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Barbette

Barbettes are several types of gun emplacement in terrestrial fortifications or on naval ships.

In recent naval usage, a barbette is a protective circular armour support for a heavy gun turret. This evolved from earlier forms of gun protection that eventually led to the pre-dreadnought. The name barbette ultimately comes from fortification: it originally meant a raised platform or mound, as in the French phrase en barbette, which refers to the practice of firing a cannon over a parapet rather than through an embrasure in a fortification's casemate. The former gives better angles of fire but less protection than the latter. The disappearing gun was a variation on the barbette gun; it consisted of a heavy gun on a carriage that would retract behind a parapet or into a gunpit for reloading. Barbettes were primarily used in coastal defences, but saw some use in a handful of warships, and some inland fortifications. The term is also used for certain aircraft gun mounts.

Shipboard barbettes were primarily used in armoured warships, starting in the 1860s during a period of intense experimentation with other mounting systems for heavy guns at sea. In these, gun barrels usually protruded over the barbette edge, so barbettes provided only partial protection, mainly for the ammunition supply. Alternatives included the heavily-armoured gun turret and an armoured, fixed central gun battery. By the late 1880s, all three systems were replaced with a hybrid barbette-turret system that combined the benefits of both types. The armoured vertical tube that supported the new gun mount was referred to as a barbette.

Guns with restricted arcs of fire mounted in heavy bombers during World War II—such those in the tail of the aircraft, as opposed to fully revolving turrets—were also sometimes referred to as having barbette mounts, though usage of the term is primarily restricted to British publications. American authors generally refer to such mounts as tail guns or as tail gun turrets.

Use in fortifications
The use of barbette mountings originated in ground fortifications. The term originally referred to a raised platform on a rampart for one or more guns, enabling them to be fired over a parapet. This gave rise to the phrase en barbette, which referred to a gun placed to fire over a parapet, rather than through an embrasure, an opening in a fortification wall. While an en barbette emplacement offered wider arcs of fire, it also exposed the gun's crew to greater danger from hostile fire. In addition, since the barbette position would be higher than a casemate position—that is, a gun firing through an embrasure—it would generally have a greater field of fire.

The American military theorist Dennis Hart Mahan suggested that light guns, particularly howitzers, were best suited for barbette emplacements since they could fire explosive shells and could be easily withdrawn when they came under enemy fire. Fortifications in the 19th century typically employed both casemate and barbette emplacements. For example, the Russian Constantine Battery outside Sevastopol was equipped with 43 heavy guns in its seaward side during the Crimean War in the mid-1850s; of these, 27 were barbette mounted, with the rest in casemates.

A modified version of the barbette type was the disappearing gun, which placed a heavy gun on a carriage that retracted behind a parapet for reloading; this better protected the crew, and made the gun harder to target, since it was only visible while it was firing. The type was usually used for coastal defence guns. As naval gun turrets improved to allow greater elevation and range, many disappearing guns, most of which were limited in elevation, were seen as obsolescent; with aircraft becoming prominent in the First World War, they were largely seen as obsolete. However, they remained in use through the early Second World War, at least by the United States, due to limited funding for replacement weapons between the wars.

Later heavy coastal guns were often protected in hybrid installations, in wide casemates with cantilevered overhead cover partially covering a barbette or gunhouse mount.

Use in warships
Following the introduction of ironclad warships in the early 1860s, naval designers grappled with the problem of mounting heavy guns in the most efficient way possible. The first generation of ironclads employed the same broadside arrangement as the old ship of the line, but it was not particularly effective for ahead or stern fire. This was particularly important to designers, since the tactic of ramming was revived following its successful employment at the decisive Austrian victory at the Battle of Lissa in 1866. Ramming required a ship to steam directly at its opponent, which greatly increased the importance of end-on fire.

Designers such as Cowper Phipps Coles and John Ericsson designed the first gun turrets in the 1860s, which gave the guns a wide field of fire. These turrets were exceedingly heavy, which required them to be placed low in the ship to reduce top-weight—and produced a dangerous tendency to capsize in heavy seas, amply demonstrated by the loss of HMS Captain (1869) and Coles himself with the ship in a gale in 1870.

In the 1870s, designers began to experiment with an en barbette type of mounting. The barbette was a fixed armoured enclosure protecting the gun. The barbette could take the form of a circular or elongated ring of armour around the rotating gun mount over which the guns (possibly fitted with a gun shield) fired. The barbette system reduced weight considerably, since the machinery for the rotating gun mount, along with the mount itself, was much lighter than that required for the gun house of a turret. The savings in weight could then be passed on to increase armour protection for the hull, improve coal storage capacity, or to install larger, more powerful engines. In addition, because barbettes were lighter, they could be placed higher in the ship without jeopardizing stability, which improved their ability to be worked in heavy seas that would have otherwise rendered turrets unusable. This also permitted a higher freeboard, which also improved seakeeping.

Ironclads equipped with barbettes were referred to as "barbette ships" much like their contemporaries, turret ships and central battery ships, which mounted their heavy guns in turrets or in a central armored battery. Many navies experimented with all three types in the 1870s and 1880s, including the British Admiral-class battleships, the French Marceau-class ironclads, the Italian Italia-class battleships, and the German Sachsen-class ironclads, all of which employed barbettes to mount their heavy guns. All of these navies also built turret and or central battery ships during the same period, though none had a decisive advantage over the other. The British and the Russian navies experimented with using disappearing guns afloat, including on the British HMS Temeraire (1876), the Russian monitor Vitse-admiral Popov, and some of the Ekaterina II-class battleships. They were not deemed particularly successful and were not repeated.

In the late 1880s, the debate between barbette or turret mounts was finally settled. The Royal Sovereign-class battleship, mounted their guns in barbettes, but the follow-on design, the Majestic-class battleship, adopted a new mounting that combined the benefits of both kinds of mounts. A heavily armoured, rotating gun house was added to the revolving platform, which kept the guns and their crews protected. The gun house was smaller and lighter than the old-style turrets, which still permitted placement higher in the ship and the corresponding benefits to stability and seakeeping. This innovation gradually became known simply as a turret, though the armored tube that held the turret substructure, which included the shell and propellant handling rooms and the ammunition hoists, was still referred to as a barbette. These ships were the prototype of the so-called pre-dreadnought battleships, which proved to be broadly influential in all major navies over the next fifteen years.

Ships equipped with barbette mountings did not see a great deal of combat, owing to the long period of relative peace between their appearance in the 1870s and their obsolescence in the 1890s. Some barbette ships saw action during the British Bombardment of Alexandria in 1882, and the FRENCH IRONCLAD Triomphante participated in the Battle of Fuzhou during the Sino-French War in 1884. The two Chinese ironclads, CHINESE TURRET SHIP Dingyuan and CHINESE TURRET SHIP Zhenyuan, that took part in the Battle of the Yalu River during the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894, carried their main battery in barbettes, though they were equipped with extensive gun shields that resembled turrets. The shields were nevertheless only proof against small-arms fire. Three of their opponents at the Yalu River, the Japanese Matsushima-class cruisers, also mounted their guns in open barbettes. Those barbette ships that survived into World War I were typically used only for secondary purposes. For example, the French FRENCH IRONCLAD Marceau was used as a repair ship for submarines and torpedo boats, while the German SMS Württemberg (1878) was employed as a torpedo training ship. A handful of barbette ships did see action during the war, including HMS Revenge (1892), which bombarded German positions in Flanders in 1914 and 1915.

Use in bomber aircraft

When applied to military aircraft, largely in aviation history books written by British historians, a barbette is a position on an aircraft where a gun is in a mounting which has a restricted arc of fire when compared to a turret, or which is remotely mounted away from the gunner. As such it is frequently used to describe the tail gunner position on bombers such as the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, with American aviation books frequently describing the position as a tail gun turret, or simply as a tail gun.

The term "barbette" is also used by some, again primarily British historians, to describe a remotely aimed and operated gun turret emplacement on almost any non-American military aircraft of World War II, but it is not usable in a direct translation for the varying German language terms used on Luftwaffe aircraft of that era for such emplacements. As just one example, the German Heinkel He 177A heavy bomber had such a remotely operated twin-MG 131 machine gun Fernbedienbare Drehlafette FDL 131Z (Z – "zwilling"/twin) powered forward dorsal gun turret, with the full translation of the German term comprising the prefix as "Remotely controlled rotating gun mount". The term "lafette" in German actually refers to a gun carriage of nearly any type, with its original use as being for the mounting design for bombard-style siege guns of the Middle Ages.

title: Barbette


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Han River (Hubei and Shaanxi)

The Han River, also known by its Chinese names Hanshui (汉水) and Han Jiang (汉江), is a major river in Central China. A left tributary of the Yangtze, the longest river in Asia, it has a length of 1532 km and is the longest tributary of the Yangtze system.

The river gave its name to the ancient Chinese Han dynasty, which marked one of ancient China's first golden ages and through it, to the Han Chinese, the dominant ethnic group in modern China and the most populous ethnic group in the world. It is also the namesake of the city of Hanzhong on its upper course.

Geography
The headwaters of the Han flow from Mount Bozhong in southwestern Shaanxi. The stream then travels east across the southern part of that province. Its highland valley—known as the Qinba Laolin—divides and is protected by the Qinling or Qin Mountains to its north and the Dabashan or Daba Mountains to its south. The main cities are Hanzhong in the west and Ankang in the east. It then enters Hubei. It crosses most of Hubei from the northwest to the southeast, flowing into the Yangtze at the provincial capital Wuhan, a city of several million inhabitants. The merging rivers divide the city of Wuhan into three sections: Wuchang in the south, Hankou to the northeast of the confluence, and Hanyang to its southwest. The area surrounding the confluence is known as the Jianghan Plain.

Apart from a few major basins, such as the area around Hanzhong, the highlands of the Han were covered in primeval forests as late as the 19th century. The Nanshan Forest covered the northern slopes; the Bashan Forest, the southern.

Hydroelectric Projects
Danjiangkou Dam was constructed on the Han River in northern Hubei in 1958. It has been heightened since. The Danjiangkou Reservoir created thereby is now used as part of the South–North Water Transfer Project.

Culture
The river was previously considered holy by the inhabitants on its banks. It is also considered part of the dividing line between northern and southern China.

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

title: Han River (Hubei and Shaanxi)


text: User talk:61.95.204.240

title: User talk:61.95.204.240


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User talk:Cwydian

Re: Mistaken Identity?
Hi; yes, if you're not the one who vandalised Hope Diamond, the messages certainly weren't meant for you. This is a known bug I believe; for some as yet unknown reason, the talk pages of certain IPs (usually proxies, such as this one) seem to get tangled up with completely unrelated IPs resulting in much confusion. If you're not (as you've said) connecting through Wayne Public School District 17's network, you have nothing to worry about. Now that you've logged in these crosswired messages shouldn't bother you any longer. I apologise for any trouble this has caused you.

Now that you've created an account, I hope you find yourself at home here and decide to stay. Check out Welcome, newcomers for a good place to begin learning the wiki ropes, if you haven't already. Happy editing! -- Hadal 05:32, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

title: User talk:Cwydian


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Popular Electronics

Popular Electronics was an American magazine published by John August Media, LLC, and hosted at TechnicaCuriosa.com. The magazine was started by Ziff-Davis Publishing Company in October 1954 for electronics hobbyists and experimenters. It soon became the "World's Largest-Selling Electronics Magazine". In April 1957, Ziff-Davis reported an average net paid circulation of 240,151 copies. Popular Electronics was published until October 1982 when, in November 1982, Ziff-Davis launched a successor magazine, Computers & Electronics. During its last year of publication by Ziff-Davis, Popular Electronics reported an average monthly circulation of 409,344 copies. The title was sold to Gernsback Publications, and their Hands-On Electronics magazine was renamed to Popular Electronics in February 1989, and published until December 1999. The Popular Electronics trademark was then acquired by John August Media, who revived the magazine, the digital edition of which is hosted at TechnicaCuriosa.com, along with sister titles, Mechanix Illustrated and Popular Astronomy.

A cover story on Popular Electronics could launch a new product or company. The most famous issue, January 1975, had the Altair 8800 computer on the cover and ignited the home computer revolution. Paul Allen showed that issue to Bill Gates. They wrote a BASIC interpreter for the Altair computer and started Microsoft.

How it started
Radio & Television News was a magazine for professionals and the editors wanted to create a magazine for hobbyists. Ziff-Davis had started Popular Aviation in 1927 and Popular Photography in 1934 but found that Gernsback Publications had the trademark on Popular Electronics. It was used in Radio-Craft from 1943 until 1948. Ziff-Davis bought the trademark and started Popular Electronics with the October 1954 issue.

Many of the editors and authors worked for both Ziff-Davis magazines. Initially Oliver Read was the editor of both Radio & Television News and Popular Electronics. Read was promoted to Publisher in June 1956. Oliver Perry Ferrell took over as editor of Popular Electronics and William A. Stocklin became editor of Radio & Television News. In Radio & TV News John T. Frye wrote a column on a fictional repair shop where the proprietor, Mac, would interact with other technicians and customers. The reader would learn repair techniques for servicing radios and TVs. In Popular Electronics his column was about two high school boys, Carl and Jerry. Each month the boys would have an adventure that would teach the reader about electronics.

By 1954 building audio and radio kits was a growing pastime. Heathkit and many others offered kits that included all of the parts with detailed instructions. The premier cover shows the assembly of a Heathkit A-7B audio amplifier. Popular Electronics would offer projects that were built from scratch; that is, the individual parts were purchased at a local electronics store or by mail order. The early issues often showed these as father and son projects.

Most of the early projects used vacuum tubes, as transistors (which had just become available to hobbyists) were expensive: the small-signal Raytheon CK722 transistor was US$3.50 in the December 1954 issue, while a typical small-signal vacuum tube (the 12AX7) was $0.61. Lou Garner wrote the feature story for the first issue, a battery-powered tube radio that could be used on a bicycle. Later he was given a column called Transistor Topics (June 1956). Transistors soon cost less than a dollar and transistor projects became common in every issue of Popular Electronics. The column was renamed to Solid State in 1965 and ran under his byline until December 1978.

Typical 1962 issue
The July 1962 issue had 112 pages, the editor was Oliver P. Ferrell and the monthly circulation was 400,000. The magazine had a full page of electronics news that was called "POP'tronics News Scope." In January 2000 a successor magazine was renamed Poptronics. In the 1960s, Fawcett Publications had a competing magazine, Electronics Illustrated.

The cover showed a 15-inch (38 cm) black and white TV kit by Conar that cost $135. The feature construction story was a "Radiation Fallout Monitor" for "keeping track of the radiation level in your neighborhood." (The Cuban Missile Crisis happened that October.) Other construction projects included "The Fish Finder", an underwater temperature probe; the "Transistorized Tremolo" for an electric guitar; and a one tube VHF receiver to listen to aircraft.

There were regular columns for Citizens Band (CB), amateur radio and shortwave listening (SWL). These would show a reader with his radio equipment each month. (Almost all of the readers were male.) Lou Garner's Transistor Topics covers the new transistorized FM stereo receivers and several readers' circuits. John T. Frye's fictional characters, Carl and Jerry, use a PH meter to locate the source of pollution in a river.

Authors and kits
As Editor, Olivier Ferrell built a stable of authors who contributed interesting construction projects. These projects established the style of Popular Electronics for years to come. Two of the most prolific authors were Daniel Meyer and Don Lancaster.

Daniel Meyer graduated from Southwest Texas State (1957) and became an engineer at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. He soon started writing hobbyist articles. The first was in Electronics World (May 1960) and latter he had a 2 part cover feature for Radio-Electronics (October, November 1962). The March 1963 issue of Popular Electronics featured his ultrasonic listening device on the cover.

Don Lancaster graduated from Lafayette College (1961) and Arizona State University (1966). A 1960s fad was to have colored lights synchronized with music. This psychedelic lighting was made economical by the development of the silicon controlled rectifier (SCR). Don's first published article was "Solid-State 3-Channel Color Organ" in the April 1963 issue of Electronics World. He was paid $150 for the story.

The projects in Popular Electronics changed from vacuum tube to solid state in the early 1960s. Tube circuits used a metal chassis with sockets, transistor circuits worked best on a printed circuit board. They would often contain components that were not available at the local electronics parts store.

Dan Meyer saw the business opportunity in providing circuit boards and parts for the Popular Electronics projects. In January 1964 he left Southwest Research Institute to start an electronics kit company. He continued to write articles and ran the mail order kit business from his home in San Antonio, Texas. By 1965 he was providing the kits for other authors such as Lou Garner. In 1967 he sold a kit for Don Lancaster's "IC-67 Metal Locator". In early 1967 Meyer moved his growing business from his home to a new building on a 3-acre (12,000 m2) site in San Antonio. The Daniel E. Meyer Company (DEMCO) became Southwest Technical Products Corporation (SWTPC) that fall.

In 1967, Popular Electronics had 6 articles by Dan Meyer and 4 by Don Lancaster. Seven of that year's cover stories featured kits sold by SWTPC. In the years 1966 to 1971 SWTPC's authors wrote 64 articles and had 25 cover stories in Popular Electronics. (Don Lancaster alone had 23 articles and 10 were cover stories.) The San Antonio Express-News did a feature story on Southwest Technical Products in November 1972. "Meyer built his mail-order business from scratch to more than $1 million in sales in six years." The company was shipping 100 kits a day from 1800 square feet (1,700 m2) of buildings.

Others noticed SWTPC success. Forrest Mims, a founder of MITS (Altair 8800), tells about his "Light-Emitting Diodes" cover story (Popular Electronics, November 1970) in an interview with Creative Computing.

In March, I sold my first article to Popular Electronics magazine, a feature about light-emitting diodes. At one of our midnight meetings I suggested that we emulate Southwest Technical Products and develop a project article for Popular Electronics. The article would give us free advertising for the kit version of the project, and the magazine would even pay us for the privilege of printing it! The November 1970 issue also has an article by Forrest M. Mims and Henry E. Roberts titled "Assemble an LED Communicator - The Opticon." A kit of parts could be ordered from MITS in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Popular Electronics paid $400 for the article.

Merger with Electronics World
Radio & Television News became Electronics World in 1959 and in January 1972 was merged into Popular Electronics. The process started in the summer of 1971 with a new editor, Milton S. Snitzer, replacing the longtime editor, Oliver P. Ferrell. The publishers decided to focus on topics with prosperous advertisers, such as CB Radio and audio equipment. Construction projects were no longer the feature articles. They were replaced by new product reviews. The change in editorial direction upset many authors. Dan Meyer wrote a letter in his SWTPC catalog referring to the magazine, Popular Electronics with Electronics World, as "PEEW". He urged his customers to switch to Radio-Electronics.

Don Lancaster, Daniel Meyer, Forrest Mims, Ed Roberts, John Simonton and other authors switched to Radio-Electronics. Even Solid State columnist Lou Garner moved to Radio-Electronics for a year. Les Solomon, the Popular Electronics Technical Editor, wrote 6 articles in the rival Radio-Electronics using the pseudonym "B. R. Rogen". In 1972 and 1973 some of the best projects appeared in Radio-Electronics as the new Popular Electronics digested the merger. The upcoming personal computer benefited from this competition between Radio-Electronics and Popular Electronics.

In September 1973 Radio-Electronics published Don Lancaster's TV Typewriter, a low cost video display. In July 1974 Radio-Electronics published the Mark-8 Personal Minicomputer based on the Intel 8008 processor. The publishers noted the success of Radio-Electronics and Arthur P. Salsberg took over as Editor in 1974. Salsberg and Technical Editor, Leslie Solomon, brought back the featured construction projects. Popular Electronics needed a computer project so they selected Ed Roberts' Altair 8800 computer based on the improved Intel 8080 processor. The January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics had the Altair computer on the cover and this launched the home computer revolution. (However, Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs incorrectly identified the magazine that ran the article as Popular Mechanics.)

The magazine was digest size (6.5 in × 9 in) for the first 20 years. The cover logo was a sans-serif typeface in a rectangular box. The covers featured a large image of the feature story, usually a construction project. In September 1970 the cover logo was changed to an underlined serif typeface. The magazine's content, typography and layout were also updated. In January 1972 the cover logo added a second line, "including Electronics World", and the volume number was restarted at 1. This second line was used for two years. The large photo of the feature project was gone, replaced by a textual list of articles. In August 1974 the magazine switched to a larger letter size format (8.5 in × 11 in). This was done to allow larger illustrations such as schematics, to switch printing to offset presses, and respond to advertisers desire for larger ad pages. The longtime tag line, "World's Largest Selling Electronics Magazine", was moved from the Table of Contents page to the cover.

Personal computers
There is debate about what machine was the first personal computer, the Altair 8800 (1975), the Mark-8 (1974), or even back to Kenbak-1 (1971). The computer in the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics captured the attention of the 400,000 or so readers. Before then, home computers were lucky to sell a hundred units. The Altair sold thousands in the first year. By the end of 1975 there were a dozen companies producing computer kits and peripherals using the Altair circuit bus, later renamed the S-100 bus and set as an IEEE standard.

The February 1975 issue featured an "All Solid-State TV Camera" by three Stanford University students: Terry Walker, Harry Garland and Roger Melen. While the Cyclops Camera, as it was called, was designed to use an oscilloscope for the image display, the article mentions that it could also be connected to the Altair computer. It soon was, the authors got one of the first Altair computers and designed an interface for the camera. They also designed a full color video display for the Altair, "The TV Dazzler", that appeared on the cover of the February 1976 issue. This was the start of Cromemco, a computer company that grew to over 500 employees by 1983.

The internet did not exist in 1975 but time-sharing computers did. With a computer terminal and a modem a user could dial into a large multi-user computer. Lee Felsenstein wanted make low-cost versions of modems and terminals available to the hobbyist. The March 1976 issue had the "Pennywhistle Modem" and the July 1976 issue had the "SOL Intelligent Terminal". The SOL, built by Processor Technology, was really an Altair compatible computer and became one of the most successful personal computers at that time.

Popular Electronics had many other computer projects such as the Altair 680, the Speechlab voice recognition board and the COSMAC ELF. They did not have the field to themselves. A dedicated computer magazine, Byte, was started in September 1975. It was soon followed by other new magazines. By the end of 1977, fully assembled computers such as Apple II, Radio Shack TRS-80, and the Commodore PET were on the market. Building computer kits was soon replaced by plugging in assembled boards.

In 1982, Popular Electronics helped to introduce personal computer programming with its Programmer’s Notebook column written by Jim Keogh. Each column focused on a game programming. The column continued onto Computer & Electronics Magazine.

Computers & Electronics
Popular Electronics continued with a full range of construction projects using the newest technologies such as microprocessors and other programmable devices. In November 1982 the magazine became Computers & Electronics. There were more equipment reviews and fewer construction projects. One of the last major projects was a bidirectional analog-to-digital converter for the Apple II computer published in July and August 1983. Art Salsberg left at the end of 1983 and Seth R. Alpert became editor. The magazine dropped all project articles and just reviewed hardware and software. The circulation was almost 600,000 in January 1985 when Forrest Mims wrote about the tenth anniversary of the Altair 8800 computer.

In October 1984 Art Salsberg started a competing magazine, Modern Electronics. Editor Alexander W. Burawa and contributors Forrest Mims, Len Feldman, and Glenn Hauser moved to Modern Electronics. Here is how Art Salsberg described the new magazine.

Directed to enthusiasts like yourselves, who savor learning more about the latest developments in electronics and computer hardware, Modern Electronics shows you what's new in the world of electronics/computers, how this equipment works, how to use them, and construction plans for useful electronic devices.

Many of you probably know of me from my decade-long stewardship of Popular Electronics magazine, which changed its name and editorial philosophy last year to distance itself from active electronics enthusiasts who move fluidly across electronics and computer product areas. In a sense, then, Modern Electronics is the successor to the original concept of Popular Electronics …

The last issue of Computers & Electronics was April 1985. The magazine still had 600,000 readers but the intense competition from other computer magazines resulted in flat advertising revenues.

Ziff-Davis asset sale
In 1953, William B. Ziff, Jr. (age 23) was thrust into the publishing business when his father died of a heart attack. In 1982, Ziff was diagnosed with prostate cancer so he asked his three sons (ages 14 to 20) if they wanted to run a publishing empire. They did not. Ziff wanted to simplify the estate by selling some of the magazines. In November 1984, CBS bought the consumer group for $362.5 million and Rupert Murdoch bought the business group for $350 million.

This left Ziff-Davis with the computer group and the database publisher (Information Access Company.) These groups were not profitable. Ziff took time off to successfully battle the prostate cancer. (He lived until 2006.) When he returned he focused on magazines like PC Magazine and MacUser to rebuild Ziff-Davis. In 1994 he and his sons sold Ziff-Davis for $1.4 billion.

Gernsback Publications
The title Popular Electronics was sold to Gernsback Publications and their Hands-On Electronics magazine was renamed to Popular Electronics in February 1989. This version was published until it was merged with Electronics Now to become Poptronics in January 2000. In late 2002, Gernsback Publications went out of business and the January 2003 Poptronics was the last issue.

title: Popular Electronics


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Russian battleship Potemkin

The Russian battleship Potemkin (Князь Потёмкин Таврический, "Prince Potemkin of Taurida") was a pre-dreadnought battleship built for the Imperial Russian Navy's Black Sea Fleet. She became famous during the Revolution of 1905, when her crew mutinied against their officers. This event later formed the basis for Sergei Eisenstein's 1925 silent film Battleship Potemkin.

After the mutineers sought asylum in Constanța, Romania, and after the Russians recovered the ship, her name was changed to Panteleimon. She accidentally sank a Russian submarine in 1909 and was badly damaged when she ran aground in 1911. During World War I, Panteleimon participated in the Battle of Cape Sarych in late 1914. She covered several bombardments of the Bosphorus fortifications in early 1915, including one where the ship was attacked by the Ottoman battlecruiser Yavuz Sultan Selim – Panteleimon and the other Russian pre-dreadnoughts present drove her off before she could inflict any serious damage. The ship was relegated to secondary roles after Russia's first dreadnought battleship entered service in late 1915. She was by then obsolete and was reduced to reserve in 1918 in Sevastopol.

Panteleimon was captured when the Germans took Sevastopol in May 1918 and was handed over to the Allies after the Armistice in November 1918. Her engines were destroyed by the British in 1919 when they withdrew from Sevastopol to prevent the advancing Bolsheviks from using them against the White Russians. The ship was abandoned when the Whites evacuated the Crimea in 1920 and was finally scrapped by the Soviets in 1923.

Background and description
Planning began in 1895 for a new battleship that would utilise a slipway slated to become available at the Nikolayev Admiralty Shipyard in 1896. The Naval Staff and the commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Vice Admiral K. P. Pilkin, agreed on a copy of the Peresvet-class battleship design, but they were over-ruled by General Admiral Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich. The General Admiral decided that the long range and less powerful 10 in guns of the Peresvet class were inappropriate for the narrow confines of the Black Sea, and ordered the design of an improved version of the battleship RUSSIAN BATTLESHIP Tri Sviatitelia instead. The improvements included a higher forecastle to improve the ship's seakeeping qualities, Krupp cemented armour and Belleville boilers. The design process was complicated by numerous changes demanded by various departments of the Naval Technical Committee. The ship's design was finally approved on 12 June 1897, although design changes continued to be made that slowed the ship's construction.

Potemkin was 371 ft long at the waterline and 378 ft long overall. She had a beam of 73 ft and a maximum draught of 27 ft. The battleship displaced 12900 LT, 420 LT more than her designed displacement of 12480 LT. The ship's crew consisted of 26 officers and 705 enlisted men.

Potemkin had a pair of three-cylinder vertical triple-expansion steam engines, each of which drove one propeller, that had a total designed output of 10600 ihp. Twenty-two Belleville boilers provided steam to the engines at a pressure of 15 atm. The 8 boilers in the forward boiler room were oil-fired and the remaining 14 were coal-fired. During her sea trials on 31 October 1903, she reached a top speed of 16.5 kn. Leaking oil caused a serious fire on 2 January 1904 that caused the navy to convert her boilers to coal firing at a cost of 20,000 rubles. The ship carried a maximum of 1100 LT of coal at full load that provided a range of 3200 nmi at a speed of 10 kn.

Armament
The battleship's main battery consisted of four 40-calibre 12 in guns mounted in twin-gun turrets fore and aft of the superstructure. The electrically operated turrets were derived from the design of those used by the Petropavlovsk-class battleships. These guns had a maximum elevation of +15° and their rate of fire was very slow, only one round every four minutes during gunnery trials. They fired a 337.7 kg shell at a muzzle velocity of 2792 ft/s. At an elevation of +10° the guns had a range of 12000 m. Potemkin carried 60 rounds for each gun.

The sixteen 45-calibre, 6 in Canet Pattern 1891 quick-firing (QF) guns were mounted in casemates. Twelve of these were placed on the sides of the hull and the other four were positioned at the corners of the superstructure. They fired shells that weighed 41.46 kg with a muzzle velocity of 792 m/s. They had a maximum range of 11523 m when fired at an elevation of +20°. The ship stowed 160 rounds per gun.

Smaller guns were carried for close-range defence against torpedo boats. These included fourteen 50-calibre Canet QF 75 mm guns: four in hull embrasures and the remaining ten mounted on the superstructure. Potemkin carried 300 shells for each gun. They fired an 4.9 kg shell at a muzzle velocity of 2700 ft/s to a maximum range of 6405 m. She also mounted six 47 mm Hotchkiss guns. Four of these were mounted in the fighting top and two on the superstructure. They fired a 2.2 lb shell at a muzzle velocity of 1400 ft/s.

Potemkin had five underwater 15 in torpedo tubes: one in the bow and two on each broadside. She carried three torpedoes for each tube. The model of torpedo in use changed over time; the first torpedo that the ship would have been equipped with was the M1904. It had a warhead weight of 70 kg and a speed of 33 kn with a maximum range of 800 m.

In 1907, telescopic sights were fitted for the 12-inch and 6-inch guns. In that or the following year 2.5 m rangefinders were installed. The bow torpedo tube was removed in 1910–1911, as was the fighting top. The following year the main-gun turret machinery was upgraded and the guns were modified to improve their rate of fire to one round every 40 seconds.

Two 57 mm anti-aircraft (AA) guns were mounted on Potemkin's superstructure on 3–6 June 1915; they were supplemented by two 75 mm AA guns, one on top of each turret, probably during 1916. In February 1916, the ship's four remaining torpedo tubes were removed. At some point during World War I, her 75 mm guns were also removed.

Protection
The maximum thickness of the Krupp cemented armour waterline belt was 9 in which reduced to 8 in abreast the magazines. It covered 237 ft of the ship's length and 2 in plates protected the waterline to the ends of the ship. The belt was 7 ft high, of which 5 ft was below the waterline, and tapered down to a thickness of 5 in at its bottom edge. The main part of the belt terminated in 7 in transverse bulkheads.

Above the belt was the upper strake of six-inch armour that was 156 ft long and closed off by six-inch transverse bulkheads fore and aft. The upper casemate protected the six-inch guns and was five inches thick on all sides. The sides of the turrets were 10 in thick and they had a two-inch roof. The conning tower's sides were nine inches thick. The nickel-steel armour deck was two inches thick on the flat amidships, but 2.5 in thick on the slope connecting it to the armour belt. Fore and aft of the armoured citadel, the deck was 3 in to the bow and stern. In 1910–1911, additional 1 in armour plates were added fore and aft; their exact location is unknown, but they were probably used to extend the height of the two-inch armour strake at the ends of the ship.

Construction and career
Construction of Potemkin began on 27 December 1897 and she was laid down at the Nikolayev Admiralty Shipyard on 10 October 1898. She was named in honour of Prince Grigory Potemkin, a Russian soldier and statesman. The ship was launched on 9 October 1900 and transferred to Sevastopol for fitting out on 4 July 1902. She began sea trials in September 1903 and these continued, off and on, until early 1905 when her gun turrets were completed.

Mutiny
During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, many of the Black Sea Fleet's most experienced officers and enlisted men were transferred to the ships in the Pacific to replace losses. This left the fleet with primarily raw recruits and less capable officers. With the news of the disastrous Battle of Tsushima in May 1905, morale dropped to an all-time low, and any minor incident could be enough to spark a major catastrophe. Taking advantage of the situation, plus the disruption caused by the ongoing riots and uprisings, the Central Committee of the Social Democratic Organisation of the Black Sea Fleet, called "Tsentralka", had started preparations for a simultaneous mutiny on all of the ships of the fleet, although the timing had not been decided.

On 27 June 1905, Potemkin was at gunnery practice near Tendra Spit off the Ukrainian coast when many enlisted men refused to eat the borscht made from rotten meat infested with maggots. Brought aboard the warship the previous day from shore suppliers, the carcasses had been passed as suitable for eating by the ship's senior surgeon Dr Sergei Smirnov after several perfunctory examinations.

The uprising was triggered when Ippolit Giliarovsky, the ship's second in command, allegedly threatened to shoot crew members for their refusal. He summoned the ship's marine guards as well as a tarpaulin to protect the ship's deck from any blood in an attempt to intimidate the crew. Giliarovsky was killed after he mortally wounded Grigory Vakulinchuk, one of the mutiny's leaders. The mutineers killed seven of the Potemkin's eighteen officers, including Captain Evgeny Golikov (ru), Executive Officer Giliarovsky and Surgeon Smirnov; and captured the accompanying torpedo boat RUSSIAN TORPEDO BOAT Ismail (No. 267). They organised a ship's committee of 25 sailors, led by Afanasi Matushenko, to run the battleship.

The committee decided to head for Odessa flying a red flag and arrived there later that day at 22:00. A general strike had been called in the city and there was some rioting as police tried to quell the strikers. The following day the mutineers refused to supply a landing party to help the striking revolutionaries take over the city, preferring instead to await the arrival of the other battleships of the Black Sea Fleet. Later that day the mutineers aboard Potemkin captured a military transport, Vekha, that had arrived in the city. The riots continued as much of the port area was destroyed by fire. On the afternoon of 29 June, Vakulinchuk's funeral turned into a political demonstration and the army attempted to ambush the sailors who participated in the funeral. In retaliation, Potemkin fired two six-inch shells at the theatre where a high-level military meeting was scheduled to take place, but missed.

Vice Admiral Grigoriy Chukhnin, commander of the Black Sea Fleet, issued an order to send two squadrons to Odessa either to force Potemkin's crew to give up or sink the battleship. Potemkin sortied on the morning of 30 June to meet the three battleships Tri Sviatitelia, RUSSIAN BATTLESHIP Dvenadsat Apostolov, and RUSSIAN BATTLESHIP Georgii Pobedonosets of the first squadron, but the loyal ships turned away. The second squadron arrived with the battleships RUSSIAN BATTLESHIP Rostislav and RUSSIAN BATTLESHIP Sinop later that morning, and Vice Admiral Aleksander Krieger, acting commander of the Black Sea Fleet, ordered the ships to proceed to Odessa. Potemkin sortied again and sailed through the combined squadrons as Krieger failed to order his ships to fire. Captain Kolands of Dvenadsat Apostolov attempted to ram Potemkin and then detonate his ship's magazines, but he was thwarted by members of his crew. Krieger ordered his ships to fall back, but the crew of Georgii Pobedonosets mutinied and joined Potemkin.

The following morning, loyalist members of Georgii Pobedonosets retook control of the ship and ran her aground in Odessa harbour. The crew of Potemkin, together with Ismail, decided to sail for Constanța later that day where they could restock food, water and coal. The Romanians refused to provide the supplies, backed by the presence of their small protected cruiser Elisabeta, so the ship's committee decided to sail for the small, barely defended port of Theodosia in the Crimea where they hoped to resupply. The ship arrived on the morning of 5 July, but the city's governor refused to give them anything other than food. The mutineers attempted to seize several barges of coal the following morning, but the port's garrison ambushed them and killed or captured 22 of the 30 sailors involved. They decided to return to Constanța that afternoon.

Potemkin reached its destination at 23:00 on 7 July and the Romanians agreed to give asylum to the crew if they would disarm themselves and surrender the battleship. Ismails crew decided the following morning to return to Sevastopol and turn themselves in, but Potemkins crew voted to accept the terms. Captain Nicolae Negru, commander of the port, came aboard at noon and hoisted the Romanian flag and then allowed the ship to enter the inner harbor. Before the crew disembarked, Matushenko ordered that Potemkin's Kingston valves be opened so she would sink to the bottom.

Later service
When Rear Admiral Pisarevsky reached Constanța on the morning of 9 July, he found Potemkin half sunk in the harbour and flying the Romanian flag. After several hours of negotiations with the Romanian government, the battleship was handed over to the Russians. Later that day the Russian Navy Ensign was raised over the battleship. She was then easily refloated by the navy, but the salt water had damaged her engines and boilers. The ship left Constanța on 10 July, having to be towed back to Sevastopol, where she arrived on 14 July. The ship was renamed Panteleimon (Пантелеймон), after Saint Pantaleon, on 12 October 1905. Some members of Panteleimon's crew joined a mutiny that began aboard the protected cruiser Ochakov (ru) in November, but it was easily suppressed as both ships had been earlier disarmed.

Panteleimon received an experimental underwater communications set in February 1909. Later that year, she accidentally rammed and sank the submarine Kambala (ru) at night on 11 June [according to Russian sources, Kambala sank in a collision with Rostislav, not with Panteleimon, killing the 16 crewmen aboard the submarine].

While returning from a port visit to Constanța in 1911, Panteleimon ran aground on 2 October. It took several days to refloat her and make temporary repairs, and the full extent of the damage to its bottom was not fully realised for several more months. The ship participated in training and gunnery exercises for the rest of the year; a special watch was kept to ensure that no damaged seams were opened during firing. Permanent repairs, which involved replacing its boiler foundations, plating, and a large number of its hull frames, lasted from 10 January to 25 April 1912. The navy took advantage of these repairs to overhaul Panteleimon's engines and boilers.

World War I
Panteleimon, flagship of the 1st Battleship Brigade, accompanied by the pre-dreadnoughts RUSSIAN BATTLESHIP Evstafi, RUSSIAN BATTLESHIP Ioann Zlatoust, and Tri Sviatitelia, covered the pre-dreadnought Rostislav while she bombarded Trebizond on the morning of 17 November 1914. They were intercepted the following day by the Ottoman battlecruiser Yavuz Sultan Selim (the ex-German SMS Goeben) and the light cruiser Midilli (the ex-German SMS Breslau) on their return voyage to Sevastopol in what came to be known as the Battle of Cape Sarych. Despite the noon hour the conditions were foggy; the capital ships initially did not spot each other. Although several other ships opened fire, hitting the Yavuz Sultan Selim once, Panteleimon held her fire because her turrets could not see the Ottoman ships before they disengaged.

Tri Sviatitelia and Rostislav bombarded Ottoman fortifications at the mouth of the Bosphorus on 18 March 1915, the first of several attacks intended to divert troops and attention from the ongoing Gallipoli campaign, but fired only 105 rounds before sailing north to rejoin Panteleimon, Ioann Zlatoust and Evstafi. Tri Sviatitelia and Rostislav were intended to repeat the bombardment the following day, but were hindered by heavy fog. On 3 April, Yavuz Sultan Selim and several ships of the Ottoman navy raided the Russian port at Odessa; the Russian battleship squadron sortied to intercept them. The battleships pursued Yavuz Sultan Selim the entire day, but were unable to close to effective gunnery range and were forced to break off the chase. On 25 April Tri Sviatitelia and Rostislav repeated their bombardment of the Bosphorus forts. Tri Sviatitelia, Rostislav and Panteleimon bombarded the forts again on 2 and 3 May. This time a total of 337 main-gun rounds were fired in addition to 528 six-inch shells between the three battleships.

On 9 May 1915, Tri Sviatitelia and Panteleimon returned to bombard the Bosphorus forts, covered by the remaining pre-dreadnoughts. Yavuz Sultan Selim intercepted the three ships of the covering force, although no damage was inflicted by either side. Tri Sviatitelia and Pantelimon rejoined their consorts and the latter scored two hits on Yavuz Sultan Selim before it broke off the action. The Russian ships pursued it for six hours before giving up the chase. On 1 August, all of the Black Sea pre-dreadnoughts were transferred to the 2nd Battleship Brigade, after the more powerful dreadnought RUSSIAN BATTLESHIP Imperatritsa Mariya entered service. On 1 October the new dreadnought provided cover while Ioann Zlatoust and Pantelimon bombarded Zonguldak and Evstafi shelled the nearby town of Kozlu. The ship bombarded Varna twice in October 1915; during the second bombardment on 27 October, she entered Varna Bay and was unsuccessfully attacked by two German submarines stationed there.

Panteleimon supported Russian troops in early 1916 as they captured Trebizond and participated in an anti-shipping sweep off the north-western Anatolian coast in January 1917 that destroyed 39 Ottoman sailing ships. On 13 April 1917, after the February Revolution, the ship was renamed Potemkin-Tavricheskiy (Потёмкин-Таврический), and then on 11 May was renamed Borets za svobodu (Борец за свободу – Freedom Fighter).

Reserve and decommissioning
Borets za Svobodu  was placed in reserve in March 1918 and was captured by the Germans at Sevastopol in May. They handed the ship over to the Allies in December 1918 after the Armistice. The British wrecked her engines on 19 April 1919 when they left the Crimea to prevent the advancing Bolsheviks from using her against the White Russians. Thoroughly obsolete by this time, the battleship was captured by both sides during the Russian Civil War, but was abandoned by the White Russians when they evacuated the Crimea in November 1920. Borets za Svobodu was scrapped beginning in 1923, although she was not stricken from the Navy List until 21 November 1925.

Legacy
The immediate effects of the mutiny are difficult to assess. It may have influenced Tsar Nicholas II's decisions to end the Russo-Japanese War and accept the October Manifesto, as the mutiny demonstrated that his régime no longer had the unquestioning loyalty of the military. The mutiny's failure did not stop other revolutionaries from inciting insurrections later that year, including the Sevastopol Uprising. Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik Party, called the 1905 Revolution, including the Potemkin mutiny, a "dress rehearsal" for his successful revolution in 1917. The communists seized upon it as a propaganda symbol for their party and unduly emphasised their role in the mutiny. In fact, Matushenko explicitly rejected the Bolsheviks because he and the other leaders of the mutiny were socialists of one type or another and cared nothing for communism.

The mutiny was memorialised most famously by Sergei Eisenstein in his 1925 silent film Battleship Potemkin, although the French silent film La Révolution en Russie (Revolution in Russia or Revolution in Odessa, 1905), directed by Lucien Nonguet was the first film to depict the mutiny, preceding Eisenstein's far more famous film by 20 years. Filmed shortly after the Bolshevik victory in the Russian Civil War of 1917–1922, with the derelict Dvenadsat Apostolov standing in for the broken-up Potemkin, Eisenstein recast the mutiny into a predecessor of the October Revolution of 1917 that swept the Bolsheviks to power. He emphasised their role, and implied that the mutiny failed because Matushenko and the other leaders were not better Bolsheviks. Eisenstein made other changes to dramatise the story, ignoring the major fire that swept through Odessa's dock area while Potemkin was anchored there, combining the many different incidents of rioters and soldiers fighting into a famous sequence on the steps (today known as the Potemkin Stairs), and showing a tarpaulin thrown over the sailors to be executed.

In accordance with the Marxist doctrine that history is made by collective action, not individuals, Eisenstein forbore to single out any person in his film, but rather focused on the "mass protagonist". Soviet film critics hailed this approach, including the dramaturge and critic, Adrian Piotrovsky, writing for the Leningrad newspaper Krasnaia gazeta: "The hero is the sailors' battleship, the Odessa crowd, but characteristic figures are snatched here and there from the crowd. For a moment, like a conjuring trick, they attract all the sympathies of the audience: like the sailor Vakulinchuk, like the young woman and child on the Odessa Steps, but they emerge only to dissolve once more into the mass. This signifies: no film stars but a film of real-life types."

Similarly, theatre critic Alexei Gvozdev wrote in the journal Artistic Life (Zhizn ikusstva): "In Potemkin there is no individual hero as there was in the old theatre. It is the mass that acts: the battleship and its sailors and the city and its population in revolutionary mood."

The last survivor of the mutiny was Ivan Beshoff, who died on 25 October 1987 at the age of 102 in Dublin, Ireland.

title: Russian battleship Potemkin


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State of the Teutonic Order

The State of the Teutonic Order (Civitas Ordinis Theutonici) was a theocratic state located along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea in northern Europe. It was formed by the knights of the Teutonic Order during the early 13th century Northern Crusades in the region of Prussia. In 1237, the Livonian Brothers of the Sword merged with the Teutonic Order of Prussia and became known as its branch — the Livonian Order (while their state, Terra Mariana, covering present-day Estonia and Latvia, became part of the State of the Teutonic Order). At its greatest territorial extent during the early 15th century, the State encompassed Chełmno Land, Courland, Gotland, Livonia, Estonia, Neumark, Pomerelia (Gdańsk Pomerania), Prussia and Samogitia.

Following the battles of Grunwald in 1410 and Wilkomierz in 1435, the State fell into decline. After losing extensive territories in the imposed Peace of Thorn in 1466, the extant territory of its Prussian branch became known as Monastic Prussia (Prusy zakonne) or Teutonic Prussia (Prusy krzyżackie) and existed until 1525 as a part and fiefdom of the Kingdom of Poland. The Livonian branch joined the Livonian Confederation and continued to exist as part of it until 1561.

Overview
Established in Prussia and the Polish Masovian Chełmno Land in the 13th century, the state expanded mostly as a result of the 13th-century Prussian Crusade against the pagan Baltic Prussians and the 14th-century invasions of neighboring Christian countries of Poland and Lithuania. The conquests were followed by German and Polish colonization. In addition, the Livonian Brothers of the Sword controlling Terra Mariana were incorporated into the Teutonic Order as its autonomous branch, the Livonian Order in 1237. In 1346, the Duchy of Estonia was sold by the King of Denmark for 19,000 Cologne marks to the Teutonic Order. The shift of sovereignty from Denmark to the Teutonic Order took place on 1 November 1346. At the turn of the 14th and 15th centuries, the Teutonic Order temporarily acquired the territories of Gotland and Neumark, which, however, it sold in the following decades.

Throughout its history, the Teutonic state waged numerous wars with Poland and Lithuania, encouraging the two countries to form a close alliance and personal union, which eventually led to the creation of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 16th century. Following its defeat in the Battle of Grunwald in 1410 the Teutonic Order fell into decline, the region of Samogitia was restored to Lithuania.

The Prussian branch of the Teutonic Order returned Pomerelia (the previously Polish regions of Chełmno Land and Gdańsk Pomerania) and ceded the western part of Prussia (Warmia, as well as parts of Pomesania and Pogesania) to Poland after the Peace of Thorn in 1466. The territories ceded to the Kingdom of Poland formed the Polish province of Royal Prussia, while the eastern part remained under Teutonic Order rule, known thereafter as the Monastic Prussia (Prusy zakonne) or Teutonic Prussia (Prusy krzyżackie), as a feudal fief and integral part of the Kingdom of Poland. The monastic state of the Order's main (Prussian) branch was secularized in 1525 during the Protestant Reformation to become the Duchy of Prussia ruled by the House of Hohenzollern, remaining a fiefdom of the Polish Crown and later the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

The Livonian branch continued as part of the Livonian Confederation established in 1422–1435, which became a protectorate of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1559, and was finally secularised and split into the Duchy of Courland and Semigalia, as well as the Duchy of Livonia in 1561, both duchies being fiefs of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

Poles in Old Prussia
The Old Prussians withstood many attempts at conquest preceding that of the Teutonic Knights. Bolesław I of Poland began the series of unsuccessful conquests when he sent Adalbert of Prague in 997. In 1147, Bolesław IV of Poland attacked Prussia with the aid of Kievan Rus', but was unable to conquer it. Numerous other attempts followed, and, under Duke Konrad I of Masovia, were intensified, with large battles and crusades in 1209, 1219, 1220 and 1222.

The West-Baltic Prussians successfully repelled most of the campaigns and managed to strike Konrad in retaliation. However, the Prussians and Yotvingians in the south had their territory conquered. The land of the Yotvingians was situated in the area of what is today the Podlaskie Voivodeship of Poland. The Prussians attempted to oust Polish or Masovian forces from Yotvingia, which by now was partially conquered, devastated and almost totally depopulated.

Papal edicts
Konrad of Masovia had already called a crusade against the Old Prussians in 1208, but it was not successful. Konrad, acting on the advice of Christian, first bishop of Prussia, established the Order of Dobrzyń, a small group of 15 knights. The Order, however, was soon defeated and, in reaction, Konrad called on the Pope for yet another crusade and for help from the Teutonic Knights. As a result, several edicts called for crusades against the Old Prussians. The crusades, involving many of Europe's knights, lasted for sixty years.

In 1211, Andrew II of Hungary enfeoffed the Teutonic Knights with the Burzenland. In 1225, Andrew II expelled the Teutonic Knights from Transylvania, and they had to transfer to the Baltic Sea.

Early in 1224, Emperor Frederick II announced at Catania that Livonia, Prussia with Sambia, and a number of neighboring provinces were under imperial immediacy. This decree subordinated the provinces directly to the Roman Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Emperor as opposed to being under the jurisdiction of local rulers.

At the end of 1224, Pope Honorius III announced to all Christendom his appointment of Bishop William of Modena as the Papal Legate for Livonia, Prussia, and other countries.

As a result of the Golden Bull of Rimini in 1226 and the Papal Bull of Rieti of 1234, Prussia came into the Teutonic Order's possession. The Knights began the Prussian Crusade in 1230. Under their governance, woodlands were cleared and marshlands made arable, upon which many cities and villages were founded, including Marienburg (Malbork) and Königsberg (Kaliningrad).

Cities founded
Unlike newly founded cities between the rivers Elbe and Oder the cities founded by the Teutonic Order had a much more regular, rectangular sketch of streets, indicating their character as planned foundations. The cities were heavily fortified, accounting for the long lasting conflicts with the resistive native Old Prussians, with armed forces under command of the knights. Most cities were prevailingly populated with immigrants from Middle Germany and Silesia, where many knights of the order had their homelands.

The cities were usually given Magdeburg law town privileges, with the one exception of Elbing (Elbląg), which was founded with the support of Lübeckers and thus was awarded Lübeck law. While the Lübeckers provided the Order important logistic support with their ships, they were otherwise, with the exception of Elbing, rather uninvolved in the establishment of the Monastic State.

13th century
In 1234, the Teutonic Order assimilated the remaining members of the Order of Dobrzyń and, in 1237, the Order of the Livonian Brothers of the Sword. The assimilation of the Livonian Brothers of the Sword (established in Livonia in 1202) increased the Teutonic Order's lands with the addition of the territories known today as Latvia and Estonia.

In 1243, the Papal legate William of Modena divided Prussia into four bishoprics: Culm (Chełmno), Pomesania, Ermland (Warmia) and Samland (Sambia). The bishoprics became suffragans to the Archbishopric of Riga under the mother city of Visby on Gotland. Each diocese was fiscally and administratively divided into one-third reserved for the maintenance of the capitular canons, and two-thirds were where the Order collected the dues. The cathedral capitular canons of Culm, Pomesania and Samland were simultaneously members of the Teutonic Order since the 1280s, ensuring a strong influence by the Order. Only Warmia's diocesan chapter maintained independence, enabling to establish its autonomous rule in the capitular third of Warmia's diocesan territory (Prince-Bishopric of Warmia).

Danzig and the Hansa
At the beginning of the 14th century, the Duchy of Pomerania, a neighboring region, plunged into war with Poland and the Margraviate of Brandenburg to the west. The Teutonic Knights seized the Polish port city of Gdańsk in November 1308. The Order had been called by King Władysław I of Poland to help repel a Brandenburgian invasion; however, the Teutonic Knights themselves began to occupy the city and the region. The Teutonic Knights then carried out a massacre of the inhabitants of the city, killing up to 10,000 people according to medieval sources, although the exact number of victims is a subject of disputes. In September 1309, Margrave Waldemar of Brandenburg-Stendal sold his claim to the territory to the Teutonic Order for the sum of 10,000 Marks in the Treaty of Soldin. This marked the beginning of a series of conflicts between Poland and the Teutonic Knights as the Order continued incorporating territories into its domains. While the Order promoted the Prussian cities by granting them extended surrounding territory and privileges, establishing courts, civil and commercial law, it allowed the cities less outward independence than free imperial cities enjoyed within the Holy Roman Empire.

The members of the Hanseatic League did consider merchants from Prussian cities as their like, but also accepted the Grand Master of the Order as the sole territorial ruler representing Prussia at their Hanseatic Diets. Thus Prussian merchants, along with those from Ditmarsh, were the only beneficiaries of a quasi membership within the Hansa, although lacking the background of citizenship in a fully autonomous or free city. Only merchants from the six Prussian Hanseatic cities of Braunsberg (Braniewo), Culm (Chełmno), Danzig (Gdańsk), Elbing, Königsberg and Thorn (Toruń) were considered fully fledged members of the league, while merchants from other Prussian cities had a lesser status.

The Teutonic Order's annexation and possession of Gdańsk (Danzig) and the surrounding region was consistently disputed by the Polish kings Władysław I and Casimir III the Great—claims that led to the Polish–Teutonic War (1326–1332) and, eventually, lawsuits in the papal court in 1320 and 1333, which ruled in favor of Poland, however, the Teutonic Knights did not comply and continued to occupy the annexed Polish territories. The Teutonic Knights even invaded Poland further and briefly occupied the regions of Kuyavia and Dobrzyń Land. A peace was concluded at Kalisz in 1343, Kuyavia and Dobrzyń Land were restored to Poland, and the Teutonic Order agreed that Poland should rule Pomerelia as a fief and Polish kings, therefore, retained the right to the title Duke of Pomerania. The title referred to the Duchy of Pomerelia. Unlike in English, German, Latin or Lithuanian language Polish uses the term Pomorze for Pomerania (a fief of Poland, Saxony and Denmark in the High Middle Ages, and first briefly in 1181, but since 1227 a permanent fief within the Holy Roman Empire) and Pomerelia alike. Both duchies were earlier ruled by related dynasties, thus the semantic title was Duke of Pomerania rather than Duke of Pomerelia, as it was referred to in other languages.

Second Danish-Hanseatic War
In the conflict between the Hanse and Denmark on the trade in the Baltic, King Valdemar IV of Denmark had held the Hanseatic city of Visby to ransom in 1361. However, the members of the Hanseatic league were undecided whether to unite against him. But when Valdemar IV then captured Prussian merchant ships in the Øresund on their way to England, Grand Master Winrich of Kniprode travelled to Lübeck to propose a war alliance against Denmark, accepted with some reluctance only by the important cities forming the Wendish-Saxon third of the Hanse.

Since Valdemar IV had also attacked ships of the Dutch city of Kampen and other destinations in the Zuiderzee, Prussia and Dutch cities, such as Kampen, Elburg and Harderwijk, allied themselves against Denmark. This resulted in the Hansa calling up a diet in Cologne in 1367 and convening the afore-mentioned non-member cities including Amsterdam and Brielle. The upshot was the founding of the Cologne Federation as a war alliance to counter the Danish threat. More cities, from the Lower Rhine area in the west to Livonia in the east, joined.

Of the major players only Bremen and Hamburg refused to send forces, but contributed financially. Besides Prussia, three more territorial partners, Henry II of Schauenburg and Holstein-Rendsburg, Albert II of Mecklenburg, and the latter's son Albert of Sweden, joined the alliance, attacking via land and sea, forcing Denmark to sign the Treaty of Stralsund in 1370. Several Danish castles and fortresses were then taken by Hansa forces for fifteen years in order to secure the implementation of the peace conditions.

English Merchant Adventurers
The invasions of the Teutonic Order from Livonia to Pskov in 1367 had caused the Russians to recoup themselves on Hansa merchants in Novgorod, which again made the Order block exports of salt and herring into Russia. While the relations had eased by 1371 so that trade resumed, they soured again until 1388.

During the Lithuanian crusade of 1369/1370, ending with the Teutonic victory in the Battle of Rudau, Prussia enjoyed considerable support from English knights. The Order welcomed English Merchant Adventurers, starting to cruise in the Baltic, competing with Dutch, Saxon and Wendish Hanseatic merchants, and allowed them to open outposts in its cities of Danzig and Elbing. This necessarily brought about a conflict with the rest of the Hansa, which was in a heavy argument with Richard II of England, over levies of higher dues. The Merchants struggled to achieve an unsatisfactory compromise.

Dissatisfied Richard II's navy suddenly attacked six Prussian ships in May 1385 – and those of more Hanse members – in the Zwin, Grand Master Conrad Zöllner von Rothenstein immediately terminated all trade with England. When in the same year the Hansa evacuated all their Danish castles in fulfillment of the Treaty of Stralsund, Prussia argued in favour of a renewal of the Cologne Federation for the deeply concerned about the ensuing conflict with England, but could not prevail.

The cities preferred to negotiate and take retaliatory actions, such as counter-confiscation of English merchandise. So when in 1388 Richard II finally reconfirmed the Hanseatic trade privileges, Prussia once again permitted merchant adventurers, granting permissions to remain; for this action they were renounced once again by the Grand Master Conrad of Jungingen in 1398.

In the conflict with the Burgundian Philip the Bold on the Hansa privileges in the Flemish cities the positions of the Hanseatic cities and Prussia were again reversed. Here the majority of the Hansa members decided in the Hanseatic Diet on 1 May 1388 for an embargo against the Flemish cities. Meanwhile, Prussia could not prevail with its plea for further negotiations.

Trading
The Order's Großschäffer was one of the leading functionaries of the order. The word translates roughly as "chief sales and buying officer" with procuration. This officer was in charge of the considerable commerce, import, export, crediting, real estate investment etc., which the Order carried out, using its network of bailiwicks and agencies which spanned much of Central, Western and Southern Europe as well as the Holy Land. The other Großschäffer in Marienburg had the grain export monopoly. As to imports, neither was bound to any particular merchandise. From Königsberg, holding the monopoly in amber export, achieved the exceptional permission to continue amber exports to Flanders and textile imports in return. On the occasion of the ban on Flemish trade, the Hansa urged Prussia and Livonia again to interrupt the exchange with Novgorod as well, but with both blockades Russian and Flemish commodities could not reach their final destinations. In 1392 it was Grand Master Conrad of Wallenrode who supported the Flemish to achieve an acceptable agreement with the Hansa resuming the bilateral trade; while a Hanseatic delegation under Johann Niebur reopened trade with Novgorod in the same year, after reconfirmation of the previous mutual privileges.

Since the late 1380s grave piracy by privateers, promoted by Albert of Sweden and Mecklenburg actually directed against Margaret I of Denmark, blocked seafaring to the herring supplies at the Scania Market; thus fish prices tripled in Prussia. The Saxon Hansa cities urged Prussia to intervene, but Conrad of Jungingen was more worried about a Danish victory. So only after the cities, led by Lübeck's burgomaster Hinrich Westhof, had liaised the Treaty of Skanör (1395), Albert's defeat manifested, so that Prussia finally sent out its ships, led by Danzig's city councillor Conrad Letzkau. Until 1400 the united Teutonic-Hanseatic flotilla then thoroughly cleared the Baltic Sea of pirates, the Victual Brothers, and even took the island of Gotland in 1398.

Konrad von Jungingen
At the beginning of the 15th century, the State of the Teutonic Order stood at the height of its power under Konrad (Conrad) von Jungingen. The Teutonic navy ruled the Baltic Sea from bases in Prussia and Gotland, and the Prussian cities provided tax revenues sufficient to maintain a significant standing force composed of Teutonic Knights proper, their retinues, Prussian peasant levies, and German mercenaries.

In 1402, the Luxembourg dynasty, which ruled the Margraviate of Brandenburg, reached an agreement with Poland in Kraków, according to which Poland was to purchase and re-incorporate the region of New March (Neumark). Later that year, however, the Luxembourgs gave the region in pawn to the Teutonic Order despite prior arrangements with Poland, and the Order kept it until Brandenburg redeemed it again in 1454 and 1455, respectively, by the Treaties of Cölln and Mewe. Though the possession of this territory by the Order strengthened ties between the Order and their secular counterparts in northern Germany, it exacerbated the already hostile relationship between the Order and Polish–Lithuanian union.

In March 1407, Konrad died from complications caused by gallstones and was succeeded by his younger brother, Ulrich von Jungingen. Under Ulrich, the Teutonic State fell from its precarious height and became mired in internal political strife, near-constant war with Polish–Lithuanian union, and crippling war debts.

Losses to Poland, Polish suzerainty
In 1408, Conrad Letzkau served as a diplomat to Queen Margaret I and arranged that the Order sell Gotland to Denmark. In 1409, the Teutonic Order invaded Poland's Dobrzyń Land again, and the Polish–Lithuanian–Teutonic War broke out, in which the Teutonic Knights were supported by the Duchy of Pomerania, and the Polish-Lithuanian alliance was supported by Ruthenian, Tatar and Moldavian allies and auxiliary forces. Poland and Lithuania triumphed following a victory at the Battle of Grunwald (Tannenberg), which marked the start of the decline of the State of the Teutonic Order, and the rise of the Polish–Lithuanian union as a major power in Central and Eastern Europe.

The Order assigned Heinrich von Plauen to defend Teutonic-held Eastern Pomerania (Pomerelia), who moved rapidly to bolster the defence of Marienburg Castle in Pomesania. Heinrich von Plauen was elected vice-grand master and led the Teutonic Knights through the Siege of Marienburg in 1410. Eventually von Plauen was promoted to Grand Master and, in 1411, concluded the First Treaty of Thorn with King Władysław II Jagiełło of Poland.

The next major Polish–Teutonic war was fought in 1431–1435, after the Teutonic Knights invaded Poland again, and was ended in the Peace of Brześć Kujawski, which was favorable for Poland.

In March 1440, gentry (mainly from Culmerland) and the Hanseatic cities of Danzig, Elbing, Kneiphof, Thorn and other Prussian cities founded the Prussian Confederation to free themselves from the overlordship of the Teutonic Knights. Due to the heavy losses and costs after the war against Poland and Lithuania, the Teutonic Order collected taxes at steep rates. Furthermore, the cities were not allowed due representation by the Teutonic Order.

In February 1454, the Prussian Confederation asked King Casimir IV of Poland to support their revolt and to incorporate the region to the Kingdom of Poland. King Casimir IV agreed and signed the act of incorporation in Kraków on 6 March 1454. The Thirteen Years' War, the longest of the Polish–Teutonic wars, (also known as the War of the Cities) broke out. Various cities of the region pledged allegiance to the Polish King in 1454.

The Second Peace of Thorn in October 1466 ended the war and provided for the Teutonic Order's cession of its rights over the western half of its territories to the Polish Kingdom, which became the Polish province of Royal Prussia and the remaining part of the Order's land became a fief and protectorate of Poland, considered part of one and indivisible Kingdom of Poland. In accordance to the peace treaty, from now on, every Grand Master was obliged to swear an oath of allegiance to the reigning Polish king within six months of taking office, and any new territorial acquisitions by the Teutonic Order, also outside Prussia, would also be incorporated into Poland. The Grand Master of the Teutonic Order became a prince and counselor of the Polish king and the Kingdom of Poland.

Formation of a new nobility
While the Knights of the Teutonic Order formed a thin ruling class by themselves, they extensively used mercenaries, mostly German, from the Holy Roman Empire, to whom they granted lands in return. This gradually created a new class of landed nobility. Due to several factors, among which was the high rate of early death in battle, these lands became concentrated over time in the hands of a relatively small number of noblemen each having a vast estate. This nobility would evolve to what is known as the Prussian Junker nobility.

Transformation to Ducal Prussia
During the Protestant Reformation, endemic religious upheavals and wars occurred across the region. In 1525, during the aftermath of the Polish-Teutonic War (1519–1521), Sigismund I the Old, King of Poland, and his nephew, the last Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights, Albert of Brandenburg-Ansbach, a member of a cadet branch of the House of Hohenzollern, agreed that the latter would resign his position, adopt Lutheran faith and assume the title of Duke of Prussia. Thereafter referred to as Ducal Prussia (Herzogliches Preußen, Preußen Herzoglichen Anteils; Prusy Książęce), remaining a Polish fief.

Thus in a deal partially brokered by Martin Luther, Roman Catholic Teutonic Prussia was transformed into the Duchy of Prussia, the first Protestant state. Sigismund's consent was bound to Albert's submission to Poland, which became known as the Prussian Homage. On 10 December 1525 at their session in Königsberg the Prussian estates established the Lutheran Church in Ducal Prussia by deciding the Church Order.

The Habsburg-led Holy Roman Empire continued to hold its claim to Prussia and furnished grand masters of the Teutonic Order, who were merely titular administrators of Prussia, but managed to retain many of the Teutonic holdings elsewhere outside of Prussia

Archaeology
Fortifications of the Ordensstaat have been examined through archaeological excavation since the end of World War II, especially those built or expanded during the fourteenth century. Fortifications are generally the best preserved material legacy of the Order's presence in the Baltic today, and timber and earth, as well as brick examples, are attested in the archaeological record. The earliest castles in the Ordensstaat consisted of simple buildings attached to a fortified enclosure and, whilst the quadrangular red-brick structure would come to typify convent buildings, single-wing castles would continue to be built alongside timber towers. Where they followed the conventional layout, castles included a connected set of communal spaces such as a dormitory, refectory, kitchen, chapter house, a chapel or church, an infirmary, and tower projecting over the moat.

Marienburg fort
Construction began on Marienburg during the third quarter of the thirteenth century, and work continued on it until the middle of the fifteenth century. A settlement developed alongside the castle, which together enclosed 25 hectares. Granted town rights in 1286, its castle is larger than any other built by the Order. Since 1997 the outer bailey has been thoroughly excavated, dating to the mid-1350s. Preserved at Marienburg was a polychrome statue of Mary about eight meters in height, made of artificial stone and originally decorated with mosaic tiles. Mary was the most important patron of the knights and central to the liturgy of the Teutonic Order, so it is not surprising to find such striking representations of her at their most prominent castle.

Coins
Coins were minted from the late 1250s. These were often simple in design, stamped with the cross of the Order on one side, but support the notion that crusading, colonisation, and a supporting infrastructure went hand in hand from the earliest years of the Prussian Crusade.

title: State of the Teutonic Order


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Kyle Martino

Kyle Hunter Martino (born February 19, 1981) is an American former professional soccer player who spent seven seasons with the Columbus Crew and Los Angeles Galaxy in Major League Soccer as a midfielder. He is currently a television soccer analyst and host.

High school
Martino attended Staples High School in Westport, Connecticut, where he played soccer and was named Gatorade National Player of the Year in 1998 after his senior season.

College
Martino attended the University of Virginia from 1999 to 2001. He played college soccer and scored 17 goals and provided 21 assists. In his junior season, Martino was named ACC Player of the Year. In both his sophomore and junior seasons, he was one of 15 finalists for the Hermann Trophy.

Professional
Martino left UVA after his junior season, signing a Project-40 contract with Major League Soccer (MLS) and entering the 2002 MLS Superdraft, where the Columbus Crew selected him eighth overall. He tallied 2 goals and 5 assists in 22 appearances and won the MLS Rookie of the Year Award, while running the Crew offense for much of the season. His following season was something of a disappointment, as Martino failed to develop into the dominant offensive force that many had expected, although he maintained a spot in the Crew's starting lineup. His third season began like the second with Martino failing to stimulate the offense, but a move up to withdrawn forward saw a resurgence of his offensive abilities, and through the 2004 season Martino led the Crew to the longest unbeaten streak in MLS history. Martino had a down year in 2005, not scoring a goal. In early 2006, Martino was dealt to the LA Galaxy in a four-player deal. He and John Wolyniec were traded for Joseph Ngwenya and Ned Grabavoy. During the first 2006 match between the Crew and the Galaxy, before the trade, it was Martino who, in the last few seconds, scored the game's only goal, delivering a defeat to his soon-to-be teammates.

In November 2006, Martino had a trial at Dutch Eredivisie side NEC Nijmegen, but did not earn a contract. Martino also had a trial at Leeds United.

Martino retired from professional soccer on February 19, 2008, having been advised by doctors that injuries he sustained throughout his career were severe enough that it would be in his best interest to retire.

International
Martino played for the United States at the 2001 World Youth Championship in Argentina. He saw little playing time for the senior national team, getting his first cap on November 17, 2002, against El Salvador. He scored his only international goal against Panama on October 12, 2005, in a 2-0 World Cup qualifier U.S. victory.

Post-playing career
Until the beginning of the 2020/21 season, Martino was a studio analyst and color commentator for NBC Sports coverage of the English Premier League. He was previously a color commentator for MLS on the ESPN family of networks. In addition to commentating, he is also a television host featured on Travel Channel's 36 Hours and NBC's Spartan Race.

On November 6, 2017, Martino announced he was leaving NBC Sports temporarily to stand as a candidate for president of the United States Soccer Federation in the February 2018 election. His campaign was unsuccessful.

Honors
Columbus Crew
 * Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup: 2002
 * MLS Supporters' Shield: 2004

Individual
 * MLS Rookie of the Year: 2002

Personal life
Martino married actress Eva Amurri on October 29, 2011. They have three children, a daughter, Marlowe and two sons, Major and Mateo.

On November 15, 2019, the couple announced that they were separating. As of March 2020, the couple have finalized their divorce before welcoming their third child.

title: Kyle Martino


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Raj Bhakta

Raj Peter Bhakta (born 1975) is an American entrepreneur, spirits industry executive, real estate investor and former media and political personality. In 2004, Bhakta was a contestant on the second season of the reality show The Apprentice. He is also the founder of WhistlePig whiskey, a premium whiskey company. In 2006, he campaigned for a seat in the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania's 13th district as a Republican, but lost to incumbent Democrat Allyson Schwartz.

Early life and education
Born to a Gujarati, Indian father from nansad near Surat, Gujarat, and an Irish mother, Bhakta moved from Oxford Circle, Philadelphia to Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, where he grew up. After graduating from The Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, Bhakta earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Boston College in Economics and History with a concentration in Finance in 1998.

Business
Bhakta began his career working at the investment banking firm of Violy & Co. in New York City. Bhakta then founded Automovia, a technology startup specializing in the valuation of pre-owned vehicles. Thereafter, he led the Apex Vail condominium development project in Vail, Colorado.

The Apprentice
In the fall of 2004, Bhakta appeared on the second season of the business reality television show, The Apprentice. On the show, Bhakta propositioned Anna Kournikova and Donald Trump's assistant to go out with him on dates, and was fired by Trump on the ninth week of the show. His relationships with women became fodder for gossip columns such as New York Post's Page Six, and his frequent wearing of bow ties was credited with a surge in bow tie sales.

Political engagement and commentary
After appearing on The Apprentice, Bhakta advocated Social Security reform in meetings with Congressional leadership. Bhakta was also a guest on MSNBC and Fox News and appeared on CNN's Crossfire.

2006 Congressional campaign
With the support of Thomas J. Ellis, the Republican chairman of the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners, he sought and won the Republican nomination for the 13th congressional district. In the general election, Bhakta lost to incumbent Democrat Allyson Schwartz by more than 30 points. Bhakta's campaign generated significant national media attention as a consequence of Bhakta's background on The Apprentice, his attention-getting campaign maneuvers, and his reputation as a playboy.

During the campaign, Bhakta's judgment and fitness to lead were called into question as a result of his having been arrested twice, in 1997 and 2004, for drunk driving. After reports of the arrests surfaced during the campaign, Bhakta said "I ask for the forgiveness and understanding of the voters, while giving them my solemn pledge that this behavior will not happen again", and said "Politicians today need to come clean".

On October 10, 2006, Bhakta illustrated the ease of crossing the United States-Mexico border by riding an elephant along the border for ninety minutes, accompanied by a six-man mariachi band. Neither Bhakta nor the mariachi band broke the law by crossing the border, as they remained on private property along the Rio Grande in Texas. Bhakta said that he got the idea by seeing a Mexican man illegally cross the border by wading across the Rio Grande. Bhakta had a camera to record the man's illegal crossing, and succeeded in getting the man detained by border authorities. The demonstration garnered national attention for Bhakta's campaign. Bhakta was interviewed by Bill O'Reilly, Rita Cosby, Glenn Beck, and John Gibson. "This is not about the poor Mexican immigrant who wants to come for a better life that's the real problem here," Bhakta said. He added, "The border security is a joke and this is a creative and very effective way of showing it."

On November 7, 2006, the Philadelphia Daily News reported that Bhakta's campaign made "stunning" automated campaign calls to homes in Northeast Philadelphia and Montgomery County detailing the charges in 18 lawsuits against an abortion clinic founded by Schwartz.

WhistlePig Whiskey
Bhakta founded the WhistlePig brand of rye whiskey, which was initially launched as a non-distiller producer that bottled Canadian whiskey from the Alberta Premium distillery owned by Fortune Brands in Alberta, Canada. Starting in 2007, he purchased land in Vermont, on which he built a new distillery and aging facility for the brand. The brand was officially launched in 2010.

Bhakta was forced out of the WhistlePig, having been accused of fraud and mismanagement. He sold his shares and fully exited the company in 2019.

Bhakta Spirits
After leaving WhistlePig, Bhakta launched his new enterprise Bhakta Spirits in Shoreham, Vermont. In 2019, Bhakta negotiated purchase of a rare stock of aged Armagnac brandies while on vacation in Gers, France. With vintages dating from 1868 to 1970, these spirits were the basis for his new enterprise, Bhakta Spirits. After acquiring the brandy stocks, along with the Condom, Gers chateau where they were found, Bhakta brought them back to Vermont for blending and marketing. His flagship brandy, BHAKTA 50, launched in July 2020.

In 2019, Bhakta purchased the Whiteface Ranch in Indian River County, Florida for $5.9 million and began rum distilling operation on the site.

Purchase of Green Mountain College Campus
In August 2020, Bhakta purchased at auction the campus of Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vermont.

Personal life
Bhakta met Danhee Kim, a Columbia University grad in 2010, while she was hired as his executive assistant. Kim later worked as a marketing and sales director for Bhakta's WhistlePig whiskey company. The couple married in 2013 and lived in Vermont. The couple moved to Vero Beach, Florida in 2017.

title: Raj Bhakta


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Berthelot's pipit

Berthelot's pipit (Anthus berthelotii) is a small passerine bird which breeds in Madeira and the Canary Islands. It is a common resident in both archipelagos. Berthelot's pipit is found in open country. The nest is on the ground, with 3-5 eggs being laid.

This is a small pipit, 13 – in length. It is an undistinguished looking species on the ground, mainly grey above and whitish below, with some breast streaking. It has a whitish supercilium and eyering, with dark eye and moustachial stripes. The sexes are similar, but juveniles are browner than adults.

This species appears shorter tailed and larger headed than meadow pipit. Its call is a "schrip" like yellow wagtail, and the song, given in flight, is a chattery "tsivrr tsivrr tsivrr tsivrr".

This species is named after the French naturalist Sabin Berthelot, one-time resident of the Canary Islands, by Carl Bolle.

title: Berthelot's pipit