text:
Talk:Ideophone

Cited
The lead of the december 2004 version of this article was cited in the academic journal Oceanic Linguistics. The author suggests that 'one indication that the term "ideophone" has come of age is that it has recently (December 2004) been added to Wikipedia' (Bradshaw 2006:53). Full ref:
 * Bradshaw, Joel. 2006. Grammatically Marked Ideophones in Numbami and Jabêm, Oceanic Linguistics, 45, 1, 53-63.

Tones of Ideophones
Perhaps mention should be made of the fact that ideophones are often phonetically different from ordinary words. Among other things, for example, they have tones, e.g. whoops! (rising tone), boing! (level tone), aha! (high-low fall on the second syllable), and so on. Kanjuzi (talk) 18:27, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Onomatopoeia vs Ideophones
How is this different from onomatopoeia? This article does reference onomatopoeia, but it doesn't distinguish itself from onomatopoeia. There should not exist a separate English article for every language's word for onomatopoeia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.71.211.71 (talk) 01:10, 12 June 2018 (UTC)
 * It does distinguish ideophones from onomatopoeia. As it says, ideophones representing sounds (like "splash!") are only one type; but there are other types too, such as Chichewa dzandi-dzandi, representing the wobbly way someone walks when drunk, or D'oh!, representing the idea that someone has done something unusually stupid. Kanjuzi (talk) 05:12, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Non-(less?)-onomatopoeic English ideophones
I suspect English has at least a few ideophones that are not onomatopoeic. Potential examples that come to mind are words like zigzag, which uses its sound and possibly even the shape of the letter Z to suggest back and forth motion, even though zigzagging things don't make a similar sound. Others are lickety-split and hoity-toity, in which the sounds evoke a sense of quickness and pompousness, respectively, though don't seem to be imitations of any sounds made by what they describe. Rriegs (talk) 21:34, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree. Good examples. Kanjuzi (talk) 05:04, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

ideophones in Western languages
it might be a good idea to delete this sentence "they are claimed to be relatively uncommon in Western languages". This is quite outdated given current research on ideophones. There are detailed studies about Estonian, Basque, and Turkish ideophones that demostrated that some "Western" languages do have very rich ideophone inventories. Just a few references.... Jendraschek, Gerd. 2001. Semantic and structural properties of Turkish ideophones. Turkic Languages 5: 88-103. Jendraschek, Gerd. 2002. The struggle against monolingualism. Journal of Universal Language 3:55-75. Jendraschek, Gerd. 2002. Semantische Eigenschaften von Ideophonen im Türkischen. München: LINCOM Europa (Edition Linguistik, 30). Mikone, E. 2001. Ideophones in the Balto-Finnic languages. F.K. Erhard Voeltz and Christa Kilian-Hatz (eds.). Ideophones. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Ibarretxe-Antuñano, I. 2017. Basque ideophones from a typological perspective. The Canadian Journal of Linguistics / Revue canadienne de linguistique 62.2: 1-21. Ibarretxe-Antuñano, I. 2019. Towards a semantic typological classification of motion ideophones: The motion semantic grid. K. Akita & P. Pardeshi (eds.), Ideophones, Mimetics, and Expressives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 137-166. Iia-iia (talk) 00:12, 20 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Sourcing the claim would be better than removing it. 46.114.37.186 (talk) 08:41, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

examples subheaders are links to languages
is this necessary? no other page I've seen does this. Binarycat64 (talk) 00:02, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Rewrite?
Based on Sasse's article Syntactic Categories and Subcategories in Syntax, edited by Kiss and Alexiadou 2015, English does not have ideophones. Some have suggested above that the difference between onomatopoeia and ideophone is now unclear. Zigzag, for example, is an example of onomatopoeia. It can, for instance, be used as a verb, but ideophones make up their own part of speech, i.e., they are not verbs. The formal difference is that ideophones lack verbal (or other) particles unlike in the example 'The rabbit zigzagged across the meadow' - we see from the -ed suffix that this is a verb. But some languages can break the pattern and say something like 'And then the rabbit zigzag zigzag across the meadow'. Сабріель (talk) 06:10, 29 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Haha, wat? The notion of "particles" comes from African languages where ideophones were described first. -ed is not a particle in that sense, because it is morphosyntactically fused. 80.152.206.197 (talk) 08:25, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
 * The most likely reason why zig-zag may be considered not a word is the voiced sibilant. As a rule, initial s is voiceless in English (opposite to German), even in loan words (just as English h is not viable in French, for example).
 * It may be notable that in the alphabetic tradition we have שש, 𐤔𐤔 for "6", which is one of the few words that is legitimately compared to other language families (debatable). As unary tally counting is quite frequent for small numbers in the worlds writing systems, especially in Egyptian Hieroglyphs as well as Hieratic, the token 𐤔𐤔 looks like a tally mark, simply speaking. The meaning of 𐤔 shin "tooth" is well compatible with sawtooth, German Sägezahn etc. SÄGE 80.152.206.197 (talk) 09:10, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Reduplication
It could be interesting to discuss why reduplication is so common for ideophones - is the sense of fun important? Cerulean Depths (talk) 22:04, 25 August 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Ideophone


text:
Talk:Jarawas (Andaman Islands)

Untitled
This hunk of material about a French-language film was placed in the article. I am moving it here for reference.

 * Jarawa, La Rencontre Interdite
 * Duration: 1 hour and 9 minutes.
 * Quelques-uns sont restés totalement isolés et hostiles dans les îlots les plus reculés des îles Andaman, un archipel montagneux du golfe du Bengale, d'autres viennent tout juste d'entrer en contact avec ce qu'il est convenu d'appeler la « civilisation ». Les Jarawa risquent, dans un avenir proche, de se voir parqués. Au début des années 90, l'auteur a entrepris clandestinement plusieurs tentatives d'approche de ce groupe humain. Il les retrouve en 2003 et réussit à partager leur quotidien. La pression des autorités indiennes menace de détruire les derniers Négritos de l'Asie, emportant avec eux l'un des grands mystères du peuplement humain : les premiers habitants de l'Asie du Sud seraient noirs Réalisation : Patrick Bernard, 2002 Dans la collection « Les voix de l'oubli. Chroniques des derniers chasseurs-cueilleurs » Pays : France.

Let's begin in-place translation here, then move whatever is useful into the article.-- Jmabel | Talk 21:59, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

 * Jarawa, La Rencontre Interdite
 * Duration: 1 hour and 9 minutes.
 * Some are a totally isolated and hostile remnant in the most isolated islets of the Andaman Islands, a mountainous archipelago in the Bay of Bengal, others have just entered in contact with that which it is conventional to call "civilization". The Jarawa risk, in the near future, de se voir parqués. At the beginning of the 1990s, the author tried clandestinely and tentatively to approach this group. He finds them in 2003 et réussit to share their daily life. The pressure of the Indian authorities threatens to destroy the last Négritos in Asia, taking with them one of the great mysteries of human population: the first inhabitants of South Asia were Blacks.
 * Réalisation : Patrick Bernard, 2002 from the collection « Les voix de l'oubli. Chroniques des derniers chasseurs-cueilleurs » ("The voices of the forgotten. Chronicles of the last hunter-gatherers") Country : France.''

Tsunami
An interesting item on NPR this morning implied that the Jarawa had a 100% survival rate in the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake: somehow, they knew or sensed what was coming, and all headed for the upland jungle. The story related to fly-by checks by the Indian Air Force, so it could easily be exaggerated (how would they know it was 100%? How would they know what the Jarawa did to survive?). I'm not putting that in the article just on the basis of "I heard it on the radio", but someone may want to follow up on this. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:57, Jan 6, 2005 (UTC)

Reports like this seem to be from folks who really don't know what they are talking about. They want to assign natives with little or no contact with the modern world great wisdom for reasons that don't make sense. I am not saying the natives are stupid or fools. Just that like all humans, they are going to be running the gambit of dumb to very smart folks.

The reason that a lot of these native groups survived is really quite simple. These are groups of people who have choosen to not have much (if any) contact with the modern world. Well, on these islands, where for example the Jarawa share their island with people from the modern world... guess where they live? They live pretty much as far inland as you can get on these islands, while the folks from the modern world live on the coasts. Now who do you think is going to die from the Tsunami? That would be the people living on the coasts. Those living inland, quite naturually, are living on higher ground and avoided the brunt of the catastrophe. So, naturally, they lived through it. --68.164.29.116 05:26, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

 * Actually, there were few deaths over the whole of the Andamans, indigenous and non-indigenous alike, when compared to the more low-lying Nicobars - about 60 all told, versus about 3500 for the Nicobars. True enough, the Jarawa live (and always seem to have preferred to live, before the Indian colonists came) mostly in inland regions, and are situated on the western (ie, the leeside) of the island. A similar tale was told about the remnants of Great Andamanese people, numbering about 50 who live on Strait I, off the eastern coast of Great Andaman - this is more exposed and low-lying, perhaps that original radio report confused the two.--cjllw |  TALK  08:09, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

 * Anthropologists have spoken to the Onge to find out how they survived the Tsunami (It was initially expected that none would have survived due to their location). They were told that tradition tells that the land and sea are always fighting to decide boundaries. On the day of the tsunami the trees shook so the islanders knew the spirits were angry over something. Later they saw changes in the clouds and water so knew the sea was going to enter the jungle and mix with the land until the new boundaries were decided upon. The native tribes all went to high ground before the first wave arrived. It is suspected that none of the indiginous tribes that live traditionally lost anyone. Wayne (talk) 14:11, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

WP:INDIA Banner/Andaman and Nicobar Islands workgroup Addition
Note: WP India Project Banner with Andaman and Nicobar Islands workgroup parameters was added to this article talk page because the article falls under Category:Andaman and Nicobar Islands or its subcategories. Should you feel this addition is inappropriate, please undo my changes and update/remove the relavent categories to the article --  TinuCherian  (Wanna Talk?) - 05:41, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I have brought back into balance a very biased take on the impact of tourism by user Seriousmatters —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.193.2.237 (talk) 09:44, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Recent changes - July 2009
I reverted undos made by user at IP 117.193.2.239 to my recent updates to the article. I had included information about an important court case regarding the situation of the Jarawa, and I had provided a citation for this. No reason seems to have been given for their removal by that user. Seriousmatters (talk) 11:59, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

I have reverted more undos from users 62.49.26.205 and 82.69.73.126 and initiated discussion with them on the matter at their talk pages (given below) to ascertain their reasoning. I still feel that the information they are removing is both relevant and well-referenced.

Seriousmatters (talk) 11:02, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

I have continued to make more revisions whilst simultaneously initiating discussion with relevant editors about those changes on their personal talk pages. I have so far received no reply. The following edit, detailed in the note below to user 82.69.73.126, is still subject to discussion. Perhaps discussing it here will highlight the debate.

"Dear user 82.69.73.126

I am hoping that we can discuss a resolution to the changes we seem to be making against each other. You seem keen to remove information detailed below, despite its pertinence to the present situation of the Jarawa.

In section: Impact of tourism

"The situation is likely to deteriorate due to a luxury resort recently opened on the Islands. The Indian travel company Barefoot has established a resort near the Jarawa reserve. The development is the subject of a recent court case brought by Andaman authorities who want to stop the resort, and appealed against a Calcutta High Court ruling allowing it to go ahead. "

Having read about this recent situation, and in light of previous instances of contagion involving relatively isolated tribal people, it seems important to note this substantial change in the Jarawa's environment. It is also a case which seems to be attracting more attention and the Jarawa reserve is right at the heart of it.

Thanks."

Seriousmatters (talk) 11:22, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Edit ping-pong has begun with IP 196.201.218.77 who seems not to respond to their talk page and is making exactly the same changes as other IPs noted above.

Seriousmatters (talk) 09:27, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

I have brought back into balance a very biased take on the impact of tourism by user Seriousmatters —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.184.153.133 (talk) 07:06, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

It appears that both Seriousmatters and Rectorific have a fixed agenda which is based on unverified conjecture from Survival International and, since it is defamatory towards a well reputed business entity, their posts against the entity should be removed and/or the counter argument as voiced by the local media (Light of Andaman) must stand to provide a balanced perspective. In the absence of this, this webpage becomes but a propoganda tool for people (Seriousmatters and Rectorific) and/or the organistaion(s) behind them —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.174.100.148 (talk) 08:29, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

There should be some explanation (with citations) as to why contact from tourists is more dangerous than contact from anthropologists: "All contact, especially with tourists, remains extremely dangerous to the Jarawa due to the risk of disease"

Much of the article seems to assume that there is a "right" way to contact uncontacted people. 208.68.128.53 (talk) 19:31, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Repeated Statements (sometimes poorly added) without source
The following few sentences occur frequently in the article:

KEY CONCERNS : Change in food habits and introduction of addictives such as tobacco and alocohol

Intrusion of poachers into Jarawa Reserve for removing natural resources like wild pig, fish, crab, wood and honey. These intrusions often result in violent encounters.

Ongoing sexual exploitation of Jarawa women. In one case, a Jarawa woman was raped inside the GB Pant Hospital, Port Blair. In another case Jarawa woman was raped by two tribal welfare male staff.

However, I don't see any sources cited. Also, the information is in some places poorly integrated into the sentence structure or topic of the surrounding text. Note that some phrases are typed as sentences but do not follow the structure of a sentence. Does this article need a header that it makes claims without sources cited?

64.101.158.211 (talk) 17:21, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Name Change?
http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/originals/Justin/art-justs.htm

Based on the information on this page, it appears that the indigenous name for the "Jarawa" has been discovered: "Ung". Shouldn't we re-name the people, language, and disambiguation pages? InFairness (talk) 23:14, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

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Please read and update Sentinelese and jarawa articles
Please read this report, and read and update Sentinelese and jarawa articles accordingly specially the dangers of contact including the oft ignored dangers posed by the erratic badly managed and poorly documently anthropological missions and settlers e.g. alcohol, tobacco, drugs, commercial and sexual exploitation. Thanks. 222.164.212.168 (talk) 07:40, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

And this https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/1509987/Stone-Age-tribe-kills-fishermen-who-strayed-on-to-island.html

Zezen (talk) 09:32, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

Quarry
What exactly is Quarry meant to mean in this sentence, it makes no sense at all?

"As the Jarawas are a nomadic tribe, they hunt endemic wild pigs, monitor lizards and other quarry with bows and arrows." IAmTheCoinMan (talk) 08:20, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

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

title: Talk:Jarawas (Andaman Islands)


text:
Kallithea (disambiguation)

Kallithea (Greek: Καλλιθέα) may refer to:

Places in Greece

 * municipalities:
 * Kallithea, a city in Attica, suburb of Athens
 * Kallithea, Rhodes, a municipality on Rhodes
 * Kallithea, Thessaloniki, a municipality in the Thessaloniki metropolitan area
 * parts of other municipalities:
 * Kallithea, Achaea, a village in northcentral Achaea, part of Messatida
 * Kallithea, Aetolia-Acarnania, a village in eastern Aetolia-Acarnania, part of Paravola
 * Kallithea, Boeotia, a village in southeastern Boeotia, part of Tanagra
 * Kallithea, Chalkidiki, a village in southwestern Chalkidiki, part of Kassandra
 * Kallithea, Corinthia, a village in western Corinthia, part of Evrostini
 * Kallithea, Drama, a village in Drama, part of Prosotsani
 * Kallithea, Elis, a village in Elis, part of Alifeira
 * Kallithea, Euboea, a village in central Euboea, part of Amarynthos
 * Kallithea, Florina, a village in northwestern Florina, part of Prespes
 * Kallithea, Grevena, in Grevena, part of Gorgiani
 * Kallithea, Heraklion, a village on Crete (Heraklion regional unit), part of Nea Alikarnassos
 * Kallithea, Ioannina, a village in northern Ioannina, part of Konitsa
 * Kallithea, Laconia, a village in eastern Laconia, part of Geronthres
 * in Larissa regional unit:
 * Kallithea, Narthaki, in southern Larissa, part of Narthaki
 * Kallithea Elassonos, in northern Larissa, part of Olympos
 * Kallithea, Lemnos, a village on Lemnos
 * Kallithea, Messenia, a village in Messenia, part of Pylos
 * Kallithea, Phocis, a village in southern Phocis, part of Tolofona
 * Kallithea, Phthiotis, a village in Phthiotis, part of Spercheiada
 * Kallithea, Pieria, a village in eastern Pieria, part of Paralia
 * Kallithea, Samos, a village on Samos, part of Marathokampos
 * in Thesprotia:
 * Kallithea, Paramythia, a village in eastern Thesprotia, part of Paramythia
 * Kallithea, Filiates, a village in northern Thesprotia, part of Filiates
 * Kallithea, Trikala, in Trikala, part of Tymfaia
 * in Xanthi regional unit:
 * Kallithea, Xanthi, part of Xanthi
 * Kallithea, Stavroupoli, part of Stavroupoli
 * Kallithea, Zakynthos, a village in Zakynthos, part of Alykes

Science and technology

 * Kallithea (software), source code management system.
 * Niki Kallithea, a Bulgarian autogyro design

title: Kallithea (disambiguation)


text:
User:Dave6

Links

 * Colbert watchlist
 * Check Colbert watchlist
 * RCP Stuff

Articles I've started

 * Reef Encounter
 * Spike Shooter
 * Who's the Ass?
 * Live Search Club

Images

 * Image:Amboy Crater.jpg

Awards
For your persistant work

in reverting vandalism I am glad to award you the highly coveted Thumbs Up Award. Thanks, Dave6, for protecting Luis Jiménez (sculptor) and a bunch of other articles. Carptrash 15:55, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

es:Usuario:Dave6

title: User:Dave6


text:
Diauehi

Diauehi (დიაოხი, Urartian Diauehi, Greek Taochoi, Armenian Tayk, possibly Assyrian Daiaeni) was a tribal union located in northeastern Anatolia, that was recorded in Assyrian and Urartian sources during the Iron Age. It is usually (though not always) identified with the earlier Daiaeni (Dayaeni), attested in the Yonjalu inscription of the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser I's third year (1118 BC) and in later records by Shalmaneser III (845 BC). While it is unknown what language(s) they spoke, they may have been speakers of a Kartvelian,       Armenian,   Iranian, or Hurrian language.

Location
Although the exact geographic extent of Diauehi is still unclear, many scholars place it in the Pasinler Plain in today's northeastern Turkey, while others locate it in the Armenian–Georgian marchlands as it follows the Kura River. Most probably, the core of the Diauehi lands may have extended from the headwaters of the Euphrates into the river valleys of Çoruh to Oltu. The Urartian sources speak of Diauehi's three key cities—Zua, Utu and Sasilu; Zua is frequently identified with Zivin Kale and Utu is probably modern Oltu, while Sasilu is sometimes linked to the early medieval Georgian toponym Sasire, near Tortomi (present-day Tortum, Turkey). The Diaeuhian city Šešetina may have corresponded to Şavşat, Turkey (Shavsheti in Georgian).

The region of Diauehi seems to have roughly corresponded to, or bordered, the previous Hayasa-Azzi territory.

History
In the early 8th century, Diauehi became the target of the newly emerged regional power of Urartu. Menua (810–785 BC) conquered part of Diaeuhi, annexing its most important cities: Zua, Utu, and Shashilu, and forcing the king of Diauehi, Utupursi(ni), to pay a tribute of gold and silver.

Menua's son Argishti I (785–763 BC), campaigned against the Diauehi kingdom in 783. Argishti I defeated King Utupursi, annexing his possessions․ In exchange for his life, Utupursi was forced to pay a tribute including a variety of metals and livestock. Toward the end of his reign, Argishti I led yet another campaign against Utuspursi, who led a rebellion against the Urartians.

Possible ethno-linguistic identification
Diauehi is considered by some as a locus of Proto-Kartvelian; it has been described as an "important tribal formation of possible proto-Georgians" by Ronald Grigor Suny (1994).

According to Robert H. Hewsen, they may have been speakers of a language unrelated to any other in the Caucasus region.

However, they are mentioned by Diodorus Siculus as Xaoi, which Hewsen etymologizes as a Greek form of the Armenian endonym, Hayk'.

Massimo Forlanini proposed a connection between the name of the Diaeuhi tribe, Baltu, and the Hayasan deity, Baltaik. He also compared these to the name of the Hayasan mercenary, Waltahi.

Connection to Daiaeni (Dayaeni)
Some scholars have linked the Diaeuhi to the Bronze Age Daiaeni (Dayaeni) tribe, mentioned in 12th century BC Assyrian sources as being part of the Nairi confederation. This connection is mainly due to the phonetic similarities of the names Daiaeni and Diaeuhi.

The Daiaeni were powerful enough to counter the Assyrian forays, although in 1112 BC their king, Sien, was defeated by Tiglath-Pileser I. Sien was captured and later released on terms of vassalage.

Daiaeni appeared again in Assyrian texts nearly three centuries later when King Asia of Daiaeni (850–825 BC) was forced to submit to the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III in 845 BC, after the latter had overrun Urartu and made a foray into Daiaeni.

As the Daiaeni of Assyrian records seem to have been located further south than the Diaeuhi of Urartian records, Robert H. Hewsen and Nicholas Adontz proposed that the Diaieni originally inhabited a region between Palu and either Mush Province or Lake Van. They then moved north to Kars Province, where they battled the Urartians and later encountered Greek mercenaries, including Xenophon. They subsequently moved further northwest.

Archibald Sayce suggested that Daiaeni was named after an eponymous founder, Diaus, and thus meant "people of the land/tribe of Diau(s)".

Daiaeni rulers

 * Diau(s) (possible founder/patriarch suggested by Archibald Sayce)

 * Sien

 * Asia

Diauehi rulers

 * Utupursi(ni)

Diauehi tribes

 * Ardaraki

 * Baltu

 * Kabili

 * Šaški

Diauehi districts

 * Kada

 * Ašqalaši

Diauehi cities

 * Šašilu

 * Utuha

 * Zua

 * Ḫaldiriluḫi

title: Diauehi


text:
Bipod

A bipod is a V-shaped portable attachment that helps support and steady a device, usually a weapon such as a long gun or a mortar. The term comes from the Latin prefix bi- and Greek root pod, meaning "two" and "foot" respectively.

Bipods are designed to support the weight of the weapon's front portion and barrel, and provide significant stability against unwanted side-to-side movements (i.e. canting) while allowing free movements pivoting around the transverse axis (pitching). Most modern bipods have foldable and/or telescoping legs, and allow some limited movements around the vertical axis (panning) and even the longitudinal axis (tilting).

A bipod by itself, with only two supporting legs, is not completely stable and needs to be reinforced by at least one more point of support to be steady, especially against the horizontal shearing force from recoils. This third point of support is typically the buttstock that is firmly pushed/braced against the shooter's body, but can also be a baseplate (in mortars), sometimes with additional support from a monopod or a bean bag.

Firearms

Bipods are commonly used on rifles and machine guns to provide a forward rest and reduce unwanted motion. They are also seen on other long-barreled weapons. Bipods permit operators to easily rest a weapon on objects, such the ground or a wall, reducing fatigue and increasing accuracy and stability. Bipods can be of fixed or adjustable length. Some can be tilted and also have their tilting point close to the barrel's central axis, allowing the weapon to tilt left and right. Some designs also allow the weapon to be rotated side-to-side. There are three ways for bipods to be folded: away from the shooter, towards the shooter, or into a vertical foregrip.

History
The first known use of bipods on firearms can be traced back to hand cannons of the 12th century, which were cast iron barrels laid on top of short poles.

Bipods on rifles are first known to have been used in an improvised fashion during the mid-19th century, particularly by frontiersmen hunting American bison and other wild animals. For example, the painting "The Long Shot" by Howard Terpning shows native American hunters shooting a rifle with an improvised bipod consisting of two crossed arrows.

During the 20th century, use of dedicated bipods increased, and was seen on different types of rifles during wars. For example the Lewis gun (1914) was fitted with an adjustable bipod. The technology became more advanced, with hinged legs and even extendable or retractable legs. The Brixia M1923 machine gun used a bipod that could also be used as a harness allowing the user to move around firing the weapon handling only the spade grips.

One of the first companies to manufacture commercially successful bipods was Harris Engineering, Inc founded in 1979 in Barlow, Kentucky by Gerald Harris, Margaret Harris, and Susan Wilkerson. Before starting the company, Gerald had applied for a patent on the bipod. In 2019, their successful Harris Bipods have been produced for nearly forty years, and have remained relatively unchanged.

Recent advances in manufacture of bipods include use of lightweight materials such as aluminium, carbon fiber and titanium, use of different quick attachment and detachment mechanisms (Picatinny, M-LOK, etc. or even magnets ) and various types of feet materials such as rubber, metal, or a "basket" designed to stop the bipod from sinking into soft surfaces such as fine sand or deep snow (inspired by ski poles and snowshoes).

Mounting standards
There are several mounting standards for attaching a bipod to a rifle, of which some well known are swivel stud, Picatinny, M-LOK and Versa Pod spigot mount. Starting in the late 2010s, the Arca-Swiss style also gained popularity in shooting competitions such as the Precision Rifle Series since the rail allows for stepless adjustment.

title: Bipod


text:
Steve Gilchrist

Steve Gilchrist (born July 7, 1954) is a former politician in Ontario, Canada. He was a Progressive Conservative member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1995 to 2003 and served as a cabinet minister in the government of Mike Harris.

Background
His father, Gordon Gilchrist, was a Progressive Conservative member of the House of Commons of Canada.

Gilchrist was educated at Queen's University, receiving a Bachelor of Commerce degree in 1975. Prior to entering elected office, he operated a number of Canadian Tire franchise stores from 1971 to 1995, including one of the largest stores in the chain. Gilchrist was involved in several other business ventures, including the construction of a shopping centre (The Town & Country Centre) in Cobourg, Ontario in 1989.

Politics
Active in the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party since 1970, Gilchrist first ran for the Ontario legislature in the 1990 provincial election in the riding of Scarborough East, but placed third behind incumbent Liberal Ed Fulton and the winner, New Democrat Bob Frankford. Later that year, he was elected third vice president of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party. Two years later, he was elected, unanimously, as president of party and served from 1992 to 1994, succeeding Tony Clement. From 1990 to 1994, Gilchrist hosted various cable television shows on Trillium Cable in Scarborough.

The Tories won a majority government in the 1995 election under Mike Harris. In a rematch from 1990, Gilchrist easily defeated Frankford by almost 12,000 votes, the highest plurality of any Toronto riding. He was immediately elected chair of the Standing Committee on Resources Development and he was named a parliamentary assistant to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing in 1997.

Gilchrist was re-elected in the 1999 provincial election, defeating Liberal candidate Peter Vanderyagt by about 3,500 votes. On June 17, 1999, Gilchrist was named Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing but stepped aside to defend himself from allegations by the development industry in October 1999 after he had announced his intention to ban all development on the Oak Ridges Moraine. The allegations were proved to be unfounded, and he was exonerated but was not returned to cabinet. Shortly thereafter, he was appointed as co-chair of the Red Tape Commission and as a Commissioner on the Board of Internal Economy, the all-party committee that oversees the operation of the Ontario Parliament building.

While serving as a cabinet minister, Gilchrist was responsible for co-ordinating the forced amalgamation of municipal governments in Ottawa, Hamilton and Sudbury. The political debate on the future of the Oak Ridges Moraine also began during his tenure. He remained active on the file after his resignation until the passage of the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Act in 2001.

Gilchrist was elected as Chair of the Standing Committee on General Government and, on April 25, 2002, he was appointed as parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Energy and Environment.

On June 28, 2001, Gilchrist was put in charge of a commission looking into alternative fuel sources. In the same year, he backed Jim Flaherty's unsuccessful bid to succeed Mike Harris as party leader. In 2002, he was appointed as the first commissioner of alternative energy for the province of Ontario, a position he held until December 2003.

During his time in office, Gilchrist introduced many private member's bills which were passed into law, including Bill 20, the Good Samaritans Act of 2001 This act guarantees protects anyone who competently attempts to give first aid or render other medical assistance is protected from any legal liability. In December 2001, Gilchrist's youngest sister underwent a successful heart transplant and, in response to the significant waiting times faced by patients hoping for organ donation, on May 5, 2003, Gilchrist introduced Bill 17, the Organ or Tissue Donation Statute Law Amendment Act, 2003. The bill would have required anyone obtaining a provincial license or health card to complete an organ donation form and would have prevented any other person from overturning the decision of the donor, after death.

Other private member's bill's which were passed into law included Bill 172, the Toronto Hospital Act, 1997, which merged the Toronto Hospital and the Ontario Cancer Institute, at their request; Bill 110, the Professional Foresters Act, 2000; and the Act that created the Ontario Association of Former Parliamentarians, Bill 65, the Ontario Association of Former Parliamentarians Act, 2000. He also introduced Bills which would have raised the minimum smoking age in Ontario, formally designated the August Civic Holiday as "Simcoe Day', prevented the demolition of any buildings designated as "heritage buildings" and one which would have required the paying of Ontario income tax on the benefits received by federal Senators and Members of Parliament. His most notable bill was Bill 17, the Ontario Natural Heritage Act, 2002, which became the basis of the government bill, the Oak Ridges Moraine Conservation Act, 2002, which put in place the long-term protection for the Oak Ridges Moraine.

He lost his seat in the 2003 provincial election, falling to Liberal Mary Anne Chambers by almost 7,000 votes.

In addition to his public activism within the PC Party and as a Member of Provincial Parliament, Gilchrist was very active in the community, serving as a governor of the Central Ontario YMCAs for 11 years; vice-chair of the Rouge Park Alliance; director of the Oak Ridges Moraine Foundation; director of the Oak Ridge Moraine Land Trust; director of the East Scarborough Boys & Girls Club and a member of a number of local ratepayers associations in Scarborough. For over twenty years, Gilchrist annually funded "Gilchrist Science Scholarships" at the University of Toronto Scarborough and various local high schools.

After politics
After the election, Gilchrist became involved with a wide range of projects and companies involved in different forms of renewable energy generation. He became the Vice-President of Canadian Hydrogen Energy Company, the world's largest manufacturer of hydrogen-based emissions reduction and fuel saving devices. In 2007, he was elected as a director of the National Hydrogen Association, in Washington, D.C., and has served as a special advisor to the board of Skypower Ltd., one of Canada's largest wind and solar power companies. He also developed a company which has worked with governments in Africa, the Caribbean, South America and Asia to raise awareness of biomass-to-energy power generation opportunities and clean water generation.

From 2001 to 2011, Gilchrist served as a Director and then Vice-President of the Oak Ridges Moraine Land Trust, a volunteer organization whose goal is to place conservation easements over private and publicly held land on the Oak Ridges Moraine. Since 2005, Gilchrist has also served as a director of the Ontario Association of Former Parliamentarians and, in August 2015, he was elected as the Chair of that organization. He has been active in a wide range of media, including serving as the alternate host for Politically Speaking on Rogers Television in Durham Region, a frequent guest of TV shows such as the Michael Coren Show on CTS and a contributor of many newspaper articles dealing with environmental and energy topics. In April 2022, he became the host of the "Naturally Northumberland" radio show on Northumberland 89.7 Radio in Cobourg, Ontario. In May 2022, he was elected to the Board of Directors of the Northumberland County Housing Corporation. In November 2021, Gilchrist graduated with a Master of Environmental Science degree from University of Toronto Scarborough.

In June 2007, Gilchrist was nominated as the Conservative Party of Canada's candidate in Ajax—Pickering for the next federal election. In March 2008, Gilchrist announced that he was stepping down as the candidate in order to return his full attention to his alternative energy business interests, including a proposed waste-to-energy facility in Ghana and an advanced recycling technology for municipalities in Canada.

title: Steve Gilchrist


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Wiki Wiki

Wiki Wiki can mean:
 * The Wiki Wiki Shuttle - a shuttle in the Honolulu International Airport in Hawaii
 * The phrase Wiki in Hawaiian
 * WikiWiki - as a concept in Hawaii and other places

title: Wiki Wiki


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Lord President's Committee

The Lord President's Committee was a United Kingdom cabinet committee during the Second World War. This committee oversaw many aspects of home affairs, most notably the economy, and was vital to the smooth running of the British war economy and consequently the entire British war effort. Because of this it was always headed by a senior politician and became one of the responsibilities given to successive Lord Presidents of the Council. These were:
 * Neville Chamberlain (11 May 1940 – 3 October 1940)
 * Sir John Anderson (3 October 1940 – 24 September 1943)
 * Clement Attlee (24 September 1943 – 23 May 1945)

title: Lord President's Committee


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1886 in rail transport

January events

 * January 25 – The North Hudson County Railway in New Jersey opens the first elevated cable railway in the United States, the Hoboken Elevated.

February events

 * February 1 – The Mersey Railway opened to public traffic between Birkenhead and Liverpool by tunnel beneath the River Mersey, England.
 * February 18 - The Kansas City, Memphis and Birmingham Railroad is incorporated in Mississippi.

March events

 * March–September – Great Southwest Railroad Strike, a labor union strike against the Union Pacific and Missouri Pacific railroads involving more than 200,000 workers.
 * March 30 – Executives from several railroad companies operating in the southern United States meet and agree to all regauge their railroads to standard gauge,, by June 1.

May events

 * May – The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway takes control of the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway.

July events

 * July 8 – Russian emperor Alexander III establishes Railway Worker Day as a national holiday on the anniversary of the name day of Nikolai I, who first commissioned Russian railroad construction.

August events

 * August 17 – The 7 mile (11.3 km) long Lakeside and Marblehead Railroad is incorporated in Ottawa County, Ohio.

September events

 * September 1 – Regular traffic (initially freight only) begins to pass through the Great Western Railway’s Severn Tunnel linking southern Gloucestershire and Monmouthshire.
 * September 9 – The rail connection to Cape Tormentine, New Brunswick, is completed by a predecessor of the New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island Railway.

October events

 * October 18 – Between 5:00 AM and 6:00 PM, the St. Louis, Arkansas and Texas Railroad, a predecessor of the St. Louis Southwestern Railway, converts 418 miles (673 km) of track from narrow gauge to standard gauge.

November events

 * November 20 – The San Bernardino and Los Angeles Railway is incorporated as an Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad subsidiary to build a rail connection between its namesake cities in California.

Unknown date events

 * The first refrigerator cars on the Southern Pacific Railroad enter operation.
 * The Southern Pacific Railroad wins the landmark Supreme Court case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad which establishes equal rights under the law to corporations.
 * Grande Ceinture line around Paris completed.

May births

 * May 4 – Henry G. Ivatt, Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (d. 1976).

Unknown date births

 * W. Graham Claytor, president of Southern Railway (US) (d. 1971).

July deaths

 * July 24 – Nathaniel Worsdell, English carriage builder (b. 1809).

December deaths

 * December 28 - William Kimmel, director for Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (b. 1812).

Unknown date deaths

 * David Levy Yulee, Florida railroad executive (b. 1810).

title: 1886 in rail transport


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Heraclius II of Georgia

Heraclius II, also known as Erekle II (ერეკლე II) and The Little Kakhetian (პატარა კახი ; 7 November 1720 or 7 October 1721 [according to C. Toumanoff ] – 11 January 1798), was a Georgian monarch (mepe) of the Bagrationi dynasty, reigning as the king of Kakheti from 1744 to 1762, and of Kartli and Kakheti from 1762 until 1798. In the contemporary Persian sources he is referred to as Erekli Khan (ارکلی خان), while Russians knew him as Irakly (Ираклий). Heraclius is the Latinized form of his name.

From being granted the kingship of Kakheti by his overlord Nader Shah in 1744 as a reward for his loyalty, to becoming the penultimate king of the united kingdoms of Kakheti and Kartli in eastern Georgia, his reign is regarded as the swan song of the Georgian monarchy. Aided by his personal abilities and the unrest in Iran following Nader Shah's death, Heraclius established himself as a de facto autonomous ruler, unified eastern Georgia politically for the first time in three centuries, and attempted to modernize the government, economy, and military. Overwhelmed by the internal and external menaces to Georgia's precarious independence and its temporary hegemony in eastern Transcaucasia, he placed his kingdom under the formal Russian protection in 1783, but the move did not prevent Georgia from being devastated by the Persian invasion in 1795. Heraclius died in 1798, leaving the throne to his moribund heir, George XII.

Service under Nader Shah
Born in Telavi, the center of the Kakheti region of Georgia, Heraclius was a son of Teimuraz II of Kakheti and his wife Tamar, daughter of Vakhtang VI of Kartli. His childhood and early teens coincided with the occupation of Kakheti by the Ottomans from 1732 until 1735, when they were ousted from Georgia by Nader Shah of Iran, in his two successive campaigns of 1734 and 1735, by which the latter quickly reestablished Persian rule over Georgia. Teimuraz sided with the Persians and was installed as a Persian vali (governor) in Kakheti, while Kilij Ali-Khan (Khanjal) was made that of neighboring Kartli. However, many Georgian nobles refused to accept the new regime and rose in rebellion in response to heavy tribute levied by Nader upon the Georgian provinces. Nonetheless, Teimuraz and Heraclius remained loyal to the shah, partly in order to prevent the comeback of the rival Mukhrani branch, whose fall early in the 1720s had opened the way to Teimuraz's accession in Kartli. From 1737 to 1739, Heraclius commanded a Georgian auxiliary force during Nader's expedition in India and gained a reputation of an able military commander. He then served as a lieutenant to his father and assumed the regency when Teimuraz was briefly summoned for consultations in the Persian capital of Isfahan in 1744. In the meantime, Heraclius defeated a coup attempt by the rival Georgian prince Abdullah Beg of the Mukhrani dynasty and helped Teimuraz suppress the aristocratic opposition to the Persian hegemony led by Givi Amilakhvari. As a reward, Nader granted the kingship of Kartli to Teimuraz and of Kakheti to Heraclius in 1744, and also arranged the marriage of his nephew Ali-Qoli Khan, who eventually would succeed him as Adil Shah, to Teimuraz's daughter Kethevan.

Nader's death and reign in Kakheti
Yet, both Georgian kingdoms remained under heavy Persian tribute until Nader was assassinated in 1747. Teimuraz and Heraclius took advantage of the ensuing political instability in Persia to assert their independence and expelled Persian garrisons from all key positions in Georgia, including Tbilisi. In close cooperation with each other, they managed to prevent a new revolt by the Mukhranian supporters fomented by Ebrahim Khan, brother of Adel Shah, in 1748. They concluded an anti-Persian alliance with the khans of Azerbaijan who were particularly vulnerable to the aggression from Persian warlords and agreed to recognize Heraclius's supremacy in eastern Transcaucasia. In 1749, he occupied Yerevan, and in June 1751, Heraclius defeated a large army commanded by a pretender to the Persian throne and his former ally, Azat-Khan in the Battle of Kirkhbulakh. After these particular events, Heraclius could largely afford to ignore the changing situation to the south of the Aras River. In 1752, the Georgian kings sent a mission to Russia to request 3,000 Russian troops or a subsidy to enable them to hire Circassian mercenaries in order to invade Persia and install a pro-Russian government there. The embassy failed to yield any results, however, for the Russian court was preoccupied with European affairs.

King of Kartli and Kakheti
Around the same time, it had become apparent that Mashhad, a minor Afsharid remnant, was no longer functioning as the seat of the Iranian government. In 1762, Teimuraz II died while on a diplomatic mission to the court of St. Petersburg, and Heraclius succeeded him as King of Kartli, thus uniting eastern Georgia politically for the first time in three centuries. In 1762–1763, during Karim Khan Zand's campaigns in Azerbaijan, Heraclius II tendered his de jure submission to him and received his investiture as vali ("governor", "viceroy") of Gorjestan (Georgia), the traditional Safavid office, which by this time however had become an "empty honorific".

Alliance with Russia
In foreign policy, Heraclius was primarily focused on seeking a reliable protector that would guarantee Georgia's survival. He chose Russia not only because it was Orthodox Christian, but in Lang's account also because it would serve as a link to Europe, which he thought a model for Georgia's development as a modern nation. Yet, Heraclius's initial cooperation with Russia proved disappointing. His participation in the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774) did not lead to an anticipated reconquest of the Ottoman-held southern Georgian lands, for the Russian commanders in Georgia behaved in a highly condescending, often treacherous way, and Empress Catherine II treated the Caucasus front as merely a secondary theater of military operations. Still, Heraclius continued to seek firmer alliance with Russia, his immediate motivation being the Persian ruler Karim Khan's attempts to bring Georgia back into the Persian sphere of influence. Karim Khan's death in 1779 temporarily relieved Heraclius of these dangers, as Persia again became engulfed in chaos.

In 1783, the Russian expansion southward into the Crimea brought the Caucasus into Catherine II's area of interest. In the Treaty of Georgievsk of 1783, Heraclius finally obtained the guarantees he had sought from Russia, transforming Georgia into a Russian protectorate, as Heraclius formally repudiated all legal ties to Persia and placed his foreign policy under the Russian supervision. However, during the Russo-Turkish War (1787–1792), a Tbilisi-based small Russian force evacuated Georgia, leaving Heraclius to face new dangers from Persia alone. In 1790 Heraclius concluded the Treaty of the Iberians with western Georgian polities.

Qajar invasion
Mohammad Khan Qajar, who had managed to bring most of central Iranian plateau under his firm control by 1794, was inclined to revive the Persian Empire with the Caucasus again as its part. In 1795, after a swift reconquest of much of southeastern Caucasus, he demanded that Heraclius reacknowledged Persian suzerainty, promising in return to confirm him as vali. Heraclius refused, and in September 1795, the Persian army of 35,000 moved into Georgia. After the valiant defense of Tbilisi at the Battle of Krtsanisi, in which the king participated personally in the advance guard, Heraclius's small army of 5000 men was almost completely annihilated and Tbilisi completely sacked. While becoming a witness of the fearful devastation of his capital and slaughter of its civilians, king Heraclius, who did not want to leave the battlefield and the city was spirited away by the last of his bodyguards and a few family members. The Persian invasion delivered a hard blow to Georgia from which it was not able to recover. Despite being abandoned at the critical moment, he still had to rely on belated Russian support and fought, in 1796, alongside the Russian expeditionary forces sent by Catherine into the Persian territories. But her death that year brought an abrupt change of policy in the Caucasus, and her successor Paul I again withdrew all Russian troops from the region. Agha Mohammad launched his second campaign to punish the Georgians for their alliance with Russia. However, his assassination in 1797 spared Kartli-Kakheti more devastation.

Coinage
Heraclius II's "curiously ambivalent position" in these decades is reflected in the coins issued by him in his realm. Silver coins were struck with the name of Ismail III on it, or with the Zand-style inscription ya karim ("O Gracious One"), whereby an epithet to God was invoked, which actually referred to Karim Khan Zand. These coins were minted in Tbilisi up until 1799 – some twenty years after Karim Khan Zand's death. In the same decades, the copper coins struck at Tbilisi bore three types of iconography; Christian, Georgian, "and even" Imperial Russian (such as the double-headed eagle). By minting the silver coins with a reference to Karim Khan Zand on it they were usable for trade in Iran, whereas the copper coins, struck for only local use, reflected Heraclius II's political orientation towards Russia.

Court, efforts and final years
While maintaining certain Persian-type pomp at his court, he launched an ambitious program of "Europeanization" which was supported by the Georgian intellectual élites, but was not overwhelmingly successful because Georgia remained physically isolated from Europe and had to expend all available resources on defending its precarious independence. He strove to enlist the support of European powers and to attract Western scientists and technicians to give his country the benefit of the latest military and industrial techniques. His style of governing resembled that of contemporary enlightened despots in Central Europe. He exercised executive, legislative, and judicial authority and closely supervised the activities of government departments. Heraclius's primary objective in internal policy was to further centralize the government through reducing the powers of the aristocracy. For this purpose, he attempted to create a governing élite composed of his own agents to replace the self-minded aristocratic lords in local affairs. At the same time, he encouraged peasant-vassals to supply the military force necessary to overcome the aristocracy's resistance and protect the country from incessant marauding assaults from Dagestan known to Georgians as Lekianoba. In the words of the British historian David Marshall Lang, "his vigilance in the care of his people knew no bounds. On campaign, he would sit up at night watching for the enemy, while in time of peace, he spent his life in transacting business of state or in religious exercise, and devoted but a few hours to sleep."

Heraclius died in 1798 still convinced that only Russian protection could ensure the continued existence of his country. He was succeeded by his weak and sickly son, George XII, after whose death Tsar Paul I annexed, in 1801, Kartli-Kakheti to Russia, terminating both Georgia's independence and a millennium-long rule of the Bagrationi dynasty.

Reforms
During his reign, Heraclius enacted several reforms. Printing in Tbilisi resumed in 1749 and Heraclius set up his press. He wanted to print canonical liturgical texts and to standardize a language. During his rule, over 40 titles were printed, almost all liturgical, in runs of up to 1000. Heraclius strengthened royal authority and organized it on Russian lines. He launched efforts to repopulate the lands of Kartli-Kakheti, abandoned due to constant wars and other social reasons. For this purpose, he appointed agents, Mkrelebi, who were tasked with returning refugee serfs in Nakhichevan and Karabakh back to their lands, even with violence. He also lured migrants with tax exemptions for them. Heraclius approved violence to stop serfs from complaining, but landowners were blamed for runaways and a severe punishment was employed on them for sexually abusing their serfs. Heraclius had hard time disciplining his nobles. He forbade selling serfs without land twice in 1754 and 1770. He, the Catholicos and the Darbazi announced that prisoners of war and slaves would become free peasants on crown lands. Under Heraclius’s rule, freemen were more common as some Church peasants and veteran soldiers became freemen, but in overall most of the peasants remained still serfs.

Heraclius modernized agriculture by growing new varieties of grain in Tusheti. Grain became chipper and famines ended. Peasants paid taxes in fruit or walnuts. Factories were producing sugar, glass, cloth and armaments. Half of a tonne of silver was produced each year. For this purpose, Heraclius invited Greek miners from Levan to work in gold and silver deposits in Akhtala. Inheritance laws were passed which introduced protections for properties of merchants against the crown. Customs duty was set at two and a half percent and revenues increased in the 1760s. Under Heraclius, mdivanbegis sasamartlo (chief secretary's courts) was formed, while the king’s Darbazi was functioning as a permanent supreme court and privy council. There were two ministers of foreign affairs: one Christian and one Muslim. Heraclius also created a police force. Ancient universities of Tiflis and Telavi were restored, where Bachmeister was taught.

Heraclius's policies and explotation of peasants by landowners often resulted in rebellions: when lord Eliozashvili demanded more than the usual 50 days' work on his estates, serfs revolted and attacked his family, burned his church and stole casks of wine. In 1773, Pshav tribesmen destroyed castle of their lord and held him hostage, while in 1777, Ksani peasents revolted against the initiative of Heraclius to reestablish Duchy of Ksani, abolished by his father. In 1780, Heraclius introduced bonds which compelled the wealthy to lend three tumans to the state, which also faced opposition.

In 1770s, Heraclius reformed his army with Russian advisers, training manuals and ranks. He created a regiment of guards based on the European model. An army was permanently paid, although it was still allowed to loot. Tbilisi had a gunpowder factory, although in a state of ramshackle. In 1774, Heraclius introduced mandatory conscription – one man from household served one month per year on his own expenses. Civic development lagged behind and plague resulted in 4,000 deaths in 1770.

Due to the Lezgin raids on population and unwillingness of the peasants to submit to the conscription, Heraclius heavily relied on recruiting foreign mercenaries, particularly among Cherkess clan, which was more civil than Lezgins and had a close sympathy towards Georgians.

Family
Heraclius II was married three times; first, he married Princess Ketevan née Orbeliani in 1738 or Princess Ketevan née Mkheidze in 1740. According to a relatively recently established version, Princess Orbeliani was repudiated by Heraclius before the marriage actually took place. Instead, he married Princess Mkheidze, who died in 1744. Of his first marriage, Heraclius two children:

 * Vakhtang (b. 1742 – d. Tbilisi, 1 February 1756), Duke of Aragvi (1747); married Princess Kethevan of Mukhrani, no issue.
 * Rusadan (b. before 1744; died young)

In 1745 Heraclius remarried Princess Anna née Abashidze (b. 1730 – d. Tbilisi, 7 December 1749). They had two children:
 * George (b. 10 October 1746 – d. Tbilisi, 28 December 1800), the last King of Georgia.
 * Tamar (b. 11 July 1749 – d. Tbilisi, 4 August 1786), married in 1762 Prince David Orbeliani.

In 1750, Heraclius married thirdly Darejan Dadiani (Daria; b. 20 July 1734 – d. 8 November 1808). They had 23 children:

 * Solomon (died 1765)
 * Elene (1753–1786), married 1stly 1770, Prince Archil of Imereti; 2ndly 1785 Prince Zakaria Andronikashvili
 * Mariam (1755–1828), married 1777 Davit Tsitsishvili, Prince of Zemo-Satsitsiano
 * Sophia (c. 1756; died young)
 * Levan (1756–1781)
 * Iulon (1760–1816)
 * Vakhtang (Almaskhan) (1761–1814)
 * Salome (c. 1761; died young)
 * Teimuraz (1763—1827)
 * Anastasia (b. Martkopi, 3 November 1763 – d. St. Petersburg, 17 January 1838), married 1797 Prince Revaz Eristavi of Ksani
 * Keteven (1764 – 5 July 1840), married 1stly 1781, Ioane, Prince of Mukhrani (1755–1801), with living descendants; 2ndly Prince Abel Andronikashvili (disputed)
 * Mirian (1767–1834)
 * Soslan-David (died c. 1767)
 * Alexander (1770–1844) who headed several insurrections against the Russian rule in Georgia between 1800 and 1832.
 * Archil (died c. 1771)
 * Luarsab (born 1772; died young)
 * Ekaterina (1774–1818), married in 1793 Prince Giorgi Irubakidzé-Cholokashvili.
 * Tekle (1776 – 11 March 1846), married in 1800 Prince Vakhtang Jambakurian-Orbeliani.
 * Parnaoz (1777–1852)

Legacy
King Heraclius occupies a special place among the Georgian monarchs, with his name being associated with chivalry and valour among Georgians. However, Heraclius's decision to sign Treaty of Georgievsk with Russia has been a matter of dispute among Georgians since the 19th century. It has been reported that those with different views on how to manage relations with Russia accordingly have different interpretations of Heraclius's move. For example, the "Society of Erekle II", established in 2009, seeks closer ties with Russia as opposed to the integration with the West. They primarily justify their position by alluding to Heraclius's decision and claim that the Orthodox kinship with Russia was of paramount importance to preserve Georgian nationhood, while European culture may pose a threat to Georgian spirituality, especially Orthodox Christianity as a pillar of Georgianness. Others who hold more pro-Western views emphasize that King Heraclius saw Russia as a window to European civilization.

Erekleoba is an annual, traditional public feast celebrated at Hereclius II's palace in Eastern Georgia's city of Telavi on November 7 to pay tribute to his memory.

title: Heraclius II of Georgia


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User talk:JSJT

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title: User talk:JSJT


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Robert E. Simon

Robert Edward Simon, Jr. (April 10, 1914 – September 21, 2015) was an American real estate entrepreneur, most known for founding the community of Reston, Virginia. He was the maternal uncle of feminist historian and writer Elizabeth Fox-Genovese.

Early life
Simon was born in New York City in 1914, the son of Robert Sr. and Elsa Weil Simon, immigrants from Germany. He was raised in Manhattan along with his four siblings. He was of Jewish descent.

Reston
After graduating from Harvard University, Simon took over the family real estate management and development business. In 1961, with the proceeds from the sale of a family property, Carnegie Hall, Simon purchased 6,750 acres (27 km2) of land in Fairfax County, Virginia and hired Conklin + Rossant to develop a master plan for the new town of Reston, Virginia, a planned community well known on the national level. (The town's name was derived from Simon's initials and the word "town".) Simon's new town concept emphasized quality of life for the individual and provided a community where people could live, work, and play without driving long distances.

Simon returned to live in an apartment near Lake Anne in Reston in 1993 and helped celebrate Reston's 40th birthday in 2004. In that same year a bronze statue of Simon was placed on a park bench in Washington Plaza on Lake Anne, the original heart of the community he built.

A collection of Simon's donated materials is housed at the Specials Collections Research Center at the George Mason University Libraries.

Personal life
Simon married four times. He was married to author and environmentalist Anne Wertheim Langman, daughter of Maurice Wertheim, and granddaughter of Henry Morgenthau Sr.

He died in Reston, Virginia in September 2015 at the age of 101. He was survived by his fourth wife (married 2004), Cheryl Terio-Simon; a daughter, Margo Prescott-Morris her 2 children (Robert's grandchildren) Christine Doolin, Noah Prescott along with great-grandchildren Sara Collier, Austin Ingram, Ashton Prescott and 8 great-great grandchildren. Also his six stepchildren, Karen Terio, Betsy Langman Schulberg (married and divorced from Budd Schulberg), Deborah Langman Lesser, Lucinda Zilk, Tom Langman, and Adam Terio.

title: Robert E. Simon


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Hyborian Age

The Hyborian Age is a fictional period of Earth's history within the artificial mythology created by Robert E. Howard, serving as the setting for the sword and sorcery tales of Conan the Barbarian.

The word "Hyborian" is derived from the legendary northern land of the ancient Greeks, Hyperborea, and it is rendered as such in the earliest draft of Howard's essay "The Hyborian Age". Howard described the Hyborian Age taking place sometime after the sinking of Atlantis and before the beginning of recorded ancient history. Most later editors and adaptors such as L. Sprague de Camp and Roy Thomas placed the Hyborian Age around 10,000 BC. More recently, Dale Rippke proposed that the Hyborian Age should be placed further in the past, around 32,500 BC, prior to the beginning of the Last Glacial Maximum. Rippke's date, however, has since been disputed by Jeffrey Shanks, who argues for the more traditional placement at the end of the Last Glacial Maximum.

Howard had an intense love for history and historical dramas; however, at the same time, he recognized the difficulties and the time-consuming research needed in maintaining historical accuracy. By conceiving a timeless setting – a vanished age – and by carefully choosing names that resembled our history, Howard avoided the problem of historical anachronisms and the need for lengthy exposition.

Cataclysmic ancestors
Howard explained the origins and history of the Hyborian civilization in his essay "The Hyborian Age". The essay begins with the end of the Thurian Age (the setting for Howard's King Kull stories) and the destruction of its civilizations, Lemuria and Atlantis, by a geological cataclysm.

After this cataclysm, the surviving humans were reduced to a primitive state and a technological level hardly above the Neanderthal. Several such tribes migrated to the northern areas of what was left of the Thurian continent to escape destruction. They discovered the region to be safe, but covered with snow and already inhabited by a race of vicious white-furred apes. A vicious territorial war ensued until the humans drove the apes further North, past the Arctic Circle. Believing the apes were destined to perish, the humans turned to taming their harsh new home.

Hyborian ancestors
One thousand five hundred years later, the descendants of this initial group were called "Hyborians". They were named after their highest ranking god deity, Bori. The essay mentions that Bori had actually been a great tribal chief of their past who had undergone deification. Their oral tradition remembered him as their leader during their initial migration to the north, though the antiquity of this man had been exaggerated.

By this point, the various related but independent Hyborian tribes had spread throughout the northern regions of their area of the world. Some of them were already migrating south at a "leisurely" pace in search of new areas in which to settle. The Hyborians had yet to encounter other cultural groups, but engaged in wars against each other. Howard describes them as a powerful and warlike race with the average individual being tall, tawny-haired, and gray-eyed. Culturally, they were accomplished artists and poets. Most of the tribes still relied on hunting for their nourishment. Their southern offshoots, however, had been practicing animal husbandry on cattle for centuries.

The only exception to their long isolation from other cultural groups came due to the actions of a lone adventurer, unnamed in the essay. He had traveled past the Arctic Circle and returned with news that their old adversaries, the apes, were never annihilated. They had instead evolved into apemen and, according to his description, were by then numerous. He believed they were quickly evolving to human status and would pose a threat to the Hyborians in the future. He attempted to recruit a significant military force to campaign against them, but most Hyborians were not convinced by his tales; only a small group of foolhardy youths followed his campaign. None of them returned.

Beginnings of the Hyborian Age
With the population of the Hyborian tribes continuing to increase, the need for new lands also increased. The Hyborians expanded outside their familiar territories, beginning a new age of wanderings and conquests. For 500 years, the Hyborians spread towards the south and the west of their nameless continent.

They encountered other tribal groups for the first time in millennia. They conquered many smaller clans of various origins. The survivors of the defeated clans merged with their conquerors, passing on their racial traits to new generations of Hyborians. The mixed-blooded Hyborian tribes were in turn forced to defend their new territories from pure-blooded Hyborian tribes which followed the same paths of migration. Often, the new invaders would wipe away the defenders before absorbing them, resulting in a tangled web of Hyborian tribes and nations with varying ancestral elements within their bloodlines.

The first organized Hyborian kingdom to emerge was Hyperborea. The tribe that established it entered their Neolithic age by learning to erect buildings in stone, largely for fortification. These nomads lived in tents made out of the hides of horses, but soon abandoned them in favor of their crude but durable stone houses. They permanently settled in fortified settlements and developed cyclopean masonry to further fortify their defensive walls.

The Hyperboreans were by then the most advanced of the Hyborian tribes and set out to expand their kingdom by attacking their backwards neighbors. Tribes who defended their territories lost them and were forced to migrate elsewhere. Others fled the path of Hyperborean expansion before ever engaging them in war. Meanwhile, the apemen of the Arctic Circle emerged as a new race of light-haired and tall humans. They started their own migration to the south, displacing the northernmost of the Hyborian tribes.

Rulers of the West
For the next thousand years, the warlike Hyborian nations advanced to become the rulers of the western areas of the nameless continent. They encountered the Picts and forced them back to the western wastelands, which would come to be known as the "Pictish Wilderness". Following the example of their Hyperborean cousins, other Hyborians migrated Southward and created their own kingdoms.

The southernmost of the early kingdoms was Koth, which was established north of the lands of Shem and soon started extending its cultural influence over the southern shepherds. Just south of the Pictish Wilderness was the fertile valley known as "Zing". The wandering Hyborian tribe which conquered it found other people already settled there. They included a nameless farming nation related to the people of the Shem and a warlike Pictish tribe who had previously conquered them. They established the kingdom of Zingara and absorbed the defeated elements into their tribe. Hyborians, Picts, and the unnamed kin of the Shemites would merge into a nation calling themselves Zingarans.

On the other hand, at the north of the continent, the fair-haired invaders from the Arctic Circle had grown in numbers and power. They continued their expansion south while in turn displacing defeated Hyborians to the south. Even Hyperborea was conquered by one of these barbarian tribes. But the conquerors here decided to maintain the kingdom with its old name, merged with the defeated Hyperboreans and adopted elements of Hyborian culture. The continuing wars and migrations would keep the state of the other areas of the continent for another five hundred years.

The world

The Hyborian Age was devised by author Robert E. Howard as the post-Atlantean setting of his Conan the Cimmerian stories, designed to fit in with Howard's previous and lesser known tales of Kull, which were set in the Thurian Age at the time of Atlantis. The name "Hyborian" is a contraction of the Greek concept of the land of "Hyperborea", literally "Beyond the North Wind". This was a mythical place far to the north that was not cold and where things did not age.

Howard's Hyborian epoch, described in his essay The Hyborian Age, is a mythical time before any civilization known to anthropologists. Its setting is prehistoric Europe and North Africa (with occasional references to Asia and other continents).

On a map Howard drew conceptualizing the Hyborian Age, his vision of the Mediterranean Sea is dry. The Nile, which he renamed the River Styx, takes a westward turn at right angles just beyond the Nile Delta, plowing through the mountains so as to be able to reach the Straits of Gibraltar. Although his Black Sea is also dry, his Caspian Sea, which he renames the Vilayet Sea, extends northward to reach the Arctic Ocean, so as to provide a barrier to encapsulate the settings of his stories. Not only are his Baltic Sea and English Channel dry, but most of the North Sea and a vast region to the west, easily including Ireland, are, too. Meanwhile, the west coast of Africa on his map lies beneath the sea.

Nations and landmarks
In his fantasy setting of the Hyborian Age, Howard created imaginary kingdoms to which he gave names inspired by or adapted from a variety of mythological and historical sources. Khitai is his version of China, lying far to the east; Corinthia is his name for a Hellenistic civilization, a name derived from the city of Corinth and reminiscent of the imperial fief of Carinthia in the Middle Ages. Howard imagines the Hyborian Picts occupying a large area in the northwest. The probable intended analogues are listed below; notice that the analogues are sometimes very generalized, and are portrayed by non-historical stereotypes. Most of these correspondences are drawn from "Hyborian Names", an appendix featured in Conan the Swordsman by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter.

Deities
The Stygian followers of Set worship their deity with human sacrifice and actively venerate serpents, and Ishtar's worshippers follow the pleasures of the flesh. In Vendhya, the followers of Asura seek truth beyond the illusions of the physical world, and the Hyborian devotees of Mitra are almost Christian in their merging of asceticism with a commitment to compassion and justice.

Crom
Crom is a deity in Robert E. Howard's fantasy tales of the Hyborian Age. He is acknowledged as the chief god by the lead character Conan, and his proto-Celtic Cimmerian people.

The name Crom is probably derived from the Old Irish deity Crom Cruach or Crom Dubh.

Crom is the chief god of the Cimmerian pantheon, and he lives on a great mountain, from where he sends forth doom or death. It is considered useless to call upon Crom, because he is a gloomy and savage god who hates weaklings. However, Crom gives a man courage, free will, and the strength to fight his enemies, which the Cimmerians believe is all that is needed from him. Crom doesn't care if individuals live or die, and his name is typically only invoked as an oath or curse. He is the only member of the Cimmerian pantheon named with any regularity.

Crom is never depicted as directly intervening or otherwise explicitly causing any event in the original Conan stories by Robert E. Howard. There is little consistent evidence in his works that Crom actually exists, in contrast to the demons and highly advanced aliens appearing in "The God in the Bowl" and "The Tower of the Elephant", while the story "The Phoenix on the Sword" implies that Set is one of H. P. Lovecraft's Great Old Ones. Howard's story "Black Colossus" features a princess vocally directed by Mitra to recruit Conan as her champion, but Crom makes no such appearances.

Crom is exclusively a Cimmerian god, with other civilizations paying him little attention, and Conan swearing with Crom's name immediately identifies him as a Cimmerian.

Mitra
Mitra is a personification of good, popular amongst people of the era.

He is probably loosely based on the Vedic and Zoroastrian figure by the same name, and in the Hyborian universe, his worship generally represents Christianity. In the essay "The Hyborian Age", Howard writes that followers of Mitra are urged to forgive their enemies (though many of them fail to do so). Mitra's religion is missionary; its adherents are sometimes martyred trying to spread their faith to hostile peoples.

Mitra's worship is dominant, effectively the state religion, in the Hyborian countries corresponding to modern Western Europe. In lands corresponding to Asia and Africa, Mitra is, at best, one god among many, and his worship is forbidden in Stygia (Egypt and North Africa).

Mitra is the chief god of most of the civilized Hyborian kingdoms, including Aquilonia, Ophir, Nemedia, Brythunia, Corinthia, and Zingara. His worshippers are monolatristic, since at least one tale depicts priests of Mitra recognizing the existence of Set. He is depicted as a "gentle" god. In Khoraja, which is on the border between the Hyborian kingdoms and the Shemite ones, the worship of Mitra was largely forgotten in favor of the Shemite gods – but in hours of great need, Khorajans still call on Mitra and are answered ("Black Colossus").

While Mitra and his followers are in general presented favorably in the Conan stories, in Howard's The Hour of the Dragon they intolerantly persecute followers of Asura. Conan, being a "barbarian", does not share this "civilized" prejudice and protects Asura's followers, who prove helpful later.

The Mitra cult never practices sacrifice and values aesthetic simplicity. Thus, his shrines are usually unadorned and feature little or no iconography except for a single idol. The idol itself has the appearance of an idealized, bearded male figure and is the primary object of worship. However, being omnipresent and incorporeal, Mitra is not considered to reside in the icon, nor share its appearance. He is also symbolically represented by a phoenix in Howard's writing, by an Ankh in the Age of Conan MMORPG, and by a bronze colossus in the survival video game Conan Exiles.

Mitra appears directly in Howard's "Black Colossus", where he speaks to Princess Yasmela of Khoraja and guides her in an hour of desperate danger. Mitra's involvement has a significant effect on Conan's career. Though he had never commanded more than a "company of cut-throats", Conan emerges as a victorious general in a historically important battle involving tens of thousands of soldiers. Though Conan's career would know many more ups and downs, this was an important step towards eventually becoming a king. From Mitra's point of view, Conan was evidently the best choice to defeat a sworn enemy of the Hyborian kingdoms.

Skelos
Skelos is mentioned in "The People of the Black Circle", "The Hour of the Dragon" and in the verse prologue to "The Pool of the Black One". He is an evil god of death, and as many such ones, Odin for one, he is connected to wisdom and learning. The Bible of maltheists and necromancers in Conan’s days is called "The Book of Skelos", whose author is Vathelos the Blind.

The blind seer Tiresias in Greek mythology was strongly connected to Hades, the realm of the dead. In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus travels to Cimmeria, the forecourt of Hades, to confer with the shade of Tiresias.

Vatellen is the name of a volcanic mountain in reality lying where Luxor, capital of Stygia lies in the world of Conan. In "The Hour of the Dragon" Orastes resurrects Xaltotun with an incantation of Skelos, "Ancient when Atlantis was young", i.e. much older than Stygia, let alone Set-worship. The idol worshipped by the dark priest-mage Rotath in the Kull story "The Curse of the Golden Skull" seems to be a grinning skull. In this story an earlier version of "The Book of Skelos" is mentioned. The god of Rotath is identical with the dark nameless god worshipped by Thuron in "The Altar and the Scorpion". Skelos is one aspect of this great nameless one.

title: Hyborian Age


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1898 in rail transport

March

 * March 16 – Original Finnish Railway Museum opens in Helsinki.

April

 * April 1 – The Aberlady, Gullane and North Berwick Railway opens between Aberlady Junction and Gullane, Scotland.
 * April 20 – Electrification of the South Side Elevated Railway in Chicago is completed ending all steam locomotive operations on the route. Multiple-unit (M.U.) train control is also introduced by railroad engineer Frank J. Sprague.

May

 * May – E. H. Harriman becomes chairman of the executive committee for the Union Pacific Railroad.
 * May 11 – The Lynton and Barnstaple Railway in England opens.
 * May 16 – Passenger service is inaugurated on the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway.

June

 * June 12 – Regular revenue service begins on the Detroit, Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor Railway in Michigan.

July

 * July 3 – Rail transport in Sudan: Desert railway from Wadi Halfa completed to Atbara by British military engineers on 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in) gauge.
 * July 11 – Opening of the London and South Western Railway’s Waterloo & City line, the second deep-level electrified "tube" railway in London.
 * July 21 – First section of White Pass and Yukon Route opens out of Skagway, Alaska, first railroad in the territory.
 * July 23 – Brooks Locomotive Works completes its 3,000th new steam locomotive.
 * July 30 – The Société des Chemins de fer vicinaux du Mayumbe (CVM) is created to build and operate a network of gauge railways in the province of Lower Congo, in the Congo Free State, with a planned extension to the Republic of the Congo.

September

 * September 2 – The Wellingborough rail accident in England kills 7 people.

October

 * October 17 – The Wrawby Junction rail crash in England kills 9 people.

Unknown date

 * Sunset magazine is founded as a promotional tool of the Southern Pacific Railroad.
 * The Loup Creek & Deepwater railway is officially renamed Deepwater Railway

Deaths

 * March 6 – Hugh J. Jewett, president of the Erie Railroad 1874–1884 (b. 1817).
 * October 12 – John M. Forbes, president of the Michigan Central Railroad and the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad (b. 1813).
 * November 20 – Sir John Fowler, British civil engineer (b. 1817).
 * December 15 – Calvin S. Brice, president of Lake Erie and Western Railroad, builder of Nickel Plate Road (b. 1845).

title: 1898 in rail transport


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Alex Baumann

Alexander Baumann, (born April 21, 1964) is a Canadian sports administrator and former competitive swimmer who won two gold medals and set two world records at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. In 2007, he was regarded by the national broadcaster as "the greatest swimmer in Canadian history", as the twin Olympic gold medals were Canada's first in swimming since 1912.

Since he retired from competitive swimming, he has worked as an administrator in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

In May 2021, Baumann was appointed Chief Executive of Swimming Australia. At the end of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics held in 2021, Baumann subsequently resigned the position of CEO in August 2021, citing health reasons.

Early years
Born in Prague (former Czechoslovakia), Baumann was raised in Canada after his family moved there in 1969 following the Prague Spring. The family settled in Sudbury, Ontario, where, at the age of nine, Baumann became involved in competitive swimming, training at Laurentian University.

Olympic career
By the time he was seventeen, Baumann owned 38 Canadian swimming records and the world record in the 200-metre individual medley. He accepted a swimming scholarship and entered Indiana University to train under its legendary coach James "Doc" Counsilman; however with chronic pain in his shoulder, he made the decision to return to Sudbury to continue physical therapy and training under the direction of his long-time coach, Dr. Jeno Tihanyi. Forced to sit out the 1982 World Aquatic Championships in Ecuador due to his injury, Baumann's training progressed enough that he was able to win gold in both 200 and 400-metre individual medley events at the 1982 Commonwealth Games in Brisbane, Australia, lowering his world record in the 200-metre event to 2:02.25 in the process. It was here that he met his future wife Australian swimmer Tracey Taggart. He also won the 400-metre individual medley event at the 1983 World University Games.

Prior to the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, Baumann's father died of complications from diabetes and his brother, Roman, died by suicide. Baumann persevered through these tragedies, as well as his lingering tendinitis and shoulder injuries, to enter the Olympics as one of Canada's best Olympic hopes.

At the 1984 Olympics, Baumann was selected as Canada's flagbearer for the opening ceremonies. He won gold medals in the 400-metre individual medley, setting a world record time of 4:17.41, and the 200-metre race, lowering the world mark to 2:01.42. The 400-metre gold was Canada's first in swimming since 1912.

Baumann continued his swimming career with three gold medals at the 1986 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh in the two individual medley events, and swimming anchor on Canada's 4 × 100 m medley relay team. However, later that year, he won a silver and a bronze at the 1986 World Aquatics Championships in Madrid, Spain losing to a 19-year-old Hungarian swimmer, Tamás Darnyi.

Baumann shared a close bond with his coach of 14 years, Dr. Jeno Tihanyi. After the 1984 Olympics, the two authored a book titled Swimming with Alex Baumann: A Program for Competitive and Recreational Swimmers.

Sports administration
Subsequent to the 1987 Pacific Championships in Australia, Baumann retired from competitive swimming, initially working with Canadian broadcaster CBC for the 1988 Olympics, and also returning to Sudbury as a coach until 1991. Some speculated that Baumann was unable to find a coaching position due to his outspokenness. He criticized the Canadian Olympic Committee for dismissing Don Talbot and replacing him with Dave Johnson, as it was widely alleged that Talbot was fired for refusing to put the daughter of a Committee member on the national team. Baumann also criticized Swimming Canada for its subpar performances at the Commonwealth Games in Auckland in 1990.

1996-2006: In Queensland Australia
Baumann moved to Australia to enter graduate studies at the University of Queensland before becoming manager of sport programs with the Queensland Academy of Sport between 1996 and 1997. He then held various positions with the Queensland Government before becoming CEO of Queensland Swimming in 1999.

After a poor showing by Canada at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Baumann felt he had more to offer Canadian sport, and expressed interest in taking on the vacant leadership position at the Canadian Olympic Committee; however, the COC felt he did not have the business background to handle the job. Ultimately, Baumann was not offered the Canadian Olympic Committee position. This caused some controversy and criticism in Canada as many Canadian athletes and citizens felt he was the best choice for the job. A number of foreign sports organizations felt the same way, and he was courted heavily by the English Institute of Sport and the Queensland Academy of Sport, ultimately accepting the position of executive director for the Queensland Academy of Sport in 2002.

In 2004, after a dismal showing by Canada at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, in which they failed to medal and their best finish was sixth place, head coach Dave Johnson was fired. The COC offered Baumann the CEO or head coaching position of Swimming Canada (Karen Spierkel had resigned as CEO on 3 May 2003 after the controversy surrounding Jennifer Carroll waving a Quebec flag on the podium during the 2002 Commonwealth Games) but he turned both down, saying that he would remain with the Queensland Academy. Several commentators panned Baumann as hypocritical as he was publicly critical of the Canadian swim program for several years from 2000 to 2004, right up to the Athens Olympics. In response, Baumann toned down his criticism.

2006-2012: Head of Canada's Summer Olympic Program
On 27 September 2006, the Canadian Olympic Committee announced that Baumann was hired to take over Canada's Road to Excellence initiative beginning in January 2007. Canada had achieved mediocre results at the 2004 Athens Olympics with a tally of only 12 medals in all events, which resulted in an overall 21st place national showing. These poor results prompted much criticism from Canadians. At that time, Baumann announced a goal for Team Canada: a top 16 finish in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and a top 12 finish at the 2012 London Games.

In the Beijing event, for the first time Canadian athletes were paid for medals earned. Gold medalists earned $20,000; silver medalists were paid $15,000; and bronze medalists $10,000. A total of $515,000 from the Athlete Excellence Fund was given to the medal winning athletes. At the Beijing Olympiad, Canada wound up finishing 19th in gold medals and 14th in total medals, and Baumann's methods were vindicated.

In the 2012 London Olympic Games with the initiation of its "Own the Podium" programme, Canada finished 13th in total medals, thus improving on its performance in Beijing while falling somewhat short of its self-declared goal of 12th position. It finished the event with 18 medals: one gold, five silver and 12 bronze.

2012-2017: Head of High Performance Sport New Zealand
On 15 January 2012, High Performance Sport New Zealand announced the appointment of Baumann to the role of Chief Executive, effective 31 January 2012.

Baumann resigned in June 2017 due to the desire to move back to Australia to be closer to his children and extended family. Whilst he was in this position at the 2016 Rio Olympics, New Zealand won 18 medals in nine different sports, of which four were gold.

Swimming Australia
In April 2021 Alex Baumann was appointed as the Chief Executive of Swimming Australia. In December 2017, Swimming Australia announced that it had appointed Baumann to the new role as Swimming Australia's Chief Strategist, High Performance.

On 9 August 2021 Baumann announced his resignation as the CEO of Swimming Australia after only 3 months of tenure, citing health concerns and wanting to spend more time with his family.

Awards and honours
Baumann was named Canada's male athlete of the year for 1984 and was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. He was also named as the Male World Swimmer of the Year by Swimming World magazine in the same year. In 1988, he was awarded the Order of Ontario.

Baumann was inducted into the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame in 1999.

Baumann was named Honorary Colonel of 412 VIP Transport Squadron of the Royal Canadian Air Force based in Ottawa in June 2011.

In 2012, Baumann received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.

Personal life
Baumann is married to Tracey Taggart, an Australian swimmer he met during the Brisbane 1982 Commonwealth Games. They married on 30 April 1988, and have two children: Tabitha and Ashton Baumann.

In March 2009, Baumann swam at the Ontario Masters Swim Championships. It was his first swim meet in 22 years. He continued where he left off, beating the world record in the 200 metre individual medley in the 45-49 age group category by more than 3.3 seconds with a time of 2:12.01.

His son, Ashton Baumann, is also a swimmer.

title: Alex Baumann


text:
Talk:Telepolis

I put in stuff on 1st printed edition. --hughey 22:12, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

According to the German article, Telepolis received the European prize for online journalism for his coverage of the ENFOPOL and not the ECHELON project. See: http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/special/enfo.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.207.254.104 (talk) 10:53, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

 * The price was given before the reorientation of the magazine. After 911 Telepolis became a very different, very nasty thing. Honestly, nowadays I would consider it the german breitbart. Sounds like a joke: it once started as a left-wing publication. After the reorientation in 2001 they startet to bring left-wing-conspiracy-theories into right-wing-bubbles and after little adoption they where quickly accepted by the far-right movements like Reichsbürger, Querdenker and so on. Thus proving that the political spectrum is a circle where extremists meet at one point. Crass Spektakel (talk) 01:01, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

It sometimes publishes crude conspiracy theories to find out if anyone is paying attention. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:628:2050:0:0:0:6:4 (talk) 13:28, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

title: Talk:Telepolis