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Brian Donlevy

Waldo Brian Donlevy (February 9, 1901 – April 6, 1972) was an American actor, who was noted for playing dangerous and tough characters. Usually appearing in supporting roles, among his best-known films are Beau Geste (1939), The Great McGinty (1940) and Wake Island (1942). For his role as the sadistic Sergeant Markoff in Beau Geste, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

He starred as U.S. special agent Steve Mitchell in the radio/TV series Dangerous Assignment.

His obituary in The Times newspaper in the United Kingdom said, "Any consideration of the American 'film noir' of the 1940s would be incomplete without him".

Early life
Brian Donlevy was born on February 9, 1901, in Cleveland, Ohio. His parents were Thomas Donlevy and Rebecca (née Parks), Irish emigrants originally from Portadown, County Armagh. Sometime between 1910 and 1912, the family moved to Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin, where Donlevy's father worked as a supervisor at the Brickner Woolen Mills.

Broadway
Donlevy moved to New York City in his youth, where he modeled for illustrator J. C. Leyendecker, who produced illustrations for the famous Arrow Collar advertisements. His acting career began in the early 1920s, when he began appearing in theater productions, and eventually won parts in silent films.

He had small roles in the silent films Jamestown (1923), Damaged Hearts (1924), Monsieur Beaucaire (1924), The Eve of the Revolution (1924), and School for Wives (1925). He had a small role on Broadway in the play What Price Glory (1925), which was a big hit and ran for two years, establishing him as an actor. He was in the film A Man of Quality (1926).

On Broadway, he was in the popular musical Hit the Deck (1927–28), which ran for a year; then Ringside (1928), Rainbow (1928), and Queen Bee (1929). He had roles in the films Gentlemen of the Press (1929) and Mother's Boy (1929). On stage, he appeared in Up Pops the Devil (1930–31), Peter Flies High (1931), Society Girl (1931–32), The Inside Story (1932), and The Boy Friend (1932). He was in a film short with Ethel Merman, Ireno (1932); and another short with Ruth Etting, A Modern Cinderella (1932).

He returned to the stage for Three And One (1933) with Lilian Bond, a big personal success; No Questions Asked (1934); The Perfumed Lady (1934); and The Milky Way (1934). The latter led to him receiving a Hollywood offer to reprise his role in the film version, but he was unable to due to a production delay. He had a final Broadway success with Life Begins at 8:40 (1934) with Bert Lahr and Ray Bolger. After that show, Donlevy said "they were all signed for the movies. I thought that if they can make it, I'm going to take a crack too."

Hollywood
Donlevy's break came in 1935, when he was cast in the film Barbary Coast, directed by Howard Hawks and produced by Samuel Goldwyn. Later that year, he was cast in Mary Burns, Fugitive. In 1936, he received second billing in It Happened in Hollywood, and had a supporting role in Goldwyn's Strike Me Pink and Paramount's 13 Hours by Air.

"B" leading man
Donlevy had his first lead in a B movie at Fox, Human Cargo (1936), playing a wisecracking reporter opposite Claire Trevor. He followed it with other "B" lead roles: Half Angel (1936), High Tension (1936), 36 Hours to Kill (1936), Crack-Up (1936) with Peter Lorre, and Midnight Taxi (1937).

He had a supporting role in an "A" movie, This Is My Affair (1937), with Robert Taylor, Barbara Stanwyck and Victor McLaglen; then starred in another "B", Born Reckless (1937). He was in In Old Chicago (1938) and was teamed with Victor McLaglen in Battle of Broadway (1938) and We're Going to Be Rich (1938). He starred in Sharpshooters (1938), and was the lead villain in the studio's prestigious Jesse James (1939).

Paramount
Paramount used Donlevy for a key role in Cecil B. De Mille's Union Pacific (1939), stepping in for Charles Bickford. He stayed at that studio for Beau Geste (1939). His performance in Beau Geste as the ruthless Sergeant Markoff earned him an nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Donlevy went to Columbia to star in a "B film", Behind Prison Gates (1939), and went to RKO for a support part in Allegheny Uprising (1939). He was the villain in Universal's Destry Rides Again (1939).

Donlevy was then given the title role in The Great McGinty (1940) at Paramount, the directorial debut of Preston Sturges. It was not a big hit, but was profitable and received excellent reviews, launching Sturges' directing career. Donlevy later reprised the role several times on radio and television.

At Universal, Donlevy was in When the Daltons Rode (1940), then went into Fox's Brigham Young: Frontiersman (1940). He was fourth-billed in I Wanted Wings (1941); then MGM borrowed him to support Robert Taylor in Billy the Kid (1941). At Universal, he was top-billed in South of Tahiti (1941), and supported Bing Crosby in Birth of the Blues (1942). Paramount gave him a star part in The Remarkable Andrew (1942), playing Andrew Jackson, then Columbia teamed him with Pat O'Brien in Two Yanks in Trinidad (1942). Edward Small hired him to play the lead in A Gentleman After Dark (1942) and he supported Joel McCrea and Barbara Stanwyck in Paramount's The Great Man's Lady (1942). In 1942, he starred in Wake Island with William Bendix and Robert Preston, playing a role based on James Devereux. The film, directed by John Farrow, was a huge success, as was the adaptation of Dashiell Hammet's classic The Glass Key (1942). At Universal, Donlevy starred in Nightmare (1942), and MGM borrowed him to support Taylor again in Stand By for Action (1942). Donlevy had the lead role in Fritz Lang's Hangmen Also Die! (1943), made for United Artists and co-written by Bertolt Brecht. He had a cameo as Governor McGinty in Sturges' The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944).

Donlevy was given the lead role in An American Romance (1944), directed by King Vidor for MGM, in a role intended for Spencer Tracy. It was a prestigious production, but the film was a box-office and critical disappointment. He had a cameo as himself in Duffy's Tavern (1945), and he was Trampas to Joel McCrea's The Virginian (1946). After playing the male lead in Our Hearts Were Growing Up (1946) he was borrowed by Walter Wanger for Canyon Passage (1946). At Paramount, he was in Two Years Before the Mast (1946), although top billing went to Alan Ladd. Donlevy was originally going to play the sadistic captain, but wound up giving that role to Howard da Silva and playing Richard Dana instead. At Paramount, Donlevy supported Ray Milland in The Trouble with Women (1947), then went to Fox to play a heroic DA in Kiss of Death (1947) with Victor Mature and Richard Widmark. For UA, he supported Robert Cummings in Heaven Only Knows (1947), then went to MGM for the Killer McCoy (1947), a hit with Mickey Rooney; A Southern Yankee (1948) with Red Skelton; and Command Decision (1948) with Clark Gable. He supported Dorothy Lamour in The Lucky Stiff (1949) then starred in Arthur Lubin's Impact (1949).

Television
He appeared on television in The Chevrolet Tele-Theatre, and made two films for Universal-International, Shakedown (1950) and Kansas Raiders (1950) (playing William Quantrill opposite Audie Murphy's Jesse James). He did Pulitzer Prize Playhouse on TV, then went to Republic for Fighting Coast Guard (1951), Ride the Man Down (1952), Hoodlum Empire (1952) and Woman They Almost Lynched (1953); then filmed Slaughter Trail (1952) for RKO.

In 1952 he produced and starred in a TV series, Dangerous Assignment, which he had performed on radio from 1949 to 1954.

Donlevy focused on television: Robert Montgomery Presents, The Motorola Television Hour, Medallion Theatre, Star Stage, Climax!, Damon Runyon Theater, Kraft Theatre, Studio One in Hollywood, Crossroads, The Ford Television Theatre, The DuPont Show of the Month and Lux Video Theatre.

After a supporting role in The Big Combo (1955), Donlevy appeared in the British science-fiction horror film The Quatermass Xperiment (called The Creeping Unknown in the US) for Hammer Films, in the lead role of Professor Bernard Quatermass. The film was based on a 1953 BBC Television serial of the same name. The character had been British, but Hammer cast Donlevy in an attempt to help sell the film to North American audiences. Quatermass creator Nigel Kneale disliked Donlevy's portrayal, referring to him as "a former Hollywood heavy gone to seed". Nonetheless, the film was a success, and Donlevy returned for the sequel, Quatermass 2 (Enemy From Space in the US), in 1957, also based on a BBC television serial. It made him the only man to play the famous scientist on screen twice (although Scottish actor Andrew Keir later played him both on film and radio).

In between the films, Donlevy was in A Cry in the Night (1956). He had the lead in a "B" western, Escape from Red Rock (1957) and a supporting part in Cowboy (1958). He announced that he had formed his own production company for whom he would make a western, The Golden Spur, but it appears to have not been made. He guest-starred on TV in Rawhide, Wagon Train, Hotel de Paree, The Texan, The DuPont Show with June Allyson, Zane Grey Theater, and The Red Skelton Hour, had supporting roles in Juke Box Rhythm and Never So Few (both 1959), and had the lead in Girl in Room 13 (1960). He toured on stage in a production of The Andersonville Trial. He supported Jerry Lewis in The Errand Boy (1961) and Charlton Heston in The Pigeon That Took Rome (1962), and guested on Target: The Corruptors, Saints and Sinners, and The DuPont Show of the Week.

Later career
Donlevy had the lead in Curse of the Fly (1965) for Robert L. Lippert, and supported in How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965). In 1966, in one of the final episodes of Perry Mason, "The Case of the Positive Negative", he played defendant General Roger Brandon.

Donlevy's last performances included The Fat Spy (1966), an episode of Family Affair, new American footage shot in New York for Gamera the Invincible (1966), Five Golden Dragons (1967) for Harry Alan Towers, and the A.C. Lyles films Waco (1966), Hostile Guns (1967), Arizona Bushwhackers (1968), and Rogue's Gallery (1968).

His last film was Pit Stop, released in 1969.

Personal life
Donlevy was married to Yvonne Grey from 1928 to 1936. She divorced him on grounds of cruelty, and he agreed to pay $5,000 a month in alimony. He married actress Marjorie Lane in 1936. They had one child, but divorced in 1947. He was married to Lillian Arch Lugosi (the former wife of Bela Lugosi) from 1966 until his death in 1972.

Donlevy supported Thomas Dewey in the 1944 United States presidential election.

Death
Donlevy was operated on for throat cancer in 1971 and died from the disease on April 6, 1972, at the Motion Picture Country Hospital in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California. He was 71. His ashes were scattered over Santa Monica Bay.

Selected filmography

 * Damaged Hearts (1924) as Jim Porter
 * Monsieur Beaucaire (1924) as Ball Guest at Bath (uncredited)
 * School for Wives (1925) as Ralph
 * A Man of Quality (1926) as Richard Courtney
 * Gentlemen of the Press (1929) as Kelly – Reporter (uncredited)
 * Mother's Boy (1929) as Harry O'Day
 * A Modern Cinderella (1932, short)
 * Barbary Coast (1935) as Knuckles Jacoby
 * Mary Burns, Fugitive (1935) as Spike
 * Another Face (1935) as Broken Nose Dawson / Spencer Dutro III
 * Strike Me Pink (1936) as Vance
 * 13 Hours by Air (1936) as Dr. James L. Evarts
 * Human Cargo (1936) as Packy Campbell
 * Half Angel (1936) as Duffy Giles
 * High Tension (1936) as Steve Reardon
 * 36 Hours to Kill (1936) as Frank Evers
 * Crack-Up (1936) as Ace Martin
 * Midnight Taxi (1937) as Charles 'Chick' Gardner
 * This Is My Affair (1937) as Batiste Duryea
 * Born Reckless (1937) as Bob 'Hurry' Kane
 * In Old Chicago (1937) as Gil Warren
 * Battle of Broadway (1938) as Chesty Webb
 * We're Going to Be Rich (1938) as Yankee Gordon
 * Sharpshooters (1938) as Steve Mitchell
 * Jesse James (1939) as Barshee
 * Union Pacific (1939) as Sid Campeau
 * Beau Geste (1939) as Sergeant Markoff
 * Behind Prison Gates (1939) as Agent Norman Craig / Red Murray
 * Allegheny Uprising (1939) as Callendar
 * Destry Rides Again (1939) as Kent
 * The Great McGinty (1940) as Dan McGinty
 * When the Daltons Rode (1940) as Grat Dalton
 * Brigham Young (1940) as Angus Duncan
 * I Wanted Wings (1941) as Capt. Mercer
 * Billy the Kid (1941) as Jim Sherwood
 * Hold Back the Dawn (1941) as Movie Actor (uncredited)
 * South of Tahiti (1941) as Bob
 * Birth of the Blues (1941) as Memphis
 * The Remarkable Andrew (1942) as General Andrew Jackson
 * Two Yanks in Trinidad (1942) as Vince Barrows
 * A Gentleman After Dark (1942) as Harry 'Heliotrope Harry' Melton
 * The Great Man's Lady (1942) as Steely Edwards
 * Wake Island (1942) as Maj. Geoffrey Caton
 * The Glass Key (1942) as Paul Madvig
 * Nightmare (1942) as Daniel Shane
 * Stand By for Action (1942) as Lt. Cmdr. Martin J. Roberts
 * Hangmen Also Die! (1943) as Dr. Franticek Svoboda / Karel Vanek
 * The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1943) as Governor McGinty
 * An American Romance (1944) as Stefan Dubechek aka Steve Dangos
 * Duffy's Tavern (1945) as Brian Donlevy
 * The Virginian (1946) as Trampas
 * Our Hearts Were Growing Up (1946) as Tony Minnetti
 * Canyon Passage (1946) as George Camrose
 * Two Years Before the Mast (1946) as Richard Henry Dana
 * The Beginning or the End (1947) as Major General Leslie R. Groves
 * Song of Scheherazade (1947) as Capt. Vladimir Gregorovitch
 * The Trouble with Women (1947) as Joe McBride
 * Kiss of Death (1947) as Assistant D.A. Louis D'Angelo
 * Heaven Only Knows (1947) as Adam 'Duke' Byron
 * Killer McCoy (1947) as Jim Caighn
 * A Southern Yankee (1948) as Kurt Devlynn
 * Command Decision (1948) as Brigadier General Clifton I. Garnet
 * The Lucky Stiff (1949) as John J. Malone
 * Impact (1949) as Walter Williams
 * Shakedown (1950) as Nick Palmer
 * Kansas Raiders (1950) as Col. William Clarke Quantrill
 * Fighting Coast Guard (1951) as Commander Ian McFarland
 * Slaughter Trail (1951) as Capt. Dempster
 * Hoodlum Empire (1952) as Senator Bill Stephens
 * Ride the Man Down (1952) as Bide Marriner
 * Woman They Almost Lynched (1953) as Charles Quantrill
 * The Big Combo (1955) as Joe McClure
 * The Quatermass Xperiment (1955, US title The Creeping Unknown) as Prof. Bernard Quatermass
 * A Cry in the Night (1956) as Capt. Ed Bates
 * Quatermass 2 (1957, originally titled Quatermass II, Enemy from Space; known in USA as The Enemy from Space) as Quatermass
 * Escape from Red Rock (1957) as Bronc Grierson
 * Cowboy (1958) as Doc Bender – Trail Hand
 * Juke Box Rhythm (1959) as George Manton
 * Never So Few (1959) as Gen. Sloan
 * Girl in Room 13 (1960, shot in Brazil) as Steve Marshall
 * The Errand Boy (1961) as Tom 'T.P.' Paramutual
 * The Pigeon That Took Rome (1962) as Col. Sherman Harrington
 * Curse of the Fly (1965) as Henri Delambre
 * How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965) as B.D. 'Big Deal' MacPherson
 * The Fat Spy (1966) as George Wellington
 * Waco (1966) as Ace Ross
 * Gammera: The Invincible (1966) as Gen. Terry Arnold
 * Five Golden Dragons (1967) as Dragon #3
 * Hostile Guns (1967) as Marshal Willett
 * Arizona Bushwhackers (1968) as Mayor Joe Smith
 * Rogue's Gallery (1968) as Detective Lee
 * Pit Stop (1969) as Grant Willard (final film role)

title: Brian Donlevy


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Sonderbund War

The Sonderbund War (Sonderbundskrieg, Guerre du Sonderbund, Guerra del Sonderbund) of November 1847 was a civil war in Switzerland, then still a relatively loose confederacy of cantons. It ensued after seven Catholic cantons formed the Sonderbund ("separate alliance") in 1845 to protect their interests against a centralization of power. The war concluded with the defeat of the Sonderbund. It resulted in the emergence of Switzerland as a federal state, concluding the period of political "restoration and regeneration" in Switzerland.

The Sonderbund consisted of the cantons of Lucerne, Fribourg, Valais, Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden and Zug, all predominantly Catholic and governed by conservative administrations. The cantons of Ticino and Solothurn, also predominantly Catholic but governed by liberal administrations, did not join the alliance.

After the Tagsatzung (Federal Diet) declared the Sonderbund unconstitutional (October 1847) and ordered it dissolved by force, General Guillaume Henri Dufour led the federal army of 100,000 and defeated the Sonderbund forces under Johann Ulrich von Salis-Soglio in a campaign that lasted only a few weeks, from November 3 to November 29, and cost about 100 lives. Dufour ordered his troops to care for the injured, anticipating the formation of the Red Cross in which he participated a few years later. Major actions were fought at Fribourg, Geltwil (12 November), Lunnern, Lucerne, and finally at Gisikon (23 November), Meierskappel, and Schüpfheim, after which Lucerne capitulated on 24 November. The rest of the Sonderbund surrendered without armed resistance in the subsequent weeks.

Background

The radical (progressive liberal) Free Democratic Party of Switzerland (Freisinnig-Demokratische Partei, Parti radical-démocratique), which was mainly made up of urban bourgeoisie and burghers and was strong in the largely Protestant cantons, obtained the majority in the Federal Diet (the Tagsatzung) in the early 1840s. It proposed a new Constitution for the Swiss Confederation which would draw the several cantons into a closer relationship. In 1843, the conservative city patricians and mountain or Ur-Swiss from the largely Catholic cantons were opposed to the new constitution. These cantons combined to form the Sonderbund in 1845. In addition to the centralization of the Swiss government, the proposed new Constitution also included protections for trade and other progressive reform measures.

The Sonderbund alliance was concluded after the Federal Diet, with the approval of a majority of cantons, had taken measures against the Roman Catholic Church such as the closure of monasteries and convents in Aargau in 1841, and the seizure of their properties. When Lucerne, in retaliation, recalled the Jesuits to head its education the same year, groups of armed radicals (Freischärler) invaded the canton. This caused a revolt, mostly because rural cantons were strongholds of ultramontanism.

The liberal majority in the Tagsatzung voted to order the Sonderbund dissolved on October 21, 1847; it deemed the Sonderbund a violation of section 6 of the Federal Treaty of 1815, which expressly forbade such separate alliances. The confederate army was raised against the members of the Sonderbund. The army was composed of soldiers of all the other cantons except Neuchâtel and Appenzell Innerrhoden (which remained neutral).

By the Treaty of Vienna of 1815, the major powers guaranteed the new Swiss Constitution and had a right to intervene if they all agreed it was necessary. At this point, Austria and France were conservative Catholic powers and wanted to help the Swiss conservatives. Austria did provide some money and munitions, but bickered with France on exactly what to do. When they finally did agree, Lord Palmerston, Prime Minister of Britain, vetoed any intervention, because he favored the liberal cause and wanted the Jesuits expelled. There was no significant foreign intervention.

Sonderbund forces
The question of command remained long unsettled with the Sonderbund. The coalition's strong man, Constantin Siegwart-Müller of Lucerne, first considered appointing a foreigner (Dezydery Chłapowski of Poland or Friedrich von Schwarzenberg of Austria were mentioned), but the allied council insisted on a Swiss commander. General Ludwig von Sonnenberg and Colonel Philippe de Maillardoz of Fribourg were considered, but ultimately the council elected Guillaume de Kalbermatten of Valais. After Kalbermatten declined the appointment (he would later command the troops of Valais), Colonel Jean-Ulrich de Salis-Soglio of Grisons was elected and sworn in as commander in chief on 15 January 1847. He appointed Franz von Elgger as chief of staff. Although a Protestant himself, Salis-Soglio was a staunch Conservative and an opponent of the liberal Radicals who now controlled the "rump Confederation".

The Sonderbund cantons, except for Lucerne and Fribourg, sought and obtained the assent of their popular assemblies (Landsgemeinden) for general conscription. These votes occurred on September 26 (Schwyz), October 3 (Uri and Zug) and October 10 (Nidwalden, Obwalden and Valais). Troop mobilisation began on October 16 and was concluded on October 19.

Also in October, several fortifications were built on Sonderbund territory, notably in Valais, where Kalbermatten's forces were massed by the end of October between Saint-Maurice and Saint-Gingolph, with a view of invading the Chablais of Vaud.

Federal army
On 21 October 1847, the Federal Diet elected General Guillaume Henri Dufour of Geneva as commander in chief of the federal army, despite his reluctance and the efforts of the Bernese government to appoint Ulrich Ochsenbein to this post. In his letter of acceptance to the Diet of October 22, Dufour emphasized that he would "do everything in order to alleviate the inevitable evils of war".

On October 24, immediately prior to taking the oath of office, Dufour requested explanations concerning his orders (which were written in German) and, after an impolitic remark by the representative of Vaud, Jules Eytel, he declined the office and left the meeting of the Diet. It took two sessions behind closed doors, and a delegation of the representatives of Geneva, to convince Dufour to reconsider and to be sworn in on 25 October.

After publishing a proclamation on October 26, Dufour appointed as division commanders: Peter Ludwig von Donatz (Grisons), Johannes Burckhardt and Eduard Ziegler (Zürich) from among the Conservatives and Louis Rilliet de Constant (Vaud), Dominik Gmür, Giacomo Luvini (Ticino) and Ochsenbein (Bern) from among the Radicals. On October 30, the Diet ordered the general mobilisation of the army and, on November 4, the military execution of its decree dissolving the Sonderbund.

Neutrals
The cantons of Neuchâtel and Appenzell Innerrhoden, which both had a strong Catholic minority population, officially declared their neutrality in the conflict and refused to provide troops for the Confederation.

Vaud, in particular, suspected the Principality of Neuchâtel of secretly supporting the Sonderbund. Several incidents ensued, notably the capture of a lake steamship of Neuchâtel by troops from Vaud. On 29 October, Colonel Rillet-Constant asked Dufour's permission to march on Neuchâtel. The general refused, instead asking Rillet-Constant to levy additional troops in order to make up for the defection of Neuchâtel. When the Federal Diet on October 30 formally requested Neuchâtel to supply its contingent of troops, the Principality refused. King Frederick William IV of Prussia, as Prince of Neuchâtel, eventually settled the issue by declaring the Principality "neutral and inviolate" during the hostilities.

The canton of Basel-Stadt resisted the requests of the Diet for a time, but ultimately provided its contingent of troops by November 6, two days after the opening of hostilities.

Sonderbund actions in Ticino and Aargau
The first actions were taken by the Sonderbund. Troops from Uri seized the undefended St. Gotthard Pass in the early days of November. They thereby succeeded in keeping the connection between central Switzerland and the Valais open via the Furka Pass. But contrary to triumphant proclamations in the Sonderbund newspapers, the action failed to effectively separate the federal troops under Luvini in the Ticino from those in the Grisons under Eduard de Salis-Soglio (the brother of the insurgent commander), because the San Bernardino Pass remained open to the Confederates. The first deaths of the war occurred on November 4, when an officer and a soldier from Uri were killed by the Ticinesi.

On November 7, Sonderbund forces under direct command of Jean-Ulrich de Salis-Soglio and von Elgger prepared to launch a second offensive into the Freiamt region of Aargau. After destroying a bridge over the river Reuss, they entered Aargau on November 12 in order to split the federal forces into two halves and relieve Fribourg, which was surrounded by Confederate territory. But after a few advances, they were stopped by Ziegler and retreated with losses into the canton of Lucerne.

The Fribourg campaign
On 9 November, Dufour launched the first offensive against Fribourg, in accordance with his general plan. Dufour chose Fribourg as his first target in part because it was geographically isolated from the other rebel cantons and in part because it was close to Bern. The former factor made it easier to confront than the other members of the Sonderbund; the latter meant that it posed a threat to the Federal Diet if it was not neutralized immediately. Moreover, Fribourg's capture would allow Dufour to concentrate his forces in the center of the country.

By 10 and 11 November, federal troops seized the city of Estavayer-le-Lac, the enclaves of Fribourg in the canton of Vaud, and most of the district of Murten without resistance. The Fribourgeois troops under Colonel Philippe de Maillardoz retreated to defend the capital.

The siege and surrender of Fribourg
The Fribourgeois commander was led to anticipate an attack from the direction of Bern by the advance of a Bernese reserve division, which had been ordered to pretend to attack with a maximum of noise. Meanwhile, Dufour brought a battery of 60 guns into position, with which he intended to bring down the fortifications of the city of Fribourg.

On the morning of 13 November, with the assault ready to begin, Dufour sent a Vaudois lieutenant to Fribourg under a flag of truce. The emissary's message revealed Dufour's forces and plan of attack to the Fribourgeois government, and called on them to surrender in order to prevent a murderous battle. The besieged Fribourgeois asked for an armistice for the day, which Dufour accepted. But because of mistaken orders, the Vaudois troops facing the redoubt of Bertigny launched an attack against the fortress after a brief artillery exchange. They were repelled with eight dead and some fifty wounded; several defenders were also killed or wounded.

Nonetheless, on the morning of 14 November, two delegates of the governing Council of State of Fribourg brought Dufour the news of the canton's surrender, decided by majority vote. While Confederate Switzerland rejoiced at the news, the surrender was a bitter disappointment to the Fribourgeouis troops. Many accusations of treason were raised, notably against the commander, Colonel de Maillardoz, who had to flee into exile to Neuchâtel. While it was eventually shown that the surrender had been a decision of the civil government about which de Maillardoz had not even been consulted, he remained disgraced.

Aftermath of the Fribourg campaign
On the evening of 14 November, the government of Valais decided to launch an offensive against Vaud in response to Fribourg's call for help. But news of the capitulation came soon enough for the Valaisans to recall the troops and set them into motion for a manoeuvre against Ticino.

The act of surrender signed by Fribourg would become a template for the other Sonderbund cantons. With it, Fribourg undertook to leave the Sonderbund, to disarm its soldiers and to provide for the federal occupation troops. On 15 November, a new Fribourgeois government of a Radical bent was elected, who as its first act expelled the order of the Jesuits from the canton. The day after, the Vaudois commander, Colonel Rillet-Constant, had to declare a state of siege to prevent federal soldiers from pillaging and sacking the city, against the strict orders of their superiors.

On both sides of the war, the fall of Fribourg was commented on by the press and the political leaders. In Lucerne and Valais, proclamations were read to the troops, assuring them that this setback would have no effect on the coalition. Catholic newspapers doubted the news of the capitulation or claimed that the Valaisans had launched a victorious offensive into the Chablais. On the Federal side, public confidence and the morale of the army grew.

As soon as the new government was installed, Dufour left Fribourg for central Switzerland with his army. He left the western theatre of operations to Rillet-Constant, who was allowed to shift his headquarters to the Chablais, but was forbidden to take any unilateral action against Valais without Dufour's direct order. By 15 November, the federal forces passed through Bern and reached Aarau on the evening of the 16th.

On the morning of 17 November, the troops of Uri with some reinforcements from Nidwald advanced into Ticino towards Airolo, which fell, then the day after towards Faido and on the 21st towards Biasca, where they stopped to await reinforcements. But the first to be reinforced were the Ticinesi, who received the support of some battalions from the Grisons, which arrived on the 22nd.

Preparations and the surrender of Zug
In Aarau, Dufour prepared his forces and his battle plan until November 20. He declined to equip his forces with Congreve rockets offered to him by the local arsenal, writing that he intended to "avoid as far as possible to give this war a violent character which cannot but harm our cause.". To the surprise of both sides, the parliament of the canton of Zug voted for surrender on 21 November by a large majority. The federal troops which entered the city of Zug unopposed the day after were acclaimed by the population, and a few months later, a new government would be elected.

Dufour launched his principal offensive according to plan on November 23: The 4th (Ziegler) and the 5th divisions (Gmür) followed the Reuss valley to the south, each on one side. They were supported by the 3rd division (von Donats) descending along the Suhr until Sursee, and by the 2nd division (Burckhardt), which left Langenthal to arrive at the Reuss north of Lucerne by way of Willisau and Ruswil. The reserve artillery was concentrated on the bridgehead of Gisikon, which set up the main battle between the left bank of the Reuss and the lake of Zug, with the Lucernese troops caught between five columns of troops arriving from five different directions.

Battle of Gisikon
Near Gisikon, the federal army constructed several pontoon bridges to cross the Reuss. At this point, the Sonderbund commander, von Salis-Soglio, had concentrated his troops on an elevation, well-hidden behind trees and underbrush. After two federal assaults on the Sonderbund position were repulsed, Colonel Ziegler personally led his division's third and victorious assault, later depicted in a lithograph that would become one of the war's most well-known images. After two hours, the battle resulted in a federal victory after von Salis-Soglio, wounded in the head by a mortar detonation, ordered a retreat to Ebikon.

The battle of Gisikon was the longest and, with 37 dead and some 100 wounded, the bloodiest of the war. It is, to date, the last pitched battle in the history of the Swiss army. It was also the first battle in military history in which dedicated wagons were employed to treat the wounded on the battlefield. These horse-drawn ambulances were operated by volunteers and nurses from Zürich.

Battle of Meierskappel
Also on November 23, while the 2nd and 3rd federal divisions proceeded without opposition to Lucerne, the 5th division engaged troops from Schwyz near Meierskappel. The Sonderbund forces resisted courageously for a while before retreating. This federal victory cut the connection between Lucerne and Zug, another of Dufour's objectives. In his report to the Diet of November 23, Dufour wrote with satisfaction that the troops of Schwyz had withdrawn to the other side of Lake Zug and were now cut off from the rest of the Sonderbund army.

Surrender of Lucerne
The federal victories at Gisikon and Meierskappel brought federal troops within striking distance of Lucerne. On the evening of November 23, the leadership of Lucerne and the Jesuits abandoned the city and fled to Uri. On the following morning the victorious federal troops entered the city unopposed.

Surrender of the rest of Central Switzerland
On 26 November 1847, the Sonderbund council dissolved in Flüelen without a formal vote. Between 25–29 November federal troops moved peacefully into Central Switzerland and Valais. Unterwalden surrendered on November 25, followed by Schwyz on the following day and then Uri on November 27.

End of the war
The last member of the Sonderbund, Valais, surrendered on November 29 bringing the war to an end. The federal army had lost 78 men killed and had 260 wounded. Sonderbund losses were even lower. Later research arrived at 60 deaths and 386 wounded on the federal side and 33 killed and 124 wounded among the Sonderbund.

The Sonderbund governments were forced to resign and in Fribourg, Lucerne and Valais the Liberals gained power. Neuchâtel and Appenzell Innerrhoden were punished for not providing troops to the federal army. Neuchâtel paid 300,000 francs and Appenzell paid 15,000 into a fund to support war widows and orphans. By February 1848 all federal troops withdrew from the occupied cantons.

In Schwyz the conservative government was dissolved and a new provisional government and constitution established. The first attempt at a constitution, which split the district of Schwyz in two and moved the cantonal capital away from Schwyz, was narrowly defeated on 27 January 1848. The second constitution, which removed the mentioned points and merged the former districts of Wollerau and Pfäffikon in the district of March, was then approved by the electorate on 27 February 1848. The new constitution of 1848 reformed the government of the Canton. Perhaps the greatest change was that it abolished the Landsgemeinde, which had formerly been the supreme authority. It split the government into three branches, legislature, executive and judiciary and created a three-tier structure of municipalities, districts and canton. It created proportional representation and allowed the population to vote on laws and constitutional amendments.

Aftermath: The Swiss Federal Constitution of 1848
In 1848, a new Swiss Federal Constitution ended the almost complete independence of the cantons and transformed Switzerland into a federal state. The Jesuits were constitutionally banished from Switzerland. This Special Provision was lifted on 20 May 1973, when 54.9% of the population and 16.5 cantons out of 22 voted to approve modifying the Constitution.

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

title: Sonderbund War


text:
William Barker

William Barker may refer to:

Politicians

 * William Barker (translator) (fl. 1570), English translator and MP for Great Yarmouth and Bramber
 * William Barker (MP for Berkshire) (died 1685), English Member of Parliament for Berkshire
 * Sir William Barker, 5th Baronet (1685–1731), British Member of Parliament for Ipswich, Thetford and Suffolk
 * William Barker (Queensland politician) (1819–1886), member of the Queensland Legislative Council
 * William J. Barker (Denver mayor) (1832–1900), American politician

Judges

 * William J. Barker (1886–1968), American lawyer and judge
 * William M. Barker (1941–2023), Chief Justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court from 1995 to 2009

Sportspeople

 * William Barker (Surrey cricketer) (1857–?), English cricketer
 * William Barker (tennis) (born 1981), British tennis player
 * Billy Barker (footballer, born 1883) (1883–1937), footballer for Middlesbrough F.C. in the early 20th century; see List of Middlesbrough F.C. players
 * Bill Barker (footballer) (1924–2002), footballer who played for Stoke City
 * Will Barker (American football) (born 1987), American football player

Religion

 * William Barker (priest, died 1776), Irish priest, Dean of Raphoe
 * William Barker (priest, died 1917) (1838–1917), Dean of Carlisle
 * William Morris Barker (1854–1901), American bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Olympia

Others

 * William Barker (chemist) (1810–1873), Irish professor of chemistry
 * William Barker (prospector) (1817–1894), English miner and prospector who found gold in Canada
 * William Burckhardt Barker (1810–1856), English orientalist
 * William George Barker (1894–1930), Canadian Victoria Cross recipient and World War I flying ace
 * William Gibbs Barker (c. 1811–1897), English clergyman and genealogist
 * William Higgs Barker (1744–1815), English Hebraist
 * William Robert Barker, Australian botanist
 * William S. Barker (born 1934), American church historian, educator, and leader
 * Will Barker (director) (1867–1951), aka William George Barker, English film producer and director
 * Bill Barker (born 1957), creator of Schwa, underground conceptual artwork
 * Bill Barker, police officer who died in the November 2009 Great Britain and Ireland floods, namesake of Barker Crossing
 * Bill Barker, actor who portrayed Dr. Duckbill Platypus and Elsie Jean Platypus on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood

title: William Barker


text:
Noirmoutier-en-l'Île

Noirmoutier-en-l'Île, commonly referred to as Noirmoutier, is a commune located in the northern part of the island of Noirmoutier, just off the coast of the Vendée department in the Pays de la Loire region in western France.

History
The history of the town began with the arrival of the monk Saint Philibert in 674 who founded a monastery. The Château de Noirmoutier dates from the 11th and 12th century. In summer the area is a tourist resort. The name is recorded in Latin as Nerium Monasterium, wrongly written by some as Nigrum Monasterium ("Black Monastery").

In the second part of the 17th century, the island was a center of tobacco smuggling, just like Paimboeuf. Indeed, Louis XIV created in November 1674 a tobacco farm which bought tobacco from the Antilles at low prices to resell to high prices, exposing themselves to competition from tobacco from the Virginia. Imported stocks are then sold on the continent using small boats called chattes.

Until 1858, the territory of the commune extended over the whole of the island, then began to be fragmented with the creation of the commune of Barbâtre, followed, some sixty years later, in 1919, by those of La Guérinière and from L'Épine.

Geography
Noirmoutier-en-l'Île is situated to the north of the island of Noirmoutier, in the Atlantic Ocean. The commune covers the northern point of the island, and contains three villages: Noirmoutier, L'Herbaudiere and Le Vieil. L'Herbaudiere is a noteworthy port and is managed by the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Vendée. The inconvenient location in relation to the town and economic success of the village encouraged its inhabitants to seek the establishment of a commune independent from Noirmoutier-en-l'Île. Le Vieil is also located on the north coast within the commune. It is a popular destination for vacationers over the summer. An inventor Brutus de Villeroi tested the first French submarine in the village on 12 August 1832. An old street bears his name.

Climate
Noirmoutier-en-l'Île has an oceanic climate (Köppen climate classification Cfb) closely bordering on a warm-summer Mediterranean climate (Csb). The average annual temperature in Noirmoutier-en-l'Île is 13.4 C. The average annual rainfall is 704.1 mm with November as the wettest month. The temperatures are highest on average in August, at around 19.8 C, and lowest in January, at around 7.4 C. The highest temperature ever recorded in Noirmoutier-en-l'Île was 38.7 C on 18 July 2022; the coldest temperature ever recorded was -10.0 C on 16 January 1985.

Cuisine

Noirmoutier is home to the most expensive potatoes in the world. Known as "La Bonnotte", only around 100 tons of this top quality potato are cultivated annually and it is harvested only on the island Noirmoutier. The cost of one kilogram can reach €500 (US $322 per pound), but the potatoes are normally sold for around €70 per kilo (US $45 per pound). The cost is attributed to the fact that this type of potato is almost extinct because it must be harvested by hand. The potato fields also require fertilization by seaweed in a climate shaped by the nearby sea. The presence of algae and seaweed in the soil is responsible for the potato's earthy and salty flavor. Because the variety is delicate and its tuber remains attached to its stem, the potato must be picked and not torn. The potatoes are generally served in top class restaurants in France and the Netherlands in mid-May.

The commune was also part of the 2005 Tour de France and 2011 Tour de France.

Landmarks

The Château de Noirmoutier is one of the town's major landmarks and is run by the commune government, It has been listed as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture since 1994.

The first traces of the castle appeared in 830 with the construction of a castrum by the abbot Hilbold, from the monastery of Saint-Philbert. It served to defend the monks and the island's population from the Vikings.

The castle was rebuilt in stone in the 12th century by the feudal power who was trying to stabilise the region, notably by preventing Norman pillaging. The island at that time was under the control of the barons of La Garnache. The keep was built by Pierre IV of La Garnache, then an enclosure equipped with towers was built around the lower courtyard. The castle resisted numerous attacks from the English in 1342 and 1360, and again in 1386 under the command of the Earl of Arundel. It fought off the Spanish in 1524 and 1588, but in 1674, it was taken by the Dutch troops of Admiral Tromp.

In the 16th century, the castle was held by the La Trémoille family, then viscounts of Thouars. The castle was sold in 1720 to Louis IV Henri de Bourbon-Condé who resold it in 1767 to Louis XV.

During the French Revolution, the castle served as a military prison. During the 19th century, the castle was used as a barracks. In 1871, during the Paris Commune, insurgents were imprisoned there. In 1960, a house was built within the castle grounds by the governor of the island and the castle. Today, the keep houses the Noirmoutier Museum.

The keep at the centre of the castle is solid and rectangular. Built of rubble, it has three floors with the lords' residence at the top. The keep has numerous murder holes and defensive turrets at the corners. The rectangular fortification consists of two towers, a single gate and two watch turrets in the four corners. At the beginning of the 18th century, the towers were reconstructed and the keep adapted for artillery.

The Parish Church of Noirmoutier is dedicated to St. Philbert, who founded a monastery here around 674. where the monks' s had taken refuge after the invasion of Normandy in 875. A shrine at the altar contains relics of the saint and was classified as a historical monument in 1898. The church was first destroyed by the Saracens in 725 and 732. When the son of Charlemagne, Louis the Pious became King of Aquitaine, he inherited the rights to the church and in 801 ordered the reconstruction of the abbey and chapel. Forty five years later it was again destroyed by the Normans in 846. It was then rebuilt at the end of 11th century but rather more primitively than previously. Centuries later, the aisles were raised and it was consecrated in 1849. The neo-Romanesque bell tower was built in 1875 to replace the old bell tower which was destroyed by fire in 1848.

On the inside is a model frigate, made by an artisan watchmaker of the village in 1802 for Augustus Jacobsen. The church received the body of St. Philbert some time between 690 and 836, when he was transferred to Saint-Philbert-de-Grand-Lieu, where the monks had taken refuge after the invasion of Normandy in 875. A shrine at the altar contains relics of the saint and was classified as a historical monument in 1898.

 * Jacobsen Dam was built in 1812 by John Cornelius Jacobsen, descendant of a family of Dutch who came to the area in the eighteenth century . This dam has allowed the development of salt marsh s, creating a towpath and a channel to access the port.  Along the channel is the graveyard of ships. On the other side of the pier, in the marshes is a noted bird habitat with waterfowl such as brant and little egret. At the end of the pier there are facilities for cycling and pedestrians.
 *  La chapelle de la Pitié : Meaning "The Chapel of Mercy": There is a stele in memory of Jacobsen, creator of the dam, and the events of 3 January 1794 are recalled, when the island was attacked by the Republican troops, who killed 1500 Vendée prisoners, despite promising to pardon them.
 *  L'Hôtel Jacobsen : The Jacobsen Hotel is the largest building of Noirmoutier. It was built between 1761 and 1766 by Cornils Guislain-Jacobsen who had been in the town since 1740.
 * Hôtel Boucheron ou Lebreton des Grapillières': It was built in 1767, by the merchant François Boucheron. In 1790, the hotel became the property of the merchant Lebreton des Grapillières, who gave his name to the building. It was the headquarters of the customs administration in the nineteenth century, and tourist hotel called the Hotel d'Elba, after Napoleon's expulsion to Elba.
 * Chapelle de Le Vieil
 * Eglise de l'Herbaudière
 * Noirmoutier-en-l'Île Sealand Aquarium
 * Pointe aux Dames Lighthouse

Culture
Robert Bresson's Lancelot du Lac (1974) is one of a number of films that have been shot on location in Noirmoutier-en-l'Île., and an exhibition dedicated to the town's role as a film location since the 1960s will be open at Château de Noirmoutier until November 2017.

Sports
Noirmoutier-en-l'Île was the host for the Grand Départ(start) of the 2018 Tour de France.

Personalities

 * Pierre-Louis Lebreton (1752–1801), merchant, Mayor of Noirmoutier from 1792 to 1798.
 * Édouard Richer, historian, specializing in the history of Brittany.

Sister city

 * 🇺🇸 Crestview, Florida, United States

title: Noirmoutier-en-l'Île


text:
Nydia Caro

Nydia Caro (born June 7, 1948) is an American singer.

Early years
Caro was born in New York City to parents from Rincón, Puerto Rico, and initiated her career in the arts at a very young age while living in New York. She attended James Monroe H.S. where she graduated in 1964. After completing high school, she enrolled in the New York School of Performing Arts in singing, dancing, and acting classes.

Music and acting career
Caro made her debut in show business acting at an NBC television show, and in 1964, released a Christmas-themed single on the Roulette Records label, "Ask Me What I Want for Christmas". In 1967, shortly after her father died, she moved to Puerto Rico and released her first album titled Dimelo tu. She has released 20 internationally acclaimed albums and CDs ever since. Caro enrolled at the University of Puerto Rico in literature to enhance her Spanish skills. She was hired immediately to co-host a popular teen show by channel 2 ("Show Coca-Cola").

The decade of the 1970s was very successful for Caro. In 1970, she won the Festival de la Canción in Ibagué, Colombia, with the songs "Hermano tengo frío", composed by Karmen Mercado, the niece of actor and astrologer Walter Mercado, and "Pongo el Mundo en las Manos de un Niño" composed by Raoul Gonzalez.

In 1972, she went to Tokyo, Japan, where she sang "La Borinqueña" before the world heavyweight boxing championship fight between George Foreman and José Roman. Ring En Español remarked that her singing of the Puerto Rican national anthem probably lasted longer than the fight itself. That same year, she made an appearance on Sesame Street with fellow Puerto Rican entertainers Raúl Juliá and Sonia Manzano.

In 1973, she won one of the first awards in the Festival de Benidorm in Valencia, Spain, with the song "Vete Ya", composed by Julio Iglesias for her.

In 1974, she won the third edition of the OTI Festival representing Puerto Rico in the OTI Festival cantar". The song, composed by Caro and Riccardo Cerratto, caused some controversy in Puerto Rico for being the "anti-protest" song in that decade. Despite that, the song helped Caro further extend her popularity built on prior hit songs such as "Cuéntale", "Duerme", "Charly", "Copos de nieve" and "No Pudo Ser".

She released her self titled album in 1978 to critical acclaim, with Cash Box writing "she stands out in every song. Arangements by E. Leiva and R. Arusa are superb. The best cuts are "Un Pueblo Es", "A Quien Vas Enganar", "Precisamente Tu", "Oye Guitara Mia"and "Sugar Me". Should go high on the Latin American charts" which it subsequently did.

She also hosted her own television program, El Show de Nydia Caro, on Puerto Rican television. Moreover, her reputation was helped by strong concert performances in prestigious venues; such as, Club Caribe and Club Tropicoro in San Juan, Carnegie Hall, the Lincoln Center in New York and many others around the world in countries throughout South America, Spain, Australia, Mexico, and Japan. Besides Puerto Rico, Caro's relevance as a cultural icon is strongest in Chile, a country in which she has performed regularly since her 1974 appearance at the Viña del Mar International Song Festival. She has appeared in Chilean telenovelas and has spent regular seasons living in the country.

In 1998, Caro released her album De amores luminosos to critical acclaim. The album was produced by the Chilean producer Joakin Bello. It features musical themes such as the song "Buscando Mis Amores", from the poems of Saint Teresa of Jesus, Luis de León and John of the Cross. It blends musical instruments native to distant countries; such as, Tibet and India, together with instruments from Puerto Rico and South America. The effort sets her apart from other artists in Puerto Rico, as the first exponent of "alternative" or "new age" music, and was named as one of the 20 best recordings in 1999 by the National Foundation for Popular Culture in Puerto Rico.

Image
Caro has a reputation for her lasting beauty, her complexion has very few expression lines and gives the public the impression of her not aging with time (Caro became a grandmother in 2004). She claims she has had no plastic surgery and affirms her lasting youthful appearance is a result of minimizing exposure to sun as much as possible. At one time, she was the spokesperson for Oil of Olay products in Puerto Rico.

Caro also has a reputation for being "classy", or elegantly sophisticated. She parodied this image by appearing in an advertisement campaign run by the Banco Popular, where she reportedly sells her house to Puerto Rican rapper Tego Calderón, the contrast in their public images played upon for comic effect. Another Puerto Rican rapper, Residente from Calle 13, remarks about Caro's lasting sex appeal on the band's song "La Era de la Copiaera" ("The Age of -Copycat- Copying").

Film
In 2000, she made her Hollywood debut, playing Isabelle in Under Suspicion, starring Gene Hackman and Morgan Freeman.

Personal life
Caro married Spanish producer Gabriel Suau and they had two children, Christian (currently a film director) and Gabriela. The couple divorced after a few years of marriage, but remain on good terms. During her marriage, she continued her professional singing career, releasing over 20 albums to date.

In 2019, Caro officiated the wedding of two homosexual close friends of hers and said it was one of the most meaningful things she's ever done.

Discography

 * Dímelo tú (1967)
 * Los Durísimos y yo (1969)
 * Hermano, tengo frío (1970)
 * Grandes Éxitos - Volumen Uno (1973)
 * "Cuéntale" (1973) RIAA: Gold (Latin)
 * Grandes Éxitos - Volumen Dos (1974)
 * "Hoy canto por cantar" (1974) RIAA: (Latin) Platinum, won best song at the OTI Festival
 * Contigo fui mujer (1975)
 * Palabras de amor (1976)
 * El amor entre tú y yo (1977) RIAA: (Latin) Gold
 * Oye, guitarra mía (1977) RIAA: (Latin) Gold
 * Arlequín (1978)
 * Suavemente/Sugar Me (1978)
 * Isadora/Keep On Movin'12" (1978)
 * A quién vas a seducir (1979)
 * Intimidades (1982) RIAA: (Latin) Gold
 * Prepárate (1983)
 * Papá de domingos (1984)
 * Soledad (1985)
 * Hija de la Luna (1988)
 * Para valientes nada más (1991)
 * De amores luminosos (1998)
 * Las noches de Nydia (2003)
 * Bienvenidos (2003)
 * Claroscuro (2012)
 * Collaborations
 * Cantaré, cantarás/Hermanos del Tercer Mundo (1985)
 * Somos el prójimo/Aristada puertorriquena (1985)
 * Al compás de un sentimiento, Así canta Puerto Rico (1991)
 * Ocho puertas (2003)

title: Nydia Caro


text:
General Motors G platform

The General Motors G platform (also called G-body) designation was used for three different automobile platforms.
 * 1969–1972 GM G platform (RWD)
 * 1982–1988 GM G platform (RWD)
 * 1995–2011 GM G platform (FWD)

title: General Motors G platform


text:
Toketee Falls

Toketee Falls is a waterfall in Douglas County, Oregon, United States, on the North Umpqua River at its confluence with the Clearwater River. It is located approximately 58 mi east of Roseburg near Oregon Route 138.

Toketee (pronounced TOKE-uh-tee), is a Chinook Jargon word meaning "pretty" or "graceful". The falls was officially named by a United States Board on Geographic Names decision in 1916, over alternate names Ireland Falls and Toketie Falls.

Description
Carved from ancient columnar basalt, Toketee Falls drops approximately 120 ft in two stages.

With a reliable water flow on the North Umpqua River, the falls avoids the seasonal fluctuations of other creek-fed waterfalls in Oregon.

Hydropower plant
The waterfall is regulated by a dam built just upstream by PacifiCorp, which now regulates and reduces the water flow over the falls. The damming forms a reservoir called Toketee Lake. Previously the full volume of the North Umpqua River was allowed to flow over the falls, but the flow has been reduced by a penstock that utilizes the drop of the falls to generate hydroelectricity.

Post office
There was a Toketee Falls, Oregon post office from 1952 to 1956 during the construction of the PacifiCorp hydroelectric plant.

title: Toketee Falls


text:
OpenMAX

OpenMAX (Open Media Acceleration), often shortened as "OMX", is a non-proprietary and royalty-free cross-platform set of C-language programming interfaces. It provides abstractions for routines that are especially useful for processing of audio, video, and still images. It is intended for low power and embedded system devices (including smartphones, game consoles, digital media players, and set-top boxes) that need to efficiently process large amounts of multimedia data in predictable ways, such as video codecs, graphics libraries, and other functions for video, image, audio, voice and speech.

OpenMAX provides three layers of interfaces: application layer (AL), integration layer (IL) and development layer (DL). OpenMAX is managed by the non-profit technology consortium Khronos Group.

History
Initially announced in July 2004. The OpenMAX Working Group was initially founded by members ARM, Motorola, Samsung, STMicroelectronics, and Texas Instruments. Version 1.0 of the specification was published in December 2005. The last draft produced by the OpenMAX Working Group (1.2.0) dates from 2011 and no product has been declared as conformant since 2012. The OpenMAX specification were never updated to support recent codecs like HEVC or VP9, making Android the de facto source of updates to the OpenMAX IL standard.

Layers
OpenMAX AL is the interface between multimedia applications, such as a media player, and the platform media framework. It allows companies that develop applications to easily migrate their applications to different platforms (customers) that support the OpenMAX AL application programming interface (API).

OpenMAX IL is the interface between media framework, (such as StageFright or MediaCodec API on Android, DirectShow on Windows, FFmpeg or GStreamer on Linux), and a set of multimedia components (such as an audio or video codecs). It allows companies that build platforms (e.g. allowing an implementation of an MP3 player) to easily change components like MP3 decoders and Equalizer effects and buy components for their platform from different vendors.

OpenMAX DL is the interface between physical hardware, such as digital signal processor (DSP) chips, CPUs, GPUs, and software, like video codecs and 3D engines. It allows companies to easily integrate new hardware that supports OpenMAX DL without reoptimizing their low level software.

Application layer
OpenMAX AL accommodates common multimedia application use cases by standardizing a set of representative objects, as well as interfaces on those objects, to control and configure them. The OpenMAX AL API is divided into two profiles: Media Player and Media Player/Recorder. A platform can be compliant to one or both of these profiles by providing all features included in a profile.

It is an application-level, C-language, multimedia API designed for resource-constrained devices. The OpenMAX AL API design puts particular emphasis on ensuring the API is suitable for mobile embedded devices - including basic mobile phones, smart “feature” phones, PDAs and mobile digital music players. Nevertheless, this does not preclude its applicability to other sophisticated media playback and recording devices.

The OpenMAX AL API design devotes particular attention to application-developer friendliness. Its status as an open cross-platform API enables developers to port the same source across multiple devices with minimal effort. Thus OpenMAX AL provides a stable base for application development.

Features
OpenMAX AL features include:
 * Video playback and recording
 * Audio playback and recording
 * Image capture (camera) and display
 * Camera controls
 * Radio and RDS
 * Basic MIDI playback
 * Metadata extraction and insertion

Digital TV extension
A digital television (DTV) extension specification of OpenMAX AL adds standards-agnostic mobile TV tuning, playback, recording and electronic program guide functionality to OpenMAX AL Multimedia API, as a modular royalty-free, cross-platform C-language API for high-performance digital TV-related applications on mobile and embedded devices. DTV Extension is compatible with all major mobile TV standards (e.g. DVB-H, ISDB-T, T-DMB, etc.), and supports broadcast, unicast and multicast delivery methods for Digital TV.

Specification versions

 * OpenMAX AL 1.0 Provisional Specification - a provisional version, dated 2007-09-02, to facilitate feedback from the community before the final 1.0 release.
 * OpenMAX AL 1.0 Specification - dated 2009-06-23
 * OpenMAX AL 1.0.1 Specification - dated 2010-03-12
 * OpenMAX AL 1.1 Specification - dated 2011-01-18

Implementations

 * Android 4.0 and later exposes OpenMAX AL as part of its NDK (Native Development Kit).
 * LIM OpenMAX is an open source implementation of OpenMAX AL and OpenMAX IL for Linux.

Comparison with OpenSL ES
OpenSL ES (Open Sound Library for Embedded Systems) is another Khronos Group API that also provides an audio library for the same target market as OpenMAX AL, while OpenMAX target the complete multimedia services. OpenSL ES and OpenMAX AL audio subset share the same common architecture and have a few common features:
 * Audio playback and recording
 * Basic MIDI playback
 * Metadata extraction

Integration layer
The OpenMAX IL API strives to give media components portability across an array of platforms using the C-language. In the OpenMAX IL, components represent individual blocks of functionality. Components can be sources, sinks, codecs, filters, splitters, mixers, or any other data operator. Depending on the implementation, a component could possibly represent a piece of hardware, a software codec, another processor, or a combination thereof.

The interface abstracts the hardware and software architecture in the system. The OpenMAX IL API allows the user to load, control, connect, and unload the individual components. This flexible core architecture allows the Integration Layer to easily implement almost any media use case and mesh with existing graph-based media frameworks. The key focus of the OpenMAX IL API is portability of media components.

The OpenMAX IL API design devotes particular attention to use case flexibility and optimized data transfers between components.

The OpenMAX IL API was chosen as the base for the API to integrate Audio and Video codecs on Android, which has resulted in most SoC vendors shipping a minimal implementation that only supports the subset required by Android. Applications do not use those OpenMAX IL components directly, but only through the Android MediaCodec API. Android's subset of OpenMAX IL with its extensions is now the de facto standard.

In 2011 the provisional version 1.2.0 was released.

Implementations

 * Tizonia is an open source OpenMAX IL implementation for Linux that supports version 1.2.0.
 * Bellagio is an open source OpenMAX IL implementation for Linux maintained by STMicroelectronics.
 * LIM OpenMAX is an open source implementation of OpenMAX AL and OpenMAX IL for Linux.
 * Mesa provides hardware accelerated drivers that can be used with Bellagio or Tizonia.
 * Android StageFright, a partial implementation of IL that is the de facto standard.

Development layer
The OpenMAX DL API defines a set of low-level multimedia kernels or media processing building blocks. The building blocks might be used to accelerate traditional computational hotspots within standardized media codecs and other integrated media processing engines. The functional scope of the OpenMAX DL interface spans several domains including signal processing and image processing, audio coding, image coding, and video coding.

OpenMAX DL is split into five application domains:
 * AC - Audio Codecs (MP3 decoder and AAC decoder components)
 * IC - Image Codecs (JPEG components)
 * IP - Image Processing (Generic image processing functions)
 * SP - Signal Processing (Generic audio processing functions)
 * VC - Video Codecs (H.264 and MP4 components)

Implementations

 * Optimized implementations for NEON (for Cortex A8 cores) and SIMD (for ARM11 cores), as well as an ANSI C reference implementation, were previously available from ARM for registered users.
 * The OpenMAX API is supported by the PlayStation 3 console.

Working group
The OpenMAX working group was founded alongside sister project OpenVG on July 6, 2004. Promoting members in 2008 were AMD, Apple, ARM, Creative, Dell Inc, Ericsson, Freescale, Imagination Technologies Group plc, Intel, IBM, Motorola, Nokia, Nvidia Corporation, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd, SK Telecom, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc and Texas Instruments.

title: OpenMAX


text:
George Forrest (author)

George Forrest (born George Forrest Chichester Jr., July 31, 1915 – October 10, 1999) was an American writer of music and lyrics for musical theatre best known for the show Kismet, adapted from the works of Alexander Borodin. He was also known professionally at times as Chet Forrest.

Biography
Throughout his career Forrest worked exclusively with the composer-lyricist Robert Wright. The two men had an affinity for adapting classical music themes and adding lyrics to these themes for the Broadway musical stage and films. Wright said that the music was usually a 50-50 "collaboration" between Wright and Forrest and the composer. While both men were credited equally as composer-lyricists, it was Mr. Forrest who worked with the music.

'Kismet' was one of several works Forrest created with Wright commissioned by impresario Edwin Lester for the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera (LACLO). Song of Norway, Gypsy Lady, Magdalena, and their adaptation of The Great Waltz were also commissioned by Lester for the LACLO. The LACLO then exported most of these productions to Broadway. Forrest and Wright won a Tony Award for their work on Kismet. In 1995, they were awarded the ASCAP Foundation Richard Rodgers Award.

Forrest was cremated at Van Orsdel (Northside Chapel) Crematory, Miami.

Film work
Hit songs of their day include "The Donkey Serenade" (written with composer Herbert Stothart "based on a theme of Rudolf Friml") from The Firefly, "Always and Always" from Mannequin and "It's a Blue World" from Music in My Heart.
 * (1936) New Shoes (short feature), After the Thin Man, Maytime, The Longest Night, Libeled Lady, Sinner Take All
 * (1937) Bad Man of Brimstone, The Firefly, The Good Old Soak, London by Night, Madame X, Mama Steps Out, Mannequin, Man of the People, Navy Blue and Gold, Parnell, Saratoga, You're Only Young Once
 * (1938) Boystown, Broadway Serenade, The First Hundred Years, The Girl Downstairs, Happily Buried (short feature), The Hardys Ride High, Honolulu, Let Freedom Ring, Lord Jeff, The Magician's Daughter (short feature), Marie Antoinette, Nuts and Bolts (short feature), Our Gang Follies (short feature), Paradise for Three, Snow Gets in Your Eyes (short feature), Sweethearts, Three Comrades, The Toy Wife, Vacation from Love
 * (1939) Balalaika, Florian, Music in My Heart, The New Moon, Strange Cargo These Glamour Girls, The Women
 * (1940) Blondie Goes Latin, Dance, Girl, Dance, Kit Carson, South of Pago-Pago
 * (1941) Cubana, Fiesta, Playing with Music, I Married an Angel, Rio Rita
 * (1955) Kismet, Make Believe Ballroom, Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder
 * (1970) Song of Norway (This film featured adaptations of different music of Edvard Grieg than that of the 1944 Broadway show of the same title.)
 * (1972) The Great Waltz

Shows

 * Song of Norway (1944); adapting the music of Edvard Grieg
 * Gypsy Lady (Romany Love) (1947); using the music of Victor Herbert
 * Magdalena (1948); using the music of Heitor Villa-Lobos; working directly with the composer
 * The Great Waltz (1949); adapting the music of Johann Strauss I and Johann Strauss II
 * Kismet (1953); adapting the music of Alexander Borodin
 * At the Grand (1958); original music and lyrics
 * The Love Doctor (London, 1959); original music and lyrics
 * Kean (1961); original music and lyrics
 * Anya (1965); adapting the music of Sergei Rachmaninoff
 * Timbuktu! (1978); a reworking of Kismet for an African-American cast, adding a few new songs
 * Grand Hotel (1989); a reworking of At the Grand with additional music and lyrics by Maury Yeston

Hit songs of the day include "Strange Music" from Song of Norway; and "Stranger in Paradise", "Baubles, Bangles and Beads" and "And This Is My Beloved" from Kismet.

title: George Forrest (author)


text:
Robert Wright (musical writer)

Robert Craig Wright (September 25, 1914 – July 27, 2005) was an American composer-lyricist for Hollywood and the musical theatre, best known for the Broadway musical and musical film Kismet, for which he and his professional and romantic partner George Forrest adapted themes by Alexander Borodin and added lyrics. Kismet was one of several Wright and Forrest creations that was commissioned by impresario Edwin Lester for the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera. Song of Norway, Gypsy Lady, Magdalena, and their adaptation of The Great Waltz were also commissioned by Lester for the LACLO. The LACLO passed most of these productions to Broadway.

Wright was born in Daytona Beach, Florida, United States. Wright and Forrest had an affinity for adapting classical music themes and adding lyrics to these themes for Hollywood and the Broadway musical stage. Wright said that the music was usually a 50-50 "collaboration" between Wright and Forrest and the composer. While both men were credited equally as composer-lyricists, it was Forrest who worked with the music. Forrest and Wright won a Tony Award for their work on Kismet and, in 1995, they were awarded the ASCAP Foundation Richard Rodgers Award.

He was cremated at Cofer-Kolski-Combs mortuary, Miami, and his ashes given to his executor.

Film work

 * (1936) New Shoes (short feature), After the Thin Man, Maytime, The Longest Night, Libeled Lady, Sinner Take All
 * (1937) Bad Man of Brimstone, The Firefly, The Good Old Soak, London by Night, Madame X, Mama Steps Out, Mannequin, Man of the People, Navy Blue and Gold, Parnell, Saratoga, You're Only Young Once
 * (1938) Broadway Serenade, The First Hundred Years, The Girl Downstairs, Happily Buried (short feature), The Hardys Ride High, Honolulu, Let Freedom Ring, Lord Jeff, The Magician's Daughter (short feature), Marie Antoinette, Nuts and Bolts (short feature), Our Gang Follies (short feature), Paradise for Three, Snow Gets in Your Eyes (short feature), Sweethearts, Three Comrades, The Toy Wife, Vacation from Love
 * (1939) Balalaika, Florian, Music in My Heart, The New Moon, Strange Cargo, These Glamour Girls, The Women
 * (1940) "Blondie Goes Latin", "Dance, Girl, Dance", "Kit Carson", "South of Pago-Pago"
 * (1941) "Cubana", "Fiesta", "Playing with Music", "I Married an Angel", "Rio Rita"
 * (1955) "Kismet", "Make Believe Ballroom", "Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder"
 * (1970) Song of Norway (This film featured adaptations of different music of Edvard Grieg than that of the 1944 Broadway show of the same title.)
 * (1972) The Great Waltz

Hit songs of their day include "The Donkey Serenade" (written with composer Herbert Stothart "based on a theme of Rudolf Friml") from "The Firefly", "Always and Always" from Mannequin and "It's a Blue World" from Music in My Heart.

Shows

 * Song of Norway (1944); adapting the music of Edvard Grieg
 * Gypsy Lady (Romany Love) (1947); using the music of Victor Herbert
 * Magdalena (1948); using the music of Heitor Villa-Lobos, working directly with the composer
 * The Great Waltz (1949); adapting the music of Johann Strauss
 * Kismet (1953); adapting the music of Alexander Borodin
 * At the Grand (1958); original music and lyrics
 * The Love Doctor (London, 1959); original music and lyrics
 * Kean (1961); original music and lyrics
 * Anya (1965); adapting the music of Sergei Rachmaninoff
 * Timbuktu! (1978); a reworking of Kismet for an African-American cast, adding a few new songs
 * Grand Hotel (1989); a reworking of At the Grand with additional music and lyrics by Maury Yeston

Hit songs of their day include "Strange Music" from Song of Norway; and "Stranger in Paradise", "Baubles, Bangles and Beads" and "And This Is My Beloved" from Kismet.

title: Robert Wright (musical writer)