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USS Tench

USS Tench (SS/AGSS-417), the lead ship of her class of submarine, was the only ship of the United States Navy to be named for the tench. Her keel was laid down on 1 April 1944 at the Portsmouth Navy Yard. She was launched on 7 July 1944, sponsored by Claudia Alta Johnson, the wife of Rep. Lyndon Baines Johnson, and commissioned on 6 October 1944 with Commander William B. "Barney" Sieglaff in command.

First War Patrol
After completing trials and shakedown out of New London, Connecticut, Tench departed that port on 20 December for duty in the Pacific. Following brief pauses for training at Key West, Florida, and in the Panama Canal Zone, she reached Pearl Harbor during the latter part of January 1945. An additional training period followed her arrival in Oahu, but only a brief one. On 7 February, she stood out of Pearl Harbor, bound for her first war patrol. After a stop at Saipan for fuel, Tench returned to sea in a four submarine wolf pack with USS Sea Devil (SS-400), USS Balao (SS-285) (like Tench, also the lead ship of a submarine class), and USS Grouper (SS-214).

They left Saipan on 27 February and headed for their assigned patrol area which began in the region of the East China Sea southwest of Kyūshū and extended north into the Yellow Sea. On the night of 6 March and 7 March, Tench passed through the Colnett Strait south of Yakushima and into the East China Sea. The four submarines rotated patrol, weather-reporting, photographic-reconnaissance, and lifeguard duties. On 18 March, Tench received orders to take up lifeguard station off the western coast of Kyūshū during Fifth Fleet carrier air raids on Nagasaki. Just before the noon watch came on duty, the submarine got word of a dye marker sighting (presumably evidence of a downed American aviator) sighted by friendly aircraft in a bay on the coast of Kyūshū near the town of Akune.

Under the protective cover of F6F Hellcat fighters, Tench threaded her way cautiously into the shallow waters of the bay. Just after she discovered the "sighting" had been the result of a reflection of a shoal spot, she received a severe fright. Caught in waters too shallow for her to dive, she proceeded almost helplessly on the surface while a large flight of aircraft approached her from astern. Fortunately the planes proved to be additional Fifth Fleet bombers returning from Nagasaki. Tench stood offshore and watched while they loosed their remaining bombs on installations near Akune: a railroad bridge, a fuel dump, and a factory.

The remainder of March proved relatively unproductive. In the absence of targets worthy of torpedoes, the submarine contented herself with the destruction of floating mines and with the sinking of two tiny trawlers on 28 March.

Early on 3 April, an enemy bomber forced her to dive, and she ran submerged for the remainder of the day. That evening, she surfaced once again and soon made radar contact with a good-sized target. The fact the enemy ship carried radar, coupled with the appearance of a second target larger than the first, indicated she was some type of warship escorting a merchantman. Darkness and fog dictated a surface attack. Tench’s report claims the target, the large cargoman, took one torpedo hit and erupted in a splendid pyrotechnic display. Unfortunately, there is no evidence to confirm the kill.

Tench’s first war patrol had begun soon after the invasion of Iwo Jima and continued past the landings on Okinawa. American planners had foreseen the possibility of Japan's attempting to strike back at the Allied forces with what remained of the Imperial surface fleet. They therefore stationed a picket line of submarines off Japan to serve as an early warning system. Tench received orders to join this patrol line before concluding her war patrol. She was on station off the western coast of the Japanese home islands when the Yamato task force sortied on 6 April to contest the Okinawa landings. Tench did not make a sighting, since Yamato sortied from the Bungo Suido. That station was assigned USS Threadfin (SS-410), which raised the alarm; the picket line was disbanded, and each submarine turned to its own individual mission. In accordance to orders, Tench cleared the area for an air-sea rescue sweep of the East China Sea before ending her patrol. On 8 April, she picked up the pilot and radioman from a dive-bomber from USS Essex (CV-9) and then headed for Guam where she arrived on 14 April.

Second War Patrol
Refit completed and her crew rested, Tench (now skippered by Tom Baskett) returned to sea early in May for her second war patrol. That patrol took her again to the Japanese homeland, but this time to the Tsugaru Strait between Honshū and Hokkaidō, the northern entrance to the Sea of Japan. Her mission was to interdict Japanese shipping as it attempted to run north and south between the Kuril Islands and Tokyo. Her first contact came on 25 May and proved to be an enemy warship. While patrolling on the surface, she sighted a periscope approaching her out of the fog. She submerged immediately, picked the enemy up on her sound gear, and evaded him successfully. During the waning days of May, she sighted little enemy shipping of consequence though her gun crews dispatched a number of motor luggers, picket boats, steam trawlers, and other small craft to the depths.

On 1 June, however, fortune began to favor the submarine. That evening, she encountered the 861-ton Mikamisan Maru hugging the coast of Honshū near Shirlya. Tench stalked her quarry until 0700 the next morning when she caught the cargoman about one-half mile (900 m) off shore. In a surface attack, the submarine scored two torpedo hits on Mikamisan Maru and sent her to the bottom. Two days later, Tench scored a single hit amidships on the 517-ton Ryujin Maru which proved sufficient to sink her. For five days, the submarine worked her way back and forth across the strait, dodging enemy patrols and picket boats but without finding suitable targets. Then, on 9 June, she came across the biggest game of her wartime career: the 2857-ton freighter Kamishika Maru. Tench sank the merchantman in a submerged attack and spent the rest of the day evading spirited and persistent enemy retaliation. The following day, she dispatched an enemy tanker, the 834-ton Shoei Maru Number Six in another submerged attack. Again, the Japanese patrol force went after the submarine with everything it had, but failed even to come close.

In fact, Tench’s closest call was self-inflicted. On 11 June, she engaged a Japanese destroyer in a night surface attack. After firing a salvo of torpedoes at the enemy from her bow tubes, Tench put her rudder hard over to turn and retired rapidly. Just then, the lookouts reported one of her own Mark 14 torpedoes running in a wide circle and on a collision course with Tench. Frantic moments of evasive action ensued, but the torpedo hung tenaciously on to its collision course. Once again fortune smiled. The torpedo ran deeply and passed directly under the submarine's stern. Tench continued her retirement unaware of the results of her attack – in all probability unsuccessful – but heartened by her escape from what had seemed certain destruction. After five more days of hunting enemy shipping during which she encountered and sank a motor trawler with gunfire, Tench headed toward Midway Island, her score for the patrol (according to JANAC) four ships for 5,000 tons.

Third War Patrol
Following refit, she put to sea on her third and final war patrol. On 29 July, she once again passed through Colnett Strait and entered the East China Sea. On 30 July, she found another motor lugger and punched holes in her with her 40 millimeter gun. She then proceeded to round up the lugger's nine-man Korean crew, all of whom had taken to the water at the first hint of trouble. Between 2 August and 4 August, she rode out an East China Sea typhoon and on 6 August, released her prisoners in a small boat near the Korean coast. That afternoon, she headed in toward the harbor on the small island of Osei To, near the western coast of Korea, to conduct a shore bombardment. During that escapade, her guns destroyed four schooners and severely damaged another five, along with a sea truck, a motor trawler, and some warehouses and other dockside installations. Tench then shifted north to the Gulf of Bohai, between the Liaodong Peninsula of Manchuria and the Shandong Peninsula of China. Her last encounter of the war occurred on 9 August when she surfaced in fog to torpedo and sink a seagoing tug towing two large barges. While the submarine retired from that attack, two Japanese "Betty" medium bombers dropped a bomb apiece some 500 yd off her port beam and retired themselves. (These craft were all too small to be recorded by JANAC, and her credited score for the patrol was zero.) That ended her hostile actions. On 15 August, the Japanese Empire capitulated, and hostilities ceased.

Tench remained on station until 28 August and then headed for Guam where she arrived on 2 September. After a brief stop at Apra harbor, she headed back toward the United States. Following stops at Pearl Harbor and Balboa, Canal Zone, Tench moored at New London, Connecticut, on 6 October 1945 – a year to the day since she had entered commission. In March 1946, she was placed in reserve at New London.

Post World War II and fate
Almost four years of idleness ended for Tench in October 1950, when she came out of "mothballs" to be converted to a Greater Underwater Propulsion Power Program (GUPPY) submarine. Over the next three months, she underwent extensive modifications to improve her performance characteristics for submerged operations. In January 1951, the submarine was recommissioned at Norfolk, Virginia, with Commander Frederiek N. Russell in command.

Tench’s second period of active service lasted just over two decades. For the most part, she conducted routine training operations off the East Coast. Initially, she operated out of Norfolk as a unit of Submarine Squadron 6 (SubRon 6). While so assigned, she made her first deployment to the Mediterranean Sea in January 1952. Upon her return three months later, she resumed her schedule of east coast and Caribbean Sea operations. On the night of 13 January 1955, Tench accidentally grounded herself in ten feet of water 1,500 yards due east of the Cape Henry lighthouse, a Navy spokesman said. She got off the sand bar under her own power with the aid of high seas. She was stranded from 2100 hrs. to 2230 hrs. During the summer of 1955, the submarine changed homeports, leaving SubRon 6 behind for duty with SubRon 2, based at New London, Connecticut. In addition to periodic fleet exercises including Operation ICEX during the spring of 1960 in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Tench served as a school ship for the Submarine School located at New London. That employment continued until October 1961 at which time she stood out of New London on her second deployment to the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean from which she returned early in 1962. Another extended period of duty with the Submarine School followed. That assignment was augmented by duty with various aviation and surface units in a series of antisubmarine warfare exercises. On June 8, 1965, Tench encountered the 13' 6" sailboat Tinkerbelle and its captain, Robert Manry as he made a historic trans-Atlantic voyage between Falmouth, MA and Falmouth, England. At the time, it was the smallest boat to cross the Atlantic nonstop. Early in April 1966, Tench broke that routine once again for a four-month cruise with the Sixth Fleet. This appears to have been her third and last tour of duty in the Mediterranean. Upon completion of the deployment, she returned once again to her New London-based training operations which occupied the submarine for the remainder of her active career.

During the late summer and early fall of 1968, Tench took part in a NATO exercise, Operation "Silvertower," in the eastern Atlantic. During that assignment, she visited ports in the United Kingdom, Germany, and Portugal. The submarine returned to New London on 4 November and began her final 19 months of active service. Near the end of her career, she was given hull classification symbol AGSS-417 (general auxiliary submarine) on 1 October 1969. She was placed in commission, in reserve, at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, later that month; and, on 8 May 1970, Tench was placed out of commission. Berthed at Philadelphia, Tench remained in reserve until 1973. On 16 August 1973, her name was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register, and she was subsequently scrapped.

Tench was awarded three battle stars for her World War II service.

title: USS Tench


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Talk:Seraphim proudleduck

from VfD:

The first spammers-gaming-Google competition, Nigritude ultramarine, was just barely notable; this later one isn't particularly notable at all, and has started attracting linkspammers. tregoweth 17:31, Oct 7, 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. Informative. Mikkalai 22:05, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

 * Merge and redirect to google bomb.   — Gwalla | Talk 03:00, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Not sure that this article is notable, but I'd suggest a speedy removal of the phrase 'Seraphim proudleduck' whenever it appears anywhere on Wikipedia from now until January. Although the money would help buy Wikipedia a new server... Average Earthman 11:04, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. It is informative and it's very hard to find real information about this stupidity. Manni 14:30, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Spank all the people who never have voted delete on a single VfD --Improv 14:45, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Merge and redirect--Tomheaton 19:22, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * I don't know if I can vote for this, but what about create a new page "SEO Contest" or "SEO Challenge" that will give a better place to describe this and the nigritude ultramarine contest. I don't see this contest as a Google Bomb at all, to me getting a page listed for an unrelated term without participation of the site owners is a Google Bomb (such as litigious bastards = SCO, or miserable failure = Bush).  This article is well written and informative, it just happens to be on an extrememly stupid contest.  Ignoring this stupid contest isn't going to make it go away, might as well let people know about it and the problems it causes. -- JoeChongq 21:51, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * This should definately be merge/redirected somewhere. I guess google bomb is the best place.  — siro  χ  o  22:08, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)
 * Merge and redirect to google bomb or rename per JoeChongq's recommendation. Geogre 13:41, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Merge and Redirect to Nigritude Ultramarine, or better yet move both to a new title SEO Competitions. (Note that if you were going to move, merge or redirect to start with, you needn't list pages here. Be Bold!) Kim Bruning 13:02, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. - SimonP 06:35, Oct 15, 2004 (UTC)

end moved discussion

 * Keep. In my opinion, this article should stay where it is. As Manni said, it's very hard to find accurate information on this contest.  I've put a lot of time into investigating the contest and writing and organizing this article.  If it absolutely can not stay where it is, it should be combined with the nigritude ultramarine article into a new article called SEO contests or something like that, and not combined with google bomb.  But I still recommend that this article stays where it is now. --Taestell 20:57, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Not sure that the statement "Seraphim is a class of angels in Jewish and Christian mythology" is correct
Although the bible does not use the term "seraphim" it does use the word "seraph", from which the term "seraphim" has probably been derived. Therefore, to call refer to it as mythology would be incorrect.

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

title: Talk:Seraphim proudleduck


text: Category:Order of Mass

title: Category:Order of Mass


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Manon des Sources

Manon des Sources may refer to:

 * Manon des Sources (1952 film), a French film directed by Marcel Pagnol, or the novel he published in 1962
 * Manon des Sources (1986 film), a French film directed by Claude Berri

title: Manon des Sources


text:
Manon des Sources (1986 film)

Manon des sources (meaning Manon of the Spring) is a 1986 French language period film directed by Claude Berri, as the second part of a diptych with Jean de Florette, released the same year.

Both are the adaptation of Marcel Pagnol’s 1963 two-volume novel The Water of the Hills, itself an adaptation of his own 1952 film Manon of the Spring, which became the novel’s second part.

The two films are ranked No. 60 in Empire magazine's "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema" in 2010.

Plot
Ten years after the events of Jean de Florette, Jean’s daughter Manon lives in the Provençal countryside near Les Romarins, the farm that her father once owned. She has taken up residence with an elderly Piedmontese squatter couple who teach her to live off the land, tending to a herd of goats and hunting for birds and rabbits. Ugolin Soubeyran, also called Galinette by his uncle César, has begun a successful business growing carnations at Les Romarins with his uncle, César Soubeyran—also known as Papet—thanks to the water provided by the spring there.

After seeing her bathe nude in the mountains, Ugolin develops an interest in Manon. When he approaches her, she seems disgusted by his vileness and almost certainly by the memory of his involvement in her father's downfall. But Ugolin's interest in Manon becomes obsessive, culminating in sewing a ribbon from her hair onto his chest. At the same time, Manon becomes interested in Bernard, a handsome and educated schoolteacher recently arrived in the village. As a small child, Manon had suffered the loss of her father, who died from a blow to the head while using explosives in an attempt to find a water source. César and Ugolin then bought the farm cheaply from his widow—Manon's mother—and unblocked the spring. Manon witnessed this as a child. The two men profited directly from his death.

When she overhears two villagers talking about it, Manon realises that many in the village knew of the crime but had remained silent, for the Soubeyran family was locally important. While searching for a goat that fell into a crevice above the village, Manon finds the underground source of the spring that supplies water to the local farms and village. To take her revenge on both the Soubeyrans and the villagers, who knew but did nothing, she stops the flow of water using the iron-oxide clay and rocks found nearby.

The villagers quickly become desperate for water to feed their crops and run their businesses. They come to believe that the water flow had been stopped by some Providence to punish the injustice committed against Jean. Manon publicly accuses César and Ugolin, and the villagers admit their own complicity in the persecution of Jean. They had never accepted him, as he was an outsider and was physically deformed. César tries to evade the accusations, but an eyewitness, a poacher who was trespassing on the vacant property at the time, steps forward to confirm the crime, shaming both César and Ugolin. Ugolin makes a desperate attempt to ask Manon for her hand in marriage, but she rejects him. The Soubeyrans flee in disgrace. Rejected by Manon, Ugolin hangs himself from a tree, apparently ending the Soubeyran line.

The villagers appeal to Manon to take part in a religious procession to the village's fountain because she is orphaned, hoping that acknowledging the injustice will restore the flow of water to the village. With the assistance of Bernard, Manon unblocks the spring in advance, and the water arrives at the village at the moment that the procession reaches the fountain. Manon marries Bernard.

Meanwhile, César has been broken by his nephew's suicide. Delphine, an old acquaintance of his, returns to the village and tells him that Florette, his sweetheart from that period, had written to him to tell him she was carrying their child. Receiving no reply from him, she had tried to abort it. Florette left the village, married a blacksmith from nearby Créspin, and the child was born alive but a hunchback.

César, away on military service in Africa, never received her letter and did not know that she had given birth to his child. In a cruel twist of fate, Jean, the man he drove to desperation and death without having met him, was the son he had always wanted. Realizing now she is related to him, César sadly watches a pregnant Manon hurry home at night, wishing to reconcile with his only grandchild, but knowing it will never happen.

Devastated, and lacking the will to live any longer, César dies quietly in his sleep. In a letter he leaves his property to Manon, whom he recognises as his natural granddaughter and the last of the Soubeyrans.

Cast

 * Emmanuelle Béart as Manon
 * Yves Montand as César Soubeyran/'Le Papet'
 * Daniel Auteuil as Ugolin
 * Hippolyte Girardot as Bernard Olivier
 * Margarita Lozano as Baptistine
 * Yvonne Gamy as Delphine
 * Gabriel Bacquier and Ève Brenner as singers at the wedding

Production
The sequence in which Manon bathes naked posed some difficulties. Being modest, Emmanuelle Béart was reluctant to undress in front of the crew. In an effort to resolve the situation, Claude Berri undressed and dived naked into the water to break the ice. As a result, Béart followed suit. Shooting ran from 22 April 1985 to 27 December 1985.

Box office
The film was a domestic and international success, grossing nearly $4 million in US sales.

Awards

 * 1987: César Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role – Emmanuelle Béart
 * 1987: National Board of Review Award for Best Foreign Language Film (shared with Jean de Florette)

title: Manon des Sources (1986 film)


text:
United Progressive Party

United Progressive Party may refer to:

 * United Progressive Party (Antigua and Barbuda)
 * United Progressive Party (Saint Vincent and the Grenadines)
 * United Progressive Party (Barbados)
 * United Progressive Party (Ghana)
 * United Progressive Party (Samoa), former Samoan party
 * United Progressive Party (Zambia)
 * United Progressive Party, a party in New Zealand that was reconstituted as the Christian Democrat Party
 * Unified Progressive Party (South Korea)

title: United Progressive Party


text:
My Shameful

My Shameful was a doom/death metal band with Finnish, German and American members. The band also had heavy funeral doom influences. Originating as a two-person studio project in Finland during the year 1999, they have recorded three demos and six albums. The demos were recorded with Sami Rautio and Harri Jussila as participating members. The line-up was completed in 2004 with drummer Mark Napier, bassist Twist, and guitar player Mario. My Shameful parted ways with Mark Napier in spring of 2007, due to Mark's difficulties with live shows, a new drummer was found in Jürgen Fröhling.

During the year 2008 My Shameful recorded their fourth full-length studio album "Descend". Due to Sami Rautio moving back to Finland, the album was recorded in several different locations.

In 2013 came out the self-released album Penance

In 2014 the band signed deal with Russians MFL-Records to release their new album "Hollow" which came out in November 2014.

Albums

 * Of All the Wrong Things (2003)
 * ...of Dust (2004)
 * The Return to Nothing (2006)
 * Descend (2008)
 * Penance (2013)
 * Hollow (2014)

EPs

 * To All I Hated (2002)

Demos

 * Sown in Sadness (2000)
 * Your Dark Overwhelming (2000)
 * To All I Hated (2000)

title: My Shameful


text:
Nicholas Alexander of Wallachia

Nicholas Alexander (Nicolae Alexandru), (died November 1364) was a Voivode of Wallachia (c. 1352 – November 1364), after having been co-ruler to his father Basarab I.

Reign
In the year 1359, he founded the Eastern Orthodox Metropolis of Ungro-Wallachia.

After initially resisting pressures to become the Kingdom of Hungary's vassal, he yielded to King Louis I in 1354, and recognized the right of the Roman Catholic Church to establish missions in his principality, as well as the privilege of Saxon traders from Brașov to transit Wallachia without paying duties. In 1355, Nicolae Alexandru and the King of Hungary reached an agreement in return for Severin.

Nicholas Alexander died in 16 November 1364 and he was buried in Câmpulung. His epitaph reads:
 * In the 16th day of November died the great and sole ruler Io Nicholas Alexander voivode, son of great Basarab, in 6873 indiction 3. Memory eternal.

Family
Firstly, he married Lady Maria, of the magyar Lackfi family located in Transylvania.The couple had two children: Through Elizabeth's youngest daughter, Katarina of Oppole, Nicolas Alexander become ancestor for all European royal families including Romanian royal family.
 * Prince Voislav ( d. January 1366)
 * Princesa Elizabeth of Wallachia (1340– 1369), who married Duke of Opole Vladislaus II and had three daughters.

His second wife was Clara Dobokai, a Catholic noblewoman from Hungary. The marriage produced three children:
 * Princess Ana of Wallachia, the Empress Consort of Bulgaria; married her cousin Tsar Ivan Sratsimir of Bulgaria and had three children, including the next tsar, Prince Constantine
 * Voievode Radu I of Wallachia, succeeded his half brother Vladislav as voievode
 * Princess Anna of Wallachia, the Empress Consort of Serbia; married Emperor Stefan Uroš V

The mother of Vladislav I of Wallachia may be Clara Dobokai.

title: Nicholas Alexander of Wallachia


text:
Vladislav I of Wallachia

Vladislav I of the Basarab dynasty, also known as Vlaicu or Vlaicu-Vodă, was the Voivode of Wallachia between 1364 and 1377. He was the son of Nicholas Alexander of Wallachia and Clara Dobokai.

In February 1369, Vladislav I subdued Vidin and recognised Louis I of Hungary as his overlord, in return for Severin, Amlaș and Făgăraș. In 1373, Louis I took Severin again, but Vladislav I recovered it, in 1376–1377.

Family
Vladislav I was the son of Nicholas Alexander of Wallachia and Clara Dobokai. It has been suggested that his son was Vlad I of Wallachia.

Reign
During his reign, the Metropolis of Muntenia and Dobrudja was split in two parts, as a single bishop didn't suffice for the entire country, thus creating the Metropolis of Oltenia. The first monasteries in Wallachia were erected by Nicodemus of Tismana (Vodița Monastery and Tismana Monastery) with the support of the voivode.

Relations with the Hungarian Crown
Louis assembled his armies in Temesvár (now Timișoara in Romania) in February 1365. According to a royal charter that year, he was planning to invade Wallachia because the new voivode, Vladislav I, had refused to obey him. However, he ended up heading a campaign against the Bulgarian Tsardom of Vidin and its ruler Ivan Sratsimir, which suggests that Vladislav I had in the meantime yielded to him. Louis seized Vidin and imprisoned Ivan Stratsimir in May or June. In 1366, Louis granted the Banate of Severin and the district of Fogaras to Vladislav Vlaicu of Wallachia, who had accepted his suzerainty. Tvrtko I of Bosnia also accepted Louis's suzerainty after Hungarian troops assisted him in regaining his throne in early 1367. In 1368, Vladislav I cooperated with Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria, the father of Ivan Sratsimir of Vidin, against the Hungarians. Their united armies imposed a blockade on Vidin. Louis marched to the Lower Danube and ordered Nicholas Lackfi, Voivode of Transylvania, to invade Wallachia in the autumn of 1368. The voivode's army marched through the valley of the Ialomița River, but the Wallachians ambushed it and killed many Hungarian soldiers, including the voivode. However, Louis' campaign against Wallachia from the west was successful and Vladislav Vlaicu yield to him in next summer. Upon his initiative, Louis restored Ivan Sratsimir in Vidin.

Coinage

Vladislav I was the first Wallachian voivode to mint local coins around 1365. The coins were made exclusively from silver and they were classified in 3 categories:

 * I - Ducats, with a diameter of 18-21 mm and an average weight of 1,05 grams. There were 3 types of the Wallachian ducats:
 * type I, which had solely Cyrillic inscriptions, featuring on the obverse the inscription +IWBЛAДICЛABABOEBWД and a shield with a cross on top divided into two halves vertically, one being traversed by horizontal stripes and the other featuring a crescent, while on the reverse featuring an eagle with the head tilted to the left sitting on a knightly helmet with a cross to its left;
 * type II, which had both Latin and Cyrillic inscriptions, featuring on the obverse the inscription +MLADIZLAIWAIWODE or +IWBЛAДICЛAB and a Jerusalem cross, while on the reverse featuring the inscription +TRANS-ALPIN or +IWBЛAДICЛAB BOE and the same model as type I, but mirrored;
 * type III, which, akin to type II had both Cyrillic and Latin inscriptions, featuring on the obverse the inscription +MLADIZLAIWAIWODE or +IWANABЛATICЛABOIBOДA and a shield divided into two halves vertically, one being traversed by horizontal stripes and the other being blank, while on the reverse featuring the inscription +TRANS-ALPINI or +IWAN-BЛATI and the same illustration as type II.
 * II - Dinars, with a diameter of 16-18 mm and an average weight of 0,7 grams. They looked the same as type III ducats and also featured the same Cyrillic or Latin inscriptions, however they were smaller and lighter.
 * III - Bans, with a diameter of 14-16 mm and an average weight of 0,35 grams. On the obverse, they featured the same imagery as type II and III ducats did on the reverse, with the exception of the inscription, which was Б-Л, while on the reverse they featured a Jerusalem cross.

title: Vladislav I of Wallachia


text:
Prudential Tower

The Prudential Tower, also known as the Prudential Building or, colloquially, the Pru, is an international style skyscraper in Boston, Massachusetts. The building, a part of the Prudential Center complex, currently stands as the 2nd-tallest building in Boston, behind the John Hancock Tower. The Prudential Tower was designed by Charles Luckman and Associates for Prudential Insurance. Completed in 1964, the building is 749 ft tall, with 52 floors, and (as of January 2021) is tied with others as the 114th-tallest in the United States. It contains 1.2 e6sqft of commercial and retail space. Including its radio mast, the tower's pinnacle height reaches 907 ft.

A 50th-floor observation deck has been the highest such location in New England open to the public, as the higher observation deck of the John Hancock Tower has been closed since the September 11 attacks in 2001. Scheduled to close permanently on April 18, 2020, the Prudential's "Skywalk" was closed until further notice in March 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In June 2023 the top three floors opened as View Boston, consisting of a 52nd floor enclosed observation deck and gift shop; a 51st floor bar and al fresco observation deck with tables, chairs, and some couches; and a 50th floor bistro requiring reservations.

History

The Prudential Tower began construction in 1960 with steel erection work by Donovan Steel. Upon its completion in 1964, the Prudential was the tenth tallest building in the world and the tallest building in North America outside of New York City, surpassing the Terminal Tower in Cleveland, Ohio. It also ended the Custom House Tower's 59-year reign as the tallest building in Boston, and passed Hartford's Travelers Tower as the tallest building in New England.

The newly built Prudential Tower dwarfed John Hancock Financial's headquarters building, built in 1947. This spurred the insurance rival to build the 1975 John Hancock Tower, which is slightly taller at 790 ft.

Today, the Prudential is no longer among the fifty tallest buildings in the U.S. in architectural height. Within Boston, in addition to the nearby John Hancock tower, many other tall buildings have since been built such as the Four Seasons Hotel & Private Residences, One Dalton Street at 742 feet and the Millennium Tower in the Downtown Crossing neighborhood at 685 feet. The financial district, including the 614 ft Federal Reserve Bank is now the 5th tallest at 614 feet. The Prudential, John Hancock and now the Four Seasons Hotel & Private Residences towers dominate the Back Bay skyline.

Critical reception
When it was built, the Prudential Tower received mostly positive architectural reviews. The New York Times called it "the showcase of the New Boston [representing] the agony and the ecstasy of a city striving to rise above the sordidness of its recent past". But Ada Louise Huxtable called it "a flashy 52-story glass and aluminum tower ... part of an over-scaled megalomaniac group shockingly unrelated to the city's size, standards, or style. It is a slick developer's model dropped into an urban renewal slot in Anycity, U.S.A.—a textbook example of urban character assassination." Architect Donlyn Lyndon called it "an energetically ugly, square shaft that offends the Boston skyline more than any other structure". In 1990, Boston Globe architecture critic Robert Campbell commented: "The Prudential Center has been the symbol of bad design in Boston for so long that we'd probably miss it if it disappeared."

Ownership
The Prudential Center is currently owned by Boston Properties. The building is one of several Prudential Centers built around the United States (such as the tower in Chicago) constructed as capital investments by Prudential Financial (formerly, The Prudential Insurance Company of America). Preceding Prudential Financial's demutualization, Prudential sold many of its real estate assets, for instance most of the air rights in Times Square, and the Prudential Center in Boston, to put cash on the corporate balance sheets. The Gillette Company, now a unit of Procter & Gamble, once occupied 40 percent of the space in the structure but has since vacated many of these floors. Boston-based law firm Ropes & Gray moved into much of this space, including the 37th through 49th, in fall 2010. Other major tenants include Wall Street investment firm Home State Corporation, Partners HealthCare, Club Monaco, Exeter Group and Accenture. Boston Properties acquired the building in 1998. However, Prudential Financial's then head of global marketing, and Boston native, Michael Hines, suggested that the real estate deal only go through with the condition that Prudential retain the name and signage rights for the Prudential Center and Prudential Tower. Signage rights in Boston are very limited, and Prudential's are grandfathered. The other notable backlit signs allowed above 100 ft include The Colonnade Hotel, Boston, State Street Bank sign, Sheraton sign, and the Boston Citgo sign. Using similar negotiations, Prudential retains two notable signs in Times Square.

Lighting
The tradition of using the window lights to support local sports teams and events began at its inception in 1964 supporting the charity drive for the United Fund, a predecessor of the United Way. The building's windows have been illuminated with "GO B's" to support the Boston Bruins during the Stanley Cup playoffs and "GO SOX" or a "1" during important World Series and postseason games.

In the 1999, 2003, 2004, 2007, 2013 and 2018 Major League Baseball playoffs, the building's tenants turned on and off their lights to spell out "GO SOX", providing a visual for Boston Red Sox fans nearby and at Fenway Park. The tower appears in nearly all pictures of deep right field from the left field line, and is prominently featured in most broadcasts from the park.

A normal display of 91 foot tall letters takes over 140 man-hours, covers 18 floors of the building, uses 165 additional window lights, and 260 window block out panels.

On April 22, 2013, the City of Boston requested the lighting of the Prudential Tower with the number "1" in support of The One Fund Boston and those affected by the Boston Marathon bombing. The display was seen on the north side of the building, overlooking Boylston Street, where the tragedy occurred just a week earlier.

Over the past few years, the Prudential Tower has been illuminated through light-emitting diodes (LEDs), that have the capacity to create a glow near the top of the building. The lighting is used for special occasions and charitable events and can support nearly every color, including pink, maroon, red, orange, yellow, gold, green, blue, and purple.

Prudential Center

The Prudential Center, situated on 23 acre, is in the Back Bay neighborhood at 800 Boylston Street and houses the 620000 sqft Prudential Center shopping mall in the base. Known to locals as "the Pru," it is bordered by Belvidere, Dalton, Boylston, and Exeter streets overlooking Huntington Avenue. Before the Prudential development, the site was a switch yard for the Boston and Albany Railroad. By 1965, a part of the negotiations for the Massachusetts Turnpike extension included the construction of the roadway below parts of the Prudential complex. The Prudential still has its own (eastbound only) exit from the turnpike for this reason.

The new skyscraper at 111 Huntington Avenue was completed in 2002, directly across the street from The Colonnade Hotel, at 120 Huntington Avenue. The third tower of the Prudential Center, 101 Huntington Avenue, is, at a mere 25 stories, overshadowed by the other two.

The Hynes Convention Center is connected to the complex, as well as the existing Sheraton Hotel Boston at Copley Place, which combined was considered the first mixed-use development in New England and awarded the Urban Land Institute's Best Mixed Use Development Award in 2006. By the fall of 2007, another major development was completed along Boylston Street at the Prudential Center complex: the Mandarin Oriental, Boston hotel. In 2016, 888 Boylston Street, a 17-story LEED Platinum-certified office building, completed the last site of the Prudential Center complex.

The complex has direct indoor connections to two MBTA stops, Prudential and Back Bay. Prudential is on the Huntington Avenue side of the building directly outside the Colonnade Hotel and is the first station on the Green Line E branch after its split from the main line at Copley Square. Back Bay is a stop on the Orange Line and is accessible to the complex via the Copley Place mall, to which it is attached by a walkway over Huntington Avenue. Back Bay is also served by Amtrak, including the Acela high-speed train.

The Prudential Center serves as one of three starting locales for the Boston Duck Tours, a popular tourist attraction in the city.

In November 2016, a 45000 sqft Eataly location was opened, replacing the existing food court.

The "Top of the Hub" restaurant, which had occupied the 52nd floor since December 1965, was scheduled to permanently close on April 18, 2020, but was closed a month earlier due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Antenna and broadcast tenants

The main rooftop mast supports two FM master antennas, and a top-mounted television antenna previously used by WBPX. The upper master antenna, manufactured by Electronics Research, Inc. (ERI), serves WZLX 100.7, WWBX 104.1, WMJX 106.7, and WXKS-FM 107.9. The lower master antenna was installed in the late 1990s, also by ERI, and serves WBOS 92.9, WBQT 96.9, and WROR-FM 105.7. The FM stations each transmit with approximately 22,000 watts ERP and in HD Radio. The roof also has a smaller tower with standby antennas for WZLX, WWBX, WROR-FM, WXKS-FM. All 7 FM broadcast tenants have backups located in Newton as well.

The studios of FM station WBCN occupied space on the 50th floor for a period in the 1970s and WEEI (AM 590 and FM 103.3), when it was CBS Radio owned and operated, had its offices and studios on the 44th floor in the second half of the 1960s.

List of tenants
Notable tenants of the Prudential Center include:

 * Accenture
 * Advent International
 * Boston Properties
 * Eversource Energy
 * Federal Home Loan Banks
 * Gordon Brothers
 * Heidrick & Struggles
 * MFS Investment Management
 * Partners HealthCare
 * Regus
 * Robins Kaplan LLP
 * Ropes & Gray
 * SAS
 * Simpson Gumpertz & Heger Inc.
 * Wayfair
 * Willis Towers Watson

title: Prudential Tower


text:
Raimu

Jules Auguste Muraire (18 December 1883 – 20 September 1946), whose stage name was Raimu, was a French actor. He is most famous for playing César in the 'Marseilles trilogy' (Marius, Fanny and César).

Life and career
Born in Toulon in the Var department, Muraire made his stage debut there in 1899. After coming to the attention of the great music hall star Félix Mayol who was also from Toulon, in 1908 he was given a chance to work as a secondary act in the Paris theatre scene. He worked primarily in comedy. In 1916, writer/director Sacha Guitry gave him significant parts in productions at the Folies Bergère and other major venues. In addition to his appearances on stage, Raimu also developed a successful career in films, sometimes under the name Jules Raimu.

He starred in the premiere of André Messager's operetta Coups de roulis in 1928. The following year, already a leading actor, he gained wide acclaim for his starring role in the stage production of the Marcel Pagnol play Marius. Reluctantly, owing to his disappointment with his first film role many years earlier, he agreed to act in Guitry's film Le Blanc et le Noir and then reprised his Marius role on film a year later. By his late forties Raimu had become one of his country's most respected actors, and was considered the ultimate actor by Alec Guinness, Marlene Dietrich, and Orson Welles.

Family
He married Esther Metayer (1905-1977) in 1936. He had a daughter, Paulette Brun (1925-1992).

Death
Raimu died of a heart attack on 20 September 1946, brought on by complications with anesthesia after a relatively minor leg operation, in the American Hospital of Paris in Neuilly-sur-Seine, while he was asleep.

Legacy
He was interred in the cemetery of Toulon, where the Cinéma Raimu Toulon has been named in his honor.

In 1961, the government of France honored him with his image on a postage stamp. A small museum created by his granddaughter Isabelle Nohain exists in the town of Cogolin in the Var department in France.

Partial filmography

 * Black and White (1931) - Marcel Desnoyers
 * Marius (1931) - César Olivier
 * Mam'zelle Nitouche (1931) - Célestin / Floridor
 * The Chocolate Girl (1932) - Félicien Bédarride
 * Fun in the Barracks (1932) - Le capitaine Hurluret
 * Fanny (1932) - César
 * Theodore and Company (1933) - Clodomir
 * Charlemagne (1933) - Charlemagne
 * Ces messieurs de la Santé (1934) - Gédéon Tafard
 * Minuit... place Pigalle (1934) - Monsieur Prosper
 * Tartarin of Tarascon (1934) - Tartarin
 * I Have an Idea (1934) - Aubrey
 * School for Coquettes (1935) - Labaume
 * Gaspard de Besse (1935) - Samplan
 * The Secret of Polichinelle (1936) - M. Jouvenel
 * The Brighton Twins (1936) - Alfred Beaugérard et les deux fils Achille
 * The King (1936) - M. Bourdier - un riche industriel et sénateur qui reçoit le Roi
 * César (1936) - César Ollivier
 * Let's Make a Dream (1936) - Le mari
 * Vous n'avez rien à déclarer? (1937) - Jules Papillot
 * The Pearls of the Crown (1937) - L'industriel du midi
 * Chaste Susanne (1937) - Monsieur des Aubrays
 * Life Dances On (1937) - Francois Patusset
 * Gribouille (1937) - Camille Morestan
 * The Kings of Sport (1937) - Jules de l'Estaque
 * Le fauteuil 47 (1937) - Juste Auguste Theillard
 * The Strange Monsieur Victor (1938) - Victor Agardanne
 * The New Rich (1938) - Legendre
 * The Baker's Wife (1938) - Aimable Castanier
 * Heroes of the Marne (1938) - Bernard Lefrançois
 * Cocoanut (1939) - Loulou Barbentane
 * Monsieur Brotonneau (1939) - M. Brotonneau
 * Ultima giovinezza (1939) - Cesare
 * Second Childhood (1939) - Georges
 * The Man Who Seeks the Truth (1940) - Jean Vernet
 * La Fille du puisatier (1940) - Pascal Amoretti
 * Le duel (1941) - le Père Bolène
 * Parade en sept nuits (1941) - Le curé Maffre - curé des Baux
 * Les Inconnus dans la maison (1942) - Maître Hector Loursat
 * L'Arlésienne (1942) - Marc
 * Monsieur La Souris (1942) - Monsieur La Souris
 * The Benefactor (1942) - Monsieur Moulinet
 * Les petits riens (1942) - Charpillon
 * Untel père et fils (1943) - L'oncle Jules Froment
 * Le Colonel Chabert (1943) - Le colonel Hyacinthe Chabert
 * Les gueux au paradis (1946) - Boule
 * The Eternal Husband (1946) - Nicolas Trousotsky (final film role)
 * Chantons sous l'Occupation (1976) - (archive footage)

title: Raimu


text:
Romeo Must Die

Romeo Must Die is a 2000 American action film directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak in his directorial debut and features fight choreography by Corey Yuen. The film stars Jet Li, Aaliyah (in her film debut), Isaiah Washington, Russell Wong, DMX, and Delroy Lindo. The film marks Aaliyah's only film that was released during her lifetime before she was killed in a plane crash a year later. The plot is loosely related to William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, transplanted to contemporary Oakland with Black-American and Chinese-American gangs representing the feuding families.

Frustrated by the lack of originality in Hollywood action films, producer Joel Silver built the film around Hong Kong action films. He cast established Hong Kong actor Jet Li following his role in Lethal Weapon 4. R&B singer Aaliyah was cast and sung the soundtrack's lead single "Try Again" which topped the US Billboard Hot 100.

Romeo Must Die was released by Warner Bros. Pictures in the United States on March 24, 2000, where it received mixed reviews from critics, but was a box office success, grossing $91 million against a production budget of $25 million. The film was considered Li and Aaliyah's breakthrough in Hollywood.

Plot
Po Sing is the youngest son of Chinese Triad boss Ch'u Sing, who is accosted by African-Americans in a nightclub owned by Silk in Oakland, California. Po is rescued and admonished by Kai, Ch'u's chief lieutenant. Po leaves the club, but is found murdered the next day by a kid on a bicycle. Han Sing is Po's brother and a former cop who has been imprisoned in Hong Kong. Han learns of his brother's death and escapes to Oakland to investigate, where Ch'u is engaged in a joint business venture with Isaak O'Day, a black real estate developer and gang leader. The two have been acquiring deeds to properties along the waterfront to sell to Vincent Roth, a business magnate who plans to buy a new NFL franchise and build a stadium.

Despite assurances from Ch'u that their partnership remains intact, Isaak fears retribution following Po's death and has his chief lieutenant Mac place security details on his son Colin and his daughter Trish, who refuses to be involved in her father's illegal enterprises. In a chance encounter, Han befriends Trish by helping her ditch her assigned security Maurice and then discovers Po called Trish's clothing store the day before he was killed. At his brother's funeral, Han confronts his estranged father and blames him for failing to protect Po after Han helped them both flee to America to escape Chinese authorities, which resulted in Han's imprisonment. Kai informs Han that Po's death has been the result of the escalating gang war between the Chinese and African-Americans.

Meanwhile, Colin tells his father that he was supposed to have met Po at the club on the night of his murder to discuss information that could end the war. That night, Colin and his girlfriend are murdered by an unseen assailant. Trish and Han team up and realize that Po wanted to show Colin a list of businesses that were either destroyed or being threatened for failing to sell their properties. The two visit one of the remaining businesses on Po's list, but the Chinese owner and his employees have been killed. After killing the Chinese hitmen responsible, Han questions his father, who deflects suspicion by suggesting Isaak may have used outside contractors. Later, Ch'u is shown ordering the death of several other Triad bosses to acquire their territories. Trish and Han visit the last holdout on Po's list: Silk's nightclub where Po was last seen.

Han and Trish meet with Silk, but Mac kills him for his deed and abducts Trish and Han. At a remote location, Han defeats Mac's henchmen led by Maurice and goes to rescue Trish. Isaak and Ch'u meet with Roth to sell him the deeds for the properties they now control. After Ch'u takes a multimillion-dollar payment and departs, Isaak refuses his payment, stating that "his compensation" will be in the form of an ownership share of the new franchise. An enraged Mac threatens Isaak to take the deal using Trish as a hostage. He also reveals that the "gang war" was a ruse he and Ch'u concocted to cover their murder and intimidation of businessmen who refused to sign away their properties and admits to killing Colin. In the ensuing shootout, Isaak is wounded while Roth escapes via helicopter.

However, Mac shoots Roth's briefcase out of his hand and the deeds scatter into the wind. Han arrives and confronts Mac about Po who reveals that it was the Chinese who killed him, and is about to shoot Han when Trish kills Mac first. Trish waits with her father for an ambulance while Han leaves to find Ch'u. At the Sing compound, Kai admits he personally killed Po for interfering with Ch'u's dealings with Roth. Han engages Kai in a fist fight, and eventually kills him. Han berates his father for killing Po out of greed and declares that he will leave him to be punished by either the police or the other Triad families. As Han walks away, Ch'u picks up his gun and shoots himself. Han finds Trish waiting for him outside and the two walk away together as the police arrive.

Cast

 * Jet Li as Han Sing
 * Jonross Fong as Young Han Sing
 * Aaliyah as Trish O'Day
 * Isaiah Washington as Mac
 * Russell Wong as Kai
 * DMX as "Silk"
 * Delroy Lindo as Isaak O'Day
 * DB Woodside as Colin O'Day
 * Henry O as Ch'u Sing
 * Anthony Anderson as Maurice
 * Edoardo Ballerini as Vince Roth
 * Françoise Yip as Meriana Sing, Motorcycle Fighter
 * Terry Chen as Kung
 * Tseng Chang as Victor Ho
 * Jon Kit Lee as Po Sing
 * Ryan Jefferson Lowe as Young Po Sing
 * Matthew Harrison as Dave
 * Alvin Sanders as Calvin
 * Manoj Sood as Akbar

Production
During the late 1990s, the producer Joel Silver became annoyed that he did not see anything fresh or original in American action films. For inspiration, he turned to Hong Kong action cinema, where Jet Li was an established movie star. In addition to the influence of Hong Kong martial arts films, the production team also introduced a new visual effect technique: the presentation of martial arts fighting in X-ray vision. They initially experimented with it for a single fight scene with Jet Li and tested it in front of an American audience, which gave an overwhelmingly positive response, before using it in more action scenes throughout the film.

The film's setting is Oakland, California, but other than a few establishing shots, film production was entirely in Vancouver, British Columbia. Principal photography began on May 3, 1999 and ended on July 23, 1999. Filming locations included Gastown, Grandview–Woodland, Vanier Park, Chinatown, Versatile Pacific Shipyards, and the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden.

According to the documentary The Slanted Screen, Han and Trish were supposed to have a kissing scene, which explains the title of Romeo, but this did not test well with an urban audience. Jet Li stated on his personal website that they had filmed both versions of the scene (with kiss and without), and decided to use the latter because it would be "somewhat strange and awkward" for Han to have witnessed his father's suicide and then to come out and kiss someone.

Release
Romeo Must Die debuted at #2 at the U.S. box office behind Erin Brockovich, which had come out a week earlier. The film was produced with a budget of US$25 million. In North America, Romeo Must Die earned $18,014,503 (2,641 theaters, $6,821 per screen average) in its opening weekend. Romeo Must Die's total North American gross is $55,973,336. The film's worldwide box office gross is $91,036,760.

It was released in the United States on DVD on August 1, 2000, and on Blu-ray on August 14, 2012.

Critical reception
The film has a 32% approval rating from 94 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator; the critical consensus reads: "In his second Hollywood movie, Jet Li impresses. Unfortunately, when he's not on screen, the movie slows to a crawl. Though there's some spark between Jet and Aaliyah, there isn't any threat of a fire. And as impressive as the action sequences are, some critics feel they are over-edited."

Elvis Mitchell of The New York Times called the movie "dreary" but said it was bound to be a hit due to its combination of martial arts action and hip hop. Writing for the San Francisco Chronicle, Bob Graham likened it to The Matrix, describing it as a "cross-cultural kung fu extravaganza" that shines during Li's stunts. In his review for the Chicago Tribune, Rene Rodriguez said the film is "needlessly convoluted" and should not have added special effects on top of Li's stunts, which he said makes them seem less impressive because of the artificiality. Roger Ebert rated the film 1.5/4 stars and also criticized the use of computer-generated special effects in a martial arts film, saying that it "misses the point" of having audiences be impressed by realistic stunts. Aaliyah received praise for her role.

Soundtrack
The film's soundtrack, Romeo Must Die: The Album, is a hip hop and R&B soundtrack released by Blackground Records and Virgin Records America in association with Warner Bros. Records (who helped co-financed the soundtrack) on March 28, 2000. It debuted at #3 on the Billboard 200 selling 203,000 in its first week. The soundtrack sold 1.3 million copies by the end of 2000 and 1.5 million copies in the US as of 2001.

Produced by Aaliyah, Timbaland, Barry Hankerson, and Jomo Hankerson, it was recorded between May 1999 and January 2000. It includes four songs by Aaliyah, as well as works by Chante Moore, Destiny's Child, Ginuwine, Joe, Timbaland & Magoo and more. Three singles & videos were released from the album: Aaliyah's number one pop hit "Try Again" (directed by Wayne Isham), Aaliyah and DMX duet "Come Back in One Piece" (directed by Little X), and Timbaland & Magoo's "We At It Again" (directed by Chris Robinson), which introduced Timbaland's younger brother, rapper Sebastian, to audiences. Q magazine included the soundtrack album in their list of the "5 Best Compilations of 2000".

2021 re-release
In August 2021, it was reported that Aaliyah's recorded work for Blackground (since rebranded as Blackground Records 2.0) would be re-released on physical, digital, and, for the first time ever, streaming services in a deal between the label and Empire Distribution. Romeo Must Die: The Album was re-released September 3, 2021.

title: Romeo Must Die


text:
Radu I of Wallachia

Radu I (died 1383) was a Voivode of Wallachia (c. 1377 – c. 1383). His year of birth is unattested in primary sources. He was the son of Nicolae Alexandru and half-brother and successor to Vladislav I. He is identified by many historians as the legendary Radu Negru, a mythical voievode of the early medieval state Wallachia, founder of the state's institutions and ruler.

Beginning of reign
Radu was the only son of Nicholas Alexander of Wallachia by his second wife, Clara Dobokai. He was co-ruler with his half-brother Vladislav I at least from 1372. He may have started his reign as sole ruler after 9 July 1374 when the last documentary mention of his brother as being alive is dated. Unfortunately, there aren't any internal documents that could attest his reign. There are a few external mentions of him, primarily documents of the Kingdom of Hungary, a contemporary Italian chronicle, a late pisanie, an inscription on the walls of Curtea de Argeș Cathedral and an important quantity of coins (ducati, dinari and bani) which were emitted by the voievod.

Conflicts with the Kingdom of Hungary
The relations with the Hungarian kingship during his reign remained tense, resulting in armed conflicts. The details of these fights remain unclear. An Italian chronicle "Cronaca Carrarese" tells about an expedition of the Hungarian king Louis the Great between 5 July - 14 August 1377 with the intention of subduing a one "Radano principe di Bulgaria infedele" (Italian), identified with Radu I. These tense relations which preceded the fight are confirmed by the registers of the Venetian Republic where, in the same year, a large order of full-equip armors made by the Wallachian voievod appears. These armors were to be worn by those "armadura da cavali", 10.000 at number who were defeated in battle against the Hungarian king as pointed out by the Italian chronicle.

It is hard to tell whether the troops of the Wallachian voievod were truly defeated, as from the internal documents of the Kingdom of Hungary which were published in the next period, it appears that the Hungarian king still had the intention of subduing the unfaithful voievod. Thus on 19 November of the same year, the king promised the Saxon traders of Transylvania from Brasov that if Wallachia becomes his possession he reduces the dues. On the contrary, in an order given to the landlord of Orsova in 1382 through which he was obliged to forbid any foreign trader to enter Wallachia with merchandise and to keep guard of the border "day and night" reporting everything that happened, there is no mention of a Hungarian ban of Severin and Orsova appears as border point thus suggesting that the Eastern part of Banat was annexed by the Wallachian voievod Radu I.

Maybe linked to this fact is the strange name given to the voievod in the biography of Sigismund of Luxembourg in which, speaking of Vlad Dracul, it is said that he was the son of "Merzeweydan" (Mircea) and grandson of "Pankraz dem Weisen" (Pankraz the Wise). The name Pankraz (Pancratius) is explained from the deterioration of the name Radu Ban (ban of Severin, title taken after the conquest of the territory). Nevertheless, the Wallachian voievod, in another Hungarian document which is contemporary with the events of 1377, bears the name "Godon" as well strange and unclear.

Other accomplishments
An important event linked to the reign of Radu I is the move of the remains of Saint Filofteia from Tarnovo to Arges, event which happened app. in 1384 when the scene is painted on the walls of the Curtea de Argeș Cathedral that became the guardian of the Saint and whose ctitor was the voievod with his brother and father. His activity as ctitor of religious establishments makes him one of the most active rulers of Wallachia, building a large number of churches with Tismana, Cozia and Cotmeana being the most important. Also, during his reign the two Catholic cathedrals from Severin (a. 1380)and Arges (9 mai 1381) are built and following the tradition, a Catholic monastery in Targoviste.

Another important and controversial moment of his reign is represented by his, not well supported by evidences, ruling over the smaller of the two Bulgarian states in that moment - the Tsardom of Vidin. At the basis of this theory stands an illegible inscription on the walls of Curtea de Argeș Cathedral in which, some researchers, identified the title „domn singur stăpânitor al Ungrovlahiei, al Vidinului și al oblastiei Vidinului“ ("sole ruler of Ungrovlahia, Vidin and the Oblast of Vidin"). It is true that the relations between the Wallachian rulers Vladislav I and Radu I and the Bulgarian Tsars from Tarnovo and Vidin, Shishman and Ivan Sratsimir were very tensed, the latter being themselves in conflicts for the succession of the paternal throne. Once, Vladislav I managed to annex Vidin, but he later gave it to the rightful ruler. It is possible that the same thing was done by Radu I, although the proofs supporting this theory are insufficient.

Death and tomb
The exact date of his death, as well as his tomb, remain unknown. Archaeological digs carried out in 1920 around the voievodal necropolis (in the grounds of the Curtea de Arges Cathedral), have revealed a rich tomb dating from the end of the 14th century, presumed to be that of Radu I. His attire, jewelry and other accessories show him as a powerful feudal ruler, with all the pomp of the Wallachian court supported by evidence that is Radu I lost tomb.

title: Radu I of Wallachia


text:
Spiritual ecology

Spiritual ecology is an emerging field in religion, conservation, and academia that proposes that there is a spiritual facet to all issues related to conservation, environmentalism, and earth stewardship. Proponents of spiritual ecology assert a need for contemporary nature conservation work to include spiritual elements and for contemporary religion and spirituality to include awareness of and engagement in ecological issues.

Introduction
Contributors in the field of spiritual ecology contend there are spiritual elements at the root of environmental issues. Those working in the arena of spiritual ecology further suggest that there is a critical need to recognize and address the spiritual dynamics at the root of environmental degradation.

The field is largely emerging through three individual streams of formal study and activity: science and academia, religion and spirituality, and ecological sustainability.

Despite the disparate arenas of study and practice, the principles of spiritual ecology are simple: In order to resolve such environmental issues as depletion of species, global warming, and over-consumption, humanity must examine and reassess our underlying attitudes and beliefs about the earth, and our spiritual responsibilities toward the planet. U.S. advisor on climate change, James Gustave Speth, said: "I used to think that top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought that thirty years of good science could address these problems. I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy, and to deal with these we need a cultural and spiritual transformation."

Thus, it is argued, ecological renewal and sustainability necessarily depends upon spiritual awareness and an attitude of responsibility. Spiritual ecologists concur that this includes both the recognition of creation as sacred and behaviors that honor that sacredness.

Recent written and spoken contributions of Pope Francis, particularly his May 2015 Encyclical, Laudato si', as well as unprecedented involvement of faith leaders at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris reflect a growing popularity of this emerging view. The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, stated on December 4, 2015, that "Faith communities are vital for global efforts to address the climate challenge. They remind us of the moral dimensions of climate change, and of our obligation to care for both the Earth's fragile environment and our neighbours in need."

History
Spiritual ecologists have identified the Scientific Revolution—beginning the 16th century, and continuing through the Age of Enlightenment to the Industrial Revolution—as contributing to a critical shift in human understanding with reverberating effects on the environment. The radical expansion of collective consciousness into the era of rational science included a collective change from experiencing nature as a living, spiritual presence to a utilitarian means to an end.

During the modern age, reason became valued over faith, tradition, and revelation. Industrialized society replaced agricultural societies and the old ways of relating to seasons and cycles. Furthermore, it is argued that the growing predominance of a global, mechanized and commercialized worldview, a collective sense of the sacred was severed and replaced with an insatiable drive for scientific progress and material prosperity without any sense of limits or responsibility.

Some in spiritual ecology argue that a pervasive patriarchal competitive world-view, and a monotheistic religious orientation towards a transcendent divinity, is largely responsible for destructive attitudes about the earth, body, and the sacred nature of creation. Thus, many identify the wisdom of indigenous cultures, for whom the physical world is still regarded as sacred, as holding a key to our current ecological predicament.

Spiritual ecology is a response to the values and socio-political structures of recent centuries with their trajectory away from intimacy with the earth and its sacred essence. It has been forming and developing as an intellectual and practice-oriented discipline for nearly a century.

Spiritual ecology includes a vast array of people and practices that intertwine spiritual and environmental experience and understanding. Additionally, within the tradition itself resides a deep, developing spiritual vision of a collective human/earth/divine evolution that is expanding consciousness beyond the dualities of human/other, human/earth, heaven/earth, mind/body. This belongs to the contemporary movement that recognizes the unity and interrelationship, or "interbeing", the interconnectedness of all of that is creation.

Spiritual visionaries carrying this thread include Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) who founded the spiritual movement of anthroposophy, and described a "co-evolution of spirituality and nature" and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881–1955), a French Jesuit and paleontologist who spoke of a transition in collective awareness toward a consciousness of the divinity within every particle of life, even the most dense mineral. This shift includes the necessary dissolution of divisions between fields of study as mentioned above. "Science, philosophy and religion are bound to converge as they draw nearer to the whole", said Teilhard.

Thomas Berry (1914–2009), the American Passionist priest known a 'geologian', has been one of the most influential figures in this developing movement, with his stress on returning to a sense of wonder and reverence for the natural world. He shared and furthered many of Teilhard de Chardin's views, including the understanding that humanity is not at the center of the universe, but integrated into a divine whole with its own evolutionary path. This view compels a re-thinking of the earth/human relationship: "The present urgency is to begin thinking within the context of the whole planet, the integral earth community with all its human and other-than-human components."

Leaders in Buddhism including the Engaged Buddhism movement, historically identify a need to return to a sense ones innate inborn nature that is part of the Earth. Joanna Macy describes a collective shift – referred to as the "Great Turning" – taking humanity into a new consciousness in which the earth is not experienced as separate. Sufi teacher Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee similarly grounds his spiritual ecology work in the context of a collective evolutionary expansion towards oneness, bringing us all toward an experience of earth and humanity – all life – as interdependent. In the vision and experience of oneness, the term "spiritual ecology" becomes, itself, redundant. What is earth-sustaining is spiritual; that which is spiritual honors a sacred earth.

An important element in the work of these contemporary teachers is the call for humanity's full acceptance of responsibility for what we have done – physically and spiritually – to the earth. Only through accepting responsibility will healing and transformation occur.

Including the need for a spiritual response to the environmental crisis, Charles, Prince of Wales in his 2010 book Harmony: A New Way of Looking at Our World, writes: "A specifically mechanistic science has only recently assumed a position of such authority in the world... (and) not only has it prevented us from considering the world philosophically any more, our predominantly mechanistic way of looking at the world has also excluded our spiritual relationship with Nature. Any such concerns get short shrift in the mainstream debate about what we do to the Earth." Prince Charles, who has promoted environmental awareness since the 1980s, continues: "... by continuing to deny ourselves this profound, ancient, intimate relationship with Nature, I fear we are compounding our subconscious sense of alienation and disintegration, which is mirrored in the fragmentation and disruption of harmony we are bringing about in the world around us. At the moment we are disrupting the teeming diversity of life and the 'ecosystems' that sustain it—the forests and prairies, the woodland, moorland and fens, the oceans, rivers and streams. And this all adds up to the degree of 'disease' we are causing to the intricate balance that regulates the planet's climate, on which we so intimately depend."

In May 2015 Pope Francis's Encyclical, "Laudato Si': On Care for our Common Home", endorsed the need for a spiritual and moral response to our environmental crisis, and thus implicitly brings the subject of spiritual ecology to the forefront of our present ecological debate. This encyclical recognizes that "The ecological crisis is essentially a spiritual problem", in line with the ideas of this developing field. American environmentalist, author, and journalist Bill McKibben who has written extensively on the impact of global warming, says that Pope Francis has "brought the full weight of the spiritual order to bear on the global threat posed by climate change, and in so doing joined its power with the scientific order".

Scientist, environmentalist, and a leader in sustainable ecology David Suzuki also expresses the importance of including the sacred in addressing the ecological crisis: "The way we see the world shapes the way we treat it. If a mountain is a deity, not a pile of ore; if a river is one of the veins of the land, not potential irrigation water; if a forest is a sacred grove, not timber; if other species are biological kin, not resources; or if the planet is our mother, not an opportunity—then we will treat each other with greater respect. Thus is the challenge, to look at the world from a different perspective."

A Catholic nun interviewed by Sarah MacFarland Taylor, author of the 2009 book, Green Sisters: Spiritual Ecology, articulates this perspective of unity: "There is no division between planting new fields and prayer."

Indigenous wisdom
Many in the field of spiritual ecology agree that a distinct stream of experience threading throughout history that has at its heart a lived understanding of the principles, values and attitudes of spiritual ecology: indigenous wisdom. The term "indigenous" in this context refers to that which is native, original, and resident to a place, more specifically to societies who share and preserve ways of knowing the world in relationship to the land. For many Native traditions, the earth is the central spiritual context. This principle condition reflects an attitude and way of being in the world that is rooted in land and embedded in place. Spiritual ecology directs us to look to revered holders of these traditions in order to understand the source of our current ecological and spiritual crisis and find guidance to move into a state of balance.

Features of many indigenous teachings include life as a continual act of prayer and thanksgiving, knowledge and symbiotic relationship with an animate nature, and being aware of one's actions on future generations. Such understanding necessarily implies a mutuality and reciprocity between people, earth and the cosmos.

The above historical trajectory is located predominantly in a Judeo-Christian European context, for it is within this context that humanity experienced the loss of the sacred nature of creation, with its devastating consequences. For example, with colonization, indigenous spiritual ecology was historically replaced by an imposed Western belief that land and the environment are commodities to be used and exploited, with exploitation of natural resources in the name of socio-economic evolution. This perspective "... tended to remove any spiritual value of the land, with regard only given for economic value, and this served to further distance communities from intimate relationships with their environments", often with "devastating consequences for indigenous people and nature around the world". Research on early prehistoric human activity in the Quaternary extinction event, shows overhunting megafauna well before European colonization in North America, South America and Australia. While this might cast doubt upon the view of indigenous wisdom and the sacred relationship to land and environment throughout the entirety of human history, it this does not negate the more recent devastating effects as referenced.

Along with the basic principles and behaviors advocated by spiritual ecology, some indigenous traditions hold the same evolutionary view articulated by the Western spiritual teachers listed above. The understanding of humanity evolving toward a state of unity and harmony with the earth after a period of discord and suffering is described in a number of prophecies around the globe. These include the White Buffalo prophecy of the Plains Indians, the prophecy of the Eagle and Condor from the people of the Andes, and the Onondaga prophecies held and retold by Oren Lyons.

Current trends
Spiritual ecology is developing largely in three arenas identified above: science and academia, religion and spirituality, and environmental conservation.

Science and academia
Among scholars contributing to spiritual ecology, five stand out: Steven Clark Rockefeller, Mary Evelyn Tucker, John Grim, Bron Taylor and Roger S. Gottlieb.

Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim are the co-ordinators of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology, an international multi-religious project exploring religious world-views, texts ethics and practices in order to broaden understanding of the complex nature of current environmental concerns.

Steven C. Rockefeller is an author of numerous books about religion and the environment, and is professor emeritus of religion at Middlebury College. He played a leading role in the drafting of the Earth Charter.

Roger S. Gottlieb is a professor of Philosophy at Worcester Polytechnic Institute is author of over 100 articles and 16 books on environmentalism, religious life, contemporary spirituality, political philosophy, ethics, feminism, and the Holocaust.

Bron Taylor at the University of Florida coined the term "Dark Green Religion" to describe a set of beliefs and practices centered on the conviction that nature is sacred.

Other leaders in the field include: Leslie E. Sponsel at the University of Hawaiʻi, Sarah McFarland Taylor at Northwestern University, Mitchell Thomashow at Antioch University New England and the Schumacher College Programs.

Within the field of science, spiritual ecology is emerging in arenas including physics, biology (e.g. Ursula Goodenough), consciousness studies (e.g. Brian Swimme at California Institute of Integral Studies), systems theory (e.g. David Loy), and the Gaia hypothesis, which was first articulated by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis in the 1970s.

Another example is scientist and author Diana Beresford-Kroeger, world recognized expert on how trees chemically affect the environment, who brings together the fields of ethnobotany, horticulture, ecology, and spirituality in relation to the current ecological crisis and stewardship of the natural world. She says, "... the world, the gift of this world is fantastic and phenomenal. The molecular working of the world is extraordinary, the mathematics of the world is extraordinary ... sacred and science go together."

Religion and ecology
Within many faiths, environmentalism is becoming an area of study and advocacy. Pope Francis's May 2015 encyclical, Laudato si', offered a strong confirmation of spiritual ecology and its principles from within the Catholic Church. Additionally, over 150 leaders from various faiths signed a letter to the UN Climate Summit in Paris 2015 recognizing the earth as "a gift" from God and calling for climate action.

Christian environmentalists emphasize the ecological responsibilities of all Christians as stewards of God's earth, while contemporary Muslim religious ecology is inspired by Qur'anic themes, such as mankind being khalifa, or trustee of God on earth (2:30). There is also a Jewish ecological perspective based upon the Bible and Torah, for example the laws of bal tashchit (neither to destroy wantonly, nor waste resources unnecessarily). Engaged Buddhism applies Buddhist principles and teachings to social and environmental issues. A collection of Buddhist responses to global warming can be seen at Ecological Buddhism.

In addition to Pope Francis, other world traditions currently seem to include a subset of leaders committed to an ecological perspective. The "Green Patriarch" Bartholomew I, the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church, has worked since the late nineties to bring together scientists, environmentalists, religious leaders and policy makers to address the ecological crisis, and says protecting the planet is a "sacred task and a common vocation ... Global warming is a moral crisis and a moral challenge." The Islamic Foundation For Ecology And Environmental Sciences (IFEES) were one of the sponsors of the International Islamic Climate Change Symposium held in Istanbul in August 2015, which resulted in "The Islamic Declaration on Global Climate Change"—a declaration endorsed by religious leaders, noted Islamic scholars and teachers from 20 countries. In October, 2015, 425 rabbis signed "A Rabbinic Letter on the Climate Crisis", calling for vigorous action to prevent worsening climate disruption and to seek eco-social justice. Hindu scriptures also allude strongly and often to the connection between humans and nature, and these texts form the foundation of the Hindu Declaration on Climate Change, presented at a 2009 meeting of the Parliament of World Religions. Many world faith and religious leaders, such as the 14th Dalai Lama, were present at the 2015 Climate Change Conference, and shared the view that: "Saving the planet is not just a political duty, but also a moral one." The Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, has also stated, "The environmental emergency that we face is not just a scientific issue, nor is it just a political issue—it is also a moral issue."

These religious approaches to ecology also have a growing interfaith expression, for example in the Interfaith Center for Sustainable Development where world religious leaders speak out on climate change and sustainability. And at their gathering in Fall 2015, the Parliament of World Religions created a declaration for Interfaith Action on Climate Change, and "brought together more than 10,000 activists, professors, clergy, and global leaders from 73 countries and 50 faiths to confront climate change".

Earth-based traditions and earth spirituality
Care for and respect to earth as sacred—as Mother Earth (Mother Nature)—who provides life and nourishment, is one form of Earth-based spirituality. PaGaian Cosmology is a tradition within such Earth-based spirituality. Glenys Livingstone describes it in her book as "an ecospirituality grounded in indigenous Western religious celebration of the Earth-Sun annual cycle. By linking to story of the unfolding universe this practice can be deepened. And a sense of the Triple Goddess—central to the cycle and known in ancient cultures—may be developed as a dynamic innate to all being. The ritual scripts and the process of ritual events presented here, may be a journey into self-knowledge through personal, communal and ecological story: the self to be known is one that is integral with place."

Spirituality and ecology
While religiously-oriented environmentalism is grounded in scripture and theology, there is a movement that articulates the need for an ecological approach founded on spiritual awareness rather than religious belief. The individuals articulating this approach may have a religious background, but their ecological vision comes from their own lived spiritual experience. The difference between this spiritually-oriented ecology and a religious approach to ecology can be seen as analogous to how the Inter-spiritual Movement moves beyond interfaith and interreligious dialogue to focus on the actual experience of spiritual principles and practices. Spiritual ecology similarly explores the importance of this experiential spiritual dimension in relation to the present ecological crisis.

The Engaged Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh speaks of the importance of mindfulness in taking care of our Mother Earth, and how the highest form of prayer is real communion with the Earth. Franciscan friar Richard Rohr emphasizes the need to experience the whole world as a divine incarnation. Sufi mystic Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee directs our attention not just to the suffering of the physical world, but also its interior spiritual self, or anima mundi (world soul).

Cultural ecologist and geophilosopher David Abram, who coined the phrase "the more-than-human world" (in order to describe nature as a realm that thoroughly includes humankind with all our culture yet also necessarily exceeds human creativity and culture) aims the careful language of his writing and speaking toward a reenchantment of matter. He was the first philosopher to call for an attentive reappraisal of "animism" as a uniquely ecological way of perceiving, speaking, and thinking; his writings are now associated with a broad movement, among both academics and environmental activists, often termed the "new animism"

Environmental conservation
The environmental conservation field has been informed, shaped, and led by individuals who have reported profound experiences of nature's sacredness and have fought to protect it.

Robin Wall Kimmerer, Professor of Environmental and Forest Biology at the State University of New York, has founded the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment which bridges scientific based study of ecology and the environment with traditional ecological knowledge, which includes spirituality. As she wrote in BioScience: "Traditional ecological knowledge is increasingly being sought by academics, agency scientists, and policymakers as a potential source of ideas for emerging models of ecosystem management, conservation biology, and ecological restoration. It has been recognized as complementary and equivalent to scientific knowledge... Traditional ecological knowledge is not unique to Native American culture but exists all over the world, independent of ethnicity. It is born of long intimacy and attentiveness to a homeland and can arise wherever people are materially and spiritually integrated with their landscape."

The World Wide Fund for Nature has developed "Sacred Earth: Faiths for Conservation", a program to collaborate with spiritual leaders and faith communities from all different spiritual traditions around the world, to face environmental issues including deforestation, pollution, unsustainable extraction, melting glaciers and rising sea levels. The Sacred Earth program works with faith-based leaders and communities, who "best articulate ethical and spiritual ideals around the sacred value of Earth and its diversity, and are committed to protecting it".

One of the conservation projects developed from the WWF Sacred Earth program is Khoryug, based in the Eastern Himalayas, which is an association of several Tibetan Buddhist monasteries that works on environmental protection of the Himalayan region through apply the values of compassion and interdependence towards the Earth and all living beings that dwell here. Organized under the auspices of the 17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, the Khoryug project resulted in the publication of environmental guidelines for Buddhists and "more than 55 monastery-led projects to address forest degradation, water loss, wildlife trade, waste, pollution and climate change".

Krishna Kant Shukla, a physicist and musician, is noted for his lectures on "Indian villages as models of sustainable development" and his work in establishing Saha Astitva, a model ecovillage and organic farm in tribal Maharashtra, India.

Women have shown a unique commitment and capacity to protect the earth's resources, as illustrated by the lives of Wangari Maathai, founder of Africa's Green Belt Movement, which was initially made up of women planting trees; Jane Goodall, innovator of local sustainable programs in Africa, many of which are designed to empower girls and women; and Vandana Shiva, the Indian feminist activist working on a variety of issues including seed saving, protecting small farms in India and protesting agri-business.

Other contemporary inter-disciplinary environmentalists include Wendell Berry, a farmer, poet, and academic living in Kentucky, who fights for small farms and criticizes agri-business; and Satish Kumar, a former Jain monk and founder of Schumacher College, a center for ecological studies.

Opposing views
Although the May 2015 Encyclical from Pope Francis brought the importance of the subject spiritual ecology to the fore of mainstream contemporary culture, it is a point of view that is not widely used in the work of mainstream environmentalists and ecologists. Academic research on the subject has also generated some criticism.

Ken Wilber has criticized spiritual ecology, suggesting that "spiritually oriented deep ecologists" fail to acknowledge the transcendent aspect of the divine, or hierarchical cosmologies, and thus exclude an important aspect of spirituality, as well as presenting what Wilber calls a one-dimensional "flat land" ontology in which the sacred in nature is wholly immanent. But Wilber's views are also criticized as not including an in-depth understanding of indigenous spirituality.

title: Spiritual ecology


text:
Wikipedia:Wikifun/Round 4

Want to have some wikifun? Good, then follow the guideline below and go for it!

 * King William's College quiz has been moved to its own page.

'''The winner of round four is... Lupo! Congratulations!'''

Wikihunt
How fast are you at finding information? Do you know where to look? Test your skills here with the scavenger hunt activity through the pages of Wikipedia. In order to participate, simply follow the tasks below and enter your answers via the links below. Then wait for the next task to be added to this page. There can be more than one individual to answer a question, as the first may be wrong. Remember to place your timestamp to ensure your place. When the last task time frame is closed, the winners will be posted in chronological order (that is if their answers are right). The individual with the most correct answers will be contacted and asked to assist in the next task line-up. Keep in mind not to view the answers others have submitted, as you will be cheating yourself and others. All answers can be found in wikipedia, so please use only wikipedia for research; otherwise you'll spoil the fun. Feel free to post any comments, questions or ideas for improvement on the discussion page.

We're playing on a game field consisting of all Information in English on Wikipedia, including its sister and meta projects. Mailing lists, IRC channels, and their archives are off-limits. Off-site web pages ("external links") also are discounted. Using Wiki-search or any external search engine with the search restricted to the above domains is ok. Using unrestricted searches of the whole web is cheating. Interwiki links to other language Wikipedias should not be used; all answers should be found on pages in the English language.

Current round (round 4)
This round is now closed

Round 4 will be similar to the previous round: 20 questions will be posted, all at once. The first ten questions correctly answered are worth one point each for the poster of the first correct answer. The next five questions answered are worth two points. The last five questions to be answered are worth three points. (Note: it's the order in which questions are answered correctly that determines the number of points awarded for a question, not the numbering below!) In case of a tie, there will be a tie-breaker, to be answered only by those tied. Hopefully the questions are difficult (or mean, if you like :-) enough to let the contest last for a few days...

The Questions
These are the questions for round 4. If you have found the answer to one of them, use the "Answer this question" links below the questions. You have to specify where on Wikipedia you found the answer, and I would like to know too how you found that location.

There can be more than one individual to answer a question, as the first may be wrong. Remember to place your timestamp to ensure your place. When all questions are answered, the winners will be posted in chronological order (that is if their answers are right). The individual with the most correct answers will be contacted and asked to assist in the next task line-up.

Eugene van der Pijll

Note: there are two rule changes, compared to last time:
 * the last five questions to be answered are now worth 3 points;
 * Wikipedia (and sister project) pages in other languages than English are now off-limit.

Question 1
How Embarrassing...

The ruler of Belgium fell off his horse into the water during an 18th century battle. How large was the opposing army?

Answer this question

 * This question was the ninth to be answered correctly; 1 point for Timc.

Question 2
Taken To Extremes

Norway is to Kræmerpynten as France is to ... ?

Answer this question

 * This question was the twelfth to be answered correctly; 2 points for Lupo.

Question 3
?!

John Wells wrote it as a question mark. How did the Phoenicians write it?

Answer this question

 * This question was the first to be answered correctly; 1 point for Maycontainpeanuts.

Question 4
Disappointing Visit

When did the local benevolent dictator visit Italy?

Answer this question

 * This question was the fourth to be answered correctly; 1 point for Lupo.

Question 5
Architecture And Music

Julian is a British architect. What is the name of his musical uncle?

Answer this question

 * This question was the eighteenth to be answered correctly; 3 point for Torien.

Question 6
Eh?

For most of us, a "bunny hug" is a type of dance, but what is a "bunny hug" in some parts of Canada?

Answer this question

 * This question was the fifth to be answered correctly; 1 point for Lupo.

Question 7
Geography

What is the distance between the two largest conurbations of France by bike?

Answer this question

 * This question was the eighth to be answered correctly; 1 point for Lupo.

Question 8
Alhambra

What building in the Middle-East is this?

Answer this question

 * This question was the seventeenth to be answered correctly; 3 points for Lupo.

Question 9
Unicode Fun

Which is the odd one out, and why? Ж — 祖 — ワィ — Ὠ — ي

Answer this question

 * This question was the fifteenth to be answered correctly; 2 points for SYSS Mouse.

Question 10
Massacre Of The Innocents

12 million young Chinooks and Cohos were killed in a single day. When?

Answer this question

 * This question was the second to be answered correctly; 1 point for Nominus.

Question 11
Something Is Not Right Here

What did the man who beat Isambard Brunel reportedly have in common with a legendary female baker?

Answer this question

 * This question was the sixth to be answered correctly; 1 point for Maycontainpeanuts.

Question 12
Namesakes

A wealthy farmer in central California in the late 19th century shares his first name with a number of Frankish kings. One of these kings was known as "the Great". When did he reign?

Answer this question

 * This question was the eleventh to be answered correctly; 2 points for Lee.

Question 13
Someone You Know?

This soccer player lives in Florida, has 10 pets, and shares his or her name with a Franz Kafka novel. Who is it?

Answer this question

Question 14
False Advertising

Two percent of the inhabitants of this region, almost twice the size of Israel, is Jewish, although the name of the region suggests otherwise. What is the region, and how many inhabitants did it have at the last count?

Answer this question

 * This question was the thirteenth to be answered correctly; 2 points for Maycontainpeanuts.

Question 15
Gallus gallus enormus

It's a chicken with a diameter of two miles! What is its number?

Answer this question

 * This question was the seventh to be answered correctly; 1 point for Nominus.

Question 16
Science And Technology

What blue book can be found next to the kitchen sink at the physics department of Harvard University?

Answer this question

 * This question was the sixteenth to be answered correctly; 3 points for Lupo.

Question 17
Extended Family

Jacques, Charlemagne, Etienne, Babette, Georgette, Erique, Alfred, and Lance were brothers and sisters. What was their surname?

Answer this question

Question 18
It's All Greek To Me

What is the approximate population of Tripoli, the capital of Arcadia?

Answer this question

 * This question was the fourteenth to be answered correctly; 2 points for Lee.

Question 19
History Lesson

What island was populated in the reign of king Manuel I, in the year of 1510, with people of some regions of continental Portugal, mainly of the northern provinces?

Answer this question

 * This question was the tenth to be answered correctly; 1 point for Timc.

Question 20
No Idea

Where can every registered user of wikipedia find his internal ID number?

Answer this question

 * This question was the third to be answered correctly; 1 point for Nominus.

Final standings

 * 1. User:Lupo, 11 points
 * 2. User:Maycontainpeanuts, 4 points
 * =. User:Lee, 4 points
 * 4. User:Nominus, 3 points
 * =. User:Torien, 3 points
 * 6. User:Timc, 2 points
 * =. User:SYSS Mouse, 2 points

The quiz is now closed. Two questions were left unanswered: questions 13 and 17. I have now given the correct answers to these on their answer pages.

Congratulations Lupo, with your clear victory.

If someone wants to organize the next round, you're welcome. Please discuss at the talk page. And if you have some feedback on the questions of this round, I'd like to hear them; please put it on the talk page as well.

Eugene van der Pijll 01:25, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

title: Wikipedia:Wikifun/Round 4