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Caroline Lawrence

Caroline Lawrence (born 1954) is an English American author, best known for The Roman Mysteries series of historical novels for children. The series is about a Roman girl called Flavia and her three friends: Nubia (a freed slave girl), Jonathan (a shunned Jewish boy) and Lupus (a beggar boy without a tongue). The series has won numerous awards and has been published in many different languages worldwide. In March 2010, Lawrence was commissioned to write another history mystery series of books called The Western Mysteries, set in Virginia City, Nevada Territory in the early 1860s.

Biography
Lawrence was born in London, England. Her American parents returned to the United States shortly afterwards and she grew up in Bakersfield, California with her younger brother and sister. Her father taught English and drama in a local high school and her mother was an artist.

When she was twelve, Caroline's family moved to Stanford University in northern California so that her father could study Linguistics. She afterwards studied Classics at Berkeley, where she won a Marshall Scholarship to Cambridge. There, at Newnham College, she studied Classical Art and Archaeology.

After Cambridge, Caroline remained in England, and later took an MA in Hebrew and Jewish Studies at University College London. She then taught Latin, French and art at a small London primary school. In 2000 she wrote The Thieves of Ostia, the first in a series of children's adventure stories set in Ancient Rome, the book was published in 2001. The Roman Mysteries combine Caroline's love of art history, ancient languages and travel. Her other passions include cinema, jazz and London. Caroline has a son Simon, from a previous marriage, and she now lives by the Thames in London with her husband Richard, a graphic designer. In 2009, Caroline won the Classical Association Prize of £5000 for "a significant contribution to the public understanding of Classics".

Lawrence has also worked on the University of Reading's educational website Romans Revealed, creating stories about Roman Britain closely based on archaeological finds.

In 2013 she was chosen to be President of JACT (The Joint Association of Classical Teachers) following in the footsteps of Boris Johnson, Bettany Hughes and Paul Cartledge.

The Roman Mysteries series

 * 1) The Thieves of Ostia (2001)
 * 2) The Secrets of Vesuvius (2001)
 * 3) The Pirates of Pompeii (2002)
 * 4) The Assassins of Rome (2002)
 * 5) The Dolphins of Laurentum (2003)
 * 6) The Twelve Tasks of Flavia Gemina (2003)
 * 7) The Enemies of Jupiter (2003)
 * 8) The Gladiators from Capua (2004)
 * 9) The Colossus of Rhodes (2005)
 * 10) The Fugitive from Corinth (2005)
 * 11) The Sirens of Surrentum (2006)
 * 12) The Charioteer of Delphi (2006)
 * 13) The Slave-girl from Jerusalem (2007)
 * 14) The Beggar of Volubilis (2007)
 * 15) The Scribes from Alexandria (2008)
 * 16) The Prophet from Ephesus (2009)
 * 17) The Man from Pomegranate Street (2009)

Roman Mystery Scrolls

 * 1) The Sewer Demon (2012)
 * 2) The Poisoned Honey Cake (2012)
 * 3) The Thunder Omen  (2013)
 * 4)  The Two-Faced God (2013)

Roman Quests

 * 1) Escape from Rome (2016)
 * 2) The Archers of Isca (2016)
 * 3) Death in the Arena (2017)
 * 4) Return to Rome (2018)

The Time Travel Diaries

 * 1) Adventure in Athens (2020)

 * Short stories

 * The Code of Romulus (World Book day promotion) (2007)
 * Trimalchio's Feast and other mini-mysteries (2007)
 * The Legionary from Londinium and other mini-mysteries (2010)

Associated non-fiction books include:

 * The First Roman Mysteries Quiz Book (2007)
 * The Roman Mysteries Treasury (2007)
 * From Ostia to Alexandria with Flavia Gemina (2009)

Western Mysteries/P.K. Pinkerton Mysteries

 * 1) The Case of the Deadly Desperados (2011)
 * 2) The Case of the Good-Looking Corpse (2012) US title "  P.K. Pinkerton and the Petrified Man  "
 * 3) The Case of the Pistol-Packing Widows (2013)
 * 4) The Case of the Bogus Detective (2015)

title: Caroline Lawrence


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The Moor's Last Sigh

The Moor's Last Sigh is the fifth novel by Salman Rushdie, published in 1995. It is set in the Indian cities of Bombay and Cochin.

Title and influences
The title is taken from the story of Boabdil, the last Moorish king of Granada, who is also mentioned frequently in the book. The spot from which Boabdil last looked upon Granada after surrendering is known as Puerto del Suspiro del Moro ("Pass of the Moor's Sigh"). The mother of the narrator and an artist friend of the mother's each make a painting which they call "The Moor's Last Sigh".

The book draws on a variety of real historical figures and events, including Boabdil's surrender of Granada, the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the 1993 Bombay bombings, the gangster and terrorist Dawood Ibrahim, as well as modern Indian political entities like Bal Thackeray and the Shiv Sena. Salman Rushdie mentions Thomas Babington Macaulay in this novel.

Plot details
The Moor's Last Sigh traces four generations of the narrator's family and the ultimate effects upon the narrator. The narrator, Moraes Zogoiby, traces his family's beginnings down through time to his own lifetime. Moraes, who is called "Moor" throughout the book, is an exceptional character, whose physical body ages twice as fast as a normal person's does and also has a deformed hand. The book also focuses heavily on the Moor's relationships with the women in his life, including his mother Aurora, who is a famous national artist; his first female tutor; his three older sisters, Ina, Minnie and Mynah; and his first love, a charismatic, demented sculptor named Uma.

Awards and nominations
The book won the Whitbread Prize for 'Best novel' in 1995, and the Aristeion Prize in 1996. The book was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1995.

The cover artwork for this book is by Dennis Leigh, more widely known as musician and multi-media artist John Foxx.

Critical reception
Reviewing the novel in the New York Times upon its publication, Norman Rush wrote, "[T]his novel, looked at as a work of literary art, is a triumph, an intricate and deceptive one.... So, another brave and dazzling fable from Salman Rushdie, one that meets the test of civic usefulness -- broadly conceived -- as certainly as it fulfills the requirements of true art." On 5 November 2019 BBC Arts included The Moor's Last Sigh on its list of the 100 most influential novels.

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

title: The Moor's Last Sigh


text: User talk:83.104.108.237

title: User talk:83.104.108.237


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Process control network

A Process Control Network (PCN) is a communications network layer that is a part of the Industrial Automation networks in Process Industries. This network is used to transmit instructions and data between control and measurement units and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) equipment.

Industry requirements
These networks have, over the years, used many of the technologies and topologies utilised in other network applications. However, Process Control Networks (PCNs) have several special requirements that must be met in order for the solution to be acceptable to the industry. These requirements are, in no particular order: Robustness, Determinacy, Compatibility. Robustness includes requirements such as connection redundancy, reduced sensitivity to Electromagnetic Interference (EMI), and good error checking and correction. Determinacy involves assuring that each device is guaranteed access to the network, and in many cases mechanisms to allow priority information (such as alarms) through the system. Compatibility allows SCADA and Distributed Control Systems (DCS) from various manufacturers to communicate with control and measurement equipment from others.

Development of standards
Many early PCNs were serial based, using low level standards such as EIA RS-422 and EIA RS-485 with proprietary protocols on top. One of the de facto standards (which is now becoming an open standard) is Modbus, originally from Modicon. Many PCNs used token passing based protocols because they are essentially deterministic. Both Allen Bradley and Eurotherm utilised such mechanisms. Many of the measurement and control unit manufacturers signed up to the Fieldbus consortium but rather than one standard emerging each manufacturer promoted their own 'standard' leading to a myriad, and confusing, range of physical and logical systems. Modern process control networks rely on Ethernet, TCP/IP, and Microsoft Windows technology.

title: Process control network


text:
Kumrovec

Kumrovec is a village in the northern part Croatia, part of Krapina-Zagorje County. It sits on the Sutla River, along the Croatian-Slovenian border. The Kumrovec municipality has 1,413 residents (2021), but the village itself has only 267 people. The municipality was established on May 6, 1997, after it was split from the municipality of Tuhelj.

Kumrovec is notably the birthplace of Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980), the president of former Yugoslavia. The birth house of Tito (built in 1860 as the first brickwork house in the village) features the Memorial Museum of Marshal Tito, opened in 1953. The museum is also important for the local folklore. Next to the house is the bronze standing statue of Marshal Tito (made by Antun Augustinčić, 1948). The old part of Kumrovec comprises the Ethnological Museum with 18 village houses, displaying permanent exhibitions of artifacts related to the life and work of Zagorje peasants in the 19th/20th century. The village is small but of great popularity in the former Yugoslavia, owing to the annual celebration of Youth Day every May 25.

Today the major attraction of Kumrovec is the Ethnological Museum Staro Selo (Old Village) Kumrovec with very well preserved village houses from the turn of 19th/20th century. The reconstruction and redecoration of these houses started in 1977. So far 40-odd houses and other farmstead facilities have been restored, which makes Staro Selo the most attractive place of this kind in Croatia. Visitors may see permanent ethnological exhibitions such as the Zagorje-style Wedding, the Life of Newly-weds, From Hemp to Linen, Blacksmith's Crafts, Cart-wright's Craft, Pottery, From Grain to Bread, etc.

On November 24, 1935, the Brethren of the Croatian Dragon raised a monument to the Croatian anthem Lijepa naša domovino to celebrate its one hundredth anniversary. Kumrovec celebrates this day as its municipal holiday.

History
In the late 19th and early 20th century, Kumrovec was part of Varaždin County of the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia.

According to the research of Slovenian historian Daniel Siter, during the initial phase of the German occupation of the Slovene-Croatian territory between May and June 1941, the municipality of Kumrovec was temporarily occupied by Nazi Germany, along with other parts of the western outskirts of the Croatian Zagorje (Hum na Sotli, Prišlin, Druškovec, Brezno and Lupinjak). For the first few weeks after the occupation in April, the swastika also hung in Kumrovec. The occupied territory of Western Croatian Zagorje (including Kumrovec) was returned to the Independent State of Croatia in mid-June 1941. At that time, the state and occupation border between Germany and Croatia was finally established along the water line of the Sotla river.

Culture
The municipality is home to the cultural organization KUD Kumrovec. It has two Catholic chapels: ''Kapela sv. Rok built in 1963 and Kapela Majke Božje Snježne'' built in 1639.

Population
According to the 2011 census, the municipality had a total population of 1,588 in ten separate settlements:
 * Donji Škrnik (pop. 169)
 * Dugnjevec (pop. 67)
 * Kladnik (pop. 155)
 * Kumrovec (pop. 267)
 * Podgora (pop. 45)
 * Ravno Brezje (pop. 216)
 * Razdrto Tuheljsko (pop. 97)
 * Razvor (pop. 191)
 * Risvica (pop. 277)
 * Velinci (pop. 104)

title: Kumrovec


text: Category:Hartley County, Texas

title: Category:Hartley County, Texas


text: Category:Hindu festivals

title: Category:Hindu festivals


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Type I hypersensitivity

Type I hypersensitivity (or immediate hypersensitivity), in the Gell and Coombs classification of allergic reactions, is an allergic reaction provoked by re-exposure to a specific type of antigen referred to as an allergen. Type I is distinct from type II, type III and type IV hypersensitivities. The relevance of the Gell and Coombs classification of allergic reactions has been questioned in the modern-day understanding of allergy, and it has limited utility in clinical practice.

Exposure may be by ingestion, inhalation, injection, or direct contact.

Pathophysiology
In type I hypersensitivity, B cells are stimulated (by CD4+ Th2 cells) to produce IgE antibodies specific to an antigen. The difference between a normal infectious immune response and a type 1 hypersensitivity response is that in type 1 hypersensitivity, the antibody is IgE instead of IgA, IgG, or IgM. During sensitization, the IgE antibodies bind to FcεRI receptors on the surface of tissue mast cells and blood basophils. Mast cells and basophils coated by IgE antibodies are "sensitized". Later exposure to the same allergen cross-links the bound IgE on sensitized cells, resulting in anaphylactic degranulation, which is the immediate and explosive release of pharmacologically active pre-formed mediators from storage granules and concurrent synthesis of inflammatory lipid mediators from arachidonic acid; some of these mediators include histamine, leukotriene (LTC4 and LTD4 and LTB4), and prostaglandin, which act on proteins (e.g., G-protein coupled receptors) located on surrounding tissues. The principal effects of these products are vasodilation and smooth-muscle contraction. Type I hypersensitivity can be further classified into immediate and late-phase reactions. Within minutes of exposure to an antigen, the immediate hypersensitivity occurs, releasing histamines and lipid mediators which are responsible for the initial allergic reaction response. However, about 4-12 hours after antigen exposure, a cough and wheezing may persist in the patient, along with swelling and redness of the skin. This is known as the late-phase hypersensitivity reaction which can last from approximately 1-3 days and is caused by the release of additional mediators from the mast cells and basophils.

The reaction may be either local or systemic. Symptoms vary from mild irritation to sudden death from anaphylactic shock.

Treatment and prognosis
If multiple systems are involved, then anaphylaxis can take place, which is an acute, systemic reaction that can prove fatal.

Treatment usually involves adrenaline (epinephrine) because it counteracts anaphylaxis by increasing blood flow and relaxing bronchial muscles that block one’s airways. Antihistamines and corticosteroids are also commonly used in less severe reactions.

Examples
Some examples:
 * Allergic asthma
 * Allergic conjunctivitis
 * Allergic rhinitis ("hay fever")
 * Anaphylaxis
 * Angioedema
 * Urticaria (hives)
 * Eosinophilia
 * Penicillin allergy
 * Cephalosporin allergy
 * Food allergy
 * Sweet itch

title: Type I hypersensitivity


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Brucine

Brucine is an alkaloid closely related to strychnine, most commonly found in the Strychnos nux-vomica tree. Brucine poisoning is rare, since it is usually ingested with strychnine, and strychnine is more toxic than brucine. In synthetic chemistry, it can be used as a tool for stereospecific chemical syntheses.

Brucine is named from the genus Brucea, named after James Bruce who brought back Brucea antidysenterica from Ethiopia.

History
Brucine was discovered in 1819 by Pelletier and Caventou in the bark of the Strychnos nux-vomica tree. While its structure was not deduced until much later, it was determined that it was closely related to strychnine in 1884, when the chemist Hanssen converted both strychnine and brucine into the same molecule.

Identification
Brucine can be detected and quantified using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. Historically, brucine was distinguished from strychnine by its reactivity toward chromic acid.

Chemical applications
Since brucine is a large chiral molecule, it has been used in chiral resolution. Fisher first reported its use as a resolving agent in 1899, and it was the first natural product used as an organocatalyst in a reaction resulting in an enantiomeric enrichment by Marckwald, in 1904. Its bromide salt has been used as the stationary phase in HPLC in order to selectively bind one of two anionic enantiomers. Brucine has also been used for fractional crystallization in acetone to resolve dihydroxy fatty acids, as well as diarylcarbinols.

Medical applications
While brucine has been shown to have good anti-tumor effects, on both hepatocellular carcinoma and breast cancer, its narrow therapeutic window has limited its use as a treatment for cancer.

Brucine is also used in traditional Chinese medicine as an anti-inflammatory and analgesic agent, as well as in some Ayurveda and homeopathy drugs.

Alcohol denaturant
Brucine is one of the many chemicals used as a denaturant to make alcohol unfit for human consumption.

Cultural references
One of the most famous cultural references to brucine occurs in The Count of Monte Cristo, the novel by French author Alexandre Dumas. In a discussion of mithridatism, Monte Cristo states:

“Well, suppose, then, that this poison was brucine, and you were to take a milligramme the first day, two milligrams the second day, and so on…at the end of a month, when drinking water from the same carafe, you would kill the person who drank with you, without your perceiving…that there was any poisonous substance mingled with this water.”

Brucine in also mentioned in the 1972 version of The Mechanic, in which the hitman Steve McKenna betrays his mentor, aging hitman Arthur Bishop, using a celebratory glass of wine spiked with brucine, leaving Bishop to die of an apparent heart attack.

Such fictions run contrary to reality in the very properties which make brucine useful as a denaturant, and useless as a covert poison. While being only about one-eighth as toxic as strychnine, its threshold of bitterness occurs at 69% greater dilution. A drink laden with brucine, overwhelmingly bitter at far below lethal concentration, would cause an intended victim to gag on the first sip.

Safety
Brucine intoxication occurs very rarely, since it is usually ingested with strychnine. Symptoms of brucine intoxication include muscle spasms, convulsions, rhabdomyolysis, and acute kidney injury. Brucine’s mechanism of action closely resembles that of strychnine. It acts as an antagonist at glycine receptors and paralyzes inhibitory neurons.

The probable fatal dose of brucine in adults is 1 g. In other animals, the LD50 varies considerably.

title: Brucine


text:
Talk:Spencer W. Kimball

Untitled
Spencer W. Kimball being unable to speak because of his throat cancer was unique among leaders of men as a listener rather than a talker. This ability has made him contemplative in his prayer life and given him the gift to hear God, this coupled with the Charasmatic office of Prophet has made his presidency a great one. Just as all milkmen are not as good all prophets are not as good. - David Murdoch

Deleted text
Marked as needing some work but deleted - preserving here in case someone wants to edit for neutrality:
 * During his apostleship, Elder Kimball's labors spanned the globe as he served both members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints along with other people he came in contact with. Primary duties included visiting and organizing stakes, wards, and branches of the Church, calling missionaries, performing temple marriages, and teaching the Mormon religion. Dedicated to the people whom he served, he spent much of his time interviewing, teaching, and counselling members and others about how to live Christ-centered lives.
 * Spencer found himself teaching the principles of repentance and forgiveness quite frequently. Referring to many of the same scriptures and teachings over and over, he wondered if his notes might be used to serve more than those he could meet with personally. In response to this need, he compiled his oft used notes and scripture references in book form, and titled it; "The Miracle of Forgiveness".

-- Trödel 03:41, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Sourcing to sons only?
I just wanted to point out one obvious stumbling block to this article being selected as a GA, which is that more than 95% of the article appears based on work by Kimball's sons. Have no independent figures written about Kimball? Are there no academic or journalistic accounts that touch on his life in any way? His own sons seem unlikely to have taken a complete and dispassionate view of him and his work, and it's hard to imagine this article could be neutral while based solely on the writings of his family. Thanks for your work on this one! -- Khazar2 (talk) 19:07, 10 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, the only other full biography of Kimball is by Francis Gibbons and is of inferior quality compared to Edward Kimball's books, particularly the 2nd (2005) one. Kimball (2005) is of excellent academic quality.  I think it a poor judgment to discount it because the subject is the author's father, in classical Chinese work (my main Wikipedia field) we deal with this regularly.   White Whirlwind  咨   06:45, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Dates
Good_Olfactory – you made some good changes, but do we really need to change the dates to the MM/DD/YYYY format? Does Kimball really qualify under strong national ties? I think those are fine as they were. The LDS Church uses DD/MM/YYYY for its records now, anyway, so who cares? I say we follow the "Maintain the Existing Variety" doctrine.  White Whirlwind  咨   00:20, 12 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Why would we want two different date formats in the same article? I don't care which is used, but articles about American people usually use MM-DD-YYYY. But either way, should it not be consistent at least internally to this article? Good Ol’factory (talk) 01:16, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Succession boxes need work.
Hello. I know that Kimball was preceded and succeeded in all 3 positions by Harold B. Lee and Ezra Taft Benson respectively. Ezra Taft Benson spans 3 rows, while Harold B. Lee is listed once for each position. I have tried every way I know how to eliminate the redundant listings for Lee and combine them to one row, but it is not working. Does anyone know how to fix this? I feel this is an important and appropriate change. Thoughts? --Jgstokes (talk) 23:04, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Fixed.
 * I agree that the change is appropriate, but I can't say I feel it was particularly important. When you have an issue like this, it's best to look at talk pages for the template involved: in the case, the answer was at Template_talk:S-start.    White Whirlwind  咨   00:17, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for helping me fix this. I ran into problems every time I tried to make it look like the other box. Thank you for referring me to the appropriate section for help in the future. I will try to remember that. Thanks again! IMHO, this issue can be considered closed with honor. --Jgstokes (talk) 05:11, 24 June 2014 (UTC)

"Blacks" vs. "Most Blacks"
There is ample evidence from a wide variety of sources that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints never excluded people from anything based on the color of their skin. Indeed, the Book of Mormon explicitly states that "the Lord... inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God..." (2 Nephi 26:33). The priesthood restrictions herein discussed applied to anyone ostensibly of Canaanite descent, regardless of skin color; and did not apply to anyone not ostensibly of Canaanite descent, again regardless of skin color. This is stated explicitly in Kimball (2008), page 7, as included in the sources.

While the previously cited statement, from Prince & Wright (2005), 73, claims that "blacks were denied ordination to a priesthood that was available to all other worthy males", this statement is incredibly misleading when removed from context. If one continues to read, Prince & Wright explain that that was not strictly correct; that the policy that most resembles this was made up by a single mission president with no authority to do so (ibid., 75); and that President McKay clarified that the ban applied "to blacks of African origin" (ibid., 78). In short, some—even most—blacks were excluded, but not all. By implying that "blacks" equals "all blacks", it would also be appropriate to state that "whites were denied ordination to a priesthood that was available to all other worthy males", since some were. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheOtter (talk • contribs) 13:51, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

 * New talk page sections go at the bottom of talk pages, not the top.

 * You're making a complete tautological point here: you're arguing that it was only black ("Negro", using the terminology of that era) people of African (ostensibly "Canaanite", as you said) descent who were prohibited, which of course is exactly what the section in question has stated ever since I first wrote it: "...individuals of black African descent were prohibited from..." The prohibition was not imposed on fair-skinned Africans, like South Africans of British or Dutch ancestry or Arabs, nor was it imposed on other "Negrito" or black people from Australia and other non-African locales, which is why I worded it the way I did originally.  You didn't read the original wording carefully enough or parse it accurately enough.

 * With regard to your desire to add content about the very rare exceptions to the priesthood ban, such as Elijah Abel's son and grandson, those are esoteric exceptions noted only in Black and Mormon (as far as I've read), and aren't notable enough for inclusion on an article about President Kimball except perhaps as in a note, which I have included to accommodate your feelings. A sentence or two would be appropriate on Black people and Mormonism, though.   White Whirlwind  咨   19:59, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

 * My apologies for the erroneous placement of my last statement.

 * The problem is that your assertion of tautology doesn’t change the facts: not all blacks of African descent were restricted from Priesthood ordination. The Abel family is of course a notable exception, but not the only one. Those who were adopted out of the lineage were also released from said restrictions (see, for example, ). By continually removing the clarification that the restrictions did not apply to all blacks of African descent—a fact that you have already conceded—you are leaving the reader with incomplete information. TheOtter (talk) 20:23, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

 * I assume the passage you are referring to on page 153 is: ""First, as mentioned earlier in this paper, McKay relaxed the rule governing ordination of men whose black African ancestry may have been suspected but not proven, thereby opening the doors of the priesthood to thousands, particularly in South Africa and Brazil. Second, he allowed Blacks to be called to leadership positions in auxiliary organizations. Third, he allowed Blacks to enter temples to be baptized for the dead. Fourth, on occasion when white parents adopted children of black ancestry, he authorized those children to be sealed to their adopted parents.""

 * Again, the relevant points there (#2 and #4) are esoteric and rare circumstances that do not in any way affect the validity of the statement that "individuals of black African descent were prohibited from ordination to the LDS Church's priesthood...." These rare situations where children were adopted by white parents (and could only be sealed to them, as Prince states) and where black African ancestry was suspected but not proven are utterly out of place in an article on President Kimball.  I understand that you may feel very strongly about this—people often come to Wikipedia with an axe to grind regarding some issue or phrase (I did too)—but please take this to an article where it has a chance of being within the article's scope, such as Black people and Mormonism, as I already mentioned in an earlier post.   White Whirlwind  咨   05:08, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

 * I get that, but I'm just not understanding why you've taken such umbrance with the addition of a single word that clarifies the issue. The statement regarding "individuals of black African descent" is technically accurate, but implies that all "individuals of black African descent" were so restricted. The addition of the word "most" clarifies the statement and in no way detracts therefrom. TheOtter (talk) 20:18, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

 * The issue here is balancing the connotations. If you were to go ahead and add something like "most" or "many" in front of the phrase in question, a reader could easily feel like there were a significant number of exceptions to the rule, which there were not, there were extremely few.  You are correct to say that some readers could possibly infer that our general statement might mean there were no exceptions whatsoever (though the text does not say that).  The most commonly encountered sources on modern day Mormonism use the phrasing of the latter, and thus we should go with that here.   White Whirlwind  咨   21:40, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Indian Placement Program
I reverted the rollback of my edits yesterday. Please give me the chance to finish my editing of this section. (there were problems with the Internet connection where I was working.) There are extensive cites from RS that I need time to add. It is not original research. There was a suit filed against the church in 2015 related to this, and recently the federal district court has said that the Navajo Nation Tribal Court has jurisdiction over a suit brought by four former students in the program. Kimball was in charge during this time.Parkwells (talk) 16:10, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

 * I think the Indian Placement Program (IPP) is certainly relevant to Kimball's life and leadership, as he initiated it due to his concern for Native Americans, and it reached the peak of student and family participation during his years as head of the church. The paragraph I have added back is sourced to a BYU academic book; certainly that should meet editors' standards for RS. This has been national news; I will look for other sources. Indian Country Today happens to be a Native American-founded and operated newspaper; editors should read more of its articles before trying to dismiss it as a source. It is certainly reporting factually on the federal judge's dismissal of the LDS Church's effort to have jurisdiction over the sexual abuse case moved out of the Navajo Nation Tribal Court.Parkwells (talk) 02:32, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

 * As head of the church during the growth of the IPP, Kimball had influence and his remarks in 1960 at the general conference about Lamanites were quoted by The Atlantic in a recent article. They are relevant to this article.Parkwells (talk) 03:45, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
 * Kimball's 1960 remarks are repeatedly referred to in articles about the church's position related to Native Americans and other peoples. He was quoting from the contemporary edition of the Book of Mormon. In 1981 he approved changes to the BOM that incorporated what were reportedly Joseph Smith's changes in an 1840 version: conversion making a people "white and delightsome" was changed to "pure and delightsome." Parkwells (talk) 15:44, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Use of Indian Country Today as source
An editor here disputed my use of Indian Country Today Media Network as a Reliable Source in this article. It was founded and owned by Tim Giago in 1981. It is now owned by the Oneida Nation and based in New York City. It is a newsweekly described by the Associated Press in 2013 as "a leading source of Native American news" when reporting their decision to go digital. - KRISTI EATON (AP) "National Native American magazine going digital", Big News, 14 July 2013. I think that speaks to the magazine's ability to report on the Indian Placement Program and its relation to the LDS Church. This article relies heavily on the biography by Kimball and Kimball; other sources commenting and reporting on the period of Spencer Kimball's life and his programs are also useful.Parkwells (talk) 15:44, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

 * I'm not sure why "a leading source in Native American news [in 2016]" is supposed to be a reliable source for a program that ended well over 50 years ago. In any case, your adding all this extraneous information on the IPP to the article on Kimball is utterly pointless, as this information (if indeed reliable) belongs on the IPP article, not Kimball's.  It now has a full four paragraphs of text on a topic that is of minor importance to the man himself, or about 10% of the paragraphs in the main portion of the body (prior to Parkwell's edits dumbing down sentences and splitting paragraphs needlessly).  I've often thought recently that the entire section on Native Americans will probably need to either be deleted or otherwise greatly truncated in preparation for a possible push to FA status that will necessitate a trimming of the biographical material in order to make room for an "Influence" or "Legacy" section.   White Whirlwind  咨   22:49, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

 * Comment For what it is worth, the Indian Placement Program was not fully phased out until the late 1990s. I once came upon a study (I believe it was a masters thesis) about it from about 1996 or so, and in the study they mentioned that even though the IPP still existed, most people thought it had been phased out. The reason for this is that it had gone from placing children starting at age 8 to only placing juniors and seniors in high school (16-18 years old or so), and even that on a much more limited basis. Indian Country Today has a clear partisan reason for misconstruing the issues involved, since it is basically acting as a voice for the plaintiffs in the suit alleging some participants in the IPP suffered sexual abuse from their host families and that the LDS Church neeeds to be held financially responsible for this abuse. This is the perfect set of ingredients for out-of-context quote mining from statements made over half a century ago.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:21, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Facts relating to Kimball's surgery
Hello again, everyone! Anyone familiar with the facts surrounding Nelson's operating on Kimball knows that Nelson reported his feeling during the operation that Kimball would be president of the Church. It is also interesting (and perhaps not coincidental) that Kimball would approve Nelson's appointment to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in April 1984, and that Nelson himself has since become Church president. If a NPOV way can be found to mention all of this here, it might not be a bad idea to do so. But I wanted to put the idea out there and seek for consensus in that regard before I did anything. Thoughts? --Jgstokes (talk) 01:38, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

 * This a somewhat interesting story for LDS readers in particular, and perhaps we could find an NPOV reliable source that describes the incident, but even if we could I am not certain that we could find enough sources to demonstrate that the story is sufficiently notable to warrant inclusion.  White Whirlwind  咨   16:40, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

title: Talk:Spencer W. Kimball


text:
Jett Williams

Jett Williams (born Antha Belle Jett; January 6, 1953) is an American singer and songwriter.

Early life
Born Antha Belle Jett, she is the daughter of country music icon Hank Williams and Bobbie Jett (1922–1974), whose brief relationship with Hank Williams occurred between his two marriages. She is a posthumous child; born on January 6, 1953, in Montgomery, Alabama, five days after her father's death on January 1. In December 1954, she was legally adopted by her paternal grandmother, Lillie Williams Stone, who renamed her Catherine Yvonne Stone. Following her grandmother's death in 1955, Stone was made a ward of the state of Alabama and subsequently adopted by parents who renamed her Cathy Louise Deupree.

Court fight
Deupree knew she was adopted, but did not learn of her biological parents until the early 1980s. Although Hank Williams had executed a custody agreement three months before her birth that gave him custody of his unborn daughter, she was forced to go to extreme lengths to prove the relationship and be recognized as Williams' daughter.

In September 1984, she met and retained Washington, D.C. investigative attorney Keith Adkinson to help her. Within days, he obtained a copy of the custody contract, and within months had conclusive proof Deupree was defrauded for the financial gain of others. A lawsuit was filed based on this discovery. On September 28, 1986, Deupree and Adkinson married in Washington. He died on June 19, 2013. In 2016, Jett married Kelly Zumwalt.

In 1985, the Alabama State Court ruled she was the daughter of Hank Williams. On October 26, 1987, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled she was entitled to her half-share in the Williams estate, as she had been the victim of fraud and judicial error. Hank Williams Jr. appealed the case in federal court, but the ruling stood when the United States Supreme Court refused to hear the case in 1990.

Book and honors
In 1990, she published her autobiography Ain't Nothin' as Sweet as My Baby.

In 2000, the Tennessee legislature passed HJR 621 designating May 18, 2000, as "Jett Williams Appreciation Day" in Macon County.

Sole rights
In January 2006, the Tennessee Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling stating Hank Williams' heirs — son Randall Hank Williams (Hank Williams Jr.) and daughter Jett Williams, Hank Jr.'s half-sister — have the sole rights to sell his old recordings made for a Nashville radio station in the early 1950s. The court rejected claims made by Polygram Records and Legacy Entertainment in releasing recordings Williams made for the Mother's Best Flour Show, a program that originally aired on WSM. The recordings, which Legacy Entertainment acquired in 1997, include live versions of Williams' hits and covers of other songs. Polygram contended Williams' contract with MGM Records, which Universal Music Nashville now owns since 1998, gave them rights to release the radio recordings. In October 2008, a selection of the "Mother's Best" recordings was released by Time-Life as Hank Williams: The Unreleased Recordings.

Jett Williams released a number of albums featuring her own songs, and toured with a version of the Drifting Cowboys to sing her father's songs. Her nephew Hank Williams III is an ardent critic of her, calling her an atrocious performer and saying that she should have written a book instead.

Discography

 * That Reminds Me of Hank (Foundation Records, 1993)
 * You Are on My Lonely Mind (Self-released, 1999)
 * Honk! (Self-released, 2007)
 * Mount Olive (Storytown Records, 2017)

title: Jett Williams


text:
Bismanol

Bismanol is an magnetic alloy of bismuth and manganese (manganese bismuthide) developed by the US Naval Ordnance Laboratory.

History
Bismanol, a permanent magnet made from powder metallurgy of manganese bismuthide, was developed by the US Naval Ordnance Laboratory in the early 1950s – at the time of invention it was one of the highest coercive force permanent magnets available, at 3000 oersteds. Coercive force reached 3650 oersteds and magnetic flux density 4800 by the mid 1950s. The material was generally strong, and stable to shock and vibration, but had a tendency to chip. Slow corrosion of the material occurred under normal conditions.

The material was used to make permanent magnets for use in small electric motors.

Bismanol magnets have been replaced by neodymium magnets which are both cheaper and superior in other ways, by samarium-cobalt magnets in more critical applications, and by alnico magnets.

title: Bismanol


text:
Easterton

Easterton is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England, 4 mi south of Devizes. The parish includes the hamlets of Easterton Sands and Eastcott.

Geography
Easterton lies at the northern edge of Salisbury Plain.

The parish includes gault and greensand north-west of the road, and lower, middle and upper chalk zones ascending the slope south-eastwards on to the high plain. Across the parish run The Ridgeway along the scarp, the railway north of the greensand ridge, and the former turnpike road in between. This forms the village street, where it is bordered on the west side by a small brook. The street is in a hollow, so that gardens on the east side rise very steeply and have been terraced up the slope. Paths and lanes lead off the street to 'the Clays' on the east and 'the Sands' on the west. The main streets in the village are Oak Lane, Haywards Place, High Street, White Street, the Clay, Kings Road and Vicarage Lane.

History
Easterton is the site of a Roman villa estate, known from stray archaeological finds in the area of Kestrels in Oak Lane, west of the village. This may be linked with a mid 4th century Roman coin hoard, discovered in an urn during the 19th century and dispersed (although some coins passed to the Wiltshire Museum, Devizes). Another possible Roman site, deduced from place-name evidence, may lie at Wickham Green on the boundary with Urchfont some 2 km north of Kestrels.

Easterton's toponym is derived from the Old English for "the more easterly farm". It was a tithing which formed the eastern part of the ancient parish of East Lavington, now Market Lavington. Easterton was made a separate civil parish soon after its ecclesiastical parish was created in 1874, and in 1934 Eastcott hamlet was transferred to it from Urchfont parish.

The parish has three concentrations of buildings: around Easterton Manor House and the Royal Oak inn; near the Victorian parish church; and at Eastcott along a secondary road (B3098) and interspersed with modern housing. Some older houses were lost as a result of road widening in the later 20th century. A map of 1773 suggests that there were then more buildings at Eastcott, and between Eastcott and Easterton than at present, and therefore that the settlements have declined. The survival of timber-framed houses in separate groups in an area where from the 18th century brick buildings have predominated is consistent with such a decline.

A school opened at Easterton in 1865, moved to a new building in 1876, and later became a National School. The school closed in 1971, along with the Victorian school at Market Lavington, and pupils from both parishes transferred to a new school, now called St Barnabas Church of England Primary School, in Market Lavington parish near the boundary with Easterton.

Market gardening and fruit growing by smallholders on the fertile soils of the greensand became important as the traditional sheep and corn husbandry on the chalk ('the Clays') declined following enclosures before 1800. Samuel Moore's jam factory was a legacy of the fruit fields. It began in a small way early in the 20th century after an earlier venture had closed, and became a major employer in the area, with 100 staff in 1972. An extension was opened in 1985, but the whole enterprise closed in 1998, and visitors to the village are no longer greeted by the all-pervading aroma of warm strawberry jam. The site of the factory was redeveloped into housing.

Religious sites
Easterton was anciently a tithing of St Mary's, Market Lavington. In 1874 a new ecclesiastical parish was created by combining the tithing with those of Fiddington (transferred from West Lavington) and Eastcott (from Urchfont). This was made possible by Rev George Bourdieu Rogers (d. 1872) of Easterton, who left money and land to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to endow the new parish, together with his house which he intended to be used as a parsonage. Louisa Hay, widow of Samuel Hay, of Clyffe Hall, Market Lavington, gave a further £1,500 endowment and undertook to build a church for Easterton.

The Church of England parish church of St Barnabas was duly built in 1875, in red brick with coloured brick decoration. Today the church is part of the benefice of the Lavingtons, Cheverells and Easterton.

A Wesleyan Methodist chapel was built at Easterton in 1868. It was sold and became a private house in 1985.

Eastcott had a small chapel by 1309, which passed to Edington Priory later in the century. The chapel fell into disuse after the 1548 Dissolution and its location is not known.

Notable buildings
Eastcott Manor is a Grade II* listed farmhouse of c. 1600, extended in the later 17th century and in the 18th. At Easterton, Kestrels is an early 18th century brick house, also Grade II*.

Wroughton's Folly was a mansion in the far northwest of the parish, close to the modern boundary with Urchfont parish. It was built and enlarged by two members of the Wroughton family, Francis and Seymour, between about 1730 and 1780. After Seymour's accidental death in 1789 the house was left unoccupied and became a ruin. Its foundations, visible in the 19th century, have now disappeared. Seymour's ghost remains (according to local legend) recreating along his vanished driveway the furious carriage ride which ended in his death.

Local government
Easterton is a civil parish with an elected parish council. It is in the area of Wiltshire Council unitary authority, which is responsible for almost all significant local government functions.

Amenities
Easterton has a pub, the Royal Oak, a 17th-century thatched building. There is a village hall.

Notable residents

 * Charles Ingram, the man who was convicted of cheating his way to winning the top prize of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? in September 2001.

title: Easterton


text:
Catalan independence movement

The Catalan independence movement (independentisme català; independentismo catalán; independentisme catalan) is a social and political movement (with roots in Catalan nationalism) which seeks the independence of Catalonia from Spain.

The beginnings of separatism in Catalonia can be traced back to regionalist and nationalist movements of the mid–19th century, influenced by romantic ideas widespread in Europe at the time. The first organised Catalan independence party was Estat Català (Catalan State), founded in 1922 by Francesc Macià. In 1931, Estat Català and other parties formed Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (Republican Left of Catalonia, ERC). Macià proclaimed a Catalan Republic within Spain in 1931, subsequently accepting autonomy within the Spanish state after negotiations with the leaders of the Second Spanish Republic. During the Spanish Civil War, General Francisco Franco abolished Catalan autonomy in 1938. Following Franco's death in 1975, Catalan political parties concentrated on autonomy rather than independence.

The contemporary independence movement began around 2009 after a series of events, including the financial crisis of 2007–2008 and the Partido Popular (People's Party) challenging the 2006 Statute of Autonomy in the Constitutional Court of Spain; Catalan municipalities held symbolic referendums on independence between 2009 and 2011. The 2010 ruling of the court that parts of the statute were unconstitutional sparked huge protests, and a snap election in 2012 led to the first pro-independence majority ever in the Catalan parliament. The new government held a "non-binding" self-determination referendum in 2014, which yielded a large majority in favour of independence, but with a low turnout due to boycotting by anti-independence voters. A further election in 2015 was followed by the calling of a new, binding referendum. This was however considered illegal by the Spanish government and the Constitutional Court, as the Catalan government lacks legal jurisdiction to organize referendums. The referendum was nonetheless held in 2017 amidst great political and social controversy including police violence aimed at stopping it both before and during the voting. Amidst large protests from both the pro- and anti-independence camps, the Catalan parliament approved a motion with the aim to proclaim an independent republic. At the same time, the Spanish senate voted to take control of the Catalan institutions until new regional elections. The regional government leaders were arrested in the subsequent weeks with some fleeing abroad including then president Carles Puigdemont. In 2019, the new Spanish government agreed to hold a 'table of negotiations' with the government of Catalonia, though refusing beforehand to consider independence or self-determination. In 2020, the Spanish government began processing a request for the pardon of the arrested leaders, which was effective in June 2021.

In the Parliament of Catalonia, parties explicitly supporting independence are Together for Catalonia (Junts), heir of the former Democratic Convergence of Catalonia (CDC)); Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), and Popular Unity Candidacy (CUP). Parties opposed to the regional independence are Citizens, the People's Party (PP), the Socialists' Party of Catalonia (PSC) and, since 2021, Vox. En Comú Podem supports federalism and a legal and agreed referendum.

Beginnings

The Principality of Catalonia was a state of the composite monarchy known as Crown of Aragon. The Principality was the result of the absortion or vassalization by the County of Barcelona of the other Catalan counties (such as the counties of Girona, Osona, Urgell or Rousillon), while the Crown was created by the dynastic union of the County of Barcelona and the Kingdom of Aragon in 1137. In the late 15th century, Aragon united by marriage with the Crown of Castile to form what would later become the Monarchy of Spain. Initially, the various polities of the Crown of Aragon, including the Principality of Catalonia, kept their own laws and customs, known as Constitutions, equivalent in the other kingdoms to the fueros (furs in Catalan), and political institutions such as the Catalan Courts and the Generalitat as a guarantee of their sovereignty and jurisdiction, for which they fought a civil war during the actual union of the crowns, known as the Catalan Civil War (1462–1472) between foralists and royalists. In 1640, during the Thirty Years War and Franco-Spanish War, Catalan peasants and institutions revolted, starting the Reapers' War. The following year, the Catalan government seceded, establishing the independence of the Principality as a republic, called France for protection and finally named Louis XIII count of Barcelona. After a decade of war, the Spanish Monarchy counter-attacked in 1652 and recovered Barcelona and the rest of Catalonia, except for Roussillon, which was annexed by France. Catalonia retained its fueros.

During the War of Spanish Succession, most of the territories of the Crown of Aragon, including the Principality of Catalonia, fiercely supported Archduke Charles, the Habsburg contender, who swore the Catalan constitutions, against the Bourbon contender, who would later abolish the Catalan constitutions and political institutions through the Nueva Planta Decrees. The Habsburgs' English allies withdrew from the war with the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, and shortly thereafter, Habsburg troops were evacuated from Italy and from Spain. This left the Catalan government isolated, but it remained loyal to Charles and unilaterally declared the war to Philip V and the Kingdom of France. After a 14-month siege, Barcelona capitulated to a Bourbon army on 11 September 1714. 11 September, the date of the fall of Barcelona, was commemorated by Catalan nationalists from 1886, and in the 20th century it was chosen as the National Day of Catalonia.

After the War of the Spanish Succession, based on the political position of the Count-Duke of Olivares and the absolutism of Philip V, the assimilation of the Crown of Aragon by the Castilian Crown through the Decrees of Nova planta was the first step in the creation of the Spanish nation-state, with a centralised Spanish government. Like other contemporary European states, political union is the first step in the creation of the Spanish nation-state, in this case not on a uniform ethnic basis, but through the imposition of the political and cultural characteristics of the dominant ethnic group. in this case the Castilians, over those of other ethnic groups, become national minorities to be assimilated. In fact, since the political unification of 1714, Spanish assimilation policies towards Catalan-speaking territories (Catalonia, Valencia, the Balearic Islands, part of Aragon) and other national minorities have been a historical constant.

It begins with secret instructions to the corregidores of the Catalan territory: "will take the utmost care to introduce the Castilian language, for which purpose he will give the most temperate and disguised measures so that the effect is achieved, without the care being noticed", and from there the actions, discreet or aggressive, are continued, and reach the last detail, such as, in 1799, the Royal Certificate prohibiting "represent, sing and dance pieces that were not in Spanish." These nationalist policies, sometimes very aggressive,  and still in forces,   have been and still are the seed of repeated territorial conflicts within the State.

Although since its loss there were claims to recover the Furs, the beginnings of separatism in Catalonia can be traced back to the mid–19th century. The Renaixença (cultural renaissance), which aimed at the revival of the Catalan language and Catalan traditions, led to the development of Catalan nationalism and a desire for self-government, through a Spanish federal republic or even the independence. Between the 1850s and the 1910s, some individuals, organisations and political parties started demanding full independence of Catalonia from Spain.

Twentieth century

The first pro-independence political party in Catalonia was Estat Català (Catalan State), founded in 1922 by Francesc Macià. Estat Català went into exile in France during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera (1923–1930), launching an unsuccessful uprising from Prats de Molló in 1926. In March 1931, following the overthrow of Primo de Rivera, Estat Català joined with the Partit Republicà Català (Catalan Republican Party) and the political group L'Opinió (Opinion) to form Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (Republican Left of Catalonia; ERC), with Macià as its first leader. The following month, the ERC achieved a spectacular victory in the municipal elections that preceded the 14 April proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic. Macià proclaimed a Catalan Republic on 14 April, but after negotiations with the provisional government he was obliged to settle for autonomy, under a revived Generalitat of Catalonia. Catalonia was granted a statute of autonomy in 1932, which lasted until the Spanish Civil War. In 1938, General Franco abolished both the Statute of Autonomy and the Generalitat.

A section of Estat Català which had broken away from the ERC in 1936 joined with other groups to found the Front Nacional de Catalunya (National Front of Catalonia; FNC) in Paris in 1940. The FNC declared its aim to be "an energetic protest against Franco and an affirmation of Catalan nationalism". Its impact, however, was on Catalan exiles in France rather than in Catalonia itself. The FNC in turn gave rise to the Partit Socialista d'Alliberament Nacional (Socialist Party of National Liberation; PSAN), which combined a pro-independence agenda with a left-wing stance. A split in the PSAN led to the formation of the Partit Socialista d'Alliberament Nacional - Provisional (Socialist Party of National Liberation – Provisional; PSAN-P) in 1974.

Following Franco's death in 1975, Spain moved to restore democracy. A new constitution was adopted in 1978, which asserted the "indivisible unity of the Spanish Nation", but acknowledged "the right to autonomy of the nationalities and regions which form it". Independence parties objected to it on the basis that it was incompatible with Catalan self-determination, and formed the Comité Català Contra la Constitució Espanyola (Catalan Committee Against the Constitution) to oppose it. The constitution was approved in a referendum by 88% of voters in Spain overall, and just over 90% in Catalonia. It was followed by the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 1979, which was approved in a referendum, with 88% of voters supporting it. This led to the marginalisation or disappearance of pro-independence political groups, and for a time the gap was filled by militant groups such as Terra Lliure.

In 1981, a manifesto issued by intellectuals in Catalonia claiming discrimination against the Castilian language, drew a response in the form of published letter, Crida a la Solidaritat en Defensa de la Llengua, la Cultura i la Nació Catalanes ("Call for Solidarity in Defence of the Catalan Language, Culture and Nation"), which called for a mass meeting at the University of Barcelona, out of which a popular movement arose. The Crida organised a series of protests that culminated in a massive demonstration in the Camp Nou on 24 June 1981. Beginning as a cultural organisation, the Crida soon began to demand independence. In 1982, at a time of political uncertainty in Spain, the Ley Orgánica de Armonización del Proceso Autonómico (LOAPA) was introduced in the Spanish parliament, supposedly to "harmonise" the autonomy process, but in reality to curb the power of Catalonia and the Basque region. There was a surge of popular protest against it. The Crida and others organised a huge rally against LOAPA in Barcelona on 14 March 1982. In March 1983, it was held to be ultra vires by the Spanish Constitutional Court. During the 1980s, the Crida was involved in nonviolent direct action, among other things campaigning for labelling in Catalan only, and targeting big companies. In 1983, the Crida's leader, Àngel Colom, left to join the ERC, "giving an impulse to the independentist refounding" of that party.

Second Statute of Autonomy and after

Following elections in 2003, the moderate nationalist Convergència i Unió (CiU), which had governed Catalonia since 1980, lost power to a coalition of left-wing parties composed of the Socialists' Party of Catalonia (PSC), the pro-independence Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) and a far-left/Green coalition (ICV–EUiA), headed by Pasqual Maragall. The government produced a draft for a new Statute of Autonomy, which was supported by the CiU and was approved by the parliament by a large majority. The draft statute then had to be approved by the Spanish parliament, which could make changes; it did so, removing clauses on finance and the language, and an article stating that Catalonia was a nation. When the amended statute was put to a referendum on 18 June 2006, the ERC, in protest, called for a "no" vote. The statute was approved, but turnout was only 48.9%. At the subsequent election, the left-wing coalition was returned to power, this time under the leadership of José Montilla.

In November 2005, Omnium Cultural organized a meeting of Catalan and Madrid intellectuals in the Círculo de bellas artes in Madrid to show support for ongoing reform of Catalan Statute of Autonomy, which sought to resolve territorial tensions, and among other things better protect the Catalan language. On the Catalan side, a flight was made with one hundred representatives of the cultural, civic, intellectual, artistic and sporting world of Catalonia, but on the Spanish side, except Santiago Carrillo, a politician from the Second Republic, did not attend any more. The subsequent failure of the statutory reform with respect to its objectives opened the door to the growth of Catalan sovereignty.

The conservative Partido Popular, which had opposed the statute in the Spanish parliament, challenged its constitutionality in the Spanish High Court of Justice. The case lasted four years. In its judgement, issued on 18 June 2010, the court ruled that fourteen articles in the statute were unconstitutional, and that 27 others were to be interpreted restrictively. The affected articles included those that gave preference to the Catalan language, freed Catalonia from responsibility for the finances of other autonomous communities, and recognised Catalonia as a nation. The full text of the judgement was released on 9 July 2010, and the following day a protest demonstration organised by the cultural organisation Òmnium Cultural was attended by over a million people, and led by José Montilla.

During and after the court case, a series of symbolic referendums on independence were held in municipalities throughout Catalonia. The first of these was in the town of Arenys de Munt on 13 September 2009. About 40% of eligible voters participated, of whom 96% voted for independence. In all, 552 towns held independence referendums between 2009 and 2011. These, together with demonstrations organised by Òmnium Cultural and the Assemblea Nacional Catalana (ANC), represented a "bottom-up" process by which society influenced the political movement for independence. At an institutional level, several municipalities of Catalonia came together to create the Association of Municipalities for Independence, an organisation officially established on 14 December 2011 in Vic which brought local organisations together to further the national rights of Catalonia and promote its right to self-determination. The demonstration of 11 September 2012 explicitly called on the Catalan government to begin the process of secession. Immediately after it, Artur Mas, whose CiU had regained power in 2010, called a snap election for 25 November 2012, and the parliament resolved that a referendum on independence would be held in the life of the next legislature. Although the CiU lost seats to the ERC, Mas remained in power.

2014 Referendum

Mas and ERC leader Oriol Junqueras signed an agreement by which the ERC would support the CiU on sovereignty issues while on other matters it might oppose it. The two leaders drafted the Declaration of Sovereignty and of the Right to Decide of the Catalan People, which was adopted by the parliament at its first sitting in January 2013. The declaration stated that "the Catalan people have, for reasons of democratic legitimacy, the nature of a sovereign political and legal subject", and that the people had the right to decide their own political future.

The Spanish government referred the declaration to the Spanish Constitutional Court, which ruled in March 2014 that the declaration of sovereignty was unconstitutional. The court did not, however, reject the "right to decide", arguing that that right didn't necessarily imply sovereignty or self-determination.

On 11 September 2013, an estimated 1.6 million demonstrators formed a human chain, the Catalan Way, from the French border to the regional border with Valencia.

The following month, the CiU, the ERC, the ICV-EUiA and Candidatura d'Unitat Popular (CUP) agreed to hold the independence referendum on 9 November 2014, and that it would ask two questions: "Do you want Catalonia to become a State?" and (if yes) "Do you want this State to be independent?". A further mass demonstration, the Catalan Way 2014, took place on 11 September 2014, when protesters wearing the Catalan colours of yellow and red filled two of Barcelona's avenues to form a giant "V", to call for a vote. Following the Constitutional Court's ruling, the Catalan government changed the vote to a "process of citizen participation" and announced that it would be supervised by volunteers. The Spanish government again appealed to the Constitutional Court, which suspended the process pending the appeal, but the vote went ahead. The result was an 81% vote for yes-yes, but the turnout was only 42%, which could be seen as a majority opposed to both independence and the referendum. Criminal charges were subsequently brought against Mas and others for defying the court order.

In June 2015 the CiU broke up as a result of disagreement between its constituent parties – Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya (CDC) and Unió Democràtica de Catalunya (UDC) – over the independence process. Mas's CDC joined with the ERC and other groups to form Junts pel Sí (Together for "Yes"), which announced that it would declare independence if it won the election scheduled for September. In the September election, Junts pel Sí and the CUP between them won a majority of seats, but fell short of a majority of votes, with just under 48%. On 9 November 2015, the parliament passed a resolution declaring the start of the independence process, proposed by Junts pel Sí and the CUP. In response, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said that the state would "use any available judicial and political mechanism contained in the constitution and in the laws to defend the sovereignty of the Spanish people and of the general interest of Spain", a hint that he would not stop at military intervention. Following prolonged negotiations between Junts pel Sí and the CUP, Mas was replaced as president by Carles Puigdemont in January 2016. Puigdemont, on taking the oath of office, omitted the oath of loyalty to the king and the Spanish constitution, the first Catalan president to do so.

Further pro-independence demonstrations took place in Barcelona in September 2015, and in Barcelona, Berga, Lleida, Salt and Tarragona in September 2016.

2017 Referendum, Declaration of Independence and new regional elections

In late September 2016, Puigdemont told the parliament that a binding referendum on independence would be held in the second half of September 2017, with or without the consent of the Spanish institutions. Puigdemont announced in June 2017 that the referendum would take place on 1 October, and that the question would be, "Do you want Catalonia to become an independent state in the form of a republic?" The Spanish government said in response, "that referendum will not take place because it is illegal."

A law creating an independent republic—in the event that the referendum took place and there was a majority "yes" vote, without requiring a minimum turnout—was approved by the Catalan parliament in a session on 6 September 2017. Opposition parties protested against the bill, calling it "a blow to democracy and a violation of the rights of the opposition", and staged a walkout before the vote was taken. On 7 September, the Catalan parliament passed a "transition law", to provide a legal framework pending the adoption of a new constitution, after similar protests and another walkout by opposition parties. The same day, 7 September, the Spanish Constitutional Court suspended the 6 September law while it considered an appeal from Mariano Rajoy, seeking a declaration that it was in breach of the Spanish constitution, meaning that the referendum could not legally go ahead on 1 October. The law was finally declared void on 17 October and is also illegal according to the Catalan Statutes of Autonomy which require a two-thirds majority in the Catalan parliament for any change to Catalonia's status.

The national government seized ballot papers and cell phones, threatened to fine people who manned polling stations up to €300,000, shut down web sites, and demanded that Google remove a voting location finder from the Android app store. Police were sent from the rest of Spain to suppress the vote and close polling locations, but parents scheduled events at schools (where polling places are located) over the weekend and vowed to occupy them to keep them open during the vote. Some election organizers were arrested, including Catalan cabinet officials, while demonstrations by local institutions and street protests grew larger.

The referendum took place on 1 October 2017, despite being suspended by the Constitutional Court, and despite the action of Spanish police to prevent voting in some centres. Images of violence from Spanish riot police beating Catalan voters shocked people and human rights organizations across the globe and resulted in hundreds of injured citizens according to Catalan government officials. Some foreign politicians, including the former Belgian Prime-Minister Charles Michel, condemned violence and called for dialogue. According to the Catalan authorities, 90% of voters supported independence, but turnout was only 43%, and there were reports of irregularities. On 10 October 2017, in the aftermath of the referendum, the President of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, declared the independence of Catalonia but left it suspended. Puigdemont said during his appearance in the Catalan parliament that he assumes, in presenting the results of the referendum, "the people's mandate for Catalonia to become an independent state in the form of a republic", but proposed that in the following weeks the parliament "suspends the effect of the declaration of independence to engage in a dialogue to reach an agreed solution" with the Spanish Government.

On 25 October 2017, after the Spanish government had threatened to suspend the Catalan autonomy through article 155 of the Spanish constitution, the UN Independent expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, Alfred de Zayas, deplored the decision to suspend Catalan autonomy, stating "This action constitutes retrogression in human rights protection, incompatible with Articles 1, 19, 25 and 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Pursuant to Articles 10(2) and 96 of the Spanish Constitution, international treaties constitute the law of the land and, therefore, Spanish law must be interpreted in conformity with international treaties."

On 27 October 2017 the Catalan Parliament voted in a secret ballot to approve a resolution declaring independence from Spain by a vote of 70–10 in the absence of the constitutionalist deputies, who refused to participate in a vote considered illegal for violating the decisions of the Constitutional Court of Spain.

As a result, the same day (27 October 2017) Article 155 of the Spanish constitution was triggered by the Spanish government; the Catalan government was dismissed and direct rule was imposed from the central government in Madrid.

Under direct rule from Spain, elections were held in Catalonia on 21 December 2017. The three pro-independence parties retained their control of parliament with a reduced majority of 70 seats and a combined 47.5% of valid votes cast. Ines Arrimadas' anti-independence Ciudadanos party was the most voted party with 25.4% of votes, the first time in Catalan history that a non-nationalist party won most votes and seats in an election. Parties which endorsed the suspension of autonomy by central government represented 43.5% of votes cast and parties which did not include independence in their electoral program amounted to 52.5% of the vote, notably Catcomu-Podem (7.5% of votes and 8 seats), which is opposed to independence but supports a legal referendum and denounced the suspension of autonomy. The excellent performance of the centre-right parties on both sides of the independence debate, Ciudadanos and Juntxcat, and the underperformance of all other parties (notably, left wing parties and the Partido Popular) were the most significant factor in this election result.

The trial of Catalonia independence leaders and October 2019 protests
In 2018 some of the independence leaders were sent to preventive detention without bail, accused of crimes of rebellion, disobedience, and misuse of public funds. Carles Puigdemont and four members of his cabinet fled into self-exile.

Twelve people were tried by the Supreme Court of Spain, including the previous vice president Oriol Junqueras of the regional government and most of the cabinet as well as political activists Jordi Sànchez and Jordi Cuixart and the former Speaker of the Parliament of Catalonia Carme Forcadell. The trial proceedings officially ended on 12 June 2019. A unanimous verdict by the seven judges that tried the case was made public on 14 October 2019. Nine of the 12 accused received prison sentences for the crimes of sedition; of them, four were also found guilty of misuse of public funds. Their sentences ranged from 9 to 13 years. The remaining three accused were found guilty of disobedience and were sentenced to pay a fine but received no prison term. The court dismissed the charges of rebellion. Some of the defendants of the trial have expressed their intention to appeal to the Constitutional Court of Spain and the European Court of Human Rights. The verdict delivered by the Supreme Court sparked multiple protests across the region.

Clashes erupted into open violence, as protesters reacted violently at police efforts to end the demonstration, with some demonstrators setting cars on fire and throwing jars of acid at police officers. The Catalan Law Enforcement agency Mossos d'Esquadra, which had previously been accused of aiding the independence movement, replied by firing tear gas at the demonstrators. The pro-independence speaker of the Catalan Parliament condemned the violent incidents and called for peaceful protests against the ruling. The protests grew larger, as more and more Catalans took to the streets. Some demonstrators attempted to storm buildings belonging to the Spanish Government and clashed with police forces. The Spanish Police announced that 51 protesters had been arrested.

On 17 October, the pro-independence President of the Catalan Autonomous government, Quim Torra, called for an immediate halt to violence and disassociated himself from violent protesters, while at the same time calling for more peaceful protests. Nevertheless, the situation in Barcelona had evolved into open street battles between protesters and police, as both violent demonstrators attacked and provoked police forces, and police officers charged peaceful protesters for their proximity to violent ones.

Several reports claim that the protests and subsequent riots had been infiltrated by Neo-Nazis who used the marches as an opportunity to incite violence.

Shortly thereafter, the Catalan President attempted to rally the crowd by stating that he will push for a new independence referendum as large scale protests continued for the fourth day. On 18 October, Barcelona became paralyzed, as tens of thousands of peaceful protesters answered the Catalan President's call and rallied in support of the jailed independence leaders. The demonstration grew quickly, with the Barcelona police counting at least 525,000 protesters in the city.

By late 18 October, minor trade unions (Intersindical-CSC and Intersindical Alternativa de Catalunya) linked to pro-independence movement called for a general strike. However, major trade unions (UGT and CCOO) did not endorse the event as well as representatives of the latter contested its very nature as "strike". Five peaceful marches converged on Barcelona's city center, essentially bringing the city to a halt. Protesters further blocked the road on the French-Spanish border. At least 20 other major roads were also blocked. Clashes nevertheless took place, with masked protesters confronting riot police by throwing stones and setting alight rubbish bins. 25,000 university students joined in the protest movement by declaring a peaceful student strike.

As a result of the strike, trains and metro lines saw a reduction to 33% of their usual capacity, while buses saw a reduction to 25–50% of their usual capacity. The roads to the French border remained blocked and all roads leading into Barcelona were also cut. 190 flights in and out of the city were cancelled as a result of the strike. Spanish car manufacturer SEAT further announced a halt in the production of its Martorell plant and most of Barcelona's tourist sites had been closed and occupied by pro-independence demonstrators waving Estelada independence flags and posters with pro-independence slogans. The El Clásico football match between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid CF was postponed due to the strike.

By the end of the day, just like the previous days, riots developed in the centre of Barcelona. Masked individuals blocked the boulevard close to the city's police headquarters in Via Laetana. Withdrawn to the vicinity of the Plaça Urquinaona, protesters erected barricades setting trash bins in fire and hurled rubble (debris from broken paving stones) and other solid objects at riot policemen. The riot units responded with non-lethal foam and rubber bullets, tear gas and smoke grenades. The Mossos used for the first time the water cannon trunk acquired in 1994 from Israel in order to make way across the barricades. The clashes spread to cities outside Barcelona, with Spain's acting interior minister stating that 207 policemen had been injured since the start of the protests, while also noting that 128 people had been arrested by the nation's police forces. Miquel Buch, the Catalan Interior Minister, responsible for public order, and a pro-independence politician, called the violence "unprecedented" and distanced himself from the violent events, instead calling for peaceful protests to continue.

On 19 October, following a fifth consecutive night of violence, Catalan President Quim Torra called for talks between the Catalan independence movement and the Spanish government, adding that violence had never been the "flag" of the independence movement. The head of the Spanish Government, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, refused to hold talks with the Catalan government, as it deemed the former had not condemned the violence strongly enough. He further categorically rejected the idea of discussing Catalan Independence, stating that it was impossible under Spanish law.

2021 and 2024 elections
In the 2021 regional election, which saw a low turnout due to the COVID-19 pandemic, pro-independence parties won over 50% of the popular vote for the first time, and increased their representation in the parliament from 70 to 74 seats. In June 2021, the nine activists who had been jailed in 2019 were released, having been pardoned by King Felipe VI on the advice of Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez. In 2024, the Congress of Deputies voted in favour of amnesty for all those involved in the 2017 campaign, including Carles Puigdemont; despite the law being vetoed by the Senate, it was expected to be enacted by the end of May 2024. On May 30, the Spanish Parliament voted 177 to 172 to pass a bill granting amnesty to hundreds of Catalan secessionists involved in the Catalan declaration of independence from 2011 to 2017.

Junts and the ERC split in October 2022, leaving Pere Aragonès leading a minority government. In March 2024 Aragonès called a snap election after his budget was voted down. In the that election, the separatist parties lost their majority in the parliament for the first time in 10 years. Junts slightly increased their number of seats, but the ERC and CUP lost heavily, meaning the separatists were far short of the 68 seats needed to form a government.

Catalan regional elections, consultation and independence referendum
The parties explicitly campaigning for independence currently represented in the Catalan Parliament are the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC); the Junts per Catalunya coalition (composed of Crida Nacional per la República, Acció per la República, Els Verds–Alternativa Verda, and splinter elements from the PDeCAT); and the Candidatura d'Unitat Popular (CUP). They obtained 33, 32 and 9 seats, respectively, in the 2021 regional election (a total of 74 out of 135 seats). Including those who won no seats, pro-independence parties had an overall share of 51.3% of the popular vote.

Other smaller pro-independence parties or coalitions, without present representation in any parliament, are PDeCAT (formerly called CDC), Catalan Solidarity for Independence, Estat Català, Endavant, PSAN, Poble Lliure and Reagrupament. There are also youth organisations such as Young Republican Left of Catalonia, Arran, and the student unions SEPC and FNEC.

Others
From around 2010, support for Catalan independence broadened from being the preserve of traditional left or far-left Catalan nationalism. Relevant examples are the liberal economists Xavier Sala-i-Martín and Ramon Tremosa Balcells (elected deputy for CiU in the European parliament in the 2009 election), the lawyer and current FC Barcelona president Joan Laporta or the jurist and former member of the Consejo General del Poder Judicial Alfons López Tena.

The Cercle d'Estudis Sobiranistes, a think tank led by the jurists Alfons López Tena and Hèctor López Bofill, was founded in 2007. It affiliated with Solidaritat Catalana per la Independència (Catalan Solidarity for Independence) in 2011.

At the beginning of 2021, Òmnium Cultural published a manifesto to obtain amnesty for Catalan politicians persecuted by the Spanish justice system. Among the signatories are four Nobel Peace Prize winners and several world-renowned personalities such as Yoko Ono Lennon and Dilma Rousseff. The Nobel Peace Prize winners that signed the manifesto are: Jody Williams, Mairead Corrigan, Shirin Ebadi and Adolfo Pérez Esquivel.

Other individuals include:

 * Joan Massagué, Catalan scientist, director of the Sloan Kettering Institute.
 * Pep Guardiola, Catalan former football player and manager of FC Barcelona and current manager of Manchester City.
 * Jordi Galí, Catalan economist, director of the Centre for Research in International Economics at UPF.
 * Manel Esteller, Catalan scientist, director of the Cancer Epigenetics and Biology Program of the Bellvitge Institute for Biomedical Research and editor-in-chief of the peer-reviewed journal Epigenetics.
 * Lluís Llach, Catalan composer and songwriter
 * Eduard Punset, Catalan politician, lawyer, economist, and science popularizer.
 * Josep Carreras, Catalan tenor singer
 * Sister Teresa Forcades, Catalan physician and Benedictine nun
 * Pilar Rahola, Catalan journalist and writer.
 * Miquel Calçada, Catalan journalist
 * Joel Joan, Catalan actor
 * Txarango, Catalan music band
 * Xavi Hernández, former Catalan footballer who previously played for and currently manages FC Barcelona.
 * Beth, Catalan singer; she was a contestant at Eurovision Song Contest 2003

Political parties
All of the Spanish national political parties in Catalonia reject the idea of independence, except Catalonia In Common-We Can (Catalunya En Comú-Podem) which are pro-referendum but have remained neutral on the issue. Together they represent a minority of votes and a minority of seats in the Catalan parliament. Others such as Ciutadans, and the People's Party of Catalonia, which had 25.4% and 4.2% of the vote respectively in the 2017 Catalan regional election, have always opposed the notion of Catalan self-determination. The Socialists' Party of Catalonia (13.9% of the vote) opposes independence as well. While some of its members supported the idea of a self-determination referendum up until 2012, the official position as of 2015 is that the Spanish Constitution should be reformed in order to better accommodate Catalonia. A slight majority of voters of left-wing platform Catalonia In Common-We Can (Catalunya En Comú-Podem) (8.94%) reject independence although the party favours a referendum in which it would campaign for Catalonia remaining part of Spain. CDC's Catalanist former-partner Unió came out against independence and fared badly in every subsequent election, eventually disbanding due to bankruptcy in 2017.

Anti-independence movement
On 8 October 2017, Societat Civil Catalana held a rally against Catalan independence; the organisers claimed that over a million people attended, while the Barcelona police force estimated the number at about 300,000. To date this event is the largest pro-Constitution and anti-independence demonstration in the history of Catalonia.

On 12 October 2017, 65,000 people, according to the Barcelona police, marched against independence in a smaller demonstration marking the Spanish national day. The turnout was thirteen times more than the prior year and the highest on record in Barcelona's history for this event.

On 29 October 2017, hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated on the streets of Barcelona in favor of the unity of Spain and celebrating the Spanish government forcing new regional elections in December, in a demonstration called by Societat Civil Catalana. According to the Delegation of the Spanish government in Catalonia the turnout was of 1,000,000 people whereas according to the Barcelona police it was of 300,000 people. Societat Civil Catalana itself estimated the turnout at 1,000,000 people.

In 2017 the concept of 'Tabarnia' became popular on social media and received widespread media attention. Tabarnia is a fictional region covering urban coastal Catalonia demanding independence from the wider region, should it proceed with independence. Arguments in favor of Tabarnia satirically mirror those in favor of Catalan independence from Spain. Numerous separatists were critical of the concept and responded that the parody unfairly trivializes Catalonia's independence movement, which is based in part on Catalonia's distinct culture and identity. This proposal, from a platform created in 2011, was shown to map the electoral results of the Catalan regional election of 21 December 2017, which provoked renewed interest. The word 'Tabarnia' went viral on 26 December 2017, reaching worldwide top-trending status with over 648,000 mentions. The first major demonstration in favour of Tabarnia's autonomy from Catalonia took place in Barcelona on 4 February 2017, with 15,000 participants according to the Guàrdia Urbana and 200,000 according to organizers.

In these years, different figures from Catalan culture and politics have spoken out against the process, like Joan Manuel Serrat, Josep Borrell, Isabel Coixet, Pau Gasol, Mercedes Milá, Estopa, Montserrat Caballé or Núria Espert among others.

Other individuals

 * José Luis Bonet, Catalan businessman, Chairman of Freixenet
 * Juan José Brugera, Catalan businessman, Chairman of Inmobiliaria Colonial
 * Isidre Fainé, Catalan banker, Chairman of Caixabank
 * José Creuheras, Catalan businessman, Chairman of Planeta Group
 * Javier Godó, Catalan businessman, Chairman of Grupo Godó
 * Antón Costas, Catalan businessman, Founder of pharmaceutical company Almirall
 * Eduardo Mendoza Garriga, Catalan novelist
 * Juan Marsé, Catalan novelist, journalist and screenwriter.
 * Albert Boadella, Catalan actor, director and playwright
 * Mercedes Milá, Catalan television presenter and journalist
 * Javier Sardà, Catalan presenter and journalist
 * Jordi Évole, Catalan presenter and journalist
 * Montserrat Caballé, Catalan operatic soprano
 * Joan Manuel Serrat, Catalan musician, singer-songwriter, recording artist, and performer
 * Estopa, Catalan rock/rumba duo
 * Loquillo, Catalan rock singer
 * Miguel Poveda, Catalan flamenco singer
 * Núria Espert, Catalan theatre and television actress, theatre and opera director
 * Javier Cárdenas Catalan singer and television and radio presenter
 * Isabel Coixet, Catalan film director
 * Santi Millán, Catalan actor, showman and television presenter
 * Risto Mejide, Catalan publicist, author, music producer, talent show judge, TV presenter and songwriter
 * Susanna Griso, Catalan presenter and journalist
 * Jorge Javier Vázquez, Catalan television presenter
 * Dani Pedrosa, Catalan Grand Prix motorcycle racer

Opinion polling
This is a list of recent opinion polling on the subject. Most polls are conducted by the Centre d'Estudis d'Opinió, a research institute under the purview of the Catalan government, or the Institut de Ciencès Politiques i Socials, a part of the Autonomous University of Barcelona. However newspapers such as La Vanguardia or El Periodico also sometimes conduct polls on the subject.

Questions about a referendum are listed below if asked, however the ICPS also asked 'Do you want Catalunya to be an independent state or do you prefer to stay part of Spain?', where 'stay part of Spain' regularly performs ~10 points better than 'No' on the referendum question.

Long-term prospects
Under Spanish law, lawfully exiting Spain would require the Spanish parliament to amend the constitution. It may be difficult for an independent Catalonia to gain international recognition; for example, many countries (including Spain) fail to recognize Kosovo, despite Kosovo having a strong humanitarian claim to independence. Most of Catalonia's foreign exports go to the European Union; Catalonia would need Spain's permission if it wishes to eventually re-enter the EU following secession. Catalonia already runs its own police, schools, healthcare, transport, agriculture, environment policy, and municipal governments. Other institutions, such as a central bank and a revenue collection service would have to be rebuilt, possibly losing existing economies of scale. Accounting measures vary, but the BBC and The Washington Post cite estimates that in 2014 Catalans may have paid about 10 billion euros (or about US$12 billion) more in taxes to the state than what it received in exchange. As of 2014, an independent Catalonia would be the 34th largest economy in the world. Should Catalonia secede from Spain, some residents of Val d'Aran (population 10,000) have stated they might break away from Catalonia, although others state that the local identity has only been recognised by the Catalan government, something the Spanish state never did.

Criticism
Opponents of Catalan independence have accused the movement of racism or elitism, and argue that the majority of the Catalan public does not support independence. In an op-ed for The Guardian Aurora Nacarino-Brabo and Jorge San Miguel Lobeto, two political scientists affiliated with the anti-independence Ciutadans Spanish nationalist party, disputed the claim that Catalonia has been oppressed or excluded from Spanish politics. They argued that the independence movement is "neither inclusive nor progressive", and criticised nationalists for excluding the Spanish speaking population of Catalonia, and resorting to what they argue are appeals to ethnicity. These criticisms of ethnic-based appeals and exclusion of Spanish speakers have been echoed by other politicians and public figures opposed to independence, such as former Spanish Prime Minister Felipe González, and the leader of Ciutadans in Catalonia Inés Arrimadas. Polls show that the wish for independence is positively correlated with having Catalonia-born parents and grandparents, families which also tend to fare better economically.

Statements by different key figures in the independence movement have sometimes contributed to this view. In 2013 Carme Forcadell, then president of the influential Assemblea Nacional Catalana and later president of the Parliament of Catalonia publicly declared that the Partido Popular and Citizens were not part of the 'Catalan people' and hence were 'enemies' to defeat. Former president of the Parliament of Catalonia Núria de Gispert has been involved in controversy over the years due to her Tweets, including comparing members of those two parties with pigs to be exported, or for revealing the address of the school where Citizens' leader Albert Rivera's daughter studied. Quim Torra, who was appointed president of the regional parliament of Catalonia in 2018, was also involved in controversy regarding past tweets suggesting "Spaniards know only how to plunder" and describing them as having "a rough patch in their DNA".

Members of the Catalan independence movement have strongly denied their movement is xenophobic or supremacist and define it as "an inclusive independence movement in which neither the origin nor the language are important". In addition, independence supporters usually allege most far-right and xenophobic groups in Catalonia support Spanish nationalism, and usually participate in unionist demonstrations.

On the part of the independence movement, the Comitès de Defensa de la República (Committees for the Defense of the Republic; CDR) were created and organised to hinder police action through passive resistance. In September 2019, seven members of the CDR, alleged to be a branch called "Equipos de Respuesta Técnica" (Tactical Response Teams), were arrested for terrorist offenses; they were said to have been found with explosive material and maps of official buildings. Three of them were released on bail in October 2019.

title: Catalan independence movement


text:
Eastcott

Eastcott may refer to two places in England:

 * Eastcott, Cornwall, a hamlet
 * Eastcott, Wiltshire, a hamlet

title: Eastcott


text:
Talk:Ecclesiastical Appeals Act 1532

Untitled
The Statute in Restraint of Appeals happened in April of 1533. The Act of Supremacy happened in November of 1534.

"had to acknowledge this ..."
"had to acknowledge this as they were by Acts of Parliament"???? --Wikiain (talk) 01:07, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

title: Talk:Ecclesiastical Appeals Act 1532


text:
Sharpness

Sharpness is an English port in Gloucestershire, one of the most inland in Britain, and eighth largest in the South West England region. It is on the River Severn at, at a point where the tidal range, though less than at Avonmouth downstream (14 m typical spring tide), is still large (10 m typical spring).

There is a small community of approximately 100 residents directly adjacent to the port, in addition to the subvillage of Newtown approximately 0.5 miles to the south-east. Four miles to the south lies the small town of Berkeley.

Docks
Sharpness docks began as a basin giving access to the Gloucester and Sharpness Canal. There were no port facilities at Sharpness itself and all traffic proceeded up the canal to Gloucester. The original Old Dock opened, with the canal, in 1827. The dock was separated from the Severn by a lock gate. The level of the basin varied for the hour or two for which the gate was open and so it was isolated from the canal by a lock with two gates. This lock was improved over time, expanding to be a ship lock of 163 ft length and 38 ft breadth and a smaller lock for trows of 81 ft and 19 ft. An intermediate lock gate was also provided in the larger lock, allowing shorter vessels to pass through more quickly and with less water consumption. A house for the Harbour Master was provided on the seaward dockside alongside the river gate. Today the Severn Area Rescue Association maintain a rescue station in the old house.

The size of the Old Dock became a drawback for increasingly large ships and so in 1874 a floating New Dock was opened to the South. This had several advantages over the Old Dock: its entrance was now through a tidal basin and a large lock. This gave a constant water level within the dock, matching that of the canal, and so no locks were needed between dock and canal, encouraging traffic. The lock was 320 ft long and 57 ft wide. For ships longer than this, the basin itself could also be used as a lock. A graving dock was provided parallel to the lock. This constant level encouraged the building of wharves and warehouses. With the new rail connections available to Bristol, Sharpness also developed as a port in its own right. At first the only stone quay was on the landward side of the dock, but after a railway swing bridge was built across the dock, the island area between the two docks also developed as a quayside.

In typical fashion for the competing pre-Grouping railway companies, there were not only two railway lines into Sharpness, but there were even two separate bridges across the dock: the Midland Railway's low level bridge from the south east to Berkeley, and the Great Western's high level bridge from the north and across the Severn. The line to the south was the Sharpness branch of the Bristol and Gloucester Railway, by this time part of the Midland, and opened on 2 August 1875. Although this line left Sharpness to the south, it joined the main line facing North. The northerly route across the bridge opened on 17 October 1879. An important development was on 19 March 1908 when a short Great Western line to the south of the previous junction formed the Berkeley triangle, giving a direct route to the Great Western main lines, and thus Bristol, through the Westerleigh Loop.

After the New Dock was opened, the Old Dock and its cumbersome lock access to the canal was used less and less. From 1908 the old entrance was abandoned and the Old Dock became used for ship repair. After age, storm and tide damage led to the gates being removed and sealed permanently in the 1990s, the dock water level was raised to that of the canal and the locks could also be abandoned.

Just north of Sharpness the river and canal were crossed by the Severn Railway Bridge, until it was damaged beyond repair by a barge collision in 1960. The bridge was locally convenient, schoolchildren crossing the river to go to school, but it was soon superseded for long-distance travel by the double tracked Severn Tunnel on the faster and more direct route between Bristol or London and Cardiff.

Proposals to reinstate a river-crossing at this point are frequently made especially by the local authorities in Lydney, which lies almost opposite Sharpness.

The Port Authority for the impounded dock is Canal & River Trust, but the quayside activities are run by Sharpness Dock Limited. The competent (statutory) harbour authority for the river from the Severn Road Bridges up to Sharpness and on to Gloucester is Gloucester Harbour Trustees - they are responsible for navigation aids in the channel and for the provision of pilots. Pilotage up the river is compulsory (except for exemption holders) for all vessels over 30 metres length overall.

Between 1939 and 1966, the demasted sailing ship Vindicatrix was moored in the Old Dock as a training hulk for the Merchant Navy.

Seafarers' welfare charity Apostleship of the Sea, which provides practical and pastoral support to seafarers, has a port chaplain who covers Sharpness.

Railway links
The port remains connected to the main Gloucester to Bristol railway line with its junction at the site of the former Berkeley Road railway station. The line is rarely used (if ever) although a steam special visited the line in April 2007, making two journeys from Gloucester. The locomotive (The Lancashire Fusilier) ran round its train using the loop at Sharpness. From the branch line, protected by locked gates, rails remain in situ around the docks and are linked to the line from Berkeley Road, however the condition of the track makes it look unlikely that any of them are usable. This is due to change as the Vale Of Berkeley Railway, a charitable trust, has begun restoration work on the sidings and has plans to eventually run trains again between Sharpness and Berkeley Road, where the line joins the main Bristol-Gloucester line.

In popular culture
The final episode of the third series of teenage drama Skins was filmed on location in Sharpness.

title: Sharpness