:59, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080819191518/http://www.tourismroi.com/Content_Attachments/27670/File_633513750035785076.pdf to http://www.tourismroi.com/Content_Attachments/27670/File_633513750035785076.pdf

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Correction under “Poland”?
In this sentence:

The Polish economy is the sixth-largest in the EU and one of the fastest-growing economies in Europe, with a yearly growth rate of over 3.0% before the late-2000s recession.

should “the late-2000s recession” be “the early-2000s recession”?

— Ddccss (talk) 02:03, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

problem caused by accent in URL
I just (2017 Nov 11) experienced a problem linking to this article.

This is the article’s current URL:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visegrád_Group

I included it in a comment under a WSJ news article. When the comment was published, the URL was terminated with the “r” preceding the “á”:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visegr

I changed the “á” to “a” and republished the comment:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visegrad_Group

This time, the whole URL was published, and the link connected to the article.

Ddccss (talk) 02:21, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Visegrád Group. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Corrected formatting/usage for http://www.stat.gov.pl/cps/rde/xbcr/gus/PUBL_lu_nps2011_wyniki_nsp2011_22032012.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20160305121029/https://slovak.statistics.sk/wps/wcm/connect/1f62189f-cc70-454d-9eab-17bdf5e1dc4a/Tab_10_Obyvatelstvo_SR_podla_narodnosti_scitanie_2011_2001_1991.pdf?MOD=AJPERES to https://slovak.statistics.sk/wps/wcm/connect/1f62189f-cc70-454d-9eab-17bdf5e1dc4a/Tab_10_Obyvatelstvo_SR_podla_narodnosti_scitanie_2011_2001_1991.pdf?MOD=AJPERES

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Relations with Austria
The entire section creates major issues of undue weight and POV, since this V4+ (plus) format was also extended to other countries such as Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia — in which case, Austria is no more special than the others. Also, when asked about extending a formal V4 invitation for Austria to join the group, Hungary's PM Victor Orban stated that the strength of the V4 group lies in similar economics, culture and historical struggles, thus extending the membership to countries such as Austria would not increase the group's cohesion but work to its detriment. --E-960 (talk) 21:54, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Article's illustration
Why on Earth the map of V4 contains also the EU members marked in blue?? What EU has to do with V4? maybe we should also mark the members of Eurozone, European Space Agency and EURATOM? This article is about the V4, take the EU away! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.0.123.57 (talk) 18:42, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion: You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 11:38, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Igor Matovič.jpg

Country comparison
I would like to react on @FromCzech's edit. I think it makes more sense to use the name ‘Czechia’ in the field ‘name’. The other countries have the short name in that field. The formal name is mentioned under the field. This would get the reader more information and more complex view at the situation. (The formal name is also mentioned, so the posibility of confussion equals zero.) Martin Tauchman (talk) 18:03, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

 * Common name is used. I corrected the style following the example of Hungary. FromCzech (talk) 19:33, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
 * It is not true since Hunary's short name and long name do not differ. Martin Tauchman (talk) 08:11, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:Visegrád Group


text:
Pierre de Bérulle

Pierre de Bérulle (4 February 1575 – 2 October 1629) was a French Catholic priest, cardinal and statesman in 17th-century France. He was the founder of the French school of spirituality, who could count among his disciples Vincent de Paul and Francis de Sales (?), although both developed significantly different spiritual theologies.

Life
Bérulle was born in the Château of Cérilly, near Troyes in Champagne, into two families of distinguished magistrates on 4 February 1575. The château de Cérilly is situated in the modern department of Yonne, while the village adjacent to it, Bérulle, is in Aube. He was educated by the Jesuits at Clermont and at the Sorbonne in Paris. He published his first work, his Bref Discours de l'abnegation interieure, in 1597. Soon after his ordination as a priest in 1599, he assisted Cardinal Duperron in his public controversy with the Protestant Philippe de Mornay, and made numerous converts.

With the co-operation of his cousin, Madame Acarie (Marie of the Incarnation), in 1604 he introduced the Discalced Carmelite nuns of the reform of Teresa of Ávila into France.

In 1608, Vincent de Paul moved to Paris, where he came under the influence of Abbé (later Cardinal) Pierre de Bérulle, whom he took as his spiritual director for a time. De Bérulle was responsible for De Paul taking up an appointment to the parish of Clichy.

A mainstay of the Counter-Reformation in France, in 1611 Bérulle founded in Paris the Congregation of the French Oratory, on the model of the one founded in 1556 by Philip Neri at Rome. The French congregation, however, varied in important respects from the Italian Oratory.

Statesman
Bérulle was a chaplain to King Henry IV of France, and several times declined his offers to be made a bishop. He obtained the necessary dispensations from Rome for Henrietta Maria's marriage to Charles I, and acted as her chaplain during the first year of her stay in England. In 1626, as French ambassador to Spain, he concluded the favourable Treaty of Monzón, to which his enemy Cardinal Richelieu found objections. After the reconciliation of King Louis XIII with his mother, Marie de Medici, through his agency, he was appointed a councillor of state, but had to resign this office, owing to his pro-Habsburg policy, which was opposed by Richelieu. For religious reasons, Cardinal Bérulle favored the allegiance of France with Austria and Spain, the other Catholic powers, while Cardinal Richelieu wanted to undermine their influence in Europe. He was made cardinal by Pope Urban VIII on 30 August 1627, but never received the red hat.

Bérulle died October 2, 1629, in Paris, while celebrating Mass, and was buried in the chapel of the Oratorian College of Juilly.

French School of Spirituality
In the early part of his career, Bérulle was confident of the ability of the individual to both remake society and reform the church. Relying on human reason and diligent effort, he worked to convert the Huguenots through theological treatises and conferences. When his efforts seemed to have little effect, he came to the realization that everything depended on God, and that one should attempt to live in accordance with the will of God without concern for success or failure.

Bérulle is generally regarded as being an initiator of the French School of Spirituality, a powerful spiritual, missionary, and reform movement that animated the church in France in the early seventeenth century. The movement was characterized by: a deep sense of God's grandeur and of the Church as the Body of Christ, a pessimistic Augustinian view of man that nonetheless stressed positive potential through God, and a strong apostolic and missionary commitment. Cornelius Jansen and Jean du Vergier de Hauranne (the Abbé (Abbot)of Saint-Cyran), key collaborators of Bérulle, worked together to promote a negative Augustinian penitential theology, hoping that Bérulle’s Oratory would be the means by which the theology would displace that of "laxist" Jesuits.

Bérulle's depiction of the mystical journey through Mary to Christ, and through Christ to the Trinity is a hallmark of the French School of spirituality.

It has been asserted that the term "school" is potentially problematic, though, because at least some other cited members of this "school," such as Jean Eudes, Jean-Jacques Olier, Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, and Jean-Baptiste de la Salle, do not simply develop the thought of Bérulle, but all have their own significant insights. It has, therefore, been asserted that the "school" does not have simply one founder. However, the many common elements (such as an emphasis on living in the Spirit of Jesus, particular forms of meditative prayer, and, in some measure, a spiritual theology of priesthood taught in French-school- influenced seminaries since the 1600s), means that it can be considered as a distinct tradition of spirituality, more recently known as Berullism.

Berullian Spiritual Theology of Priesthood
Substantial and polemicized Lutheran, Calvinist, and Counter-Reformation theological and philosophical notions have been noted in Berulle's spiritual theology of priesthood. This spiritual theology created a sea change in the Roman Catholic theology of the priesthood, principally through an over-identification with Christ, according to Clare McGrath-Merkle. Berullian clerical spirituality has been characterized by a negative spiritual anthropology of self-annihilationism and neantism in which the priest must lose his identity to make room for that of Christ.

Philosophy and works
Bérulle encouraged Descartes' philosophical studies, and it was through him that the Samaritan Pentateuch, recently brought over from Constantinople, was inserted in Lejay's Bible Polyglotte (1628–45).

Bérulle has been claimed to be an opponent of the abstract school of mysticism that bypassed the humanity of Christ, although his own method of prayer included a focus on adoring the being of Christ himself, considered in the abstract; Pope Urban VIII called him the "apostle of the incarnate Word."

The Carmelite nuns who were brought to France by Bérulle objected to his attempts to influence their spirituality. Nevertheless, Berullian influences did remain within the spirituality of female Carmelite monastic communities and perdured into the 20th century, until Blessed Marie-Eugene OCD visited the communities to provide standard Carmelite spiritual formation.

In his Discours de l'état et des grandeurs de Jésus Bérulle emphasized Jesus as the Incarnate Word of God, and the abasement, self-surrender, servitude and humiliation— all Bérulle's words— of his Incarnation. He even took the Incarnation as the defining characteristic of his spirituality and his Oratory, when he asked Christ "that, in this piety, devotion, and special servitude to the mystery of Your Incarnation and of Your humanized divinity and deified humanity, be our life and our state, our spirit and our particular difference."

The chief works of Cardinal de Bérulle are:
 * Bref discours de l'abnégation intérieure (Brief Discourse on Interior Abnegation), (1597).
 * Traité des énergumènes (Treatise on the Possessed), (Troyes, 1599). (This addresses the nature of diabolical possession, a topic of much controversy at the time. Diabolical possession, Bérulle argued, consists "precisely in a right which the malign spirit has of residing in [the possessed person's] body and of altering it in some manner." At its heart lay the profound diabolical hostility to the Incarnation, such that Satan, through possession, attempts to ape God, becoming "incarnate" himself.)
 * Trois Discours de controverse (Three Discourses of Controversy), (Paris, 1609), on various subjects.
 * Discours de l'état et des grandeurs de Jésus (Discourse on the State and Grandeurs of Jesus), (Paris, 1623). This work was reprinted several times; the substance and often the actual expressions are to be found in the diffuse Méditations of Father Bourgoing and also in Bossuet's Elévations sur les mystères. The work was also popular among Jansenists. Translated as Discourses on the State and Grandeurs of Jesus: The Ineffable Union of the Deity with Humanity, trans. Lisa Richmond (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2023).
 * Vie de Jésus (Life of Jesus), (Paris, 1629). This was a sequel to the preceding work, which the author left unfinished at the time of his death, having only had the time to consider the mystery of the Annunciation and partially (in a draft) the Visitation.
 * Elévation à Jésus-Christ sur Sainte Madeleine (Elevation to Jesus Christ Regarding St. [Mary] Magdalene), (Paris, 1627).

In addition, Bérulle wrote a number of short devotional works (Œuvres de pieté) and documents for the guidance of the Oratory.

Bérulle's works, edited by P. Bourgoing (2 vols., 1644) were reprinted, by Migne in 1857.

A selected modern English translation is available as Bérulle and the French School: Selected Writings, trans. Lowell M Glendon, (New York: Paulist Press, 1989).

title: Pierre de Bérulle


text:
User:Martyr69

Hi, my (godgiven)name is martyr69. I'm 24, and like research enough that I'm kinda excited about the possibility of adding to the Wikipedia.

title: User:Martyr69


text:
Scum

Scum or S.C.U.M. may refer to:

Scum

 * Soap scum, an informal term for the white solid that results from the addition of soap to hard water
 * Impurity that accumulates at the surface of a liquid (especially water or molten metal)
 * Dross, solid impurities floating on a molten metal
 * Algae or similar vegetation found floating on the surfaces of ponds
 * The topmost liquid layer in a septic tank, mainly consisting of fats

Games and sport

 * Scum (video game), an upcoming open-world survival video game
 * Scum (card game), a card game in which players race to get rid of all of the cards in their hands
 * S.C.U.M. (professional wrestling), a professional wrestling stable
 * "Scum" or "scummers", a derogatory nickname for English football club Southampton F.C., used by supporters of rivals Portsmouth

Books, film and TV

 * Scum, a 1991 novel by Isaac Bashevis Singer translated from the Yiddish by Rosaline Dukalsky Schwartz
 * "The Scum", a derogatory nickname for British tabloid The Sun
 * Scum, a script by Roy Minton
 * Scum (television play), a 1977 television version directed by Alan Clark with Ray Winstone in a lead role
 * Scum (film), a 1979 British feature film version directed by Clark and with Winstone
 * SCUM Manifesto, a 1967 book by Valerie Solanas

Bands

 * Scum (band), a Norwegian hardcore punk/black metal band
 * S.C.U.M (band), an English post-punk/art rock group
 * SCUM, a side project of Japanese noise musician Merzbow

Albums

 * Scum (Anti-Nowhere League album), 1997
 * Scum (Napalm Death album), 1987
 * Scum (Rat Boy album), 2017
 * Scums (album), by Nightmare, 2013

Songs

 * "Scum", by Depeche Mode from Spirit, 2017
 * "Scum", by Goat Girl, 2016
 * "Scum", by Meat Puppets from No Joke!, 1995
 * "Scum", by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds from Your Funeral... My Trial, 1986
 * "Scum", by Oi Polloi from Unite and Win, 1987
 * "Scum", by Lovejoy from Wake Up & It's Over, 2023

Acronyms

 * SCUMM (Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion), scripting language for development of the graphical adventure game Maniac Mansion
 * SCUM Manifesto, a 1967 radical feminist manifesto wherein SCUM means "Society for Cutting Up Men"
 * Project SCUM, a cigarette marketing initiative
 * S.C.U.M. ("Saboteurs and Criminals United in Mayhem"), the criminal organisation from the animated series; James Bond Jr.

title: Scum


text:
Pierre Batcheff

Pierre Batcheff (Russian: Пьер Батчефф; 23 June 1901? – 13 April 1932) was a French actor of Russian origin. He became a popular film actor from the mid-1920s until the early 1930s, and among his best-known work was the surrealist short film Un chien andalou (1929), made by Luis Buñuel in collaboration with Salvador Dalí. After appearing in about twenty-five films, he died at an early age from a drug overdose.

Life
Pierre Batcheff was born in Harbin in China and he grew up in Saint Petersburg. (One source says that his birth name was Benjamin Batcheff and that he adopted the name Pierre later from his father.) When war broke out in 1914, his family were on holiday in Switzerland and they decided to remain there, at first in Lausanne and then Geneva. Batcheff's father went bankrupt around 1917, leaving the family in financial difficulty, and Pierre started taking small parts in Georges Pitoëff's theatre company in Geneva. Between 1919 and 1921 he attended the Collège Calvin. In 1921, Batcheff moved with his family to Paris where he worked at first as a theatre actor.

Batcheff's earliest leading role in the cinema was in 1923 in Claudine et le poussin, in the first of several performances as a young aristocratic lover. In the next few years he made films with Marcel L'Herbier, Jean Epstein, and Abel Gance. By 1927 he was established as a popular young leading man, with interviews and covers photos in film magazines. He was at the same time dissatisfied with the type of roles which he was offered and he cultivated links with avant-garde circles, especially the surrealists. In 1927 he met Luis Buñuel and their discussions led to their subsequent collaboration on Un chien andalou in the following year.

In 1926 Batcheff met Denise Piazza, the daughter of a publisher, and they married in 1930. As Denise Batcheff, and later Denise Tual, she became a film editor and producer.

In the ten years of his film career, Batcheff made around 25 films. At the time of his death, he was engaged in a project with Jacques Prévert to write and direct a film which proved to be sufficiently radical to alarm some financial backers. Batcheff's behaviour showed signs of stress and became increasingly erratic, and in April 1932 he died from an overdose of drugs, possibly by suicide.

One of the Parisian newspapers reporting on his death summarised his contemporary appeal as an actor: "As an artist, he brought an extremely personal tone of refinement, of sensitivity and of melancholy, which was not devoid of strength, and this earned him a very wide popularity". It also noted that on the day after his death he had been due to sign a contract with a producer to direct his first film.

title: Pierre Batcheff