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Gorée

Île de Gorée ("Gorée Island"; Beer Dun) is one of the 19 communes d'arrondissement (i.e. districts) of the city of Dakar, Senegal. It is an 18.2 ha island located 2 km at sea from the main harbour of Dakar (14.66667°N, -17.4°W), famous as a destination for people interested in the Atlantic slave trade.

Its population as of the 2013 census was 1,680 inhabitants, giving a density of 5,802 PD/km2, which is only half the average density of the city of Dakar. Gorée is both the smallest and the least populated of the 19 communes d'arrondissement of Dakar.

Other important centres for the slave trade from Senegal were further north, at Saint-Louis, Senegal, or to the south in the Gambia, at the mouths of major rivers for trade. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and was one of the first 12 locations in the world to be designated as such in 1978.

The name is a corruption of its original Dutch name Goeree, named after the Dutch island of Goeree. The island was also known as Palma, or Bezeguiche in Portuguese.

History and slave trade
Gorée is a small island 900 m in length and 350 m in width sheltered by the Cap-Vert Peninsula. Now part of the city of Dakar, it was a minor port and site of European settlement along the coast. Being almost devoid of drinking water, the island was not settled before the arrival of Europeans. The island of Gorée was one of the first places in Africa to be settled by Europeans, as the Portuguese settled on the island in 1444. It was captured by the United Netherlands in 1588, then the Portuguese again, and again the Dutch. They named it after the Dutch island of Goeree. The British took it over under Robert Holmes in 1663, but it was soon recaptured by Michiel de Ruyter.

After the decline of the slave trade from Senegal in the 1770s and 1780s, the town became an important port for the shipment of peanuts, peanut oil, gum arabic, ivory, and other products of the "legitimate" trade. It was probably in relation to this trade that the so-called Maison des Esclaves was built.

French colonial rule
After the French invasion in 1677, during the Franco-Dutch War, the island remained chiefly French until 1960. There were brief periods of British occupation during the various wars fought by France and Britain. The island was notably taken and occupied by the British between 1758 and 1763 following the Capture of Gorée and wider Capture of Senegal during the Seven Years' War before being returned to France at the Treaty of Paris (1763). For a brief time between 1779 and 1783, Gorée was again under British control, until ceded again to France in 1783 at the Treaty of Paris (1783). During that time, the infamous Joseph Wall served as Lieutenant-Governor there, who had some of his men unlawfully flogged to death in 1782; for these crimes, Wall was later executed in England.

Gorée was principally a trading post, administratively attached to Saint-Louis, capital of the Colony of Senegal. Apart from slaves, beeswax, hides and grain were also traded. The population of the island fluctuated according to circumstances, from a few hundred free Africans and Creoles to about 1,500. There would have been few European residents at any one time.

In the 18th and 19th century, Gorée was home to a Franco-African Creole, or Métis, community of merchants with links to similar communities in Saint-Louis and the Gambia, and across the Atlantic to France's colonies in the Americas. Métis women, called signares from the Portuguese senhora descendants of African women and European traders, were especially important to the city's business life. The signares owned ships and property and commanded male clerks. They were also famous for cultivating fashion and entertainment. One such signare, Anne Rossignol, lived in Saint-Domingue (the modern Haiti) in the 1780s before the Haitian Revolution.

In February 1794 during the French Revolution, France abolished slavery, and the slave trade from Senegal was said to have stopped. A French engraving of about 1797 (pictured) shows it still going on, but this may be an anachronism. In April 1801, Gorée was captured by the British again.

In January 1804 a small French squadron from Curaçao captured Gorée, but the British recaptured it in March.

In March 1815, during his political comeback known as the Hundred Days, Napoleon definitively abolished the slave trade to build relations with Great Britain. This time, abolition continued.

As the trade in slaves declined in the late eighteenth century, Gorée converted to legitimate commerce. The tiny city and port were ill-situated for the shipment of industrial quantities of peanuts, which began arriving in bulk from the mainland. Consequently, its merchants established a presence directly on the mainland, first in Rufisque (1840) and then in Dakar (1857). Many of the established families started to leave the island.

Civic franchise for the citizens of Gorée was institutionalized in 1872, when it became a French commune with an elected mayor and a municipal council. Blaise Diagne, the first African deputy elected to the French National Assembly (served 1914 to 1934), was born on Gorée. From a peak of about 4,500 in 1845, the population fell to 1,500 in 1904. In 1940 Gorée was annexed to the municipality of Dakar.

From 1913 to 1938, Gorée was home to the École normale supérieure William Ponty, a government teachers' college run by the French Colonial Government. Many of the school's graduates would one day lead the struggle for independence from France. In 1925 African-American historian, sociologist, and Pan-Africanist W. E. B. Du Bois wrote of the school "On the picturesque island of Goree whose ancient ramparts face modern and commercial Dakar I saw two or three hundred fine black boys of high school rank gathered in from all Senegal by competitive tests and taught thoroughly by excellent French teachers in accordance with a curriculum which, as far as it went, was equal to that of any European school," while faulting Colonial France for how limited its public education infrastructure was in the country overall and expressing pessimism about further investment.

Post-independence
Gorée is connected to the mainland by regular 30-minute ferry service, for pedestrians only; there are no cars on the island. Senegal's premier tourist site, the island was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1978. It now serves mostly as a memorial to the slave trade. Many of the historic commercial and residential buildings have been turned into restaurants and hotels to support the tourist traffic.

Gorée is known as the location of the House of Slaves (Maison des esclaves), built by an Afro-French Métis family about 1780–1784. The House of Slaves is one of the oldest houses on the island. It is now used as a tourist destination to show the horrors of the slave trade throughout the Atlantic world. As discussed by historian Ana Lucia Araujo, the building started gaining reputation as a slave depot mainly because of the work of its curator Boubacar Joseph Ndiaye, who was able to move the audiences who visited the house with his performance. Many public personalities visit the House of Slaves, which plays the role of a site of memory of slavery. In June 2013, President of the United States Barack Obama visited the building.

The Dakar-Gorée Swim was launched in 1985 as a homage to the victims of slavery who displayed resilience by attempting to swim towards freedom. It has been a recurring event throughout its history, except in 2020 and 2021 when it was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Administration
With the foundation of Dakar in 1857, Gorée gradually lost its importance. In 1872, the French colonial authorities created the two communes of Saint-Louis and Gorée, the first western-style municipalities in West Africa, with the same status as any commune in France. Dakar, on the mainland, was part of the commune of Gorée, whose administration was located on the island. However, as early as 1887, Dakar was detached from the commune of Gorée and was turned into a commune in its own right. Thus, the commune of Gorée became limited to its tiny island.

In 1891, Gorée still had 2,100 inhabitants, while Dakar only had 8,737 inhabitants. However, by 1926 the population of Gorée had declined to only 700 inhabitants, while the population of Dakar had increased to 33,679 inhabitants. Thus, in 1929 the commune of Gorée was merged with Dakar. The commune of Gorée disappeared, and Gorée was now only a small island of the commune of Dakar.

In 1996, a massive reform of the administrative and political divisions of Senegal was voted by the Parliament of Senegal. The commune of Dakar, deemed too large and too populated to be properly managed by a central municipality, was divided into 19 communes d'arrondissement to which extensive powers were given. The commune of Dakar was maintained above these 19 communes d'arrondissement. It coordinates the activities of the communes d'arrondissement, much as Greater London coordinates the activities of the London boroughs.

Thus, in 1996 the commune of Gorée was resurrected, although it is now only a commune d'arrondissement (but in fact with powers quite similar to a commune). The new commune d'arrondissement of Gorée (officially, the Commune d'Arrondissement de l'île de Gorée) took possession of the old mairie (town hall) in the center of the island. This had been used as the mairie of the former commune of Gorée between 1872 and 1929.

The commune d'arrondissement of Gorée is ruled by a municipal council (conseil municipal) democratically elected every 5 years, and by a mayor elected by members of the municipal council.

The current mayor of Gorée is Augustin Senghor, elected in 2002.

Archaeology of Gorée Island
The island is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, since September 1978. Most of the main buildings in Gorée were constructed during the second half of the eighteenth century. The main buildings are the Slave house, 1786; William Ponty School, 1770; Musée de la mer (Maritime museum), 1835; Fort d'Estrées, originally called the northern battery, which now contains the Historical Museum of Senegal, built between 1852 and 1865; palais du Government (Government Palace), 1864, occupied by the first governor-general of Senegal from 1902 to 1907. The Gorée Castle and the seventeenth-century Gorée Police Station, formerly a dispensary, believed to be the site of the first chapel built by the Portuguese in the fifteenth century, and the beach are also of interest to tourists. This historical site is a rare example of a European colony where we see free and enslaved Africans (making up half of Gorée's population), Europeans and Afro-Europeans living alongside each other, even as the island was a prominent center in the Atlantic slave trade. Archaeology on Gorée Island leads to many contradictory and contrasting conclusions. On one end of the spectrum, enslaved peoples on Gorée were treated poorly, like animals, on the other there is evidence for enslaved peoples being welcomed as part of families. The signares (free African or Afro-European women) were recorded preferring to eat on the floor with a spoon and communal bowl, as their domestic slaves, but European men kept tradition and used a table.

Archaeological research on Gorée has been undertaken by Dr Ibrahima Thiaw (Associate Professor of Archaeology at the Institut Fondamental d'Afrique Noire (IFAN); and the University Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar, Senegal); Dr Susan Keech McIntosh (Professor of Archaeology, Rice University, Houston, Texas); and Raina Croff (PhD candidate at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut). Dr Shawn Murray (University of Wisconsin–Madison) also contributed to archaeological research at Gorée through a study of local and introduced trees and shrubs, which aids in identifying the ancient plant remains found in the excavations. Excavations at Gorée have also uncovered numerous European imports: bricks, nails, bottles from alcoholic beverages such as wine, beer and other liquor, beads, ceramics and gunflints.

Gorée Archaeological Project
The Gorée Archaeological Project, or GAP, started its undertakings (survey, testing, mapping, and excavations) in 2001. The project, extending over a period of several years, aimed to collect artifacts pertaining to the historical time periods of the pre- and post- European settlement, as well as identify the use of the different quarters on the island using the material culture excavated from those areas. In his preliminary results, Ibrahima Thiaw also discusses the difficulties of excavation on a primarily tourist island.

Background
Portuguese Major Captain Lançarote and his crew were the first to make Afro-European relations with Gorée Island in 1445. After sighting Gorée approximately 3 km off the shore from modern day Dakar, Senegal, Lançarote and his officers sent ashore a few officers to leave peace offerings to the natives of the island. They deposited on Gorée soil a cake, a mirror and a piece of paper with a cross drawn on it, all of which were intended to be symbols for peaceful actions. However, the Africans did not respond in the desired way and tore up the paper and smashed the cake and the mirror, thus setting the tone for future relations between the Portuguese and Africans of Gorée Island.

As of the early 18th century, Gorée settlements were segregated into quarters: the Bambara quarter (slaves), gourmettes (Christianized Africans), and a quarter for the residents of Gorée, including free Africans. By the later half of the 18th century, the segregation was between signares and their families and the rest of the island as well as the previous instated quarters.

Pre-European settlement
According to preliminary results by Ibrahim Thiaw, the levels between the pre and post European contact deposits were characterized by an obvious infestation of termite nests. One interpretation of this is the possibility that these termite nests were cause of the abandonment of Gorée before Dutch arrival.

Deposits of the pre-European period are dense with pottery decorated with twine and fish vertebrae motifs and could be found in the domestic settlement context, under or at the same levels of floors and fireplaces. The pottery near the settlements suggests that these settlements were semi-permanent or permanent. Fishing tools and equipment were rare although deposits were dense with fish remains. There was also no sign of iron or its usage before the eighteenth century.

Due to a plethora of features containing ritual pots found in the core of the pre European settlement, Thiaw has concluded that the island may have been primarily used for ritual activity and practices. Nevertheless, abandonment is archaeologically evident by the middle of the fifteenth century, possibly due to a mighty termite invasion. There is no archaeological or physical evidence of a struggle or conflict between the eventual Europeans or any other cultural group. Thiaw's hypothesis suggest the possibility that when the Portuguese used the island to bury their dead, the island, in the eyes of the natives, became haunted or was negatively impacted by the mysterious powers of the spirits of the sea.

European settlement

There is some textual evidence that states that the Dutch purchased the island from the chief of Dakar or from local fisherman on the island. While there is little archaeological evidence of this transaction, all European deposits are relatively abundant. On Gorée there are four distinct deposits found through excavation and testing. The first kinds of deposition are located on the northwestern and western part of the island, and were typically three metres of domestic debris and shell midden. Surrounding the area that was once Fort Nassau, these depositions were determined in correlation with Fort Nassau activity, which was seen to be relatively unfluctuating.

A rare deposition was found near the Castel at G18, the sole site excavated in the area. Depositions in this area were typically shallow and right on top of a limestone bedrock. However, this one site produced three burials, all of which were dug into the limestone bedrock.

G13, a site located on the eastern side of the island, has produced cultural debris from one of its trash pits. This debris includes nails, European late pearlware and early whiteware with similar patterns dating from 1810 to 1849, sardine cans, and window glass, among other artifacts. Located near the military barracks from a military occupation in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the analysis of these ceramics suggests that many of them were replacements coinciding with the occupation. Deposits like this were not common around the island. As with many archaeological sites around the globe, modern influences and activities affect the sites and lead to disturbances in the archaeological record or unintentional site destruction. The European government imposed strict rules regarding the use of space and overall settlement development on the island. Archaeology shows this development in the soil; the constructions, levelling, reconstructions, some of which can be linked to a change in the European ruler at the time. However, this evidence of development too show results of the consequences from contemporary activity, thus it is an intricate puzzle to determine complex social identities and groups, such as slave or free or African or Afro-European. An overall deduction can be made however: Atlantic trade significantly impacts the lives of those on Gorée, seen in the influx of ideas, complex identities and settlement structure.

Atlantic trade also influenced the physiological aspects of Gorean society. Archaeology has uncovered a plethora of evidence for massive imports of alcoholic beverages on the island. The massive import of alcoholic beverages naturally suggests a high level of consumption which its effects have been recorded as drunken conflicts, commonly between the military inhabitants. The previously mentioned Dr Ibrahima Thiaw is also the author of Digging on Contested Grounds: Archaeology and the Commemoration of Slavery on Gorée Island. In this article, Thiaw discusses the difference between the historical accounts full of slavery and shackles and the lack of archaeological evidence to support those accounts. Raina Croff, one of Thiaw's colleagues, states that she personally has never found any evidence of slavery on Gorée Island, however she also includes that archaeological evidence such as shackles and chains would not be found on an island, because there is no need.

Maison des Esclaves
Maison des Esclaves, or the House of Slaves, was built in 1780–1784 by Nicolas Pépin. Although it is the home of the infamous "Door of No Return", which is said to be the last place exported slaves touched African soil for the rest of their lives, there is little evidence at Maison des Esclaves to suggest a "large-scale trans-Atlantic slave trade" economy. According to census records obtained from the 18th century, the majority of enslaved population fell under the category of domestic slaves, rather than slaves to be exported. Pépin and his heiress may have had domestic slaves, but again there is little archaeological evidence that they were involved in any slave exportation business. Despite this lack of evidence, Maison des Esclaves has become a pilgrimage site to commemorate forcible removal of Africans from their homeland, also known as the African diaspora. This contrasts with the role of the site of Rue des Dongeons on Gorée. At Rue des Dongeons, as the name suggests, there is a presence of dungeons, which can clearly be associated with the confinement of the slaves to be exported. Historian Ana Lucia Araujo has said "it’s not a real place from where real people left in the numbers they say." Conversely, UNESCO claims that "from the 15th to 19th century, Gorée was the largest slave trading centre on the African coast."

Bambara Quartier
On the southcentral end of Gorée, in the Bambara quarter, although less abundant in artifacts, the deposits from this area differ in sediment inclusions from the rest of the island. Inclusions such as limestone, red bricks, shell, or stones in these two to three meter depositions are no older than the eighteenth century and shows frequent building up and tearing down processes. This could be correlated to the extensive settlement of this area maybe by domestic slaves beginning in the eighteenth century. Quartier Bambara was a segregated settlement, which suggests domestic slavery rather than exportation. The maps of this settlement has segregated boundary lines that eventually, by the mid-eighteenth century, were shown to be reduced. Found in the center of the island, Bambara was inhabited by the Bambara people. The Bambara people had an unfavorable stereotype; found in the mainland of Senegal and Mali, the Bambara were known for being excellent slaves. Brought to Gorée by the French, the Bambara people were set to build roads, forts and houses.

These buildings (Maison des Esclaves, Quartier Bambara, and Rue des Dungeons), made of stone or brick, contrasted with the structures built by the Africans made of straw and mud. This contrast aided in the segregation and status separation between the Africans and the European inhabitants and followed the common association that masonry was a European influence. However, the construction of these architectural buildings were most likely built by the slaves, and without floor plans, as indicated by the haphazard city layout and irregular angles in the rooms. Settlement analysis demonstrates the possibility that with time, the masters' and the enslaved peoples' statuses evened out enough to work and live side by side on the island by the second half of the eighteenth century.

Disputing Gorée as a major trading post for slaves
In the 1990s a debate ensued on the veracity of the Gorée slave trade as narrated by the conservator Boubacar Joseph Ndiaye. In an article, published in the French newspaper Le Monde, Emmanuel de Roux challenged Ndiaye's repeated claims that Gorée, at the so-called "Maison des Esclaves", was an important slave depot (which was largely based on the false interpretations of French visitors in the 18–19th century and afterwards). De Roux based his critique on the works of the researchers Abdoulaye Camara and Father Joseph-Roger de Benoist. According to historical accounts, no more than 500 slaves per year were traded there, a trickle in comparison to the scale of the slave trade along the coasts of modern-day Benin, Guinee and Angola: in total 4–5% (or around 500 000) of the slaves were shipped from Senegal to the Americas, whereas the remaining 11.5 million enslaved Africans came from the other (West) African shores. Ndiaye's graphic descriptions of the conditions of the slaves allegedly kept at the "Maison des Esclaves" are not supported by any historical documentation and according to De Roux, they may have served to drum up business, especially from African-American tourists. In response to these accusations, several Senegalese and European researchers convened a symposium at the Sorbonne in April 1997, entitled "Gorée dans la traite atlantique : mythes et réalités", whose proceedings were published afterwards.

Recently, Hamady Bocoum et Bernard Toulier published an article "The Fabrication of Heritage: the case of Gorée (Senegal)" (in French: "La fabrication du Patrimoine : l’exemple de Gorée (Sénégal)") documenting the elevation of Gorée to an emotionally charged memorial of the transatlantic slave trade for touristic reasons. This was spearheaded by the Senegalese government, begun under President Léopold Sédar Senghor, who had tasked his special appointee Ndiaye with this goal. In 2013, journalist Jean Luc Angrand chronicled how Ndiaye began his lobbying campaign among African-American communities in the US, as he tried to capitalize on their desire to look for their own heritage in Africa that arose in the 1970s. This interest surged after the impact of the TV series Roots, which was most acutely felt among African-American viewers. For this reason Ndiaye exaggerated the importance of Senegal, and Gorée in particular, by claiming that no less than 20 million enslaved Africans were shipped from there.

Although several English-written media sources have reported on the invented history of Gorée, notably John Murphy in the Seattle Times and Max Fischer in the Washington Post, some English news sources, such as the BBC, still cling to the invented narrative of Gorée as a major center of the slave trade.

Notable residents

 * Latyr Sy, djembe musician
 * France Gall, the French singer, owned a home there
 * Léa Seydoux, was partially raised on the island

In popular culture
Gorée Island was the Pit Stop for Leg 4 of The Amazing Race 6, and the Slave House itself was visited during Leg 5.

Gorée Island has been featured in many songs, due to its history related to the slave trade. The following songs have significant references to Gorée Island: In 2007 the Swiss director Pierre-Yves Borgeaud made a documentary called Retour à Gorée (Return to Gorée).
 * Steel Pulse– "Door Of No Return" on African Holocaust (2004)
 * Doug E. Fresh– "Africa"
 * Akon – "Senegal"
 * Burning Spear– "One Africa" on Jah Is Real (2008)
 * Alpha Blondy & Solar System– "Goree (Senegal)" on Dieu (1994)
 * Nuru Kane – "Goree"
 * Sinsemilia - "De l’histoire"
 * Gilberto Gil – "La Lune de Goree", composed by Gilberto Gil and José Carlos Capinam
 * The father of French rapper Booba (born Elie Yaffa) is from Gorée. In his song "Garde la pêche" he mentions the island, saying "Gorée c'est ma terre" (Gorée is my land/hometown). Also, in his song "0.9", he says "À dix ans j'ai vu Gorée, depuis mes larmes sont eternelles" (When I was 10 I saw Gorée, since then my tears have been eternal."
 * Marcus Miller – "Gorée (Go-ray)"

Greek avantgarde classical composer Iannis Xenakis wrote a piece for harpsichord and ensemble entitled A l`ile de Gorée (1986).

title: Gorée


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Privileged partnership

Privileged partnership is a generic term for increased cooperation between the European Union and a non-EU country to advance common goals, often without pursuing EU membership.

History
The term was initially used to describe an alternative to EU membership for Turkey that was first floated in November 2002 by Heinrich August Winkler in Die Zeit and later formally proposed in 2004, although the term was used previously in 2003 to describe a proposed relationship with Russia  and was also used in 2004 for a proposed relationship with Israel.

Since that time, the term has been used for alternatives for EU membership for Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, North Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, and Kosovo. It has since been used retrospectively to characterize relationships with the countries  considered in 2004 for the European Neighbourhood Policy that were first proposed in the Commission Communication of March 2003, and is also used for the EU's bilateral relationship with Tunisia   and with Russia.

Ultimately, the term dates back to 1957 when it was used to characterize Morocco's relationship with the European Economic Community.

Albania
The term was used for a proposed alternative to EU membership for Albania.

Algeria
The term has been used for the proposed relationship with the countries considered in 2004 for the European Neighbourhood Policy, including Algeria.

Armenia
The term has been used for the proposed relationship with the countries considered in 2004 for the European Neighbourhood Policy, including Armenia.

Azerbaijan
The term has been used for the proposed relationship with the countries considered in 2004 for the European Neighbourhood Policy, including Azerbaijan.

Belarus
The term has been used for the proposed relationship with the countries considered in 2004 for the European Neighbourhood Policy, including Belarus.

Bosnia and Herzegovina
The term was used for a proposed alternative to EU membership for Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Croatia
The term was used for a proposed alternative to EU membership for Croatia. The option was dropped in favor of full membership. Croatia joined the union in July 2013.

Egypt
The term has been used for the proposed relationship with the countries considered in 2004 for the European Neighbourhood Policy, including Egypt.

North Macedonia
The term was used for a proposed alternative to EU membership for North Macedonia.

Georgia
The term has been used for the proposed relationship with the countries considered in 2004 for the European Neighbourhood Policy, including Georgia.

Israel
The term was used by Spanish foreign minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos, who spoke out for a "privileged partnership, offering all the benefits of EU membership, without participation in the institutions" for Israel. It was also used for the proposed relationship with the countries considered in 2004 for the European Neighbourhood Policy, including Israel.

Jordan
The term has been used for the proposed relationship with the countries considered in 2004 for the European Neighbourhood Policy, including Jordan.

Kosovo
The term was used for a proposed alternative to EU membership for Kosovo.

Lebanon
The term has been used for the proposed relationship with the countries considered in 2004 for the European Neighbourhood Policy, including Lebanon.

Libya
The term has been used for the proposed relationship with the countries considered in 2004 for the European Neighbourhood Policy, including Libya.

Moldova
The term has been used for the proposed relationship with the countries considered in 2004 for the European Neighbourhood Policy, including Moldova.

Morocco
The term has been used for the proposed relationship with the countries considered in 2004 for the European Neighbourhood Policy, including Morocco.

Palestine
The term has been used for the proposed relationship with the countries considered in 2004 for the European Neighbourhood Policy, including the Palestinian Authority.

Russia
French President Jacques Chirac used the term for a proposed Russia-EU relationship at the Russia-EU summit in 2003.

Serbia and Montenegro
The term was used for a proposed alternative to EU membership for Serbia and Montenegro.

Syria
The term has been used for the proposed relationship with the countries considered in 2004 for the European Neighbourhood Policy, including Syria.

Tunisia
The term has been used for the proposed relationship with the countries considered in 2004 for the European Neighbourhood Policy, including Tunisia.

Turkey
Privileged partnership (İmtiyazlı ortaklık) was the term used by Angela Merkel in February 2004 to describe a future relationship between Turkey and the European Union which fell short of full membership. The proposal was advanced by CDU/CSU members.

Ukraine
The term has been used for the proposed relationship with the countries considered in 2004 for the European Neighbourhood Policy, including Ukraine.

United Kingdom
The term was used by Jacques Delors for a proposed relationship between the European Union and the United Kingdom should it exit the EU.

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

title: Privileged partnership


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Stefanie Powers

Stefanie Powers (born November 2, 1942) is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Jennifer Hart on the mystery television series Hart to Hart (1979–1984), for which she received nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards and five Golden Globe Awards.

Early life
Powers was born in Hollywood as Stefania Zofya Paul, but her surname often was cited as Federkiewicz. In her Polish-language autobiography, Powers says, "Moje prawdziwe nazwisko to Federkiewicz" - translates to - "My real [Polish] name is Federkiewicz". At the age of 16, she was put under studio contract with Columbia Pictures, and as was the movie-industry custom in those days, her name change to the more Anglo-Saxon-sounding "Stefanie Powers" was made a part of the deal.

Her parents divorced during her childhood. Powers' father, Morrison Bloomfield Paul (1909–1993), reportedly a cinematographer, was born in Montreal to a Jewish immigrant family from Eastern Europe. Powers was estranged from her father, whom she barely refers to and whose name is never mentioned in her memoir One from the Hart, in which she refers to the "tension and unhappiness created by my father's presence". She remained very close throughout her life to her mother, who was born Juliana Dimitria Golan (1912–2009) on a farm near Middletown, New York to Catholic parents of Polish descent. Her mother, who died in Los Angeles from pneumonia at 96 years of age, was known late in life and in local obituaries as Julie Powers. Stefanie Powers had an older brother, Jeffrey Julian Paul (1940–2013), of Orangevale, California, as well as a half-sister, Diane Pascoe Hanson Baillie, who died in 2000. Powers was a cheerleader at Hollywood High School. For a time, one of her schoolmates was Nancy Sinatra, who later graduated from University High School (Los Angeles), in June 1958.

Career
In 1961, using the stage name Taffy Paul, Powers made Tom Laughlin's independent film The Young Sinner, released in 1965.

Powers appeared in secondary roles in several movies in the early 1960s, such as Experiment in Terror (1962), If a Man Answers (1962), and McLintock! (1963). She played a schoolgirl in Tammy Tell Me True (1961), and Bunny, the police chief's daughter, in Palm Springs Weekend (1963). She appeared in the 1962 hospital melodrama The Interns and its sequel The New Interns in 1964. In 1965, she played opposite Tallulah Bankhead in Die! Die! My Darling (originally released in the UK as Fanatic).

In 1966, her "tempestuous" good looks led to being cast in the starring role as the passive and demure April Dancer, in the short-lived television series The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., a spin-off of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Shortly after the series' debut, she was featured on the cover of TV Guide (December 31, 1966 – January 6, 1967). The article mentions her "117-pound frame is kept supple with 11 minutes of Royal Canadian Air Force exercises every morning... Unlike her fellow U.N.C.L.E. agents, the ladylike April is not required to kill the bad guys. Her feminine charms serve as the bait, while her partner Noel Harrison provides the fireworks." The series lasted for only one season (29 one-hour episodes), airing from September 16, 1966, to April 11, 1967.

In 1967, Powers appeared in Warning Shot with David Janssen. Her 1970s movies include The Boatniks (1970), Herbie Rides Again (a sequel to The Love Bug) and The Magnificent Seven Ride! (1972). She was a guest star in the Robert Wagner series It Takes a Thief in 1970. The two co-starred in the popular Hart to Hart series nine years later. Before success with Hart to Hart, she starred in The Feather and Father Gang as Toni "Feather" Danton, a successful lawyer, whose father, Harry Danton, was a smooth-talking ex-con man (played by Harold Gould). It ran for a half-season (13 episodes).

Powers' many guest roles in other popular TV shows include: Lancer (1969), McCloud (1971), The Mod Squad (1972),Banacek (1972), Kung Fu (1974), The Rockford Files (1975), Three for the Road (1975), The Six Million Dollar Man (1976), The Bionic Woman (1976), and McMillan & Wife (1977). Powers appeared in these shows long after she signed a contract with Universal Studios in 1970. Coincidentally, her longtime friend and Hart to Hart series co-star Wagner signed a contract with Universal, but did not guest-star in more shows than Powers did.

In 1977, Powers played Sally Whalen in the six-part television miniseries Washington: Behind Closed Doors, produced by Paramount Television. It is based on John Ehrlichman's book The Company, a novel inspired by the author's time with the Nixon administration. The series had Powers cast with a strong cast, including Cliff Robertson, Jason Robards, Robert Vaughn, Lois Nettleton and John Houseman.

In 1978, Powers starred with Paul Clemens and Brian Dennehy in the TV movie A Death in Canaan, directed by Tony Richardson. This TV movie was a dramatization of the nonfictional account of Connecticut townspeople rising to the defense of a local teenager charged with the mutilation murder of his mother in September 1973. Powers portrayed Joan Barthel, a freelance‐writer who brought attention to the original case. Clemens, son of actress Eleanor Parker, made his film acting debut here. The TV-movie also marked the American TV directing debut of Richardson, and was Emmy Award-nominated as Outstanding Special of the 1977–78 season.

In 1978, Powers and Stacy Keach were the leads in the stage play Cyrano de Bergerac in a season at the Central Theater in the Long Beach Convention and Entertainment Center. Directed by Rae Allen, the production was part of an eight-month Long Beach Theater Festival program. The stage production was intended to transfer to Broadway after its California season; however, the bi-coastal run was not extended due to the 1978 New York City newspaper strike of 88 days, which hindered all theatre advertising and reduced box-office sales of the new fall season.

In 1979, Powers starred with Roger Moore, Telly Savalas, David Niven, Sonny Bono and Elliott Gould, in the British adventure feature film Escape to Athena, in which a group of Anglo-American prisoners of the Germans scramble to liberate themselves and some Greek art treasures. The production was filmed on location in the Dodecanese islands of Greece in 1978. This was Powers’ last theatrical film until The Artist's Wife in 2019, in which she played performance artist Ada Risi.

Powers became most widely known as a television star for her role as Jennifer Hart in the American mystery series Hart to Hart, with Robert Wagner as Jonathan Hart, in which they portray a married couple who continually get mixed up in mysterious and/or criminal occurrences which they then solve usually without the assistance of the police. Hart to Hart aired for five seasons from 1979 to 1984. Powers and Wagner later reunited for eight Hart to Hart TV movies in the 1990s.

In 1984, she starred in the TV mini-series Mistral's Daughter, based on Judith Krantz's novel.

In 1985, Powers starred as twins who swap places leading to dire consequences in the two-part TV movie Deceptions.

In 1987, she starred in the real-life TV drama At Mother's Request as the frightening Frances Schreuder, who goaded her 17-year-old-son into killing her father. The script was adapted for television by Richard DeLong Adams and aired on CBS, directed by Michael Tuchner.

Powers starred with John Barrowman in Matador, a 1991 London stage musical, at the Queen's Theater. with a book inspired by Spanish corrida legend El Cordobés. The production was staged by Elijah Moshinsky for producer Laurence Myers, with choreography by Arlene Phillips and Rafael Aguilar, and scenery by William Dudley.

Powers starred with Robert Wagner in the 1993 stage production Love Letters at the Chicago Theatre. The two portrayed Melissa Gardner and Andrew Makepeace Ladd III, telling the story of their 40-year, mostly long-distance relationship without getting up from their chairs. In 1996, Powers toured as Margo Channing in a production of Applause, with hopes of a Broadway revival, which did not materialize.

Powers toured the UK in 2002 playing Anna Leonowens in a revival of The King and I, and toured the U.S. in 2004 and 2005 in the same role.

Powers released her debut music CD in 2003, titled On The Same Page. The album features selections from the classic Great American Songbook era.

Since 2006, she has been the U.S. location guest-host presenter of the long-running Through the Keyhole panel show.

In 2001, she appeared in the BBC's popular long-running British medical drama Doctors as Jane Powers, a wealthy businesswoman, and the mother of Dr. Caroline Powers (Jacqueline Leonard). Jane Powers, after being widowed, was due to marry her much younger fiancé David Wilde, but in the lead-up to the wedding, her daughter and fiancé David fell in love and ran off together. Her last appearance was on June 1, 2001.

On April 30, 2008, she was reunited with Wagner for the filming of a special Hart to Hart edition of the BBC's The Graham Norton Show.

Powers was a contestant in the reality TV show 11th series of I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!, in which celebrities retreat into the jungle. She was the first celebrity to be eliminated on November 25, 2011.

Powers started a tour of Looped, a stage play about her former co-star Tallulah Bankhead in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on February 26, 2013.

Powers starred in the musical Gotta Dance, which premiered in Chicago in December 2015 through January 2016. The cast also starred Georgia Engel, Lillias White, and Andre DeShields. The musical was directed and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell, with a book by Chad Beguelin and Bob Martin, and the score by Matthew Sklar and Nell Benjamin.

In November 2017, it was announced that Powers had joined the cast for a developmental reading of Love Affair, a musical with book, music and lyrics by Joseph J. Simeone, based on the 1939 film of the same name. The developmental reading of the musical is being produced by Open Jar Productions as part of their New Works Initiative on November 17, 2017, for an industry-only presentation at the Pershing Square Signature Center.

In 2018, Powers co-starred in the feature film The Artist's Wife alongside lead actors Bruce Dern and Lena Olin. The film's plot centers on Claire (Olin), wife of famed artist Richard Smythson (Dern) and once a promising artist herself, who has been living in the shadow of her husband's illustrious career. Whilst preparing work for a new exhibition after a long absence from the art world, Richard is diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Directed by Tom Dolby, the film was released by Strand Releasing in 2020.

In May 2018, Cambridge Arts Theatre announced the casting for the United Kingdom stage tour production of James Roose-Evans' adaptation of Helene Hanff's novel 84 Charing Cross Road, in collaboration with Lee Dean and Salisbury Playhouse. 84 Charing Cross Road, first published in 1970, is a bittersweet comedy based on the extraordinary true story of the remarkable relationship that developed over 20 years, chronicling New York writer Hanff's correspondence with Frank Doel, the chief buyer for Marks & Co, a London bookshop. In the stage production, Powers portrays Helene Hanff, and Clive Francis portrays Frank Doel. The production opened at Darlington Hippodrome on Wednesday 23 May, then toured to Wolverhampton, Malvern, Richmond, Oxford and finishing at Cambridge Arts Theatre on 30 June 2018.

Honors
For her role as Jennifer Hart, Powers received two Emmy Best Television Actress nominations, and five Golden Globe Award Best Television Actress nominations.

In 1992, Powers was a recipient of a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6776 Hollywood Boulevard, category 'Television', presented by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.

Powers was awarded the Sarah Siddons Award in 1993 for her stage performance in Love Letters.

On March 12, 2011, Powers received the Steiger Award (Germany) for accomplishment in the arts.

On November 6, 2017, Powers was honored by the Palm Springs Women in Film & Television Organisation (PSWIFT) with the "9th Annual Broken Glass Award" for her work as an actress, author and animal advocate. PSWIFT presents this award to outstanding women from the film and television industry who have "broken through the glass ceiling" in the field of entertainment, the arts and philanthropy. Other 2017 Award recipients included actress Lucie Arnaz, President of LA-SAG-AFTRA Jane Austin, TV executive producer, writer and actress Kellee McQuinn, and Palm Springs, California community philanthropist Nelda Linsk. PSWIFT is a non-profit organization founded in 2001, dedicated to promoting both men and women in the entertainment, new media and creative arts community.

Personal life
Powers was married to actor Gary Lockwood from 1966 to 1972. She had a relationship with actor William Holden from just after her divorce to just before his death that led to their joint involvement with wildlife conservation. She described the relationship by saying they were soulmates. He died in 1981; by the following year, Powers was founding President of the William Holden Wildlife Foundation and a director of the Mount Kenya Game Ranch and Wildlife Conservancy in Nanyuki, Kenya. In the United States, she works with both the Cincinnati Zoo and Atlanta Zoo. She devotes a great deal of time to the cause and is an international guest speaker on wildlife preservation.

Powers campaigned for Robert F. Kennedy during his 1968 presidential campaign.

On April 1, 1993, she married French aristocrat Patrick Houitte de La Chesnais (born May 7, 1951, Versailles, France); the couple divorced in 1999. The following year, Powers began a relationship with auditor Tom Carroll, which lasted until his death in August 2014.

A polo player, she was among the first foreign members of the Royal County of Berkshire Polo Club, whose membership includes King Charles III. In 2005, she competed in the Joules United Kingdom National Women's Championships at Ascot.

Health
In November 2008, Powers, who was a smoker for 20 years, was diagnosed with alveolar cell carcinoma, a form of lung cancer. She had surgery to remove part of her right lung on January 29, 2009, the same month her mother died of pneumonia, aged 96, in Los Angeles.

title: Stefanie Powers


text:
Talk:Carl Drega

Request about possible copyvio
Hi there,

To the one who contributed this: Are you Vin Suprynovicz? Or has he given you permission to post this? If so can you prove it somehow? Please respond here or on my own talk page, or i'm forced to list this as copyvio. 217.186.84.123 15:19, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * Don't bother until you've read the amended version. Deb 20:53, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Characterization
I'm not sure the characterization of this guy as a 'serial killer' is appropriate by the definition. Mass murderer perhaps. --Hooperbloob 01:16, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Why the "unemployed" descriptor? Most 67 year olds are unemployed.--69.12.132.54 07:22, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Comment from a former local
Interesting. Never thought I'd find a Wiki about that jerk. A few mistakes I see in here. Namely, Drega did not open fire from a hilltop when the officers approached the vehicle. They entered the woods and he was planning an ambush. The officers were alerted to Drega's position by a K-9 officer by the name of Major. There were also two members of the North Startford EMT department on hand as well. I know this because one was my mother. Zeddoverkill 23:27, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

 * "K-9 officer", or "police dog", as we call them in English. Kar98 (talk) 14:56, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

title: Talk:Carl Drega


text:
Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikidemia/watchlists

Users can add pages to their personal watchlists to make it easier to monitor editing activity on those pages. A checkbox among the Preferences controls whether pages a user edits are automatically added to that user's watchlist. Right now, the default for that checkbox is not to add pages.

Intervention
When new users sign up for accounts, randomly assign them to a treatment group and a control group. The treatment group will have pages they edit automatically added to their watchlists by default. The control group will not. Both groups will have the option of changing this setting in their preferences whenever they want. The intervention will only affect the default configuration upon initial sign-up.

Rationale

 * What is the effect of subtle interventions?
 * It's not clear what's preferred.
 * People might become more active editors sooner if their watchlists grow quickly.


text:
Glengoyne distillery

Glengoyne distillery is a whisky distillery continuously in operation since its founding in 1833 at Dumgoyne, north of Glasgow, Scotland. Glengoyne is unique in producing Highland single malt whisky matured in the Lowlands. Located upon the Highland Line, the division between the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland, Glengoyne’s stills are in the Highlands while maturing casks of whisky rest across the road in the Lowlands.

Illicit stills
In the early 19th century, due to the heavy taxes on spirit production imposed by the government, many whisky producers were forced to operate illegally. The area around Glengoyne was full of hills and forests which provided excellent cover for the distillers. Records show that at least eighteen illicit whisky stills were operating in the area.

In the 1820s an Act of Parliament was passed, which reduced the cost of the licence required to distil, and the duty payable on spirit sales. Shortly after the introduction of the 'Excise Act of 1823' (or 'Walsh Act' ) the first of these illicit stills came into official existence, with Glengoyne following later in 1833. Although Glengoyne only officially existed from 1833 and no records exist from before this date, it is believed that distilling on the site pre-dates that with a local historian writing that the smoke of "illicit stills" was visible in the area in the early 19th century.

Whisky production
The distillery began distilling in 1833 and was known as the Burnfoot distillery. It was originally owned by George Connell who built the distillery and took out a lease on the surrounding land, on which was built a warehouse which is still in use today. In 1876 the distillery was sold, by Archiball G. MacLellen, to the Lang Brothers who were based in Glasgow. It is stated that the Langs intended to name the distillery Glengoyne, but due to a mistake by a clerk it was recorded as Glen Guin. In 1894, or 1905 it was changed to Glengoyne which comes from 'Glenguin' or 'Glen of the Wild Geese'.

The distillery remained with the Lang Brothers until taken over by the Robertson & Baxter Group in 1965, who later became the Edrington Group. In 1966 and 1967 the number of stills was increased from two to three as the distillery underwent a rebuilding project.

In 1984 the Lang Brothers became suppliers of whiskies to the then Queen Mother, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth's household. The Royal Warrant has since been delegated to Ian Macleod and is featured on all Glengoyne products.

Modern era and expansion
In April 2003, Ian Macleod Distillers Ltd. acquired Glengoyne Distillery, and the 'Glengoyne Single Malt' and 'Langs Blended Whisky' brands. The acquisition of Glengoyne Distillery meant that Ian Macleod became a fully integrated distiller, blender and bottler. Under Ian Macleod, Glengoyne saw a vast increase in output capacity as well as a similar rise in sales. Speaking of the acquisition and planned expansions in 2003, Leonard Russell, managing director for Ian Macleod stated "We'll be aiming to increase sales of the Glengoyne from the current level of 450,000 litres to one million litres next year". Later, speaking in 2005 Russell stated "we continue to make whisky exactly the same way at Glengoyne". The original warehouse built by George Connell is still on the site, as the shop and visitor reception area. Today, Glengoyne has eight working warehouses with a total capacity of nearly two million litres (4.5 million bottles) or spirit.

Production and character
Glengoyne Distillery is situated at Dumgoyne, on the south-western edge of the Scottish Highlands, close to Loch Lomond and to the north of Glasgow. Although distilled in the Highlands, making Glengoyne a Highland single malt, the whisky is matured in the Lowlands. This is because the distillery itself sits upon the Highland Line, the division between the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland which splits the distillery in two. The boundary line runs underneath the A81 road from Glasgow to Aberfoyle and passes in front of the distillery with the warehouses located to the southwest of the road. Glengoyne is located immediately adjacent the West Highland Way, the most popular long walk in Scotland, and regularly enjoys visits from hikers.

Glengoyne is regularly referred to as the "most beautiful distillery in Scotland". The distillery has been in continuous operation producing Highland single malt whisky for over 175 years with a current distilling capacity of over one million litres of alcohol and over 35,000 visitors per annum.

Glengoyne and Bruichladdich, is one of only two distilleries remaining today that uses Golden Promise barley, which is low in yield but high in quality. The distillery's water supply comes from the Glengoyne Burn which flows from the nearby Dumgoyne hill into the distillery grounds before continuing on to Loch Lomond.

Unlike many malt whiskies, Glengoyne does not use peat smoke to dry their barley but instead favours the use of warm air. The clear and bright appearance and distinctive flavour of the Glengoyne single malts are credited to this lack of peat smoke. This rare characteristic is utilised in the marketing of Glengoyne with the use of the promotional slogan "The authentic taste of malt whisky untainted by peat smoke".

As a result of the use of unpeated malt Glengoyne has been noted as being stylistically closer to a Lowland single malt as opposed to a Highland single malt.

Products
At its current operating capacity Glengoyne produces over one million litres of pure spirit (new make spirit) every year which is used in a number of different whiskies. The distillery has won various awards for its products including a double gold awarded to the 17-year-old Single Malt at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition and a gold for the 15-year-old Scottish oak wood finish for "best wood finish" by the Stockholm Beer and Whisky Festival. Glengoyne 17-year-old was voted "World's Best Single Highland Malt" in the "Best of the Best" whisky tasting, organised by Whisky Magazine.

Due to the rapid growth recently of the Scotch malt whisky industry (recent figures indicate a 9% growth in 2002 ) and of the premium whisky market as a whole, Glengoyne is mainly marketed in the UK, Scandinavian, French, German and USA markets.

title: Glengoyne distillery


text:
User:Improv/Quotes/reithy19Nov2004

'SHOCK! HORROR !! VANDALISM OUTRAGE OF REITHY USER PAGE!!!'

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ONLY A VOTE FOR REITHY FOR ARBCOM CAN PUT BOSSY ADMINS IN THEIR PLACE

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title: User:Improv/Quotes/reithy19Nov2004


text:
User:Txn

I am a Canadian civil servant. I've also taught History at several universities in Canada in the United States and am the books editor of a scholarly periodical concerned with names.

My contributions fall into several categories.

The first is articles, mainly on East European subjects, apparently written by people whose first language is not English. These I've simply edited for grammar and style.

The second is lives of people referred to in other articles, but for whom there were no main entries. I've thus turned many "red" names into "blue" ones. To do this work I've relied heavily on information in the Dictionary of National Biography, the Catholic Encyclopedia (1st ed.), the Encyclopedia Britannica (11th ed.), and the Grand Larousse encyclopédique.

The third category is articles I've added to or deleted material from to make them less baised or more balanced. For example, the article on Evelyn Waugh contained so much on his war service that he seemed to be primarily a soldier rather than a novelist. (I put in some details of his earlier and later life and took out a little of the WWII material, but the latter was quickly restored by an alert war buff.) Another example is the article on Cardinal Manning, which contained a great deal on his early life but nothing whatsoever on his career after his conversion to Catholicism.

Some of the articles I've created or edited here were done before I adopted "TXN" as my user name.

As "67.70.70.249" I worked on: Greece, Thomas Horton, Hugo de Balsam, John Goodwin, John Thurloe, Francis Borgia, Vic, August II of Poland, Pier Luigi Farnese, New College, Oxford, Pope Nicholas III, Pope John XXI, Pope Innocent III, Duke of Vendôme, Battle of Narva, Ercole Consalvi, Pasquin, Ingatestone, and Frombork.

As "69.156.76.98", I added material on Nicholas Bobadilla, Society of Jesus, Adam de Brome, William of Durham, Ruthenia, and Evelyn Waugh.

TXN

title: User:Txn


text:
Talk:Stepping Stones Light

Hope you like my creation. :)

Thanx From The Bronx! :)

Supercool Dude - Author

Additional Image
I recently took a picture of the Stepping Stones Lighthouse and wondered if maybe the page wouldn't benefit from it. Currently the only photo is the historic one. Rather than just put mine in, I tohught I'd ask here and see if anyone had thoughts on the matter, and if I don't hear any objections in a week or so, I'll put it in. As I see it, there are a few options: 1) we could replace the historic photo in the infobox with my (modern) photo, and put the historic photo elsewhere; 2) we could leave the historic photo in the infobox and put my photo elsewhere, or 3) we could leave things as they are. I am suggesting Option 1 or potentially 2. Also, I'm open to suggestions on cropping the photo down to just show the lighthouse, versus the island it's sitting on. --Kadin2048 15:57, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * An excellent photo. Thanks for taking it and making it available.  Please add it to the page (I'd go with the full thing, not cropped).  -- RoySmith (talk) 16:05, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Glad you think so. I inserted my photo into the infobox. I couldn't bear to get rid of the historical photo completely though, so I made it into a thumb and put it on the left in the text body. Right now it looks crowded, but I think as more text gets added, it'll even out. It is still a stub. I'm also going to go create a stub page for the Hudson-Athens Lighthouse, and I think I might have a photo somewhere of that one as well. --Kadin2048 13:31, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Bronx vs. Nassau County
I have better things to do than to pick a fight with Nassau County. That said, however, shouldn't the location of the lighthouse be credited to City Island and the Bronx? I realize that the Coast Guard ceded the property to North Hempstead but its location remains off the coast of the Bronx. BrandenburgG (talk) 15:58, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I assume you mean in the categories, since the article makes no claim. I've looked at several maps, and all place the lighthouse in Nassau off Kings Point rather than the Bronx.  To me, unless there is a map showing the location is in the Bronx, it is actually in Nassau regardless of City Island.  Ahwiv (talk) 16:22, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

title: Talk:Stepping Stones Light


text: User talk:61.11.60.229

title: User talk:61.11.60.229


text:
Talk:Puttanna Kanagal

Untitled
I have removed the english versions of Edakallu guddada melle because i think it means more than atop a hill. Same applies for Dharani Mandala Madhyadolage (Deep within a forest ?). IMpbt IMpbt

I noticed this article in the list of

noncompliant articles, and it's possibly the first one I've seen that actually breaks so many Wikipedia rules at once as to deserve that tag. I've never seen writing anywhere near as blatantly POV as this is anywhere else on Wikipedia. Nothing is cited, except there is one external link. Oh, and the contents of the article are copied nearly verbatim from what's at that external link. --Tifego 08:09, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Life Time of Puttanna
can somebody put date of birth and date of death for puttana Kanagal ? Lokesh 2000 08:03, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

title: Talk:Puttanna Kanagal


text:
Topic-based vector space model

The Topic-based Vector Space Model (TVSM) (literature: ) extends the vector space model of information retrieval by removing the constraint that the term-vectors be orthogonal. The assumption of orthogonal terms is incorrect regarding natural languages which causes problems with synonyms and strong related terms. This facilitates the use of stopword lists, stemming and thesaurus in TVSM. In contrast to the generalized vector space model the TVSM does not depend on concurrence-based similarities between terms.

Definitions
The basic premise of TVSM is the existence of a d dimensional space R with only positive axis intercepts, i.e. R in R+ and d in N+. Each dimension of R represents a fundamental topic. A term vector t has a specific weight for a certain R. To calculate these weights assumptions are made taking into account the document contents. Ideally important terms will have a high weight and stopwords and irrelevants terms to the topic will have a low weight. The TVSM document model is obtained as a sum of term vectors representing terms in the document. The similarity between two documents Di and Dj is defined as the scalar product of document vectors.

Enhanced Topic-based Vector Space Model
The enhancement of the Enhanced Topic-based Vector Space Model (eTVSM) (literature: ) is a proposal on how to derive term vectors from an Ontology. Using a synonym Ontology created from WordNet Kuropka shows good results for document similarity. If a trivial Ontology is used the results are similar to Vector Space model.

Implementations

 * Implementation of eTVSM in python

title: Topic-based vector space model


text:
Axa

Axa S.A. is a French multinational insurance company headquartered in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. It also provides investment management and other financial services as part of its subsidiaries. As of 2023, it is the largest financial services company by revenue in France, and the 4th largest French company.

The Axa Group operates primarily in Western Europe, North America, the Indian Pacific region, and the Middle East, with a presence also in Africa. Axa is a conglomerate of independently run businesses, operated according to the laws and regulations of many countries. It is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index. In 2023, the company was ranked 48th in the Forbes Global 2000.

Name
Despite being written by the company in upper case, "AXA" is not an acronym. It was chosen because its name can be pronounced easily by people who speak any language. After acquiring the Drouot Group in 1982, chairman and CEO Claude Bébéar hired an outside consultant to conduct a computer-aided search for a new name. Bébéar wanted a short and snappy name to convey vitality and could be pronounced the same way in every language, consistent with the group's desire for an international presence. Initially, "Elan" was the top choice, but Canadian executives balked because "elan" is the French word for a moose or elk. In 1985, Bébéar chose the name Axa.

History
The company was founded in 1816 as Mutuelle de L'assurance contre L'incendie (the Ancienne Mutuelle). It acquired Compagnie Parisienne de Garantie in 1978 and became Mutuelles Unies. In 1982, it merged with the Drouot Group, owned by the Hottinguer family, becoming Mutuelles Unies/Drouot.

The firm adopted the Axa name in 1985. Axa took over The Equitable in 1991 and bought Union des Assurances De Paris (UAP), France's largest insurer, in 1996 to become Axa-UAP. It reverted to the name Axa in 1999. In February 1999, Axa acquired Guardian Royal Exchange. In May 2000, it acquired all shares it did not already own in Sun Life & Provincial Holdings. On 14 June 2006, Axa acquired Winterthur Group from Credit Suisse for approximately €9 billion. As of 2011, Axa was the second most powerful transnational corporation in terms of corporate control over global financial stability.

In May 2016, the firm announced that it would stop investing in tobacco shares and bonds and allow its portfolio of tobacco-related bonds to run off. On 12 September 2018, Axa acquired XL Group Ltd, a Bermuda-based property and casualty commercial lines insurer and reinsurer, for $15.3 billion. In October 2019, the company sold Axa Bank Belgium to Crelan for €620 million (US$688.51 million).

In 2019, AXA partially disinvested from the Israeli arms group Elbit Systems following pressure from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. The move followed several years of campaigning by NGOs, including an April 2018 petition launched by SumOfUs that received 140,000 signatures, leading AXA to “quietly reduce” its investments in Elbit and Israeli banks. AXA remains indirectly invested in Elbit and Israeli banks through a non-controlling interest in its former subsidiary Alliance Bernstein.

In 2023 AXA has increased investments in Israel as a shareholder in 3 Israeli banks: Bank Hapoalim (US$9.99M), Bank Leumi (US$6M), Israel Discount Bank (US$3.4M) and is one of the companies on BDS list that recommends divestment from AXA.

In February 2023, the company sold a 7.94% stake in Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (MPS) to institutional investors. The package included approximately 100,000,000 MPS shares at a price of €2.33 ($2.5) per share, for a total transaction value of €233 million ($250 million). Axa retained 0.0007% of the Italian bank's capital.

Axa Investment Managers acquired France's Bry-sur-Marne film studio and the 12 hectare plot of land on which it is located for €150m in June 2023.

Headquarters
Axa headquarters is located in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. Axa, which already owned 23 Avenue Matignon, acquired the former Hotel de La Vaupalière, an 18th-century building, in the late 1990s. Architect Ricardo Bofill integrated the facade of the hotel with a modern glass building that covers the courtyard that the hotel also occupies. The complex serves as Axa's head office.

Capital ownership

 * United States           18.8%
 * France                        16.5%
 * United Kingdom                10.5%
 * Italy                         7.95%
 * Axa employees                  6.5%
 * BNP Paribas                5.4%
 * Edward L. Skyward              5.1%
 * Sumitomo Mitsui            4.0%
 * Qatar Investment Authority 3.8%

Capital ownership as of 31 December 2010

United Kingdom
Axa trades in the United Kingdom as Axa UK, with subsidiaries including Axa Insurance, Axa Wealth and Axa Health. AXA PPP International was the trading name for AXA PPP healthcare's international health insurance division, which was later rebranded as AXA - Global Healthcare on 1 January 2017. The company bought the online insurer Swiftcover, notorious for its controversial Iggy Pop TV advertising campaign which was subsequently banned.

In September 2013, Axa Wealth was fined £1.8 million by the FCA for failing to ensure it gave suitable investment advice to its customers. The regulator says it found "serious defects" in the way Axa advisers in Clydesdale Bank, Yorkshire Bank and the West Bromwich Building Society advised customers on investments.

In 2018, they became the 'Official Global Insurance' partner of Premier League team Liverpool F.C. and in 2019, began sponsoring the training kits of the team. In 2020, the partnership was cemented further, when they purchased the naming rights to the club's newly built training centre, which became officially known as 'The AXA Training Centre.'

In 2016, Axa Wealth was sold to the Phoenix Group.

Axa Health
AXA Health sells private medical insurance in the UK and was known as AXA PPP Healthcare until 2020. It was previously the London Association for Hospital Services, set up in 1938 as a private healthcare scheme for people of middle income in London. It was incorporated in 1940 with assistance from the British Medical Association, the King's Fund, and the medical royal colleges.

Guardian Royal Exchange Assurance bought it in 1998 for £435 million; a year later it was bought by Sun Life & Provincial Holdings, an Axa subsidiary.

Axa Global Healthcare
Axa - Global Healthcare has previously been known as Axa PPP International, Axa Global Protect or Axa Healthcare Management. In 2017, the subsidiary Axa - Global Healthcare became an independent Managing General Agent, selling and administering international health insurance products. While Axa Health provides insurance across the UK, Axa - Global Healthcare caters to those needing health insurance around the world.

In 2018, Axa - Global Healthcare launched a Virtual Doctor service for its customers with outpatient cover and in 2020 offered it across all plans. Provided by Teladoc Health, it offers anytime access to medical advice by phone or video by doctors located around the world who speak more than 15 languages and is targeted at expatriates.

Axa Ireland
Axa established a presence in Ireland in 1999 when it bought British-based Guardian Royal Exchange, which had previously acquired PMPA. PMPA, Private Motorists Protection Association, was at the time one of Ireland's biggest insurance companies. It is the third-largest general insurer in the Republic of Ireland.

In August 2023, it was announced Axa had acquired the Little Island, Cork-headquartered health insurance company, Laya Healthcare for €650 million.

AXA Canada
Axa Canada marketed insurance in Quebec, Ontario, Western Canada and Atlantic Canada. In 2009 it had a total of approximately 2300 employees and 4000 brokers and advisors. The head office was in Montreal, Quebec. In 2011 it was sold to Intact Financial Corp. for C$2.6 billion.

AXA United States
The American arm of Axa is Axa Financial, Inc., which is known mainly through its subsidiaries such as Axa Advisors, Axa Network, MONY (formerly Mutual of New York), US Financial Life, and AllianceBernstein. The Equitable was acquired in 1991; the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York (MONY) was acquired in 2004.

Axa's US operations are incorporated in Delaware.

Mexico
In July 2008, Axa acquired ING Insurance Mexico, offering essentially the same services that ING offered. Axa then sued an ING Group subsidiary over alleged misrepresentations in the $1.5 billion sale stating it suffered "tens (if not hundreds) of millions of dollars in damages."

Australia
In 1995 the Axa Group purchased a 51 per cent controlling interest in the Australian life insurer, National Mutual Life Association of Australia for NF4 billion, that was claimed at the time to contribute about 15 percent of the Axa Group's worldwide insurance-premium income. In 2011, [AMP Limited] and Axa SA agreed to acquire Axa Asia pacific, merging Australian operations under the AMP brand.

Africa
In April 2016 Axa unveiled a partnership with Lloyd's of London insurer Chaucer Holdings to enter the growing market of speciality insurance in Africa. Axa Africa Specialty Risks helps to mitigate risks through its coverholder, Chaucer Syndicate 1084 and Axa Africa Specialty Risks 6130. Axa ASR focuses on specialty and corporate lines, with coverage and an on-the-ground presence across Africa. Axa and Lloyd's both have excellent international financial strength ratings (AA- by Fitch and A+ by Standard & Poor's). The lines of business include: Political Risk, Political Violence and Terrorism, Energy, Construction, Property, Liability, Marine and Aviation. Since 2014 Axa has made several acquisitions of other insurers in an attempt to expand. Axa already operates in Cameroon, Egypt, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal and Algeria. Axa Africa also has a role in the trade between Asia and some African countries.

Kamet Ventures
In January 2016, Axa created Kamet Ventures, an insurtech incubator, to build disruptive businesses in the insurance, healthcare and assistance space with an initial funding of €100 million. Some of Kamet's investments include an insurance advice platform, Anorak Technologies and an elderly care platform, Birdie

Axa Investment Managers
Axa Investment Managers (Axa IM), is a global investment —management firm with offices in over 22 locations worldwide. As of 31 December 2020, it manages over €858 billion in assets on behalf of institutional and retail clients. It operates as the investment arm for Axa.

AXA Hong Kong & Macau
AXA Asia Pacific Holdings Limited acquired MLC (Hong Kong) Limited and re-branded it as AXA (Hong Kong) Life Insurance Company Limited in 2006.

Former holdings
In 2010, Axa sold a UK business unit called SunLife to Resolution Limited.

In 2021, the Gulf Insurance Group acquired AXA's holdings in the Gulf region, rebranding them as GIG in the Middle East.

Philanthropy
Besides its artistic and social philanthropic initiatives (Axa Hearts in Action), Axa created the Axa Research Fund in 2008. Endowed with €100 million, it provides support for research focused on understanding and preventing the risks threatening the environment, human life and society.

The Fund has also awarded eleven endowments for several million euros supporting research institutions of excellence (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, HEC Paris, National University of Singapore, University of Bristol, London School of Economics, Met Office, INSERM, IHES). These research and education chairs intend to attract the best scientists. For example, the Axa Polytechnique Chair in Cellular Cardiovascular Engineering.

After joining the Access to Medicine Foundation, Axa allocates a donation of 500,000 euros to the Foundation's activities relating to the prevention of infectious diseases and the response to pandemics such as COVID-19.

title: Axa


text:
Ernie Irvan

Virgil Earnest "Ernie" Irvan (born January 13, 1959), occasionally referred to as Swervin' Irvan, is an American former professional stock car racing driver. A retired NASCAR competitor, he is perhaps best remembered for his comeback after a serious head injury suffered from a crash during practice at Michigan in 1994 that left him with only a 10% chance of survival. Irvan has been inducted into numerous halls of fame and was named one of NASCAR's 50 Greatest Drivers in 1998. After a series of injuries in the late 1990s, he retired from racing in 1999.

Early career
Irvan began his racing career driving karts in California in 1968 at the age of nine. He won the California Championship at the age of 15. In 1974, Irvan finished second in the country in his class at the national kart championship races. In 1975, Irvan moved up to stock cars at the age of 16 at Stockton 99 Speedway and was victorious in his first race on asphalt in a semi-main event. From then until 1981 Irvan raced every weekend at Madera and Stockton, California, winning numerous feature events. He missed his high school graduation ceremony to race at Riverside, California. During this time, he lost his best friend, Tim Williamson, in a racing accident at Riverside, several months before he was slated to test in the Winston Cup.

Early Winston Cup
In 1982, Irvan left California with $700 in his pocket and everything he owned loaded into his pickup truck and a homemade trailer, and he headed east to North Carolina. Worried about running out of money, Irvan stopped in Las Vegas and managed to leave with an additional $200.

Irvan supported himself in Charlotte, North Carolina by welding grandstand seats at Charlotte Motor Speedway, unloading Ken Schrader's moving van, building racecars, and other odd jobs. During that time, he won nine races driving in the late model series at Concord Speedway. Driving a Firebird, Irvan won two races his first year and seven races the next year.

Irvan met car-builder Marc Reno and they became partners in their racing ventures. Before long, Irvan made his Winston Cup debut, on September 13, 1987, at Richmond Fairgrounds Raceway driving the No. 56 Chevrolet Monte Carlo. The car, built and prepared by Irvan and Reno, was sponsored by Dale Earnhardt Chevrolet. Irvan qualified 20th but was sidelined after 35 laps after the car's engine overheated. He finished 29th and won $860. Since he earned so little money, Irvan was spotted by long-time owner and driver D.K. Ulrich. Irvan made three starts in Ulrich's No. 6 car, finishing 15th at Martinsville, 22nd at North Wilkesboro Speedway, and 19th at Riverside. In October, Irvan drove the No. 56, again sponsored by Dale Earnhardt, in his first Winston Cup start at Charlotte, starting 36th, leading lap 128, and finishing eighth.

In 1988, Irvan made a bid for NASCAR Rookie of the Year, driving Ulrich's No. 2 Kroger Chevrolets and Pontiacs. Irvan competed in 25 of the 29 Winston Cup Series events, losing rookie-of-the-year honors to Ken Bouchard by three points (242–239) in the closest battle in Winston Cup history. Irvan's best finish of the year was 11th at Martinsville in September. He finished 26th in the final points standings with winnings for the year totaling $96,370. In 1989 Irvan started all 29 races in his first full year in the Winston Cup Series behind the wheel of Ulrich's U.S. Racing Pontiac. Irvan started 25th at Bristol in April and caught leader Mark Martin after 38 laps. Irvan went on to lead 56 laps before being sidelined in an accident on lap 167. Irvan's sixth-place finish at Martinsville in September gave him his best of four top-10 finishes for the year. Irvan finished 22nd in the final standings for the year with winnings totaling $155,239.

1990s success
After sponsorship problems plagued Ulrich's team, Irvan left to race for Junie Donlavey, who had procured a sponsorship program with True Cure. True Cure failed to fulfill its financial obligations, and after three races, Irvan was told he could seek other opportunities. He moved over to Morgan-McClure Motorsports' (MMM) No. 4 Kodak-sponsored Oldsmobile, filling the vacancy left by Phil Parsons. After starting 30th in his first race for the new team (Atlanta in March), Irvan charged to the front and grabbed a third-place finish, the first Top 5 of his career. The next race, at Darlington Raceway, he became involved in controversy after being involved in an accident that nearly killed Neil Bonnett. Irvan then won his first Winston Cup pole position, at Bristol, in the spring. He won his first Winston Cup race, in the Busch 500 at Bristol, on August 25. Ernie wrapped up the season with three poles, one victory, six Top 5's, and 13 Top 10's; he also won $535,280 and finished ninth in the final point standings.

In February 1991, Irvan drove the Morgan-McClure Chevrolet to victory in the Daytona 500, stock car racing's most prestigious and then most lucrative race. Four years earlier, Irvan watched the 500 on a borrowed black and white TV while washing cars, one of several jobs he worked to support both his family and his struggling career. Irvan's next victory came later in the season at Watkins Glen International Raceway. The race was marred by the death of popular veteran J. D. McDuffie. Irvan ended the year with two victories, three second-place and four fourth-place finishes among his eleven top-five and nineteen top-10 finishes in 29 starts. He finished the year fifth in Winston Cup driver standings and won $1,079,017. Irvan also picked up his first Busch Grand National Series win in the AC-Delco 200 at Rockingham. During this time, Irvan came under more controversy due to his aggressive driving style, earning him the nickname "Swervin' Irvan" by his fellow competitors. Irvan apologized to his fellow drivers in a televised speech at the driver's meeting before the 1991 Diehard 500 after speaking with Darrell Waltrip and Richard Petty about improving his image.

Irvan's 1992 season was highlighted by three more victories - Sonoma in June; Daytona in July; and Talladega in July. He had three pole positions, nine Top 5's, and 11 Top 10's, $996,885 in winnings, and finished 11th in the final season points standing. He scored a pair of Busch Grand National wins at Watkins Glen and Talladega. He suffered a broken collarbone in an accident during a Busch Series race in March at Atlanta and twelve finishes of 24th or worse including seven he did not finish. On November 21, 1992, he married Kim Baker.

Moving to Robert Yates Racing
Irvan continued his tenure with Morgan-McClure in 1993, adding poles at Dover in June and Daytona in July and a victory at Talladega in May. In total, while driving for Morgan-McClure, Irvan obtained nine poles, seven wins, and 51 Top 10 finishes in 105 starts. On July 12, 1993, Irvan experienced a significant personal loss when his friend, Davey Allison, died from injuries sustained in a helicopter crash outside of Talladega. Robert Yates, Allison's team owner, asked Irvan to replace him as the driver of the #28 Texaco-Havoline Ford at Robert Yates Racing. Morgan-McClure was unwilling to let Irvan out of his contract with the team, and a lawsuit ensued.

After the night race at Bristol in August, Irvan was released from his duties driving the #4 and took over the #28 at the Southern 500 at Darlington the next week, where he started 10th and finished fifth. Irvan's first victory with RYR came in his fourth start with the team when he won at Martinsville later that same month. Irvan dedicated his victory that day to Allison and then followed that victory two weeks later with one at Charlotte in which he led all but six laps. Irvan scored five front-row positions (including two poles) and two victories in his nine races that season with RYR. Irvan was ranked ninth in driver standings at the time of his departure from Morgan-McClure, but he rose to sixth in the final standings. At the 1994 Brickyard 400, Irvan was a factor and was leading with five laps to go when a tire puncture forced him to pit and lose a lap.

Head injury
In August 1994, Irvan was a contender for the NASCAR Winston Cup Series Championship throughout the first 20 races of the season. Entering the GM Goodwrench Dealer 400 at Michigan on August 21, Irvan was in a close battle with Dale Earnhardt as the class of the field. They were matched on wins with three each, while Irvan led in top-five finishes and winnings and trailed Earnhardt by 27 points after having led the standings for most of the season. Although only running 20 out of 31 races in the 1994 season, Irvan was ahead of all drivers in miles led.

His contention for the championship ended during a Saturday early-morning practice session at Michigan. Upon seeing how Irvan's car was handling on the track, Irvan's crew chief, Larry McReynolds, instructed Irvan to pit. Irvan decided to run one more lap and subsequently blew a tire.

The #28 careened into the concrete wall exiting turn two at 170 miles per hour (273 km/h). McReynolds, unaware that his driver had crashed, radioed to Irvan that the caution flag had just been displayed at the flag stand. One of the other members of the crew discovered that Irvan had crashed, and McReynolds and several others commandeered the pace car to take a ride over to the scene. Officials on the scene, however, refused to let them near the wreck due to the seriousness of the situation.

Track medical staff tended to Irvan, with a local trauma doctor offering assistance by performing an emergency tracheotomy to help him breathe. Irvan was then airlifted to Saint Joseph's Hospital in nearby Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he was diagnosed with a basilar skull fracture and lung injuries and given only a 10% chance of surviving the night. Irvan clung to life for the first two days. By early September, Irvan was listed in "fair" condition and was removed from ventilator support. A few weeks later, he was deemed well enough to be transferred to the Charlotte Institute of Rehabilitation in Charlotte. A few weeks following the transfer, Irvan appeared and addressed the fans at Charlotte Motor Speedway prior to the start of the Mello Yello 500.

Less than two months later, at the gala NASCAR Awards Banquet in New York, Irvan walked on stage at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel's Grand Ballroom to receive the True Value Hard Charger Award. Despite missing the final 11 races at the end of the season, Irvan still ranked among the top five for the most laps led. In addition, Irvan tied Geoff Bodine for the most poles won during the season.

Recovery and comeback
Throughout the first eight months of 1995, Irvan remained focused on returning to Winston Cup racing and did broadcast work for TNN while recovering. He went through rehabilitation and strength training to regain his physical strength. On September 16, NASCAR cleared Irvan for competition. His first attempt at qualifying for a race since his absence, the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Martinsville in late September, ended when the field was set by points standings after qualifying was rained out.

The following weekend's events at North Wilkesboro Speedway would see Irvan qualify on the outside pole for the Truck Series event. Six laps after the green flag was dropped, Irvan passed pole sitter Mike Skinner for the lead. Irvan led another 23 laps before mechanical problems sidelined him.

That, however, was not the story of the weekend. For the first time since his accident at Michigan, Irvan entered a Winston Cup race. Driving in the #88 Texaco Havoline Ford as teammate to Dale Jarrett, who had taken over for Irvan in the #28, Irvan made the race; starting in seventh position, he advanced to third by lap 47 and took the lead on lap 125. He held the lead for 31 laps and finished on the lead lap in sixth position. Irvan started at Phoenix International Raceway a few weeks later but could not stay in the race due to engine failure, but he did lead the most laps despite having to start last in the field due to a crash in practice. He started the season finale at Atlanta Motor Speedway and finished seventh.

For the 1996 season, Irvan moved back into the #28 Ford as Jarrett, his substitute, became his full-time teammate in the #88.

Irvan's comeback season started well when he qualified on the front row for the season opening Daytona 500 beside Dale Earnhardt. During Speedweeks, Irvan captured a victory in the 125-mile qualifying race for the Daytona 500. As the season progressed, Irvan won the pole position for the spring race at Talladega, then scored victories at New Hampshire and Richmond. On his way to a top-10 finish in the Winston Cup points standings, he collected 12 top-five and 16 top-10 finishes, led 15 of the 31 events, and earned a career-best $1,670,113.

Irvan returned for the 1997 season and notched his 15th career win. The victory came in June at Michigan Speedway, the track that nearly claimed his life three years earlier. Irvan ran up five top-five finishes, 13 top-10s and two pole positions and earned $1,614,281. This would be also be Ernie Irvan's final season with Robert Yates. Irvan would be involved in an altercation in Charlotte during Easter weekend where he refused to dance with a female patron and escalated into a fight in the parking lot. In May, Irvan arrived late to a reception dinner thanking Texaco for 10 years of support. At the end of the year, Irvan was let go by Robert Yates Racing and replaced by rookie driver Kenny Irwin, Jr.

Last years in NASCAR and retirement

In 1998, Irvan joined MB2 Motorsports to drive the No. 36 Skittles Pontiac. During the year he scored 11 top-10 finishes with three pole positions despite missing the final three races while recovering from injuries suffered at Talladega in October. Irvan finished the season 19th in the Winston Cup points standings, earning $1,476,141. His highlight of 1998 was the birth of his son, Jared, on February 9. Irvan continued driving the No. 36 for MB2 in 1999, but with a different sponsor. M&M Mars (parent corporation of Skittles) decided to emblazon the popular M&Ms characters on the car.

On August 20, exactly five years after his near fatal accident there, Irvan crashed at Michigan while driving his own No. 84 Irvan-Simo Federated Auto Parts Pontiac in a practice session for the Busch Series race. Irvan was again airlifted from the track and was diagnosed with a mild head injury and a bruised lung as a result of the accident.

Two weeks later, on September 3, 1999, surrounded by his wife and two children, Irvan announced his retirement from driving at a tearful press conference in Darlington, South Carolina. While he would fully recover before the end of the 1999 season, the reasoning for his retirement was to prevent future incidents while he had a family to support.

Irvan finished his Winston Cup career as a driver with 15 victories, 22 poles, 68 top-fives, 124 top-10s and over 11 million dollars in career earnings.

After retirement from NASCAR
Just before his final years in NASCAR, Irvan briefly co-owned a NASCAR Truck Series team in partnership with Mark Simo and No Fear. The team's first driver was Joe Ruttman, who finished second in points in 1995. The team's next and most famous driver was sports-car racer Boris Said, who drove the #44 Irvan-Simo Racing truck sponsored by Federated Auto Parts. Said's only win was at Sonoma in 1998. The team also fielded a part-time Cup effort with Said in 1999, where Said qualified 2nd at Watkins Glen, led 9 laps, but retired with a blown engine.

Afterwards, Irvan announced he was planning to start a Cup team with Mark Simo with sponsorship from Federated Auto Parts, but it never materialized.

After a fire in his house destroyed all of his trophies in March 2000, NASCAR presented Irvan with replicas of the lost trophies.

As of 2007, he is the crew chief on his son Jared's quarter midget. In 2012, Jared won the Quarter Midget Racing Championship and is leading the USAC Ignite Midget Eastern Region championship, and a late model car has been ordered for Jared's planned move into late models. Jared also plans to run the 2015 NASCAR K&N Pro Series East season.

Irvan attended five NASCAR races in 2006, promoting a foundation that he formed called Race2safety as an advocate for head-injury awareness. The foundation promotes awareness and prevention of head injuries, especially among children.

Irvan attended the 50th annual Daytona 500 and was one of the 24 grand marshals giving the command to start the engines.

The Irvan family used to live in Wadmalaw Island, South Carolina, near Charleston, where they owned El Cardenal Farm and organized the Equestrian Club of Charleston. According to Irvan on Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Dirty Mo Media podcast in September 2020, he and his wife currently live in Ocala, Florida.

Irvan and his family were featured on NASCAR Now on its "Wayback Wednesday" segment. It featured him and his wife on their ranch in South Carolina.

Irvan was (and still is) recognized on Sirius Satellite Radio's "The Howard Stern Show" by Ronnie "the Limo Driver" Mund, who mentioned Irvan as his favorite NASCAR driver; the drop of Mund saying Irvan's name is still played on the show today and has been featured in multiple prank calls by Sal "the Stock Broker" Governale and Richard "Supertwink" Christy.

In June 2016, Irvan was inducted into the Sonoma Raceway Wall of Fame. He currently helps out his son Jared in his racing career and spends time with his family on their farm.

Winston Cup victories (15 career wins)

 * 1997 (One win) Miller 400 (Michigan)
 * 1996 (Two wins) Jiffy Lube 300 (Loudon), Miller 400 (Richmond)
 * 1994 (Three wins) Pontiac Excitement 400 (Richmond), Purolator 500 (Atlanta), Save Mart Supermarkets 300 (Sonoma)
 * 1993 (Three wins) Winston 500 (Talladega), Goody's 500 (Martinsville), Mello Yello 500 (Charlotte)
 * 1992 (Three wins) Save Mart 300K (Sonoma), Pepsi 400 (Daytona), DieHard 500 (Talladega)
 * 1991 (Two wins) Daytona 500 (Daytona), Budweiser At The Glen (Watkins Glen)
 * 1990 (One win) Busch 500 (Bristol)

Busch Series victories (three career wins)

 * 1992 (Two wins) Fay's 150 (Watkins Glen), Fram Filter 500K (Talladega)
 * 1991 (One win) AC-Delco 200 (Rockingham)

NASCAR
(key) ( Bold – Pole position awarded by qualifying time. Italics – Pole position earned by points standings or practice time. * – Most laps led. )

ARCA Permatex SuperCar Series
(key) ( Bold – Pole position awarded by qualifying time. Italics – Pole position earned by points standings or practice time. * – Most laps led. )

title: Ernie Irvan


text:
Dee Wallace

Deanna Wallace (née Bowers), also known as Dee Wallace Stone, (born December 14, 1948) is an American actress. She is perhaps best known for her role as Mary Taylor in the 1982 blockbuster science fiction film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

Wallace earned further recognition as a scream queen for starring in several horror films, including The Hills Have Eyes (1977), The Howling (1981), Cujo (1983), Critters (1986), The Frighteners (1996),  Halloween (2007), The House of the Devil (2009), and The Lords of Salem (2012).

Early life
Wallace was born in Kansas City, Kansas, the daughter of Maxine (née Nichols), a secretary, and Robert Stanley Bowers. Wallace's father developed severe alcoholism before dying by suicide when Wallace was in high school. Her mother was a stage actress and producer who appeared in community theater productions in Kansas City, which inspired Wallace's interest in acting.

After graduating from Wyandotte High School, Wallace attended the University of Kansas and obtained an education degree. She briefly taught high school drama at Washington High School in her native Kansas City in the early 1970s.

Career
Wallace began her career on television appearing in episodes of The Streets of San Francisco, Starsky & Hutch and Police Woman, before appearing in the box-office horror hit film The Hills Have Eyes (1977). In 1981, she played a leading role in the horror film The Howling opposite her husband Christopher Stone. They later starred together in Cujo (1983) based on Stephen King's 1981 novel of the same name.

In 1982, Wallace went on to star in Steven Spielberg's science fiction film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). The film became the highest-grossing film of all time—a record held for eleven years until Jurassic Park, another Spielberg-directed film, surpassed it in 1993. Wallace received a Saturn Award nomination for her performance. Wallace also starred in a number of comedy films, including 10 (1979), Jimmy the Kid (1982) and Secret Admirer (1985). In 1986, she starred in the horror comedy film Critters (a role she later reprised in a sequel, Critters Attack!, in 2019). She has also appeared in many other horror films, most notably Peter Jackson's The Frighteners (1996). On television, Wallace played a leading role in the CBS sitcom Together We Stand (1986–1987) and the family drama The New Lassie (1989–1992). She guest starred in episodes of a number of shows, including The Twilight Zone, Hotel, Murder, She Wrote, Touched by an Angel, Bones, Grey's Anatomy, My Name Is Earl, Criminal Minds, and The Office. In 2015, Wallace was cast on the ABC soap opera series General Hospital, as Patricia Spencer, the unseen, long-lost older sister of Luke and Bobbie Spencer; Wallace appeared in the show Supernatural, in the episode titled "Into the Mystic" (01/27/2016).

She was nominated for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Guest Performer in a Drama Series.

Personal life
She was briefly married first to Barry Wallace and still uses his last name in her career. Their marriage ended in divorce. She married Christopher Stone in 1980, who died suddenly in 1995. They have one daughter, Gabrielle Stone.

Wallace is a public speaker and self-help author, having written three books, and has her own call-in radio show where she talks exclusively about the creation of "self". She often speaks about how you can get through tough times with determination and love. She has also written a book called Bright Light about her life lessons from an acting career.

In 2018, she gave her first TED talk at TEDx Cape May, entitled "The Common Ground of Self".

title: Dee Wallace