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Category talk:History of the British Isles

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Can someone explain what the precise purpose of this category is?

We are asked to go to History of Britain to find out more about this category but that sends us to Britain. That page states that Britain can either mean Great Britain or the United Kingdom. We already have Category:History of the United Kingdom. The blurb on Category:History of Great Britain states that it is actually for the History of the Kingdom of Great Britain (1707-1901), so is Category:History of Britain intended as a category for the history of Great Britain in general, and not just during the Kingdom of Great Britain (or perhaps for history before and after the Kingdom)?

On the other hand the blurb on Category:History of Great Britain also states that Category:History of Britain is for subjects that "overlap" between Category:History of England, Category:History of Scotland and Category:History of the United Kingdom.

These two possible purposes are not necessarily compatible. Under the first "Britain" is treated as a synonym for Great Britain. Under the second what it is supposed to mean is not clear at all. At the very least the scope of "History of Britain" should be clearly explained at the top of the category page itself rather than sending us on a wild goose chase.

Ikari 19:32, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * I've just arrived too, and this area of Wikipedia is a mess, albeit that it was no dount set up in this form with the best of intentions, and ones which can be backed up by a rather formalistic logic.

 * I would like to see a radical simplification, but there are certain intractable problems. The only head category name which would allow all the tangle of topics which make up the history of the two large islands off the North West Coast of Europe to be included in one menu system is "History of Great Britain and Ireland", but it is unusable as it would be unacceptable to Irish nationalists to relegate Irish history to a subcategory of such a category, and they would have the sound argument that they have an independent state which is not part of a "British and Irish" entity to back up their position.

 * We really have to have both "History of the United Kingdom" and "History of Britain" because they are so different in chronological and spacial scope. There should probably be more duplication of first level sub-categories between the two and I will work on this.

 * The "History of Great Britain" category seems to me to be redundant, as I have explained in more detail on its talk page.

 * History of England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and Northern Ireland are off course all necessary. History of Ireland is an associate category of History of Britain, rather than a subcategory. I think the only answer to the fact that many articles fall naturally into both a British/UK category and an English/Scottish etc national category (and more importantly, that people will look for the same topics in both places unconcerned about the formalities, but just keen to find relevant information) is extensive multi-categorization.

 * All the main categories must have an explanation of the difficulties which non-experts might understand. I will try to write these.

 * Overall, I think the weakness of the category system at the moment is that it focuses on intellectual precision rather than usability. Removing the "History of Great Britain" category, increasing the number of subcategories that are in multiple locations, so new users will come across them whichever main category they started out in, and adding more explanations on the head category pages would ameliorate this. Philip 15:07, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

History of Ireland
This article is not categorised, nor should it be, as a sub-cat of the "History of Britain". Bad enough having it categorised has history of the POV term "British Isles". (Sarah777 19:09, 12 October 2007 (UTC))


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Al Williamson

Alfonso Williamson (March 21, 1931 – June 12, 2010) was an American cartoonist, comic book artist and illustrator specializing in adventure, Western, science fiction and fantasy.

Born in New York City, he spent much of his early childhood in Bogotá, Colombia before moving back to the United States at the age of 12. In his youth, Williamson developed an interest in comic strips, particularly Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon. He took art classes at Burne Hogarth's Cartoonists and Illustrators School, there befriending future cartoonists Wally Wood and Roy Krenkel, who introduced him to the work of illustrators who had influenced adventure strips. Before long, he was working professionally in the comics industry. His most notable works include his science-fiction/heroic-fantasy art for EC Comics in the 1950s, on titles including Weird Science and Weird Fantasy.

In the 1960s, he gained recognition for continuing Raymond's illustrative tradition with his work on the Flash Gordon comic-book series, and was a seminal contributor to the Warren Publishing's black-and-white horror comics magazines Creepy and Eerie. Williamson spent most of the 1970s working on his own credited strip, another Raymond creation, Secret Agent X-9. The following decade, he became known for his work adapting Star Wars films to comic books and newspaper strips. From the mid-1980s to 2003, he was primarily active as an inker, mainly on Marvel Comics superhero titles starring such characters as Daredevil, Spider-Man, and Spider-Girl.

Williamson is known for his collaborations with a group of artists including Frank Frazetta, Roy Krenkel, Angelo Torres, and George Woodbridge, which was affectionately known as the "Fleagle Gang". Williamson has been cited as a stylistic influence on a number of younger artists, and encouraged many, helping such newcomers as Bernie Wrightson and Michael Kaluta enter the profession. He has won several industry awards, and six career-retrospective books about him have been published since 1998. Living in Pennsylvania with his wife Corina, Williamson retired in his seventies.

Williamson was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2000.

Early life and career
Al Williamson was born in Manhattan, New York City, New York, one of two children of Sally and Alfonso Williamson, who was of Scottish descent and a Colombian citizen. The family relocated to Bogotá, Colombia, when Al was two years old. "My father was Colombian and my mother was American," Williamson said in 1997. "They met in the States, got married and went down there. I grew up down there so I learned both English and Spanish at the same time. It was comic books that taught me to read both languages." At age nine, Williamson took an interest in comic strips via the Mexican magazine Paquin, which featured American strips as well as Underwater Empire by Argentine cartoonist Carlos Clemen. Later, Williamson was attracted to Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon strip after his mother took him to see the Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe movie serial. While living in Bogotá he met future cartoonist Adolfo Buylla, who befriended him and gave him artistic advice. At age 12, in 1943, Williamson moved with his mother to San Francisco, California; they later moved to New York. In the mid-1940s Williamson continued to pursue his interest in cartooning and began to take art classes with Tarzan cartoonist Burne Hogarth, and later at Hogarth's Cartoonists and Illustrators School. There he met future cartoonists Wally Wood and Roy Krenkel. According to Williamson, "Roy broadened my collecting horizons, he became my guide to all the great illustrators — the artists who directly influenced adventure cartoonists like [Alex] Raymond and [Hal] Foster. He showed me J.C. Coll, Franklin Booth, Joseph Franke, Dan Smith, Norman Lindsay, Fortunino Matania, and the great Blue Book illustrators like Herbert Morton Stoops and Frank Hoban." As he continued to learn about the cartooning field, he would visit the comic-book publisher Fiction House, meeting such artists as George Evans, Bob Lubbers, John Celardo, and Mort Meskin.

Williamson's first professional work may have been helping Hogarth pencil some Tarzan Sunday pages in 1948, although Williamson, who had initially believed so, reconsidered in a 1983 interview and recalled that his Tarzan work had come after his first two pieces of comic-book art: providing spot illustrations for the story "The World's Ugliest Horse" in Eastern Color's seminal series Famous Funnies #166 (May 1948), and a two-page Boy Scouts story, his first comics narrative, in New Heroic Comics #51 (Nov. 1948). (Williamson is also identified as co-penciler, with Frank Frazetta, of a three-page crime story, "The Last Three Dimes", in Standard Comics' Wonder Comics #20 [Oct. 1948].) Williamson explained that while Hogarth had offered him Tarzan work, Williamson "just couldn't do it. ... I couldn't get it into my little brain that he wanted me to do it exactly the way that he did it," and instead successfully recommended Celardo, artist of the Tarzan-like feature "Ka'a'nga" in Fiction House's Jungle Comics. As Williamson recalled: "...Hogarth got in touch with [Celardo], and the next thing you knew, he was penciling the Sunday page for him. He did it for quite some time and something must have happened ... but at that point I was going to the Hogarth school again in the evenings ... and he asked me again if I would like to give it a try, so I said OK. He gave me a page and he had already laid it out, so I just tightened it up. Then he gave me another page that I tightened up and he inked it. Then I said I'd like to try laying it out myself and asked if I could do that, and he said, 'Go ahead, Al,' and handed me the script. So I laid that page out on a sketchpad. He said fine and just made a couple of suggestions as to what I should do; then I just did it on the big Sunday page, and when I was through, he inked it and the other one I had done the same way, and that was it."

During this period Williamson met his main stylistic influence, Raymond: "I had just turned 18. I had been in the business about six months or so. He gave me about two hours."

1950s
From 1949 to 1951, Williamson worked on science-fiction and Western stories for publishers such as American Comics Group (AGC), Avon Publications, Fawcett Comics, Standard Comics, and, possibly, Toby Press. He began collaborating with Frank Frazetta, who often inked his work; and with Roy Krenkel, who often did backgrounds. Examples of his work from that period include "Chief Victorio's Last Stand", in Avon's Chief Victorio's Apache Massacre (no number, no month, 1951); "Death in Deep Space", in Magazine Enterprises' Jet #4 (no month, 1951); and "Skull of the Sorcerer", in ACG's Forbidden Worlds #3 (Dec. 1951), inked by Wally Wood. In 1952, upon the suggestion of artists Wally Wood and Joe Orlando, Williamson began working for EC Comics, an influential comic book company with a reputation for quality artists. While at EC, Williamson frequently collaborated with fellow artists Frank Frazetta, Roy Krenkel and Angelo Torres, a group which, along with Nick Meglin and George Woodbridge, became affectionately known as the "Fleagle Gang", named after a notorious criminal gang. Williamson primarily worked on EC's science-fiction comics Weird Science, Weird Fantasy, and Weird Science-Fantasy, illustrating both original stories, primarily by writer Al Feldstein, and adaptations of stories by authors such as Ray Bradbury and Harlan Ellison, but his work occasionally appeared in EC's horror and crime comics as well.

Williamson worked at EC through 1956 until the cancellation of most of the company's line. Williamson's EC art has been lauded for its illustrative flamboyance, evident in such stories as "I, Rocket", in Weird Fantasy #20 (Aug. 1953), co-penciled and co-inked with Frank Frazetta; and "50 Girls 50", in Weird Science #20 (Aug. 1953), co-inked by Williamson and Frazetta. His final published EC story was the 10-page "A Question of Time", in Shock Illustrated #2 (Feb. 1956) with partial inking by Torres, who put his initials on the last page. In the fall of 1956, writer Larry Ivie introduced Williamson to future comics writers-editor Archie Goodwin, with whom he would become friends and, later, a frequent collaborator. Williamson eventually helped Goodwin enter the comics field, having him script a Harvey Comics story, "The Hermit", penciled by Reed Crandall and inked by Williamson.

From 1955 to 1957, Williamson produced over 400 pages of three-to-five-page stories for Atlas Comics, the 1950s forerunner of Marvel Comics, working in various genres but primarily Westerns. He continued to collaborate with Torres and Krenkel, as well as with Gray Morrow, George Woodbridge and Ralph Mayo. With Mayo, one of the first editors to give Williamson work, at Standard Comics, Williamson collaborated on the jungle girl series Jann of the Jungle #16–17 (April and June 1957). Following Mayo's death, Williamson drew stories solo for the planned #18, but the series was abruptly canceled before that issue could be published. His "prolific though somewhat uneven two-year stint at Atlas", where he first drew war comics, yielded superlative art in such stories as "The City That Time Forgot", in Marvel Tales #144 (March 1956); "Menace from the Stars", in Mystery Tales #44 (Aug. 1956); "The Unknown Ones", in Astonishing #57 (Jan. 1957); "Dreadnaught", in Navy Tales #2 (March 1957); and "Helpless", in Battle #55 (Nov. 1957). While "something appeared to be missing from a lot of his Atlas work: enthusiasm," Williamson's Atlas Westerns, at least, "form a strongly consistent body of work, characterized by minimal to nonexistent action, a preponderance of closeups and reaction shots, and well-defined figures set against sparse backgrounds."

From 1958 to 1959 Williamson worked for Harvey Comics collaborating with former EC artists Reed Crandall, Torres and Krenkel and inking the pencils of Jack Kirby (for Race to the Moon #2–3 and Blast-Off #1). On inking Kirby, Williamson relates: "I remember going up to Harvey and getting work there. They said, 'We haven't got any work for you, but we have some stories here that Jack penciled. Do you want to ink them?' I'd never really inked anybody else before, but I said, 'Sure,' because I looked at the stuff, and thought, I can follow this, it's all there. I inked it and they liked it, and they gave me three or four stories to do."

Additionally, Williamson drew stories for Classics Illustrated (in collaboration with Crandall and Woodbridge); Canaveral Press's line of Edgar Rice Burroughs books (inked by Crandall); Westerns for Dell Comics (including Gunsmoke #8–12) and Charlton Comics, including two complete issues of the Cheyenne Kid (#10–11) with Angelo Torres, and science-fiction stories for ACG, including "The Vortex", in Forbidden Worlds #69 (1958). He also worked with former EC artist John Severin on the "American Eagle" feature in Prize Comics Western #109 and #113 (1955).

Williamson's work during this decade was his most prolific in terms of comic book work and has garnered considerable praise for its high quality. He has been noted for his perfectionism and love for the medium. Despite its high reputation, S.C. Ringgenberg felt that Williamson's artwork from this period could at times be uneven and uninspired. Williamson was single during this period and, according to The Art of Al Williamson, had a bohemian and undisciplined lifestyle.

1960s
In 1960, with little work to be found in the comic book field due to a downturn in the industry, he went to work as an assistant to John Prentice on the Alex Raymond-created comic strip Rip Kirby for a three-year period. According to Williamson: "The reason that I was called in to help him out was that John had decided to go to Mexico and Mac [ Al McWilliams ], John's prior assistant, didn't want to go... The deal was: would I be willing to go to Mexico?... and I said 'Si!'..." It proved to be a solid learning period for Williamson, as he credits Prentice with teaching him many fundamental illustration methods. According to Prentice: "...he was terrific. He's the best guy I ever had by far." During that time, Williamson assisted John Cullen Murphy on the Big Ben Bolt boxing strip and Don Sherwood on the strip Dan Flagg. He produced some sample pages for a proposed Sunday strip version of Modesty Blaise. He returned to comics in 1965 doing one story each in Gold Key Comics' Ripley's Believe It or Not! #1 (June 1965), The Twilight Zone #12 (Aug. 1965), and Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery #11 (Sept. 1965), and helped launch Warren Publishing's black-and-white horror-comics magazines Creepy and Eerie with several stories in early issues, while contributing to Warren's war comics magazine Blazing Combat. He was instrumental in recruiting other former EC Comics artists as Frazetta, Krenkel, Torres, Crandall, and Evans, as well as artist Gray Morrow and writer-editor Archie Goodwin.

In 1966, he drew the first issue (Sept. 1966) of a new Flash Gordon comic book series, published by King Features. Williamson's work received positive reader response, and returned to draw issues #4–5 (March and May 1967), as well as the cover of #3 (Jan. 1967). Williamson received a National Cartoonist Society Best Comic Book art award for his work on that title. In 1967, on the strength of a backup feature he had done in the Flash Gordon book, he took over another Alex Raymond creation, the long-running Secret Agent X-9 comic strip, collaborating with writer Goodwin. At the start of their tenure, the title was changed to Secret Agent Corrigan.

Williamson helped assemble the first major book on Alex Raymond's Flash Gordon, published by Nostalgia Press in 1967, and wrote the introduction. In 1969, Wally Wood's alternative-press comic book witzend #1 published Williamson's "Savage World", a 1956 story originally drawn for a Buster Crabbe comic book that had been cancelled. With significant contributions by Frazetta, Krenkel, and Torres, the story is a prime sample of the "Fleagle Gang" style and has since been reprinted by Marvel Comics (in the black-and-white comics magazine Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction #1, January 1975), Pacific Comics and Kitchen Sink Press. Wood would later write the script for a three-page story drawn by Williamson, "The Tube", in another alternative-press comic, publisher Flo Steinberg's Big Apple Comix (1975).

By the end of the decade, Williamson was beginning to encourage younger artists whom he would meet at comic book conventions, helping Bernie Wrightson to enter the comics profession.

1970s
Williamson worked on Secret Agent Corrigan through the 1970s until he left the strip in 1980. The first Corrigan anthology was published in France in 1975, Le FBI joue et gagne, reprinting Williamson's first episode on the feature. He returned to Warren Publishing in 1976 and again in 1979 to draw three additional stories in Creepy (#83, 86, 112). These were published in France in the collection Al Williamson: A la fin de l'envoi in 1981.

He drew a few more stories for Gold Key Comics, in Grimm's Ghost Stories #5 and 8 (Aug. 1972, March 1973), and The Twilight Zone #51 (Aug. 1973), as well two mystery stories for DC Comics, in The Witching Hour #14 (May 1971), with inker Carlos Garzon, and House of Mystery #185 (April 1970), with Michael Kaluta, another artist whom he helped enter the professional field, assisting him. Comics historian Les Daniels noted that "Williamson's atmospheric technique, which relied on subtle textures as much as hard lines, was not typical of traditional DC art" and that editor Joe Orlando "got complaints from the production department" over using Williamson's art. He drew various Flash Gordon illustrations. In the burgeoning fan movement, Williamson became an early subject of comics historians with the publication of Jim Vadeboncoeur's Al Williamson: His Work in 1971 and the "Al Williamson Collector" by James Van Hise and Larry Bigman, featured in the fanzine Rocket's Blast Comicollector in the early 1970s. Samples of his sketches appear in various fanzines of the period. Marvel Comics began regularly reprinting Williamson's 1950 Atlas Comics Western stories, starting with The Ringo Kid #1 (Jan. 1970) and Kid Colt Outlaw #147 (June 1970), further introducing Williamson's early work to a latter-day generation.

1980s
After leaving the Secret Agent Corrigan daily strip, he illustrated the Marvel Comics adaptation of The Empire Strikes Back with Carlos Garzon, as well as the 50th issue of the monthly Star Wars comic. Williamson was Lucasfilm's first choice as illustrator for the Star Wars newspaper comic strip, a project Williamson had been offered years earlier but had declined to take on at the time. He was offered the Empire Strikes Back adaptation upon Lucasfilm's specific request, as George Lucas had an appreciation of Williamson's EC Comics and Flash Gordon work. Writer Archie Goodwin cited "the comfort of knowing that I would be working with Al Williamson, an old friend that I've worked with over the years. He was absolutely the best Star Wars artist you could ever want to have. That makes it easier because you feel that whatever you do as a writer, you have an artist that will make it look great. He's also an artist that Lucasfilm kind of begged and pleaded for and always wanted to have do Star Wars material. There was that comfort factor in it as well."

A comic book adaptation of the Dino De Laurentiis' film, Flash Gordon, written by Bruce Jones and illustrated by Al Williamson, was released by Western Publishing in both hardcover and softcover formats to coincide with the film's release. A photograph of actor Sam J. Jones, who played Flash Gordon, was pasted into the original cover art. It was serialized in three issues of Whitman's Flash Gordon comic book, #31–33, March–May 1981. Alden McWilliams inked the backgrounds for the last 25 pages. According to Williamson, "It was the hardest job I ever had to do in my life." He then began drawing the Star Wars comic strip in February 1981 following Alfredo Alcala's tenure, with Goodwin writing. He drew the daily and Sunday feature until March 11, 1984, when the strip was canceled. Williamson's daily strips on this series were completely reprinted in Russ Cochran's three-volume slipcase edition in 1991.

Returning to comic books full-time for the first time since 1959, Williamson began work for Pacific Comics, collaborating with writer Bruce Jones for the Alien Worlds title (#1, 4, 8), and "Cliff Hanger", a six-issue adventure-strip backup feature in the Somerset Holmes miniseries. For Marvel, he illustrated the Blade Runner and Return of the Jedi movie adaptations. The two Archie Goodwin stories he illustrated for Epic Illustrated ("Relic" in issue #27, 1984; and "Out of Phase", in #34, 1986) have been considered to be some of his finest work, and Williamson himself named "Relic" as one of his best works. The letterer on all these projects was Ed King. Williamson drew a short story for Timespirits #4 and the full issue of Star Wars #98. For DC Comics, he penciled and inked an eight-page story by Elliot S. Maggin for Superman #400 (Oct. 1984) and he inked Rick Veitch on the classic, oft reprinted Alan Moore Superman/Swamp Thing story "The Jungle Line" in DC Comics Presents #85 (Sept. 1985).

Following the expiration of his contract on the Star Wars newspaper strip, Williamson found that the weight of doing both pencil and inks suddenly became stressful to him, drastically reducing his output. As a response to this, in the mid-1980s Williamson made a successful transition to becoming strictly an inker, beginning at DC Comics inking Curt Swan on Superman #408–410 and #412–416. The longtime Man of Steel artist would later describe Williamson as "his favorite inker". Williamson then moved to Marvel where he inked such pencillers such as John Buscema, Gene Colan, Rick Leonardi, Mike Mignola, Pat Oliffe, John Romita Jr., Lee Weeks, and many others. John Romita Sr., Marvel's art director during that time, considered Williamson to be "one of the best pencillers in the world but he really can't make a living at penciling because he wants to do these beautifully pencilled pages with ample time to do them. That's why Al is inking now ... and adding a greater dimension to the penciller he's working with." He won nine industry awards for Best Inker between 1988 and 1997.

1990s
Williamson provided the covers and additional artwork for Dark Horse Comics' 20-issue Classic Star Wars (Aug. 1992 – June 1994), which reprinted his Star Wars daily strips. He later inked the Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace and A New Hope film adaptations for the company. Through 2003, he was active as inker on several Marvel Comics titles, including Daredevil (#248–300), Spider-Man 2099 (#1–25), and Spider-Girl (#1–61), and such non-superhero projects as the four-issue Marvel / Epic Comics miniseries Atomic Age (Nov. 1990 – Feb. 1991), by writer Frank Lovece and penciler Mike Okamoto, one of the works for which Williamson won a 1991 Eisner Award for Best Inker. Daredevil penciler John Romita Jr. recalled that, "Working with Al Williamson was much like working with my father [comics artist John Romita Sr.] in that I felt that I was protected from mistakes. ... If my art wasn't correct, then Al would repair it. Oddly enough, Al said he never had to fix anything, claiming he just 'traced' over my pencils." In a 1988 interview Williamson indeed stated that "I'm just tracing [Romita's] pencils" and claimed that the only changes he made were occasionally leaving out an unnecessary background if he was in a rush.

In 1995, Marvel released a two-part Flash Gordon miniseries written by Mark Schultz and drawn by Williamson, which was his last major work doing both pencils and inks. Also with Schultz, he illustrated the short story "One Last Job" for Dark Horse Presents #120 in 1997. In 1999, he drew the Flash Gordon character a final time when regular cartoonist Jim Keefe asked for his help on a Flash Gordon Sunday page.

Later life and career
Since 1998, there have been six career retrospective books published (see "Further Reading" section). Williamson cooperated with their production, with the exception of the books from Pure Imagination. He was interviewed for the 2003 Frank Frazetta documentary Painting with Fire, along with fellow surviving "Fleagle Gang" members Angelo Torres and Nick Meglin. In 2009, a Williamson-illustrated Sub-Mariner story written by Schultz and dedicated to Sub-Mariner creator Bill Everett was published. The story itself was originally drawn ten years previously. Williamson illustrated a "Xenozoic Tales" story written by Schultz that remains unpublished.

Living in Pennsylvania with his wife Corina, Williamson retired in his seventies and died on June 12, 2010, in Upstate New York. Some premature reports, based on unsubstantiated Twitter claims, erroneously gave June 13, 2010.

Legacy
Williamson has been a stylistic influence on a number of younger artists such as Tom Yeates, Mark Schultz, Frank Cho, Steve Epting, Tony Harris, Jim Keefe, Dan Parsons, Dave Gibbons, and Paul Renaud.

Awards

 * 1966 National Cartoonists Society Award for Best Comic Book
 * 1966 Alley Award for Best Pencil Work
 * 1967 Alley Award for "Best Feature Story" (for "Lost Continent of Mongo" from Flash Gordon #4)
 * 1969 Nova Award for excellence in illustrative art.
 * 1984 Inkpot Award
 * 2010 Inkwell Awards Joe Sinnott Hall of Fame Award

Harvey Award
 * 1988 Al Williamson, for Daredevil, Marvel Comics
 * 1989 Al Williamson, for Daredevil, Marvel Comics
 * 1990 Al Williamson, for Daredevil, Marvel Comics
 * 1991 Al Williamson, for Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Marvel Comics imprint Epic Comics
 * 1993 Al Williamson, for Spider-Man 2099, Marvel Comics
 * 1994 Al Williamson, for Spider-Man 2099, Marvel Comics
 * 1995 Al Williamson, for Spider-Man 2099, Marvel Comics

Eisner Award
 * 1989 Nominee, Best Art Team, for Daredevil, Marvel Comics, with penciler John Romita Jr.
 * 1991 Winner, Best Inker
 * 1996 Nominee, Best Penciller/Inker for Flash Gordon Marvel Comics imprint Marvel Select
 * 1997 Winner, Best Inker, for The Amazing Spider-Man and Untold Tales of Spider-Man #17–18, Marvel Comics
 * 1998 Nominee, Hall of Fame
 * 1999 Nominee, Hall of Fame
 * 2000 Inductee, Hall of Fame (Voter's choice)

Jack Kirby Hall of Fame
 * Formally named finalist for induction in 1990, 1991, and 1992.

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

title: Al Williamson


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Talk:Ampicillin

Ampicillin resistance
"Only those bacteria that carry the ampicillin resistance and, therefore, the gene can survive." This sentence needs more verbs. Does the author mean "Only those bacteria that carry the ampicillin resistance survive and, therefore..."? It seems likely, but I don't know the first thing about genes or ampicillin. Kznf 19:33, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Cancer
Hi everybody.

 * « ... It is suspected to cause certain types of cancer in animals, including humans. »

I translated the page Ampicillin in the French language, but can someone confirm this carcinogenic risico as I am not sure of this and I didn't find any sources (not ever in a global internet search)... Friendly yours Eras-mus 18:43, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

 * This is a pretty serious charge, why don't you post the source of this translation? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.72.99.82 (talk • contribs) 12:59, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Ampicillin used to treat influenza?
Is influenza not a virus? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.152.54.243 (talk) 03:45, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

 * Yes, influenza is caused by a virus; the (unfortunately) named Haemophilus influenzae is a bacterium which was once thought to cause the flu. (While this turned out to be false, H. influenzae does cause a number of other - largely pediatric - disesases.) -- MarcoTolo (talk) 19:41, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

This does not make sense
User:Barbara (WVS) Ampicillin is a penicillin? Cephalosporins are in a different family and yes cross sensitivity may theoretically occur.

"Those with an allergy to penicillin may develop a cross sensitivity to ampicillin. "

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:28, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Importance in molecular biology
Is is worth adding that ampicillin is very common in molecular biology as a selection marker? Lab bacteria are given a plasmid with amp resistance and then grown on ampicillin agar plates, so only the lab bacteria with the plasmid can grow. 2001:7C0:28E0:108:8DD8:E249:1572:B2D7 (talk) 12:34, 18 August 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Ampicillin


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Clan Donald

Clan Donald, also known as Clan MacDonald (Clann Dòmhnaill; Mac Dòmhnaill ), is a Highland Scottish clan and one of the largest Scottish clans. The Lord Lyon King of Arms, the Scottish official with responsibility for regulating heraldry in that country, issuing new grants of coats of arms, and serving as the judge of the Court of the Lord Lyon, recognises under Scottish law the High Chief of Clan Donald. Historically the chiefs of the Clan Donald held the title of Lord of the Isles until 1493 and two of those chiefs also held the title of Earl of Ross until 1476. Queen Mary of Denmark is member of Clan Donald.

There are also numerous branches to the Clan Donald and several of these have chiefs recognised by the Lord Lyon King of Arms; these are: Clan Macdonald of Sleat, Clan Macdonald of Clanranald, Clan MacDonell of Glengarry, Clan MacDonald of Keppoch, Clan MacDonald of Glencoe, and Clan MacAlister. There are also notable historic branches of Clan Donald without chiefs so-recognised, these are: the Clan MacDonald of Dunnyveg, Clan MacDonald of Lochalsh, and the MacDonalds of Ardnamurchan. The MacDonnells of Antrim are a cadet branch of the MacDonalds of Dunnyveg but do not belong to the Scottish associations and have a chief officially recognised in Ireland.

Origins
The Norse-Gaelic Clan Donald traces its descent from Dòmhnall Mac Raghnuill (d. circa 1250), whose father Reginald or Ranald was styled "King of the Isles" and "Lord of Argyll and Kintyre". Ranald's father, Somerled was styled "King of the Hebrides", and was killed campaigning against Malcolm IV of Scotland at the Battle of Renfrew in 1164. Clan Donald shares a descent from Somerled with Clan MacDougall, who traces their lineage from his elder son, Dugall mac Somhairle. Their dynasties are together commonly referred to as the Clann Somhairle. Furthermore, they are descended maternally from both the House of Godred Crovan and the Earls of Orkney, through Somerled's wife Ragnhildis Ólafsdóttir, daughter of Olaf I Godredsson, King of Mann and the Isles and Ingeborg Haakonsdottir, daughter of Haakon Paulsson, Earl of Orkney. It remains uncertain if the Clann Somhairle are also descendants in some manner, through one or another of the above dynasts, of the House of Ivar, but this is commonly argued.

Tradition gave Somerled a Gaelic descent in the male line, as the medieval seanchaidhean (Gaelic historians) traced his lineage through a long line of ancestors back to the High Kings of Ireland, namely Colla Uais and Conn of the Hundred Battles. Thus Clan Donald claimed to be both Clann Cholla and Siol Chuinn (Children of Colla and Seed of Conn). Possibly the oldest piece of poetry attributed to the MacDonalds is a brosnachadh (an incitement to battle) which was said to have been written in 1411, on the day of the Battle of Harlaw. The first lines of the poem begin "A Chlanna Cuinn cuimhnichibh / Cruas an àm na h-iorghaile," (Ye children of Conn remember hardihood in the time of battle). A later poem made to John of Islay (1434–1503), last of the MacDonald Lords of the Isles, proclaims "Ceannas Ghàidheal do Chlainn Cholla, còir fhògradh," (The Headship of the Gael to the family of Colla, it is right to proclaim it), giving MacDonald's genealogy back to Colla Uais.

However, a recent DNA study has shown that Somerled was of Norse descent in his male line. By testing the Y-DNA of males bearing the surnames MacDonald, MacDougall, MacAlister, and their variants it was found that a substantial proportion of men tested shared the same Y-DNA and a direct paternal ancestor. This distinct Y-chromosome R1a1 haplotype found in Scotland has been regarded as often showing Norse descent in the Britain and Ireland.

Scottish-Norwegian War
In 1263 Alexander III of Scotland defeated Haakon IV of Norway at the Battle of Largs. The Clan Donald chief, Aonghas Mor and his clan had technically been vassals of Haakon and so the king of Scots became their new overlord, as confirmed in the Treaty of Perth.

Wars of Scottish Independence
Aongus Mor's son was Aonghus Óg of Islay who supported Robert the Bruce at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. In recognition of Clan Donald's support King Robert the Bruce proclaimed that Clan Donald would always occupy the honoured position on the right wing of the Scottish army.

Succession to the Earldom of Ross
The title and territory of the Earl of Ross had originally been held by the Chief of Clan Ross but had passed through an heiress to the Leslie or Lesley family in the early 15th century. However, Angus Og's grandson, Donald of Islay, Lord of the Isles married Mariota, Countess of Ross (Margaret Lesley) who was the heiress of the Leslie Earls of Ross and he later claimed the position of Earl of Ross through this marriage.

In 1411, Donald secured Dingwall Castle which was the principal seat of the Earldom of Ross, after he had defeated the powerful Clan Mackay who were supporters of the Stewart confederacy at the Battle of Dingwall. This in turn resulted in the Battle of Harlaw on 24 July 1411, fought between Donald of Islay's forces and those of Robert Stewart, Duke of Albany, led by Alexander Stewart, Earl of Mar. It is believed there were 10,000 men in Donald's army at the Battle of Harlaw,. Although he inflicted a decisive victory, he did not go on to Aberdeen but took his army back to the Western Highlands. In the aftermath, Albany tried to take control of Ross but was unsuccessful. and By 1415 the Earldom of Ross was with Murdoch Stewart, Duke of Albany. Donald prepared for war and proclaimed himself "Lord of Ross". However, the Duke of Albany appointed his own son John Stewart, 2nd Earl of Buchan as the new Earl of Ross.

In 1429 the Battle of Lochaber took place where forces led by Donald's son, Alexander of Islay, 3rd Lord of the Isles and Earl of Ross, fought against the royalist army of James I of Scotland. Two years later the Battle of Inverlochy (1431) took place; While chief Alexander of Islay, Lord of the Isles was imprisoned by King James I, the Clan MacDonald were led by his nephew, Donald Balloch MacDonald, who defeated Alexander Stewart, Earl of Mar's royal army. The armies of the MacDonald Lords of the Isles were the only magnate forces in Scotland capable of inflicting defeats on the Crown at this time. The Battle of Inverlochy in 1431 is one example of this and the Battle of Lagabraad in Ross in 1480 is another. James I finally conceded to Alexander's rule in the Isles and Ross. Thus, the MacDonald chiefs would succeed as the Earls of Ross: firstly Alexander of Islay, Earl of Ross, son of Donald of Islay and Mariota, Countess of Ross, succeeded to the earldom as confirmed by a charter dated September 1437, following the assassination of James I of Scotland in February of the same year. Secondly, Alexander's son John of Islay, Earl of Ross who surrendered the earldom in 1475 to the King.

According to 17th century historian Sir Robert Gordon, 1st Baronet who himself was a younger son of Alexander Gordon, 12th Earl of Sutherland, in 1455 the Battle of Skibo and Strathfleet took place where John of Islay invaded Sutherland but was defeated by the Clan Sutherland who were led by Robert Sutherland, brother of John Sutherland, 7th Earl of Sutherland.

Forfeiture of the Earldom of Ross and Lordship of the Isles
In 1475, James III of Scotland forfeited the MacDonald Earldom of Ross and although the MacDonald Lordship of the Isles was not forfeited until 1493, in many ways 1475 marked the end of the lordship as a potent force. Following this is what the Books of Clanranald describe as a "great struggle for power among the Gael". Various leaders, such as Aonghas Óg who was the fourth illegitimate son of the Lord of the Isles, along with his son, Domhnall Dubh, and also Alexander MacDonald of Lochalsh and John Mor MacDonald of Dunyvaig were seeking to restore the MacDonald hegemony in the west. The Battle of Bloody Bay took place in 1480 where John MacDonald of Islay, Lord of the Isles and chief of Clan Donald was defeated by his son Aonghas Óg. Aonghas Óg's son Domhnall Dubh rebelled against James IV of Scotland and made an alliance with Henry VIII of England in an attempt to regain the Lordship of the Isles and although various attempts were made to restore the lordship, by 1545 all had failed. The ultimate victors were the Crown's hard men in the north and west: Alexander Gordon, 3rd Earl of Huntly (chief of Clan Gordon), Archibald Campbell, 2nd Earl of Argyll (chief of Clan Campbell) and John MacIain of Ardnamurchan. The various branches of the Clan Donald began accepting charters from the Crown in recognition of their separate holdings. This was part of a royal policy that successfully kept the Clan Donald divided, and in doing so they were less of a threat to the central authority.

The MacDonnells of Antrim in Northern Ireland were a sept of Clan Donald. MacDonnell migration to the Glens and Rathlin Island increased in the early 16th century after the clan had rejected overtures from an increasingly powerful James IV, King of Scotland.

17th century; Civil War and 1689–1692 Jacobite rising
Loss of the Lordship of the Isles fractured Highland society and the MacDonalds in particular, who were left holding lands on either side of the Irish Sea, rather than a unified block of territory. Their attempts to re-establish control destabilised Western Scotland for generations; the charge of "slaughter under trust", later applied after the Massacre of Glencoe in 1692 was introduced in 1587 to reduce the endemic feuding that resulted. Opponents now had to use the Crown to settle disputes and it applied to murder committed in 'cold-blood' i.e. once articles of surrender had been agreed or hospitality accepted. The first recorded use was the 1588 prosecution of Lachlan Maclean, whose objections to his new stepfather, John MacDonald, resulted in the murder of 18 members of the MacDonald wedding party.

In 1568, the Scottish Reformation established a national kirk that was Presbyterian in structure and Calvinist in doctrine; by 1640, less than 2% of Scots were Catholics, concentrated in places like South Uist, controlled by Clanranald but despite its minority status, fear of Popery remained widespread. This excluded the MacDonalds from power and split them into Catholic and Presbyterian factions; this would have fatal consequences for the Glencoe MacDonalds in 1692. The 1638–1651 Wars of the Three Kingdoms caused huge dislocation and damage throughout the British Isles; in 1641, the Scottish Covenanter government sent an expeditionary force that joined the vicious and bloody Irish Rebellion. All sides committed atrocities, leading to a series of tit-for-tat responses, exacerbated by long-standing animosities; in 1642 on Rathlin Island, soldiers from a predominantly Clan Campbell-recruited unit led by Sir Duncan Campbell threw scores of MacDonnell women over the cliffs to their deaths on rocks below.

Scotland initially stayed neutral in the First English Civil War but became involved in 1643; the shifting alliances only make sense if one understands that in Scotland, both Royalists and Covenanters agreed the institution of monarchy was divinely ordered but disagreed on the nature and extent of Royal authority versus that of the church. This makes it hard to categorise clans as wholly 'Royalist,' 'Catholic' or later 'Jacobite.'

In 1644, Alasdair Mac Colla landed in Scotland with 1500 Irish troops to link up with the Scottish Royalists; Alasdair was from Clan Donald of Dunnyveg, which historically held lands in the western Scottish islands and North-East Ireland. They joined up with Montrose and played a leading role in the 1644-1645 campaign; this was highly successful, with victory at the Battle of Inverlochy leaving Montrose in effective control of Scotland.

Inverlochy and the entire Montrose campaign is often presented as a clan battle between Campbells and MacDonalds; while there is certainly some truth in this, many others were involved. Its persistence in Gaelic folklore was partly driven by deliberate policy, since Montrose used it as a means of recruiting. Ultimately the campaign ended in failure and division since Mac Colla's objective was to regain territories in the Western Highlands, Montrose's to move south and aid Charles. The two split; Mac Colla's ravaging of Campbell lands was still remembered with deep bitterness 300 years later.

The Massacre of Glencoe took place in 1692, 38 unarmed MacDonalds from the Clan MacDonald of Glencoe were murdered when an initiative to suppress Jacobitism was entangled in the long-running feud and MacIain who was the chief of the MacDonalds of Glencoe, was late in signing an oath of allegiance to William III of England. The event served as part of the inspiration for "The Red Wedding" as featured in books and TV series Game of Thrones.

Jacobite rising of 1715
During the Jacobite rising of 1715 the MacDonalds supported the Jacobite cause of the House of Stuart. Men of Clan MacDonald of Keppoch, and the Clan Macdonald of Clanranald fought at the Battle of Sheriffmuir on 13 November 1715 where chief Allan MacDonald of Clanranald was killed. The Clan MacDonald of Glencoe also fought at Sherriffmuir.

Jacobite rising of 1745
During the Jacobite rising of 1745 the Clan MacDonell of Glengarry along with the Clan MacDonald of Keppoch and the MacDonalds of Glencoe fought as Jacobites at the Battle of Prestonpans on 21 September 1745.

The Clan MacDonald of Clanranald, along with the Clan MacDonald of Glengarry, and Clan MacDonald of Keppoch, fought as Jacobites at the Battle of Falkirk Muir on 17 January 1746

The Clan MacDonald of Glencoe, Clan MacDonald of Clanranald, and Clan MacDonell of Glengarry, fought as Jacobites at the Battle of Culloden in April 1746, as did the Clan MacDonald of Keppoch whose chief, Alexander MacDonald of Keppoch, was killed.

The Clan MacDonald of Sleat branch had fought for the Jacobites in the 1715 rebellion, however they actually formed two battalions (Independent Highland Companies) in support of the British Government during the 1745 rebellion and as a result the Sleat possessions remained intact. However, according to A and A MacDonald these two companies were more of a hindrance than help to the Government as they were made up of officers and men who were in entire sympathy with the Jacobite Prince Charles Edward Stuart.

Chief
In 1947, the Lord Lyon King of Arms granted the undifferenced arms of Macdonald to Alexander Godfrey Macdonald, 7th Lord Macdonald, making him the first High Chief of Clan Donald. After his death in 1970, he was succeeded by his son Godfrey James Macdonald of Macdonald, 8th Lord Macdonald, who is the current high chief of Clan Donald. In 1972, the Macdonald estates were sold off to pay death duties. Lord Macdonald lives at Kinloch Lodge on Skye with his wife, the food writer Claire Macdonald (m. 1969).

Historic chiefs
The following is a list of some of the early chiefs of Clan Donald.

Castles
Over the centuries MacDonald castles have included:

Clan Donald castles

 * Finlaggan Castle was located on an island, on Loch Finlaggan, on the Isle of Islay. It was the seat of the chief of Clan Donald, Lord of the Isles.
 * Armadale Castle on the Isle of Skye was begun in 1815 and today houses the Clan Donald Centre and the Museum of the Isles which are open to the public.
 * Knock Castle (Isle of Skye) is a ruined Macdonald castle located on the Isle of Skye.
 * Duntulm Castle is a ruined MacDonald castle located on the Isle of Skye.
 * Aros Castle is a ruined MacDonald castle located on the Isle of Mull.
 * Claig Castle is a ruined MacDonald castle located on the Isle of Jura.
 * Kildonan Castle is a ruined MacDonald castle located on the Isle of Arran.
 * Ardtornish Castle is a ruined MacDonald castle located on the peninsula Morvern.
 * Dunaverty Castle, is a ruined MacDonald castle, off the coast of Kintyre, known as Blood Rock because of the incident known as the Dunaverty Massacre.

Clan Donald branch castles

 * Castle Tioram, Loch Moidart, Lochaber was the seat of the Clan Macdonald of Clanranald.
 * Borve Castle, Benbecula was another castle of the MacDonalds of Clanranald.
 * Ormiclate Castle was another castle of the Macdonalds of Clanranald.
 * Invergarry Castle, built on the Rock of the Raven was the seat of the Clan MacDonnell of Glengarry.
 * Strome Castle on the shore of Loch Carron was an earlier castle of the MacDonnells of Glengarry.
 * Dunluce Castle in Ireland was the seat of the Clan MacDonnell of Antrim, Earls of Antrim.
 * Glenarm Castle in Ireland was another castle of the MacDonnells of Antrim.
 * Dunyvaig Castle on the Isle of Islay was the seat of the Clan MacDonald of Dunnyveg.
 * Gorm Castle, on an island in Loch Gorm, which itself is in the Isle of Islay, was another seat of the Clan MacDonald of Dunnyveg.
 * Island Muller Castle in Kintyre was another seat of the Clan MacDonald of Dunnyveg.
 * Dunscaith Castle (Dun Sgathaich) on the Isle of Skye was the seat of the Clan MacDonald of Sleat.
 * Keppoch Castle which was near to Spean Bridge in Lochaber was the seat of the Clan MacDonald of Keppoch until it passed to the Mackintoshes in 1690.
 * Mingary Castle in Kilchoan, Lochaber was the seat of the Clan MacDonald of Ardnamurchan.
 * Largie Castle, Rhunahaorine was the seat of the Clan MacDonald of Largie.

title: Clan Donald


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Elektrit

Elektrit Radiotechnical Society (Towarzystwo Radiotechniczne „ELEKTRIT”) was the largest privately owned company in Wilno, Second Republic of Poland (now Vilnius, Lithuania) (1925–39).

With over 1100 workers, the society produced approximately 50 thousand radio receivers annually. A large percentage of the production was exported abroad, mostly to Sweden, Germany, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. The annual turnover exceeded US$1 million. Elektrit proved to be a very successful company and soon became a leading radio manufacturer in Poland.

Following the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939, Wilno was occupied by the Soviet Union and the company was nationalized. In 1940 the factory was hastily dismantled and transported to Minsk, where the "Vyacheslav Molotov" Radio Factory was set up. After the war the plant was renamed Minsk Radio and Television Association "Horizont" (Horizon). It produced "Minsk" radio receivers, being copies of Polish pre-war models but with Soviet tube set.

The former Elektrit buildings in Vilnius were used for the Kailis forced labor camp during the German occupation and by a secret Soviet radio factory of the Ministry of Aviation Industry, known as PO Box 555.

title: Elektrit