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Billiard table

A billiard table or billiards table is a bounded table on which cue sports are played. In the modern era, all billiards tables (whether for carom billiards, pool, pyramid or snooker) provide a flat surface usually made of quarried slate, that is covered with cloth (usually of a tightly woven worsted wool called baize), and surrounded by vulcanized rubber cushions, with the whole thing elevated above the floor. More specific terms are used for specific sports, such as snooker table and pool table, and different-sized billiard balls are used on these table types. An obsolete term is billiard board, used in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Cushions
Cushions (also sometimes called "rail cushions", "cushion rubber", or rarely "bumpers") are located on the inner sides of a table's wooden. There are several different materials and design philosophies associated with cushion rubber. These cushions are made from an elastic material such as vulcanized rubber (gum or synthetic). The purpose of the cushion rubber is to cause the billiard balls to rebound off the rubber while minimizing the loss of kinetic energy.

The profile of the rail cushion, which is the cushion's angle in relation to the bed of the table, varies between table types. The standard on American pool tables is the K-66 profile, which as defined by the Billiard Congress of America (BCA) has a base of 1+3/16 in and a nose height of 1 in. When installed properly the distance from the nose of the cushion to the covered slate surface is 1+7/16 in while using a regulation 2+1/4 in ball set.

On a carom table, the K-55 profile is used (with a somewhat sharper angle than pool cushions). K-55 cushions have cloth, usually canvas, vulcanized into the top of the rubber to adjust rebound accuracy and speed.

Snooker tables use an L-shaped profile, such as the L77 profile.

Bed
The bed table – the cloth-covered, horizontal playing surface – is, on high-quality equipment, made of solid, smooth slabs of slate, most often from Italy, Brazil or China. Small pool tables may use only one or two pieces of slate, while carom, English billiards and tournament-size pool tables use three. Full-size snooker tables require five. The gap between slates is filled with a hard-drying putty, epoxy or resin, then sanded to produce a seamless surface, before being covered with the cloth. When several pieces of slate are joined poorly it is possible for the resin to deform and cause an uneven playing surface; it can also be difficult to move once joined.

Tables for the home market usually use slate beds as well, but the slate is often thinner, down to about $undefined 1/2$ inch (13 mm). The early table beds were made of cloth-covered wooden boards. Today, inexpensive but not very rigid or durable materials used for the beds of low-end tables (e.g. for children's recreation rooms) still include wood, especially medium-density fibreboard and plywood, as well as plastics and other synthetic materials under various trade names.

Cloth
Billiard cloth (sometimes erroneously called felt) is a specific type of cloth that covers the top of the table's "playing area". Both the rails and slate beds are covered with 21–24-ounce billiard cloth (although some less expensive 19-ounce cloths are available) which is most often green in colour (representing the grass of the original lawn games from which billiards evolved), and consists of either a woven wool or wool-nylon blend called baize.

Most bar tables, which get much use, use the slower, thicker blended felt because it is cheaper. This type of cloth is called a woollen cloth. By contrast, high-quality pool cloth is usually made of a napless weave such as worsted wool, which gives a much faster roll to the balls. This "speed" of the cloth affects the amounts of and  of the balls, among other aspects of game finesse. Snooker cloth traditionally has a directional nap, upon which the balls behave differently when rolling against vs. running with the direction of the nap.

Markings
, also known as (for their traditional shape), are inlaid at precise, evenly spaced positions along the rails of some tables (not usually on snooker tables) to aid in the aiming of bank or kick shots. There are six along each long rail (with the side pocket interfering with where the seventh one would go, on pocket billiard tables) and three along each short rail, with each of the four corners counting as another in the mathematical systems that the diamonds are used to calculate. These sights divide the playing surface into equal squares. Books, even entire series of books, have been written on geometric and algebraic systems of aiming using the diamonds.

Spots are often used to mark the and  on the cloth. Other markings may be a line drawn across the (or across the  with, in British-style pool). Another case is the outline of the behind the foot spot where the balls are  in straight pool, since the outline of this area is strategically important throughout the game. In artistic pool, lines may be drawn between opposite sights putting a grid on the playing surface. Other grid patterns are used in various forms of balkline billiards. A recent table marking convention, in European nine-ball, is the.

Carom billiards tables
Pocketless carom billiards tables are used for such games as straight rail, balkline, one-cushion billiards, three-cushion caroms, and artistic billiards.

Dimensions
Regulation 10 × 5-foot carom billiards tables have a playing surface (measured between the noses of the cushions) of 2.84 by with a 5-millimetre allowance. The standard height range of the table, measured from the playing surface to the ground is between 75 and 80 centimetres.

Bed
The slate bed of a carom billiards table must have a minimum thickness of 45 millimetres and in tournaments recommended heating temperatures is 33 –, which helps to keep moisture out of the cloth to aid the balls rolling and rebounding in a consistent manner, and generally makes a table play faster. A heated table is required under international carom rules and is an especially important requirement for the games of three-cushion billiards and artistic billiards.

Pool tables

A pool table, or pocket billiards table, has six – one at each corner of the table  and one at the midpoint of each of the longer sides ( or ).

Dimensions
Pool tables come in different sizes, typically referred to as 9 foot, 8.5 ft, 8 ft, or 7 ft tables. In all cases, the table is rectangular with a 2:1 ratio (e.g. 9 × 4.5 ft).

There are only two sizes approved for tournament play by the International Olympic Committee–recognized sport governing body of pool, the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA), and its various regional and national affiliates; under the world standardized rules of pool, these are the 9 × 4.5 ft and 8 × 4 ft models. For a 9-ft table, the playing surface (the dimensions between the noses of the cushions) measures 100 by with a $undefined 1/8$-inch (3.2 mm) margin of error for either dimension. For an 8-ft table, the playing surface measures 92 by, with the same $undefined 1/8$ inch variance allowed.

In the UK as well as a number of other British Commonwealth and European countries, the typical pool table is a 7 x, although 6 ft tables for the pub and home market are also common. These are the sizes used by internationally standardized blackball and the amateur World Eightball Pool Federation, as well as informal pub pool. The 7-foot size is also frequently used in North American amateur leagues, and are common coin-operated fixtures in bars and other venues. The playing surface for a 7-foot table is 76 by.

Pockets
Pockets, typically rimmed at the back with leather or plastic traditionally have drop pockets, which are small receptacles below each pocket to contain the balls. More modern tables may instead employ ball return pockets, a series of gutters inside the table, which deliver the balls into a collection compartment on one side of the table, in a similar manner to the ball return on a bowling alley. On a coin-operated table, the object balls are deposited inside an inaccessible window until the table is paid again, allowing the balls to be released into the compartment, while the cue ball is usually separated into its own ball return, often utilizing a different sized ball. A possible result of drop pockets is that if too many balls go into the same pocket, it would fill up the receptacle and prevent any more balls from going in that pocket, requiring that some be moved out of the pocket manually before shooting again.

Regardless of table size, the WPA standard (sometimes informally called "American-style") table has wide, angular pockets that funnel notably inward, generally 1.75 to 2.25 times as wide at the opening as the diameter of the $2 1/4$-inch (57 mm) balls, wider at the side (middle) pockets than the corners. WEPF pool (sometimes informally called "British-style" or "Commonwealth-style") is played with 2 to $2 1/8$-in (51–54 mm) balls, and this type of table has smaller, narrow pockets (the width is calculated as the ball diameter multiplied by 1.6, and is consistent at all six pockets), with rounded entrances and nearly parallel sides, like those on a snooker table. One tactical consequence of this design difference is that the jaws of the WPA-type pocket are often used exactly like a horizontal version of the backboard of a basketball goal, to rebound the ball into the pocket; this technique does not work on blackball tables, and even shots down the cushion into a corner pocket are more difficult.

Bed
For tournament competition under WPA world-standardized rules (and league play under derived rulesets), the bed of the pocket billiard table must be made of slate no less than 1 in thick. The flatness of the table must be divergent by no greater than 0.02 in lengthwise and 0.01 in across the width.

Scoring device
Some pool tables may feature mechanical scorekeeper on one side, which can be changed to denote points for games such as straight pool or rotation.

Snooker and English billiards tables
A table designed for the games snooker and English billiards is usually called a snooker table.

Dimensions
The playing area of a tournament snooker table, as standardized by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) and the amateur International Billiards and Snooker Federation (IBSF), measures 11 feet 8.5 inches by 5 ft 10 in (3569 mm by 1778 mm) with a tolerance of ± 0.5 in (13 mm), though commonly referred to as 12 ft by 6 ft, the nominal outer dimensions including the rails. Smaller tables, approximately 10 ft by 5 ft down to half size, are also sometimes used in pubs, homes and smaller snooker halls. The height from the floor to the top of the cushion is between 2 ft 9.5 in and 2 ft 10.5 in (851 mm and 876 mm).

Pockets
A snooker table has six pockets, one at each corner and one at the centre of each of the longest side cushions. The pockets are around 86 mm (3.5 in), though high-class tournaments may use slightly smaller pockets to increase difficulty. The amount of (trimmed underside of the rubber cushion's protruding  at the pocket opening),  if any, has a strong effect on how easily a ball is accepted by the pocket (the ""). On snooker and English billiards tables, the pocket entries are rounded, while pool tables have sharp "". This affects how accurate shots need to be to get into a pocket, and how fast they can be when not dead-on, including shots that run along and against a cushion, making snooker more difficult to play than pool. According to the WPBSA official rule book, "the pocket openings shall conform to the owned and authorised by The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA)". The WPBSA and IBSF rule books' equipment sections do not actually specify the measurements and shapes of these proprietary templates which change from time to time, requiring that the templates be dated. The organizations do not recognize tournament play or records (maximum breaks, etc.) if not performed on tables that conform to then-current templates.

Cushions
The cushions (sometimes known as rails, though that term properly applies to the wood sections to which the cushions are attached) are usually made of vulcanized rubber.

Markings
The area is marked by a  drawn on the cloth across the width of the table at 29 in from and parallel to the face of the. A semicircle with a radius of 11.5 in centred on this line within baulk forms in which the cue ball must be placed when breaking or after the cue ball has been  or shot off the table. The position of four of are marked along the  (lengthwise centre) of the table, perpendicular to the baulk line: the, 12.75 in from the ; the  or , located at the midpoint between the bottom and top ; the  or , located midway between the centre spot and the top cushion; and the  or , located at the midpoint of the baulk line (and, thus of the "D"). Due to its obviousness, the brown spot is not always marked (neither are the unmistakable and, at the left and right intersections, respectively, of the baulk line and the "Ds curve.  The exact placing of these markings are different on smaller tables, but proportional to the full-size model.

Bed
The of a good-quality snooker table has a  of slate and is covered with baize cloth, traditionally green, though many other colours are now available. The thickness of this cloth determines the table's (lack of friction) and responsiveness to, thicker cloths being longer lasting but slower and less responsive. The nap of the cloth can affect the run of the balls, especially on slower shots and shots played with applied to the. A snooker table traditionally has the nap running from the baulk to the top end and is brushed and ironed in this direction.

Tables for other games
Other types of billiard tables are used for specific games, such as Russian pyramid which uses a '12 ft by 6 ft' table (similar to a snooker table but with much smaller pockets), and Asian four ball which uses a pocketless 8 ft by 4 ft table. Games such as bagatelle often had more than six holes, including straight through the bed in the middle of the table, a feature still found in bar billiards and bumper pool.

Novelty and home tables
There are novelty billiard tables, often for pool, that come in various shapes including zig-zag, circular, and (especially for bumper pool) hexagonal. A circular table featured prominently in the 1972 film Silent Running. For the home market, many manufacturers have produced convertible billiard tables (in the broad sense) that double as dining tables or as table tennis, foosball, or air hockey, tables, with removable hard tops. Home pool tables, which often lack a ball-return system, are commonly either 4 × 8 ft or 3.5 × 7 ft models, a medium between 3 × 6 ft. bar/pub tables and 4.5 × 9 ft tournament-size models. Low-end tables tend toward the smaller range, and may have MDF or wood beds as an alternative to slate; those with light-weight beds may be foldable for storage, as with table tennis. Miniature tables range in size from tabletop 1 × 1.6 ft to free-standing 2.5 × 5 ft models, and use scaled-down cues and balls.

Heating
Billiard table beds are commonly heated with electricity, in order to keep the cloth dry, and allow the balls to roll better. Queen Victoria (1819–1901) had a billiard table that was heated using zinc tubes, although the aim at that time was chiefly to keep the then-used ivory balls from warping. The first use of electric heating was for an 18.2 balkline tournament held in December 1927 between Welker Cochran and Jacob Schaefer Jr. The New York Times announced it with fanfare: "For the first time in the history of world's championship balkline billiards a heated table will be used..."

An electrically heated table is required under international carom billiard tournament rules 'in order to ensure the best possible rolling', although temperatures are not specified. In tournaments, carom billiard tables have recommended heating temperatures of 33–37 °C, while billiard associations may heat their carom tables to as much as 45 °C. An average modern billiard heater has an output of 600 watts. If it is not switched off outside operating hours, consumption is 3,500 kilowatt-hour (kWh) per year, costing 525 euros (0.15 EUR/kWh). Switching off a billiard table heater whenever it is not used can save more than 50% in energy consumption and costs; this can be done automatically with timers. Another way to reduce energy consumption and costs is to use synthetic cloth rather than wool cloth, which requires much more energy to warm up. A disadvantage of synthetic cloth may be that certain types of games, such as balkline, may result in damaging the synthetic cloth too quickly because of the way players hit the balls.

The 2022 Russia–European Union gas dispute caused rising energy costs around Europe, making heating billiard tables almost prohibitively expensive. The Royal Dutch Billiards Federation's director said in October 2022 that "billiard and snooker localities are simply incapable of affording these energy prices anymore, as heating a billiard costs about 3,500 kilowatts a year (...). At current energy prices, that is about 2,400 to 2,500 euros a year per billiard table."

title: Billiard table


text: Category:Anchorage, Alaska

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

title: Category:Anchorage, Alaska


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Pierre Clergue

Pierre Clergue was a priest in the village of Montaillou, France in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century. He is the central figure in Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's 1975 book Montaillou, a pioneering work of microhistory. Since then he has appeared in a number of other histories, and as the villain in the fictional work The Good Men by Charmaine Craig.

Family
Pierre was the son of Pons and Mengarde Clergue. The Clergues were a family of wealthy peasants, by far the wealthiest in Montaillou and their power extended throughout the region. Pierre, the head of the family after the death of his father, became the priest of the village. His brother Bernard Clergue became the local bayle, the enforcer of laws and collector of taxes. The Clergue brothers thus had a central role in being the representatives of both religious and secular power in the town. As one of the few educated men in town Pierre Clergue also served as a notary and performed other such tasks.

Catharism
Despite being a priest in a Roman Catholic church Pierre Clergue was a staunch Albigensian having been converted by the parfait Guillaume Authié. For many years he played an important role by convincing the inquisition to ignore Montaillou, despite its being filled with heretics. This changed in about 1300, when Pierre Clergue began to inform on some members of his parish. In 1308 he played a central role in the inquisition's move to arrest the entire adult population of the town. Pierre decided which villagers would be freed and which punished. He used this power to satisfy personal grievances. During this time he and his brother continued to provide shelter and aid to certain Cathars.

Affairs with women
Pierre Clergue is notable for his sexual appetite—celibacy among priests was not strictly enforced in the Pyrenees at this time—having many mistresses over his long career as priest and virtual ruler of the town. The most important of these was Béatrice de Planisoles who as châtelaine was the nominal ruler of the village. Le Roy Ladurie lists nine women of Montaillou with whom he conducted affairs: Alazaïs Fauré, Raymonde Fauré, Béatrice de Planisoles, Grazide Lizier, Alazaïs Azéma, Gaillarde Benet, Alissende Roussel, Mengarde Buscailh, Na Maragda, Jacotte den Tort, Raymonde Guilhou, and Esclarmonde Clergue, his sister in law.

Pierre Clergue justified his philandering in several ways. Cathar doctrine taught that all sex was sinful, though more so within the confines of marriage, as the couple did not believe that they were erring. Since he expected to be absolved from all his sins upon his deathbed in the consolamentum he also felt he could sin without having to suffer for it.

In 1320 Pierre Clergue was arrested by the inquisition under the orders of Bishop Jacques Fournier. Despite a concerted campaign of bribery and calling in favours by his brother Bernard, Pierre remained in prison and eventually died there. There is no record of his testifying before the Inquisition.

Literature

 * Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel. Montaillou: The Promised Land of Error. Translated by Barbara Bray. New York: Braziller, 1978.

title: Pierre Clergue


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2004 Thuringian state election

The 2004 Thuringian state election was held on 13 June 2004 to elect the members of the 4th Landtag of Thuringia. The incumbent Christian Democratic Union (CDU) government led by Minister-President Dieter Althaus retained its majority and continued in office.

Parties
The table below lists parties represented in the 3rd Landtag of Thuringia.

title: 2004 Thuringian state election


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Talk:Vehicle emissions control

Improvement needed
I've noticed that "1.1 Increasing engine efficiency" is blank. If no one is willing to write paragraphs on engine efficiency, putting some links should be a good placeholder until someone writes something. Links such as:
 * Catalytic converter
 * Electronic control unit

 * Excellent idea. Be bold -- do it! —Morven 06:42, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

 * Linking to the ECU article is a good idea, but catalytic converters do not increase engine efficiency, so it should not go under that heading. Shawn D. 12:23, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

 * Catalytic converters definitely improve engine efficiency, they just do so indirectly. 1975 cars with catcons got better fuel economy than comparable 1974 models without catcons, because of the "strangulation" de-tuning required to squeak the '74s past the Federal emission certification tests. The exhaust cleanup done by the catcon gave back some room to tune the engine for optimal efficiency. The same thing happened when 3-way catcons replaced 2-way — close control of fuel mixture was required to make the 3-way catcon work; side benefits included better economy and driveability. —Scheinwerfermann T·C 21:32, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Indeed. The Corvette of today is far more powerful than earlier Corvettes. Today's engines are more efficient, and more reliable. I'm sure that those who are my age can remember having to adjust the points and carb every month. UrbanTerrorist (talk) 14:16, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I will attempt to add information regarding General Motors development of Electronic control units as I was the system Engineer responsible for the 1981 GM ECM, See my recent changes for ALDL,and On-Board Diagnostics.
 * W9kfb (talk) 21:10, 27 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I have as much as I can think of for now. Please let me know if anything more specific needs to added or changed.
 * W9kfb (talk) 22:02, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

missing buzzwords

 * "sniff test" --Jerome Potts (talk) 23:57, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Article name
I just moved the article from "Automobile emissions control" to "Vehicle emissions control". Furthermore, the article may be suitable to be moved to "Engine emissions control" since it is also relevant to machinery which are not necessary vehicles, but are still powered by internal combustion engines (chainsaws and lawnmowers come to mind). --uKER (talk) 04:42, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

 * It should be under Internal Combustion Engine Emission Control to be precise. Comments? UrbanTerrorist (talk) 14:17, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Too American?
The article, particularly the "History" section, seems very focused on an American viewpoint and pays little attention to the emissions effort in other countries. Had it not been for me adding the section on the EU and the UK a while back, there would be mention of other perspectives amounting to around 2 lines. Since article isn't "Vehicle emissions control in the United States" I feel this could be changed. --Connelly90[AlbaGuBràth] (talk) 14:26, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
 * That is probably because the North American emission control industry is the most advanced. Emission control systems were first fitted to North American vehicles, and North American standards are still the most stringent. Also a lot of us have worked in the industry, and know where to find citations on this side of the pond. Please add more information on the situation in Europe. We need that information to make this a world class article. UrbanTerrorist (talk) 14:20, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Catalytic Converters - The Book
Since my body won't let me work any more, and I've now been out of the business for over two years, I'm going to write a book on Catalytic Converters. I'm one of the few people who isn't in the business who qualifies as an expert, understands the chemistry, the physics, and how engines work. Because I worked in the business for over ten years, I have names in my rolodex for people who work at every company, to help me fill in the blanks.

Besides, after seeing some of the stuff that has happened on this page over the years, well you folks need a reference that you can use that is reliable. I'm posting this here because I know what I think should be in the book, but I don't know what you think should be there. What questions would you like to see answered? Let me know on my talk page. UrbanTerrorist (talk) 14:27, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Where is the diesel emissions section
Diesel vehicles also release emissions. They are not even mentioned in this article. They are not referred to in any of the connected articles. Someone should get on this...

Avram Primack (talk) 19:11, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

 * You're right. Be bold and get to it! —Scheinwerfermann T·C 20:20, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Incorrect article - should be removed
NOx emissions are reduced by LOWERING ENGINE COMPRESSION ratio. Any NOx that gets to the Catalytic Converter will be oxidized to Nitric Acid. The LOWER EFFICIENCY LOW COMPRESSION ENGINE runs "rich" which also reduces NOx, but generates more Carbon footprint that necessary for useful energy produced by engine. An Air pump injects air into this incompletely combusted mix (including hydrocarbons and high carbon monoxide level) and into the catalytic converter which catalyzes oxidation of these unburned gases. Vehicle Emissions Control was originally a State of California initiative to alleviate photochemical smog which was primarily driven by NOx content. Noble metal catalysts are sensitive to Lead contamination, however the lower cost and less lead sensitive converters using alternative oxidation catalysts (e.g. Vanadium Oxide). The newer Noble metal catalyst beds are often preheated, operating 450-600 degrees. (Older models got up to temp via exhaust gas heating.) Below that temperature the catalyst generates a toxic mix of toluene, benzene, et al (other carcinogens)(similar to Lead poisoned catalyst). Diesel Engines, which must run at higher compression ratio, have converters that oxidize particulates (soot; an issue with longer chain fuel molecules) with proposed use of toxic liquid Ammonia injection to destroy NOx thermally. The only Noble metal that breaks down NOx to Nitrogen and Oxygen is Gold. Shjacks45 (talk) 02:29, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: HIEA 140 REMOTE China since 1978
— Assignment last updated by 1hq (talk) 22:20, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Vehicle emissions control


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Dōkyūsei 2

Dōkyūsei 2 (同級生 2) is a video game published by ELF Corporation and the sequel to Dōkyūsei. Dōkyūsei 2 was released in 1995 for MS-DOS version and in 1997 for Microsoft Windows. A PlayStation version was released on August 7, 1997.

The player plays the role of a high school male student. In the winter vacation of the last school year (from 22 December to 7 January), he has to choose one girl to be his girlfriend. There are 15 choices for him to make, some are his classmates and some have to be met in the city. The player has to meet the girls and make friends with one of them until the relationship develops to a point that the girl is willing to become his girlfriend.

Characters

 * Yui Narusawa (鳴沢 唯 Narusawa Yui): A girl who calls Ryunosuke "elder brother" (お兄さん, oniisan) and who lives with him.
 * Tomomi Mizuno (水野 友美 Mizuno Tomomi): A childhood friend of Ryunosuke.
 * Izumi Shinohara (篠原 いずみ Shinohara Izumi): A good friend of Tomomi. Ryunosuke cannot become Tomomi's boyfriend and Izumi's at the same time.
 * Yōko Minamikawa (南川 洋子 Minamikawa Yōko): A girl who always quarrels with Ryunosuke.
 * Minori Katō (加藤 みのり Katō Minori): A girl who works in a tuckshop called "Hiroko".
 * Karen Maijima (舞島 可憐 Maijima Karen): A girl who seldom goes to school since she works as an idol.
 * Sakurako Sugimoto (杉本 桜子 Sugimoto Sakurako): A student at High School 88.

The following girls are not classmates of Ryunosuke:
 * Kozue Tsuzuki (都築 こずえ Tsuzuki Kozue): A female schoolmate of Ryunosuke, two years his junior.
 * Misako Narusawa (鳴沢 美佐子 Narusawa Misako): Yui's mother; she lives with Ryunosuke.
 * Misato Nonomura (野々村 美里 Nonomura Misato): A girl who works as a tour guide.
 * Azumi Yasuda (安田 愛美 Yasuda Azumi): A girl who is a young baby-sitter.
 * Misa Tanaka (田中 美沙 Tanaka Misa): A girl who comes to Ryunosuke's town during vacation. Misa is also a returning character from the first Dōkyūsei, being a fan favorite.
 * Sachiko Nagashima (永島 佐知子 Nagashima Sachiko): The owner of the Nagashima hostel in Toji Onsen.
 * Kumiko Nagashima (永島 久美子 Nagashima Kumiko): The daughter of Sachiko, she wants to live in the city instead of living in the countryside.
 * Mirei Katagiri (片桐 美鈴 Katagiri Mirei): Ryunosuke's teacher at school.

Male characters in the game:
 * Aritomo Saionji (西御寺 有友 Saionji Aritomo): One of Ryunosuke's classmates. He is from a rich family, and he is not particularly good friends with Ryunosuke.
 * Yoshiki Nagaoka (長岡 芳樹 Nagaoka Yoshiki): Another one of Ryunosuke's classmates.
 * Akira Kawajiri (川尻 あきら Kawajiri Akira): A classmate and good friend of Ryunosuke.
 * Shinkansen Tendō (天道 新幹線 Tendō Shinkansen): The PE teacher of the 88 high school who always torments his students.

title: Dōkyūsei 2


text:
Jean Pellissier (shepherd)

Jean Pellissier was a shepherd in the Comté de Foix in the early fourteenth century, made notable by appearing in Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's Montaillou. Pellissier was born in Montaillou to a family of poor peasants. One of a number of sons he became a shepherd as the family land would not enough to sustain all of them. At the age of twelve, as was the custom, he began tending his family's flock of sheep. Soon he was apprenticed in Tournon to a woman named Thomassia, likely a widow. He worked there for five or six years before returning home and living with his widowed mother and his four brothers Raymond, Guillaume, Bernard, and Pierre.

Some years later he again left home to become a shepherd in Niort. Staying there two years he went to Mompret for a year before again returning to Montaillou. This time he moved in with Bernard and Guillemette Maurs and worked tending their flock, the couple's children being too young for the job. His brother Bernard was also residing there working as a ploughboy for the couple. The Maurs were Cathars and Jean was briefly converted to the heresy.

In 1308, however, the town of Montaillou was raided by the local inquisition and the Maurs arrested. Jean left for the neighbouring town of Prades d'Aillon where he was hired by Bernard Malet, two months later Bernard was also imprisoned by the inquisition. Jean remained in the employ of Malet's sons Bernard, Raymond, and André.

Eventually Pellissier left to resume travelling through the region for several years before accumulating enough money to settle in Montaillou with his own flock.

title: Jean Pellissier (shepherd)


text:
Raymonde Arsen

Raymonde Arsen née Vital was a servant in the Comté de Foix in the early fourteenth century. She was made notable by appearing in Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's Montaillou. Born in Prades d'Aillon to a poor peasant family in 1306 she left to work in the home of Bonet de la Coste in town Pamiers.

Whilst in the city she had an illegitimate child who she named Alazaïs. As a servant she could not care for the girl and she lived with a series of nurses. Later she was approached by her cousin Raymond Belot of Montaillou who needed a servant to replace his sister, Raymonde, who was soon to be wed to Bernard Clergue. She agreed and worked for the Belots. She lived in a small barn and her primary duties were baking bread and washing clothes. Also in the home was her brother Arnaud Vital a cobbler who was boarding with the Belots. She worked for the Belots for one year, later marrying Prades den Arsen and settling in Prades d'Aillon. Later in life she was arrested for heresy and she told the inquisition much about her associates. In 1324 she was sentenced by the Inquisition to wear the yellow cross forever as a punishment.

title: Raymonde Arsen


text:
Majayjay

Majayjay, officially designated as the Municipality of Majayjay , is a 4th class municipality in the province of Laguna, Philippines. As of the 2020 census, the city has a population of 27,893 residents.

Geographically, Majayjay is situated at the base of Mount Banahaw; approximately 1,000 feet (300 meters) above sea level. It is 62 km from Santa Cruz, 107 km from Manila, and 12 km from Lucban. It shares borders with Magdalena on the northwest, Lucban in Quezon to the southeast, Luisiana to the northeast, and Liliw to the west.

Etymology
The original name of Majayjay was Malay Barangay, but many residents assume that Spaniards found it difficult to pronounce, which may have led to early colonizers shortening it to Malay-ay until it became Majayjay. Legends, however, say that it was the difficult journey to Majayjay which gave the town its name; tired travelers supposedly sighed, “Hay!” after scaling a cliff, “Hay!” after ascending a hill, and “Hay!” after crossing a raging river. Thus, guests referred to the place as “Mahayhay,” meaning many sighs, and the Spaniards then spelled this “Majayjay.”

History
In 1571, The Spanish colonial government made Majayjay into a town, which at the time was one of the most populated settlements in the newly founded province. It competed with Bay and Pagsanjan during the selection of the province's capital.

The popularity of the new town grew during the Spanish period, in part due to its location at the foot of the mountain, which gave it an abundant supply of fresh mountain spring water. Four rivers flowed through the town: Initian, Oobi, Olla, and Balanac (from the falls of Botocan) where all the rivers meet.

Botocan Falls and the town's scenery were uniquely famous, which led to many Europeans and wealthy natives from Manila frequently visiting the town. However, the road to Malay Barangay was considered to be tough. Guests have to be ferried from Manila through the Pasig River to Laguna de Bay. Land travel was done by mounting horses through a path in the forest and then being borne by natives in hammocks on the way up to Malay Barangay.

After the conversion of the natives of Malay Barangay, a makeshift church was built near May-it River, but was destroyed by a fire in 1578. A new church made of bamboo and cogon thatch was built; however, another fire destroyed it again. A stone church was then built, which was also burned down. Despite the fire incidents, the image of their patron saint, San Gregorio Papa Magno survived.

Through the efforts of Padre José de Puertollano, contributions enforced by parishioners, and forced labor of natives, a new church was built in 1730, with its construction taking 19 years.

Geography
Majayjay is a geographically landlocked area situated in the southernmost part of Laguna. It nestles at the foot of Mt. Banahaw, and due to its higher altitude at some 2,700+ ft above sea level, the town makes for a popular vacation destination during summer in the Philippines. It was once branded as the 'Summer Capital of the Philippines' 300–400 years ago during the Spanish era, when most of the prominent names in the Spanish colonial Philippines visited the area. Other sights along the streets include the remnants of the said era of Spanish-inspired houses that still stand at periodic key locations, mostly in the town square. Affluent families still have their ancestral houses maintained.

Climate
Majayjay is classified as Am in the Köppen–Geiger climate classification, which refers to a tropical monsoon climate. There is significant rainfall in most months of the year, with the annual rainfall averaging 2,571 mm, and the precipitation between the driest month and the wettest month differing by 332 mm. The short dry season has little effect on the overall climate. The temperature here averages 25.8 °C, and during the year, the average temperatures vary by 3.2 °C. The warmest month of the year is May, with an average temperature of 27.4 °C. January has the lowest average temperature of the year, which is 24.2 °C.

Barangays
Majayjay is politically subdivided into 40 barangays, which is the smallest administrative division in the Philippines. Each barangay consists of puroks, or unofficial divisions within a barangay, and some barangays also have sitios, which are also unofficial divisions in a barangay.

Demographics

In the 2020 census, the population of Majayjay was 27,893 people, with a density of undefined PD/km2.

Economy
The town boasts a line of shanties of budding small enterprises mostly selling indigenous farm crops along its main road.

Tourism

 * Majayjay Catholic Church.jpg
 * 1. Saint Gregory the Great Parish Church: Majayjay is home to one of the oldest Roman Catholic churches in the Philippines, the Saint Gregory the Great Parish Church. It was built in 1575 through forced labor by the town folks. Inside the church are antique statues of saints brought by the Spaniards in the early era of propagating Christianity. The church underwent fire incidents in 1576, 1606, and 1660, but later underwent reconstructions and rehabilitation works. A view of Laguna de Bay can be seen atop the roof of the church.

 * Taytay falls Majayjay.jpg. Taytay Falls: Majayjay is also home to the Taytay Falls. Others call it the Majayjay Falls or even Imelda Falls because ex-First Lady Imelda Marcos financed the promotion of tourism in this place. It is a two-story high fall located in remote scenery where forestry is abundant. To reach Taytay Falls, one has to go down the stone steps leading to a kilometer-long trail, constructed in 2008. Recently, the World Bank has sponsored the promotion of tourism in Taytay Falls.

 * 3. Puente de Capriccio: In Rizal's El Filibusterismo, he spoke of an old Spanish bridge made of stone in the year 1851. It was a one-arch bridge since it was not finished, early natives put a bamboo footbridge to connect the opposite sides to make it accessible. Puente de Capriccio was initiated by Spanish Franciscan priest Victoriano del Moral. But the priest was cruel and autocratic, anyone who did not labour in the construction would be later punished by whipping the buttocks. The workers were reportedly not paid a single centavo. Because of his cruelty, the workers campaigned against him, thus, the bridge's construction never resumed since 1851. The bridge is still standing firm today crossing the Olla River. It is called Tulay ng Pige (Bridge of Buttocks) by modern Majayjayenos. The bridge now symbolizes the defiance of Filipino workers against the oppressive Spanish colonialists during the colonial period.

 * 4. Mount Banahaw: Majayjay is located at the foot of this mountain. In the early Spanish era, Mount Banahaw was called Monte de Majayjay, because it was the town the only way to travel to the mountain. Many European elites visited the town for Mount Banahaw.

 * 5. Bukal Falls: Popular to most tourists as the Enchanted Falls

 * 6. Botocan Hydroelectric Power Plant and Dam: It is the first hydroelectric power plant constructed in the Philippines in the 20th century (1930). It is now owned by the CBK Power Company Limited.

 * 7. Ermita Church: Then, a tribunal. This holy place houses the image of Nuestra Señora de la Portería.

 * 8. Our Lady of the Gate Grotto: Situated along the Olla riverbank is a sacred place where masses at times are being held. It is a small tourist destination for religious excursionists.

Festivals
Majayjay Day is celebrated every year on October 2 as part of the celebration of the founding anniversary of the town. It brags off-farm and agricultural products produced primarily from the 40 barangays composing it. This day has been given a new life and breathing in its new brand name AniLinang Festival. The 1st AniLinang Festival was held on October 2, 2016, as an initiative of the local government to promote the town's laid-back, and peaceful way of life seen in its agricultural produce as well as in its indigenous cuisines.

SaGreMa Festival (San Gregorio Magno Majayjay), is a parochial festivity celebrated on September 3, the day when Saint Gregory, the town's patron saint, became a pope, and March 12, the day he died. In the festival, Majayjayenos honor the saint for the fortunes of their town.

Transportation
The town can be accessed by four entry points: Magdalena-Majayajay Road to the north, Liliw-Majayjay Road to the west, Luisiana-Majayjay Road to the east, and Lucban-Majayjay Road to the south. Public utility vehicles such local jeepneys and tricycles are modes of public transportation in the municipality.

Communication
The town of Majayjay possesses different communication lines including PLDT, and cellular communications such as Globe, Smart, and DITO.

Education
Secondary schools:
 * 1) Liceo de Majayjay (High School)
 * 2) Sta Catalina National High School (Barangay San Miguel, Main Campus and Barangay Bakia, ext.)
 * 3) Suba National High School (Barangay San Isidro, Main Campus and Barangay Gagalot, ext.)

Elementary schools:
 * 1) Liceo de Majayjay (Elementary)
 * 2) Majayjay Elementary School
 * 3) Sta Catalina Elementary School
 * 4) Bakia-Botocan Elementary School
 * 5) Paaralang Elementarya ng Gagalot - Taytay
 * 6) Suba Elementary School
 * 7) Bucal Elementary School
 * 8) Munting Kawayan Elementary School

Elected officials
The current municipal council of Majayjay (2022-2025)

Notable people

 * Gustavo Tobler (1834-1875), merchant and coffee planter from Switzerland

title: Majayjay


text:
Local 33–UNITE HERE

Local 33–UNITE HERE, formerly the Graduate Employees and Students Organization (“GESO–UNITE HERE”), is a union of graduate student teachers and researchers at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Local 33 is affiliated with the international union UNITE HERE, which also represents Yale University's service, maintenance, clerical, and technical workers. After more than three decades of organizing, Yale graduate workers submitted over 3,000 signed union authorization cards to the Hartford, Connecticut, office of the National Labor Relations Board, or NLRB, representing the greatest number of graduate workers who have ever supported unionizing. On January 9, 2023, Yale graduate workers won their union, with 1,860 members voting in favor and 179 voting against, a 10.4 to 1 ratio in favor of unionization. The proposed worker bargaining unit of about 4,000 graduate and professional school workers was the second largest election filing in the country in 2022.

Local 33 has received support from many prominent academics, including Corey Robin, Michael Denning, David Graeber, and Michael Bérubé, and elected officials, including Governor Dannel Malloy, Senators Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, New Haven Mayor Toni Harp, US Senator Bernie Sanders, and US Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro.

History
In 2014, Local 33 took its campaign public at a rally on October 21, unveiling a petition with the photographs of over 1000 graduate students calling on Yale to negotiate the terms of a neutral election. Local 33 is asking Yale to address four main issues: fairness in teaching and funding; mental healthcare for graduate students; racial and gender equity; and affordable childcare.

On August 29, 2016, following the NLRB's decision in Columbia, Local 33 members in 10 academic departments filed election petitions with the NLRB.

On January 25, 2017, the Regional Director for Region 1 of the National Labor Relations Board ordered union elections for graduate teachers in the Departments of East Asian Languages and Literatures, English, Geology and Geophysics, History, History of Art, Math, Physics, Political Science, and Sociology.

Activities
In 2012, GESO hosted a conference on academic labor entitled, "The Changing University: An Interdisciplinary Symposium". In 2014, GESO re-emerged with two "majority petition" rallies. The first, held on April 30, presented a petition to the Yale administration with over 1000 signatures of graduate students. The second, on October 21, 2014, presented a petition with over 1000 photographs of graduate students paired with allies from the local unions, the community, and elected officials, including Governor Dannel Malloy, New Haven Mayor Toni Harp, and US Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro. In February 2015, GESO released a report on the expansion of Yale College, entitled "Teaching in a Growing Yale: Critical Questions." GESO presented a petition with over 1100 signatures to the university in May 2015. The petition calls on Yale to "begin contract negotiations on issues of immediate concern including funding security, racial and gender equity, and mental health care."

title: Local 33–UNITE HERE


text:
Arnaud Vital

Arnaud Vital was a cobbler in the Comté de Foix in the early fourteenth century. He is notable for appearing in Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's Montaillou. Originally from a peasant family in Prades d'Aillon, he moved to Montaillou living as a boarder in the house of the Belot family. He was later joined by his sister Raymonde who came to work as a servant in the Belot home.

Arnaud was a committed Albigensian and spent much time guiding parfaits through the mountains. He was also a great womanizer, the lover of Alazaïs Fauré whom he converted to Catharism. At one point he tried to force himself upon Raymonde Testanière, mistress to Bernard Belot, but she resisted him. Arnaud later married another servant in the Belot household named Raymonde. The couple lived with the Belots another two months before leaving and setting up their own home.

Vital was one of only two artisans in town the other being Raymond Maury the weaver. While his business was somewhat limited by the lack of money in the village he was successful enough to become only the third villager to add a solier to his home. He also became assistant bayle in the town to Bernard Clergue. His marriage was unhappy, however, he ignored his wife and continued to philander with women such as Raymonde Rives and Alazaïs Gavela.

title: Arnaud Vital


text:
Raymonde Vital

Raymonde Vital was a woman who lived in the Comté de Foix in the early fourteenth century, she was made notable when Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie wrote about her in his 1975 book Montaillou. Working as a servant in the home of the Belots, one of the wealthier families of the village of Montaillou, she met Arnaud Vital, a cobbler who was boarding there. She married him and the two set up house together, but the marriage was unhappy as Arnaud ignored her in favour of a series of mistresses. After Arnaud died, Raymonde married Bernard Guilhou. For a time she was also the mistress to priest Pierre Clergue.

title: Raymonde Vital


text:
NM142

The NM142 (Norwegian Model) is an anti-tank missile carrier variant of the American M113 Armored Personnel Carrier, which has been fitted with a TOW2 turret developed in Norway by Kværner Eureka.

Armament
The NM-142 mounts a turret containing a TOW2 guided anti-tank missile system, with one launch tube on each side of the turret.

Additionally, mounted on the commander's hatch, there is an MG3 machine gun for use as secondary armament and in situations where the TOW2-system is unsuitable.

Organization
The vehicle has a crew of four. The commander leads the crew, including designating targets, operating communication systems and navigating. The gunner is responsible for operating and maintaining the TOW2 weapon system. The loader assists the gunner, especially by reloading the launch tubes whenever necessary. Finally, the driver maneuvers the APC and is responsible for maintaining the engine, treads and other driving mechanisms.

Usually, a platoon consists of four NM-142s, led by a lieutenant (who also is the commander on one of the NM-142s). In some cases, three platoons are put together to constitute an anti-tank squadron, but individual platoons are also incorporated in various mechanized formations.

The Norwegian Army had approximately 100 NM-142s. By the end of the service life, all but 12 were withdrawn from service. These received some modifications and then named NM-142F1. As of 2021, all NM142 and NM142Fs have been withdrawn from active service.

Turret
Other nations have made variants using the same turret on other vehicles.

 * Canada : M113 (TOW)
 * Turkey: FNSS ACV-15 (ACV-ATV)
 * Switzerland: Mowag Piranha IB 6×6

title: NM142


text:
Tantek Çelik

Tantek Çelik is a Turkish-American computer scientist, currently the Web standards lead at Mozilla Corporation. Çelik was previously the chief technologist at Technorati. He worked on microformats and is one of the principal editors of several Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) specifications. He is author of HTML5 Now: A Step-by-Step Video Tutorial for Getting Started Today (Voices That Matter) (ISBN 978-0-321-71991-1).

Career
Çelik gained bachelor's and master's degrees in computer science from Stanford University. He worked at Microsoft from 1997 to 2004, where he helped lead development of the Macintosh version of Internet Explorer. Between 1998 and 2003, he managed a team of software developers that designed and implemented the Tasman rendering engine for Internet Explorer for Mac 5. During his time at Microsoft he also served as their alternate representative (1998–2000) and later their representative (2001–2004) to a number of working groups at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C); he is credited on a number of recommendations relating to XHTML and Cascading Style Sheets due to this work. While working for Microsoft, he also developed the "box model hack" that is used by web designers to work around the Internet Explorer box model bug.

Before working at Microsoft he worked in a variety of software engineer roles at Sun Microsystems, Oracle Corporation and Apple Computer. During his four years at Apple Computer (1992–1996), he spent most of his time on the OpenDoc project, first as a senior software developer and then as a technical lead. In 1996, he left Apple to form a software development and consulting company specialising in OpenDoc development, 6prime, with another OpenDoc technical lead Eric Soldan, however in 1997, Aladdin Systems purchased 6prime's main product REV releasing it as Flashback.

At Technorati, he led the adoption of better standards support (including microformats) throughout the company, including their website's front page. He was also involved with the special Election 2004 section of the website, including writing the initial version. He serves as a founder at the Global Multimedia Protocols Group.

, Çelik began working on IndieWebCamp, an effort to coordinate a community of people to build tools to complement and eventually provide an alternative to social networking services like Twitter and Facebook.

He is the owner of the Twitter account @T.

title: Tantek Çelik


text:
Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich of Russia (1856–1929)

Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich of Russia (Russian: Николай Николаевич Романов (младший – the younger); 18 November 1856 – 5 January 1929) was a Russian general in World War I (1914–1918). The son of Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich of Russia (1831–1891), and a grandson of Emperor Nicholas I of Russia, he was commander in chief of the Imperial Russian Army units on the main front in the first year of the war, during the reign of his first cousin once removed, Nicholas II. Although held in high regard by Paul von Hindenburg, he struggled with the colossal task of leading Russia's war effort against Germany, including strategy, tactics, logistics and coordination with the government. After the Gorlice–Tarnów offensive in 1915, Tsar Nicholas replaced the Grand Duke as commander-in-chief of the army. He later was a successful commander-in-chief in the Caucasus region. He was briefly recognized as emperor in 1922 in areas controlled by the White movement in the Russian Far East.

Family
A very tall man at 1.98 m, Nicholas, named after his paternal grandfather, the emperor, was born as the eldest son to Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaevich of Russia (1831–1891) and Alexandra Petrovna of Oldenburg (1838–1900) on 18 November 1856. His father was the sixth child and third son born to Nicholas I of Russia and his Empress consort Alexandra Fedorovna of Prussia (1798–1860). Alexandra Fedorovna was a daughter of Frederick William III of Prussia and Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.

Nicholas's mother, his father's first cousin's daughter, was a daughter of Duke Konstantin Peter of Oldenburg (1812–1881) and Princess Therese of Nassau (1815–1871). His maternal grandfather was a son of Duke George of Oldenburg and Grand Duchess Catherine Pavlovna of Russia, daughter of Paul I of Russia and Maria Fedorovna of Württemberg. (Catherine was later remarried to William I of Württemberg.) His maternal grandmother was a daughter of Wilhelm, Duke of Nassau (1792–1839) and Princess Louise of Saxe-Hildburghausen. The Duke of Nassau was a son of Friedrich Wilhelm, Duke of Nassau (1768–1816) and Burgravine Louise Isabelle of Kirchberg. His paternal grandparents were Duke Karl Christian of Nassau-Weilburg (1735–1788) and Carolina of Orange-Nassau. Carolina was a daughter of William IV of Orange and Anne, Princess Royal and Princess of Orange. Anne was the eldest daughter of George II of Great Britain and Caroline of Ansbach.

Grand Duke Nicholas was the first cousin once removed of Tsar Nicholas II. To distinguish between them, the Grand Duke was often known within the Imperial family as "Nikolasha": the Grand Duke was also known as "Nicholas the Tall" while the tsar was "Nicholas the Short".

Early military career
Grand Duke Nicholas was educated at the school of military engineers and received his commission in 1873. During the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), he was on the staff of his father who was commander in chief. He distinguished himself on two occasions in this war. He worked his way up through all the ranks until he was appointed commander of the Guard Hussar Regiment in 1884.

He had a reputation as a tough commander, yet one respected by his troops. His experience was more as a trainer of soldiers than a leader in battle. Nicholas was a very religious man, praying in the morning and at night as well as before and after meals. He was happiest in the country, hunting or caring for his estates.

By 1895, he was inspector-general of the cavalry, a post he held for 10 years. His tenure has been judged a success with reforms in training, cavalry schools, cavalry reserves and the remount services. He was not given an active command during the Russo-Japanese War, perhaps because the tsar did not wish to hazard the prestige of the Romanovs and because he wanted a loyal general in command at home in case of domestic disturbances. Thus, Nicholas did not have the opportunity to gain experience in battlefield command.

Grand Duke Nicholas played a crucial role during the Revolution of 1905. With disorder spreading and the future of the dynasty at stake, the tsar had a choice of instituting the reforms suggested by Count Sergei Witte or imposing a military dictatorship. The only man with the prestige to keep the allegiance of the army in such a coup was the grand duke. The tsar asked him to assume the role of a military dictator. In an emotional scene at the palace, Nicholas refused, drew his pistol and threatened to shoot himself on the spot if the tsar did not endorse Witte's plan. This act was decisive in forcing Nicholas II to agree to the reforms.

From 1905 to the outbreak of World War I, he was commander of the Petersburg Military District. He had the reputation there of appointing men of humble origins to positions of authority. The lessons of the Russo-Japanese War were drilled into his men.

Marriage
On 29 April 1907, Nicholas married Princess Anastasia of Montenegro (1869–1935), the daughter of King Nicholas I, and sister of Princess Milica, who had married Nicholas's brother, Grand Duke Peter. They had no children. She had previously been married to George Maximilianovich, 6th Duke of Leuchtenberg, by whom she had two children, until their divorce in 1906. Since the Montenegrins were a fiercely Slavic, anti-Ottoman people from the Balkans, Anastasia reinforced the Pan-Slavic tendencies of Nicholas.

Hunting
Nicholas was a hunter. Ownership of borzoi hounds was restricted to members of the highest nobility, and Nicholas's packs were well-known. After the revolution, the dogs in his kennel were sold off by the new Soviet government. In his lifetime, Nicholas and his dogs caught hundreds of wolves. A pair of borzoi were used, which caught the wolf, one on each side, while Nicholas dismounted and cut the wolf's throat with a knife. Hunting was his major recreation, and he traveled in his private train across Russia with his horses and dogs, hunting while on his rounds of inspection.

Eastern Front

The grand duke had no part in the planning and preparations for World War I, that being the responsibility of General Vladimir Sukhomlinov and the general staff. On the eve of the outbreak of World War I, his first cousin once removed, the Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, yielded to the entreaties of his ministers and appointed Grand Duke Nicholas to the supreme command. He was 57 years old and had never commanded armies in the field before, although he had spent almost all of his life on active service. His appointment was popular in the army. He was given responsibility for the largest army ever put into the field up to that date. He recalled that "... on receipt of the Imperial order, he spent much of his time crying because he did not know how to approach his new duties".

On 14 August 1914, he published the Manifesto to the Polish Nation.

Grand Duke Nicholas was responsible for all Russian forces fighting against Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire. He decided that their major effort must be in Poland, which thrust toward Germany like a salient, flanked by German East Prussia in the north, and Austro-Hungarian Galicia in the south. He planned to attend first to the flanks and when they were secure to invade German Silesia. In the north poor coordination of the two invading Russian armies resulted in the disaster of Tannenberg. In the south they conquered much of Galicia. Their subsequent move toward Silesia was blocked by the Battle of the Vistula River and Battle of Łódź. The grand duke picked and chose from the various plans offered by his generals. The grand duke begged for the artillery and ammunition they desperately lacked, so he could not embark on a coherent plan for victory. Nicholas came to power because of his royal status, and the tsar's belief that God was guiding his decision. He lacked the broad strategic sense and the ruthless drive to command all the Russian armies. His headquarters had a curiously calm atmosphere, despite the many defeats and the millions of casualties. He failed in terms of strategy and tactics, as well as logistics, selection of generals, maintaining morale, and gaining support from the government. On a personal level he was well liked by both officers and men.

After the Great Retreat of the Russian army, the Chief of the General Staff Nikolai Yanushkevich, with the full support of the Grand Duke Nicholas, ordered the army to devastate the border territories and expel the "enemy" nations within. The Russian authorities launched pogroms against German populations in Russian cities, massacred Jews in their towns and villages and deported 500,000 Jews and 250,000 Germans into the Russian interior. On 11 June 1915, a pogrom began against Germans in Petrograd, with over 500 factories, stores and offices looted and mob violence unleashed against Germans. The Russian military leadership regarded Muslims, Germans and Poles as traitors and spies, while Jews were considered political unreliables.

As a result of his failure, the tsar removed the Grand Duke as commander of the Russian armed forces on 21 August 1915 and took personal command.

The Caucasus
Upon his dismissal, the grand duke was immediately appointed commander-in-chief and viceroy in the Caucasus (replacing Count Illarion Vorontsov-Dashkov). While the grand duke was officially in command, General Nikolai Nikolaevich Yudenich was the driving figure in the Russian Caucasus Army, so the grand duke focused on the civil administration. Their opponent was the Ottoman Empire. While the grand duke was in command, the Russian army sent an expeditionary force through to Persia to link up with British troops. Also in 1916, the Russian army captured the fortress town of Erzerum, the port of Trebizond and the town of Erzincan. The Turks responded with an offensive of their own. Fighting around Lake Van swung back and forth, but ultimately proved inconclusive.

It is reported that, while visiting the garrison of Kostroma he met Said Nursi, a famous Muslim cleric who was a prisoner of war. Because of Nursi's disrespectful attitude (he refused to greet the grand duke first saying that the faithful were more senior than infidels), the grand duke gave an order to execute him. But after seeing Nursi's devotion to his religion during his last prayer, the grand duke changed his mind and amnestied Nursi. However, nothing in the Grand Duke's record suggests that he would have even considered such a war crime. At the time he was urging the tsar to set up colleges for training Muslim clerics so they would not have to study abroad.

Nicholas tried to have a railway built from Russian Georgia to the conquered territories with a view to bringing up more supplies for a new offensive in 1917. But, in March 1917, the tsar was overthrown and the Russian army began slowly to fall apart.

Revolution
The February Revolution found Nicholas in the Caucasus. He was appointed by the emperor, in his last official act, as the supreme commander in chief, and was wildly received as he journeyed to headquarters in Mogilev; however, within 24 hours of his arrival, the new prime minister, Prince Georgy Lvov, cancelled his appointment. Nicholas spent the next two years in Crimea, sometimes under house arrest, taking little part in politics. There appears to have been some sentiment to have him head the White Army forces active in southern Russia at the time, but the leaders in charge, especially General Anton Denikin, were afraid that a strong monarchist figurehead would alienate the more left leaning constituents of the movement. He and his wife escaped just ahead of the Red Army in April 1919, aboard the British Royal Navy battleship HMS Marlborough.

On 8 August 1922, Nicholas was proclaimed as the emperor of all the Russias by the Zemsky Sobor of the Priamurye region in the Far East by White Army general Mikhail Diterikhs. Nicholas was already living abroad and consequently was not present. Two months later the Priamurye region fell to the Bolsheviks.

In exile
After a stay in Genoa as a guest of his brother-in-law, King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, Nicholas and his wife took up residence in a small chateau at Choigny, 20 miles outside of Paris. He was under the protection of the French secret police as well as by a small number of faithful Cossack retainers.

He became the symbolic figurehead of an anti-Soviet Russian monarchist movement, after assuming on 16 November 1924 the supreme command of all Russian forces in exile and thus of the Russian All-Military Union, which had been founded in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes by General Pyotr Wrangel two months prior. The monarchists made plans to send agents into Russia. Conversely a top priority of the Soviet secret police was to penetrate this monarchist organization and to kidnap Nicholas. They were successful in the former, infiltrating the group with spies (OGPU later lured the anti-Bolshevik British master spy Sidney Reilly back to the Soviet Union (1925) where he was killed). They did not succeed however, in kidnapping Nicholas. As late as June 1927, the monarchists were able to set off a bomb at the Lubyanka Prison in Moscow.

Grand Duke Nicholas died on 5 January 1929 of natural causes on the French Riviera, where he had gone to escape the rigors of winter. He was originally buried in the church of St. Michael the Archangel Church in Cannes, France. In 2014 Nicholas Romanov, Prince of Russia (1922–2014) and Prince Dimitri Romanov (1926–2016) requested the transfer of his remains. The bodies of Nicholas Nikolaevich and his wife were re-buried in Moscow at the World War I memorial military cemetery in May 2015.

Honours and awards
The Grand Duke received several Russian and foreign decorations:
 * Russian
 * [[Image:RUS Order of Saint George 4th class ribbon 2000.svg|50px]] Knight 4th Class of the Order of St. George – 1877
 * [[Image:RUS Order of Saint George 3rd class ribbon 2000.svg|50px]] Knight 3rd Class of the Order of St. George – 1914
 * [[Image:RUS Order of Saint George 2nd class ribbon 2000.svg|50px]] Knight 2nd Class of the Order of St. George – 1915
 * [[Image:St.AndrewOrder.png|50px]] Knight of the Order of St. Andrew the Apostle the First-called – 1856
 * [[Image:RUS Order of St. Alexander Nevsky BAR.png|50px]] Knight of the Order of Saint Alexander Nevsky – 1856
 * [[Image:RUS Order św. Anny (baretka).svg|50px]] Knight 1st Class of the Order of St. Anna – 1856
 * [[Image:RUS_Order_%C5%9Bw._Stanis%C5%82awa_(baretka).svg|50px]] Knight 1st Class of the Order of St. Stanislaus – 1856
 * [[Image:RUS Order White Eagle BAR.png|50px]] Knight of the Imperial Order of the White Eagle – 1856
 * [[Image:Order of Saint Vladimir, ribbon bar.svg|50px]] Knight 1st Class of the Imperial Order of Saint Prince Vladimir – 1896

 * Foreign
 * [[Image:Order of the Most Holy Annunciation BAR.svg|50px]] Knight of the Order of the Most Holy Annunciation (Kingdom of Italy) – 18 June 1890 – during a visit to Russia of King Victor Emmanuel III
 * [[Image:Order_of_the_Elephant_Ribbon_bar.svg|50px]] Knight of the Order of the Elephant (Denmark) – 19 July 1909
 * [[Image:GRE Order Redeemer 1Class.png|50px]] Grand Cross of the Order of the Redeemer (Kingdom of Greece)
 * [[Image:Ludwig Order (Hesse) - ribbon bar.png|50px]] Grand Cross of the Ludwig Order (Grand Duchy of Hesse and by Rhine) – 10 March 1886
 * [[Image:MKB Order of the Wendish Crown ribbon.svg|50px]] Grand Cross of the House Order of the Wendish Crown (Mecklenburg)
 * [[Image:ME Order of Danilo I Knight Grand Cross BAR.svg|50px]] Grand Cross of the Order of Danilo I (Principality of Montenegro)
 * [[Image:OLD Order of Peter Frederick Louis ribbon.svg|50px]] Grand Cross of the House and Merit Order of Peter Frederick Louis, with Golden Crown (Grand Duchy of Oldenburg) – 7 December 1856
 * [[Image:Order of the Black Eagle - Ribbon bar.svg|50px]] Knight of the Order of the Black Eagle (Kingdom of Prussia) – 23 March 1877
 * [[Image:D-PRU Pour le Merite 1 BAR.svg|50px]] Pour le Mérite (military) (Kingdom of Prussia) – 22 March 1879
 * [[Image:SRB Orden Takovskog Krsta VKrst BAR.svg|50px]] Grand Cross of the Order of the Cross of Takovo (Kingdom of Serbia)
 * [[Image:Order of the Star of Romania - Ribbon bar.svg|50px]] Grand Cross of the Order of the Star of Romania (Kingdom of Romania)
 * [[Image:Ord.S.Stef.Ungh. - GC.png|50px]] Grand Cross of the Royal Hungarian Order of St. Stephen (Austria-Hungary) – 1896
 * [[Image:Legion Honneur GC ribbon.svg|50px]] Grand Cross of the Legion d'Honneur (France) – January 1897
 * [[Image:Grand Cross Order of the Crown Württemberg.png|50px]] Grand Cross of the Order of the Württemberg Crown (Kingdom of Württemberg) – 1882

In popular culture
Grand Duke Nicholas was portrayed in the 1971 film Nicholas and Alexandra by Harry Andrews, and in the 1974 television drama Fall of Eagles by John Phillips.


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User:Tarakananda

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Billy James Hargis

Billy James Hargis (August 3, 1925 – November 27, 2004) was an American Christian evangelist. At the height of his popularity in the 1950s and 1960s, his Christian Crusade ministry was broadcast on over 500 radio stations and 250 television stations. He promoted an anti-Communist, segregationist message as well as evangelizing, and founded a radio station, monthly newspaper, and a college in Tulsa, Oklahoma to support his ministries. In 1974, several students at his American Christian College accused Hargis of sexual misconduct; however, the Tulsa district attorney found no evidence of wrongdoing. Hargis went into partial retirement, and the college closed in 1977. He continued to publish his newspaper and write books.

Biography
Hargis was adopted by a railroad employee, Jimmie Earsel Hargis, and his wife, Laura Lucille Hargis. By the time the boy was ten, his adoptive mother was in poor health and close to death. The boy had been baptized, and had few pleasures other than the family's daily Bible readings because his family was too poor during the Great Depression to own a radio. When his mother was hospitalized, Hargis promised to devote himself to God if she was spared from death. She recovered and, at age 17, Hargis was ordained in the Disciples of Christ denomination, even before completing Bible college. After a few years, he left his pastorate for a ministry of radio preaching.

In 1943, Hargis entered Ozark Bible College in Bentonville, Arkansas, and studied there for one year. By 1947, when he became concerned about Communism, he was pastor of the First Christian Church in Sapulpa, a city west of Tulsa. He later received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Pikes Peak Bible Seminary in 1957 and a theology degree from Burton College and Seminary in Colorado in 1958.

In 1950, he established an organization called the Christian Crusade. In the mid-1950s, Hargis was closely associated with the evangelist Carl McIntire and in the early 1960s Hargis had developed a close relationship with the resigned United States Army Major General Edwin Walker, but he increasingly went his own way in preaching anti-Communism. His targets included government and popular singers. In 1957, the Disciples of Christ denomination withdrew his ordination because he attacked other churches in his anti-Communist crusade. Still, by then, Hargis' radio program was bringing in $1 million annually, and he had established a degree of financial and theological independence. In 1960, the Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated Hargis, suspecting him of being linked to recent bombing attacks on Little Rock public schools and of planning to bomb Philander Smith College. No evidence was found and no charges were filed. On May 31, 1961, Bob Jones University honored Hargis with an honorary Doctor of Laws.

1966 Hargis founded a congregation in Tulsa, Oklahoma called the Church of the Christian Crusade. This was part of a complex of organizations that he founded in Tulsa, including the American Christian College in 1971 and the Christian Crusade monthly newspaper.

Marriage and family
Hargis married Betty Jane Secrest of Sciotoville, Ohio in 1951. They had three daughters and a son, Billy James Hargis II, who died on September 9, 2013, and Bryan Joseph Hargis who died in infancy. His grandson, Billy James Hargis III, was born on May 10, 1989, and currently resides in Houston, Texas.

Career
Hargis' motto was "All I want to do is preach Jesus and save America." Drawing on premillennialist theology, Hargis believed national and world events were part of a cosmic struggle, where the ultimate actors were Christ and Satan. To him communism represented the latter, the United States represented the former. He used this as justification for why the United States should return to what he believed were its founding Christian ideals.

Positions and activities
Hargis preached on cultural issues: against sex education and Communism, and for the return of prayer and Bible reading to public schools, long before the rise of the late 20th century Religious Right. His belief in conspiracy theories led to a belief that the government, the media, and pop culture figures were promoting "communism" in the late 1960s. Hargis' subordinate, Rev. David Noebel, wrote the short work, "Communism, Hypnotism and the Beatles" (1965), which he expanded into "Rhythm, Riots and Revolution" the following year. Both pamphlets were published by the Christian Crusade. Hargis claimed to have written a speech for the infamous anti-communist Senator Joseph R. McCarthy.

Hargis was a member of the John Birch Society and strongly favored segregation, arguing that desegregation violated the Eighth Commandment by allowing the government to steal from one's property. He also accused Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. of being Communist-educated, and published Dr. James D. Bales' anti-King book, The Martin Luther King Story. He opposed the crusades of rival evangelist Billy Graham and endorsed George Wallace in the 1968 presidential election in part because of Republican nominee Richard Nixon's relationship with Graham. Along with his friend Carl McIntire, who was staunchly anti-Catholic, Hargis was one of the most influential people in a movement later known as the "Old Christian Right." However, both Hargis and McIntire lost influence by failing to capitalize on the fact that most American Catholics were staunchly anti-communist.

Hargis addressed audiences with his revival style. He was the author of at least 100 books, including The Far Left, and Why I Fight for a Christian America. In addition, his organization published a pamphlet on sex education, entitled "Is the School House the Proper Place to Teach Raw Sex?", by Gordon V. Drake, the Christian Crusade's educational director.

In 1964, Hargis supported Republican Senator Barry Goldwater in that year's presidential race. However, Goldwater lost the election in a landslide and the Old Christian Right soon began an irreversible downward spiral. A movement known as the New Christian Right, which sought to capitalize on the mistakes of the Old Christian Right by embracing Roman Catholicism, was formed in the late 1970s following the loss of the Vietnam War. Many had feared the defeat in Vietnam would revive the Counterculture of the 1960s.

Red Lion case
On November 25, 1964, Hargis attacked a book and an article called “Hate Clubs of the Air" he believed to be written about him in the Nation magazine by journalist Fred J. Cook in a recorded broadcast heard on WGCB in Red Lion, Pennsylvania. When the radio station refused a right of reply, Cook successfully sued the station who then unsuccessfully countersued the FCC for First Amendment violations. This ultimately lead to a landmark 1969 United States Supreme Court decision Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC upholding the fairness doctrine.

Founding of institutions
In 1950, Hargis founded the Christian Crusade, an interdenominational movement. In 1964, the Internal Revenue Service alleged that Hargis' involvement in political matters violated the terms of the Internal Revenue Code for religious institutions and withdrew the tax-exempt status of the Christian Crusade. Richard Viguerie, a pioneer in using direct mail in the 1970s and 1980s to support conservative movements and their causes, began his career working for Hargis. Viguerie developed direct mail databases to solicit small donations in an average of 2000 mailings a day from a wide field of ideological supporters. At the time, Hargis had reported that the average contribution to his movement was $4, from a constituency of 250,000 donors, and it was receiving $1 million annually.

In association with his Christian Crusade Hargis published the monthly Christian Crusade Newspaper, with a circulation of 55,000, and Weekly Crusade.

He founded the David Livingstone Missionary Foundation, which operated hospitals, orphanages, leprosy villages, medical vans, and mission services in South Korea, Hong Kong, India, the Philippines, and Africa.

Hargis founded American Christian College in Tulsa during 1971 to teach Christian principles and provide an alternative to perceived left-wing and counterculture influences. When asked what was taught there, Hargis said, "anti-communism, anti-socialism, anti-welfare state, anti-Russia, anti-China, a literal interpretation of the Bible, and states' rights."

Concerned with the liberalization of abortion laws following the United States Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, Hargis launched Americans Against Abortion in 1973 with David Noebel as its leader. Noebel went on to author his book Slaughter of the Innocents that was published by the American Christian College within months of the Roe v. Wade decision, and wrote many provocative articles for fundamentalist publications on the abortion issue.

He also started a television show Billy James Hargis and his All-American Kids. It was sold to independent television stations. Students from the college performed in the musical group.

Scandal
In 1974, when Hargis was nearly fifty, he was forced to resign as president of American Christian College because of allegations that he had seduced college students. Two of his students claimed that they had had sexual relations with Hargis—one was female, one was male. Other students corroborated the story. Hargis denied the sexual allegations until his death, both publicly and in his autobiography, My Great Mistake (1985). The account was reported by Time in 1976, along with other alleged incidents at Hargis' farm outside of Neosho, Missouri, and while on tour with his All American Kids musical group. The Tulsa district attorney investigated but never brought charges against Hargis. The local newspapers, the Tulsa World and the defunct Tulsa Tribune, declined to publish the accusations.

When Hargis stepped down as president of American Christian College, he was succeeded by former vice president David Noebel. In February 1975, Hargis tried to regain control of the college but was rejected by its board. By September, he returned to his other ministries. They were said to welcome him after he repented. As Jess Pedigo, president of the David Livingstone Society, said, "There was a danger of bankruptcy." Hargis did not give the deed to the property to the college for months after leaving, which prevented it from gaining regional accreditation. In addition, he withheld the fundraising lists, which all the organizations had previously shared. With declining enrollment after the scandal became public, the college closed in 1977. In 1985 Hargis told a Tulsa reporter, "I was guilty of sin, but not the sin I was accused of."

About 1976, he eventually retreated to his Missouri farm, where he continued to work, resuming a greatly diminished ministry, issuing daily and weekly radio broadcasts. He continued to publish the monthly newspaper, The Christian Crusade Newspaper, and wrote numerous books.

In his final years, suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and a series of heart attacks, Hargis died in a Tulsa nursing home on November 27, 2004, at seventy-nine.

Legacy
His son, Billy James Hargis II, continued his ministry until his own death. Hargis' organization and college also established and operated Tulsa radio station KBJH (FM 98.5) in the early 1970s. After the college's closing and the demise of his ministry, the station was sold to Epperson Broadcasting.

Hargis and his church owned and operated a small AM radio station in Port Neches, Texas, from 1980 to the early 1990s. KDLF radio (so named after the David Livingston Foundation) played Southern Gospel Music and religious programming until it was sold around 1993. In the latter days of Hargis' ownership, the radio station had a local marketing agreement to others but was required to play Hargis' hour-long program daily.

Hargis' papers, described as "a goldmine for students of American politics," are held at the special collections department of the University of Arkansas Libraries in Fayetteville.

In popular culture
In the late 1970s, the popular WNBC disk jockey Imus in the Morning would occasionally do a segment where he would present himself as a "holy roller" evangelical Christian preacher named "Reverend Billy Sol Hargis". These brief sermons typically promoted a product which would give some form of spiritual benefit to the buyer of the product. One such product was "Sin Soap" which would purify any part of a person's body which had committed an act of sin. "Reverend Billy Sol Hargis" was an intentional satire of Christian ministers who were more interested in financial gain than the spiritual needs of their followers.

title: Billy James Hargis


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Pool (cue sports)

Pool is the name given to a series of cue sports played on a billiard table. The table has six pockets along the, into which balls are shot. Of the many different pool games, the most popular include: eight-ball, blackball, nine-ball, ten-ball, seven-ball, straight pool, one-pocket, and bank pool. Eight-ball is the most frequently played discipline of pool, and it is often thought of as synonymous with "pool".

The generic term pocket billiards is sometimes also used, and favored by some pool-industry bodies, but is technically a broader classification, including games such as snooker, Russian pyramid, and kaisa, which are not referred to as pool games. There are also hybrid games combining aspects of both pool and carom billiards, such as American four-ball billiards, bottle pool, cowboy pool, and English billiards.

Etymology

The etymology of "pool" is uncertain. The Oxford English Dictionary speculates that "pool" and other games with collective stakes is derived from the French poule (literally translated "hen"), in which the poule is the collected prize, originating from jeu de la poule, a game that is thought to have been played during the Middle Ages. Supposedly, participants would put an equal amount of money into a pot and throw stones at a live chicken, and the person who successfully hit the chicken first would win the pooled money. Alternatively the term could derive from the verb to pool in the sense of combining objects or stakes. The oldest use of the word "pool" to describe a billiards-like game was made in 1797 in a Virginia newspaper. The OED defines it as generally "any of various types of billiards for two or more players" but goes on to note that the first specific meaning of "a game in which each player uses a cue ball of a distinctive colour to pocket the balls of the other player(s) in a certain order, the winner taking all the stakes submitted at the start of the contest" is now obsolete, and its other specific definitions are all for games that originate in the United States. In the British Empire for most of the nineteenth through early twentieth century, pool referred specifically to the game of life pool.

Although skittle pool is played on a pocketless carom billiards table, the term pool later stuck to all new games of pocket billiards as the sport gained in popularity in the United States, and so outside the cue sports industry, which has long favored the more formal term pocket billiards, the common name for the sport has remained pool. The OxfordDictionaries.com definition no longer even provides the obsolete meaning found in the print edition, and refers only to the typical game "using two sets [each] of seven coloured and numbered balls ... with one black ball and a white cue ball" on a table with pockets.

History
With the exception of one-pocket, games typically called "pool" today are descended from two English games imported to the United States during the 19th century. The first was English billiards which became American four-ball billiards, essentially the same game but with an extra red to increase scoring opportunities. It was the most popular billiards game in the mid-19th century until dethroned by the carom game straight rail. American four-ball tournaments tried switching to carom tables in the 1870s but this did not save it from being doomed to obscurity; the last professional tournament was held in 1876. Cowboy pool is a surviving member of this group of games.

The second and more influential game was pyramid pool. By 1850 a variant called fifteen-ball pool became popular. Both games were supplanted by continuous pool in 1888, the immediate forerunner of straight pool (1910). New games introduced at the turn of the 20th century include Kelly pool and eight-ball. The distinctive appearance of pool balls with their many colors and division between solid and striped balls came about by 1889. Prior to this, object balls were uniformly deep-red and differentiated only by numbers. English pyramid pool and life pool players were the first to adopt balls with different colors. The stripes were the last addition.

Equipment
Pool is played on a six pocket table. Modern pool tables generally range in size from 3.5 by, to 4.5 by.

Under World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA) official equipment specifications, pool balls weigh from 5.5 to 6 oz and have a diameter of 2.25 in, plus or minus 0.005 in. Modern coin-operated pool tables generally use one of three methods to distinguish and return the cue ball to the front of the table while the numbered balls return to an inaccessible receptacle until paid for again: the cue ball is larger and heavier than the other balls, or denser and heavier, or has a magnetic core. Modern cue sticks are generally 58.5 in long for pool while cues prior to 1980 were designed for straight pool and had an average length of 57.5 in. By comparison, carom billiards cues are generally shorter with larger tips, and snooker cues longer with smaller tips.

Racked games
These are games descended from the early 19th century games of pyramid pool and fifteen-ball pool which required balls to be racked due to the large number of them on the table. Of the other pyramid traditions of Continental Europe, only Russian pyramid survives. Snooker, originally known as snooker's pool, can be considered a member of this family.

Rotation games
Rotation games require players to make legal contact with the lowest numbered ball on the table or a foul is called. The earliest rotation game, originally known as 61, started off as a variant of fifteen-ball pool during the mid-nineteenth century. The name "rotation" came from how the balls were placed around the table in its unracked offshoot Chicago. 61 has spawned many variations of its own such as American rotation, nine-ball, ten-ball, and Kelly pool. Of these, nine-ball is the most popular and the predominant professional game with ten-ball as the second-most prominent. There are many local and regional tours and tournaments that are contested with nine-ball. The World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA) publishes the world standardized rules. The European professional circuit has instituted rules changes to make it more difficult to achieve a legal break shot.

The largest nine-ball tournaments are the US Open Nine-ball Championship and the WPA World Nine-ball Championship for men and women. A hotly contested event is the annual Mosconi Cup, which pits invitational European and U.S. teams against each other in one-on-one and nine-ball matches over a period of several days. The Mosconi Cup games are played under the more stringent European rules, as of 2007.

Straight pool
Also known as 14.1 continuous, this game originated as a slight modification of continuous pool, another offshoot of fifteen-ball pool. The shooter may attempt to shoot at any object ball on the table. The goal is to reach a set number of points determined by agreement before the game. One point is scored for each object ball pocketed where no is made. A typical game might require a player to score 100 points to win. In professional competition, straight pool is usually played to 125 points. Straight pool is a  game, meaning the player must indicate the intended object ball and pocket on every shot.

Eight-ball
The most commonly played pool game is eight-ball, which appeared at the beginning of the twentieth century. It is often thought of as synonymous with "pool". The game has numerous variations, mostly regional. It is the second most played professional pool game, after nine-ball, and for the last several decades ahead of straight pool.

The goal of eight-ball, which is played with a full rack of fifteen balls and the cue ball, is to claim a suit (commonly stripes or solids in the US, and reds or yellows in the UK), pocket all of them, then legally pocket the 8 ball, while denying one's opponent opportunities to do the same with their suit, and without sinking the 8 ball early by accident. In the United Kingdom the game is commonly played in pubs, and it is competitively played in leagues on both sides of the Atlantic. The most prestigious tournaments including the World Open are sponsored and sanctioned by the International Pool Tour. Rules vary widely from place to place (and between continents to such an extent that British-style eight-ball pool/blackball is properly regarded as a separate game in its own right). Pool halls in North America are increasingly settling upon the World Pool-Billiard Association International Standardized Rules. But tavern eight-ball (also known as ""), typically played on smaller, coin-operated tables and in a "winner keeps the table" manner, can differ significantly even between two venues in the same city. The growth of local, regional and national amateur leagues may alleviate this confusion eventually.

One-pocket
One-pocket owes its origins to 18th century cramp (handicapped) games. It is a strategic game for two players in which each player is assigned one of the corner pockets on the table. This is the only pocket into which that player can legally pocket balls. The first player to pocket the majority of the balls (8) into their pocket wins the game. The game requires far more defensive strategy than offensive strategy, much unlike eight-ball, nine-ball, or straight pool. Most times, accomplished players choose to position balls near their pocket instead of trying to actually pocket them. This allows them to control the game by forcing their opponent to be on defense instead of taking a low percentage shot that could result in a loss of game. These low percentage shots are known as "flyers" by one-pocket aficionados.

Bank pool
Bank pool can be played with a full rack (can be a long game), but is more typically played with nine balls (frequently called "nine-ball bank"). The balls are racked in nine-ball formation, but in no particular order. The object of the game is simple: to be the first player to bank five balls in any order (eight balls when played with a full rack). Penalties and fouls are similar to one pocket in that the player committing the foul must spot a ball for each foul. This must be done before the incoming player shoots.

Artistic pool
Artistic pool is the competitive discipline of trick shots inspired by its carom equivalent. Played on pool or snooker tables, players must complete a set number of shots of varying difficulty.

Hybrid carom or obstacle games
Cowboy pool and bottle pool are games involving only a few balls which are placed at specific spots on the table. Elements of their games go back to the eighteenth century before balls needed to be racked. Bottle pool shares traits with pin billiards games such as Danish pin billiards. Cowboy pool is a descendant of English billiards. Kaisa is a similar game played with different equipment.

Governing bodies
As a competitive sport, pool is governed internationally by the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA), which has multi-national, regional affiliates comprising the All Africa Pool Association (AAPA), Asian Pocket Billiard Union (APBU, including the Middle East), Billiard Congress of America (BCA, Canada and the US), Confederación Panamericana de Billar (CPB, Latin America and Caribbean), European Pocket Billiard Federation (EPBF, including Russia and the Near East), and Oceania Pocket Billiard Association (OPBA, Australia, New Zealand, Pacific islands). The WPA represents pool in the World Confederation of Billiards Sports, which in turn represents all forms of cue sports (including carom billiards and snooker) in the International Olympic Committee.

title: Pool (cue sports)


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For my own use: Cheat Sheet

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