text:
GSS

GSS may refer to:

Education

 * Garibaldi Secondary School, in Maple Ridge, British Columbia, Canada
 * The Gifted Students' School (Iraq), in Baghdad
 * Government Secondary School (disambiguation)
 * Greenridge Secondary School, in Singapore
 * Grimsby Secondary School, in Ontario, Canada
 * GSS Institute of Technology, in Bangalore, India
 * Gay Student Services, now GLBT Aggies, at Texas A&M University

Government and politics

 * Global Standards Symposium
 * Civic Alliance of Serbia (Serbian: Građanski Savez Srbije), a political party in Serbia
 * Government Statistical Service, of the Government of the United Kingdom
 * Israeli General Security Service, also known as Shin Bet
 * Ghana Statistical Service, of the Government of Ghana

Science

 * General Social Survey
 * Genome survey sequence
 * Gerstmann–Sträussler–Scheinker syndrome
 * Glutathione synthetase
 * Granulomatous slack skin
 * Gudjonsson suggestibility scale

Sport

 * Grønlands Seminarius Sportklub, a Greenlandic sport club
 * Gurpreet Singh Sandhu, an Indian footballer
 * Panionios G.S.S., a Greek association football club

Technology

 * Generic Security Services Application Program Interface, an application programming interface for programs to access security services
 * Graph Style Sheets
 * GSS Infotech, an Indian information technology company
 * Graph-structured stack
 * Galileo Sensor Station, in satellite navigation

Other uses

 * Croatian Mountain Rescue Service (Croatian: Gorska Služba Spašavanja)
 * Ghost Shadows, a Chinese-American gang
 * Global Supply Systems, a British cargo airline
 * Good Samaritan Society, a Canadian Lutheran service organization
 * Great Singapore Sale, an annual shopping event in Singapore
 * Greek Sign Language
 * Grupo Silvio Santos, a Brazilian holding company
 * Guild of Servants of the Sanctuary, in the Church of England

title: GSS


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Gula Iro language

The Gula Iro language (autonym kùláál) is a Bua language spoken by some 3,500 people (in 1991) north and east of Lake Iro in southern Chad, between the Bola and Salamat rivers. It has four dialects, according to Pairault:
 * páṭóól (350 speakers), the northernmost and the least comprehensible to speakers of the other dialects, spoken in and around Badi;
 * pòŋààl (2,000 speakers), by the north shore of the lake, spoken in and around Boum Kabir, Boum Sarher, and Tordjigel;
 * tɩ́ààlà (730 speakers), spoken east and south of the lake, including Kouré, Bouni, Tormorhal, and Masidjanga;
 * tííṭààl (200 speakers), the easternmost, spoken in various villages west of Tamba;

to which Ethnologue adds a fifth, Korintal (170 speakers), spoken in Tieou.

Gula Iro is very closely related to Zan Gula and Bon Gula, but they are not mutually comprehensible.

Phonology
The consonants, along with their orthography, are:

The vowels are: a, e, i, o, u, ɛ, ɩ, ɔ, ʋ. Nasalization (only on a, e, o) and length are both contrastive, and diphthongs can be formed. Tone is phonemic; each vowel must carry high or low tone.

Grammar
Typical word order is subject–verb–object. The basic subject pronouns are: ñó I, mó you (sg.), á he/she/it, pʋ́ we (exclusive), én we (inclusive), í you (pl.), ʋ́ they.

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

title: Gula Iro language


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of WWE Light Heavyweight Champions

 This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was KEEP. dbenbenn | talk 03:06, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

List of WWE Light Heavyweight Champions
This page is an empty list that was created in September. After nearly 5 months, there is not a single wrestler's name on it. If this article isn't expanded soon, it should be deleted. slambo 19:26, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree with slambo. This page could be encyclopedic, but it's essentially an empty page right now. There's been plenty of time to expand this article. Delete. Carrp | Talk 19:32, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. Had plenty of time to expand. --Woohookitty 19:46, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * ok, ok... sorry i forgot about it after i created it and all the other title histories, I concentrated more on the current titles... i will get info and update in the next week. Dont Delete Paulley 19:55, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, If you wish to expand it, recreate it when you have the time. Inter 20:01, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep I will take Paulley at their word that they will expand article within VfD period. Note to admins: If article remains empty at time of VfD tally, feel free to ignore my vote or count it as delete. Andrew Lenahan - St ar bli nd  20:06, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)
 * Ditto Starblinds vote Kappa 04:23, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete unless expanded written. Requested articles is there for a reason. —Korath (Talk) 20:20, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep now. —Korath (Talk) 07:00, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, another trivial unhelpful list, hardly anything in this article as is. Megan1967 01:44, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep The original maker of the page wants to add more(see above) - but don't leave empty again max rspct 22:58, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep, potential for expansion. —RaD Man (talk) 09:53, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * KEEP... lol sorry for leaving empty for so long. Info has been added so no need for deletion Paulley 15:27, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * KEEP good save! I withdraw my delete nomination.  slambo 20:29, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. Well done Paulley. Comprehensive list Capitalistroadster
 * Keep. Thats ok, its what im here for. Paulley 15:29, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.


text: Category:Welsh science fiction writers

title: Category:Welsh science fiction writers


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Total relation

In mathematics, a binary relation R ⊆ X×Y between two sets X and Y is total (or left total) if the source set X equals the domain {x : there is a y with xRy }. Conversely, R is called right total if Y equals the range {y : there is an x with xRy }.

When f: X → Y is a function, the domain of f is all of X, hence f is a total relation. On the other hand, if f is a partial function, then the domain may be a proper subset of X, in which case f is not a total relation.

"A binary relation is said to be total with respect to a universe of discourse just in case everything in that universe of discourse stands in that relation to something else."

Algebraic characterization
Total relations can be characterized algebraically by equalities and inequalities involving compositions of relations. To this end, let $$X,Y$$ be two sets, and let $$R\subseteq X\times Y.$$ For any two sets $$A,B,$$ let $$L_{A,B}=A\times B$$ be the universal relation between $$A$$ and $$B,$$ and let $$I_A=\{(a,a):a\in A\}$$ be the identity relation on $$A.$$ We use the notation $$R^\top$$ for the converse relation of $$R.$$

 * $$R$$ is total iff for any set $$W$$ and any $$S\subseteq W\times X,$$ $$S\ne\emptyset$$ implies $$SR\ne\emptyset.$$
 * $$R$$ is total iff $$I_X\subseteq RR^\top.$$
 * If $$R$$ is total, then $$L_{X,Y}=RL_{Y,Y}.$$ The converse is true if $$Y\ne\emptyset.$$
 * If $$R$$ is total, then $$\overline{RL_{Y,Y}}=\emptyset.$$ The converse is true if $$Y\ne\emptyset.$$
 * If $$R$$ is total, then $$\overline R\subseteq R\overline{I_Y}.$$ The converse is true if $$Y\ne\emptyset.$$
 * More generally, if $$R$$ is total, then for any set $$Z$$ and any $$S\subseteq Y\times Z,$$ $$\overline{RS}\subseteq R\overline S.$$ The converse is true if $$Y\ne\emptyset.$$

title: Total relation


text:
Premier Hockey League

Premier Hockey League (PHL) was a professional field hockey league in India. There were seven teams in the PHL. The competition was held every year from 2005 until 2008.

History

The competition conceptualized by Anurag Dahiya of ESPN Star Sports was created and promoted in partnership with Leisure Sports Management (LSM) and sanctioned by Indian Hockey Federation (IHF). It was first played in 2005 involving 5 teams with active support from sports channel ESPN India. First season had two tiers division 1 and division 2 but from 2007 season onwards division 2 was scrapped. Except team winning 2006 division 2 championship rest all teams in division 2 were scrapped. The competition was disbanded in 2008.

The 5 inaugural members of the new Premier Hockey League in 2005 were  Bangalore Hi-Fliers, Chennai Veerans, Hyderabad Sultans, Maratha Warriors and Sher-e-Jalandhar.

Format
Regular season of PHL run between December and January. Since the inaugural season, the format has varied regularly. According to the last format, each team played each other once in a single round robin format (21 matches) in the regular league season, then the top four play the semifinals (1 vs. 4 and 2 vs. 3), followed by the finals, adopting a best of three format. There was a total of 26 matches for each session.

During a PHL match, points that contribute to team standings could be earned in the following ways:
 * Result in regulation time
 * 3 points to the winner
 * 0 point to the loser
 * Result after extra time
 * 2 points to the winner
 * 1 point to the loser

In case of no winner has been decided after completion of a match and two periods of extra time, the winner of the match will be determined by a shoot-out competition.

New features
The fundamental aberration from the format of normal hockey games is the number of sessions. A normal 70-minute hockey game includes two sessions, each of 35 minutes each. The PHL had four sessions each of 17.5 minutes. This format was tailor-made to include more advertising time in order to generate funds.

If the match is deadlocked after full-time, the number of players of each team got gradually reduced till a result is obtained. A win within full-time fetched three points, whereas a win after full-time fetched two points to the winning team and one to the losing team. Each team was allowed to field up to five international players.

In addition, another feature of the PHL for the year 2007 has been the innovative penalty shootout competition, modelled similar to the ice hockey. Each team had five penalties. The player can take as many shots possible within the stipulated 8 secs.

Another interesting feature of PHL were timeouts. Each team was allowed 2 x 120 second timeouts per team in regulation time. These timeouts were mandatory and had to be taken once in each half of play. There will be a warning from the bench 5 minutes before the end of the second/fourth quarter if the team has still not availed of the mandatory timeout. 2 minutes from the end of the second/fourth quarter the timeout could be imposed by the technical bench if the team has still not availed of it.

In addition, each team was allowed 1 x 2 minute timeout which could be taken at any point in time during the regulation time.

Players
A team shall consist of maximum of 18 (eighteen) players to be registered with PHDPL. At any given point of time, minimum 2 players of foreign origin shall be within the field of play during the course of a game.

International players
There are a number of players from countries other than India, who have been contracted to play in the league.

Results

 * 2005: Hyderabad Sultans
 * 2006: Bangalore Lions
 * Chandigarh Dynamos finished 1st in the league table.
 * 2007: Orissa Steelers
 * Orissa Steelers also finished 1st in the league table.
 * 2008: Bangalore Hi-fliers
 * Chandigarh Dynamos finished 1st in the league table.

Impact and legacy
At the time of launch, many in the Indian hockey circles were delighted with the intention of reviving the flagging sport. Experts accused the Indian Hockey Federation of being too lethargic and bureaucratic in popularizing the sport. Hockey players of the likes of Sohail Abbas excited a number of youngsters and drew them towards the game. Critics argued that traditional hockey bastions such as Kodagu, Jharkhand, Odisha and parts of Punjab were ignored and the organizers stated that in due course of time more teams would be included.

PHL did gain some ground in popular culture. Famously, in a scene in the hit Bollywood movie, Chak De! India, a character could be spotted wearing a PHL fan jersey. The league also had a long-lasting impact on the sport of field hockey globally, and commercial leagues in other sports that followed PHL in India. In field hockey, the biggest shift was the move away from 2 halves of 35 minutes each to 4 quarters of 17.5 minutes each. This measure, originally pioneered by PHL as quickening the pace of the game, has survived to this day. PHL's introduction of franchise teams This served as a template for later sports leagues including the IPL.

However, after 4 successful seasons, the Premier Hockey League ceased to exist. It has made way to another similar formatted tournament, the Hockey India League.

title: Premier Hockey League


text:
Francis Mallory

Francis Mallory (December 12, 1807 – March 26, 1860) was an American naval officer, physician, and railroad executive, who as a Whig politician served two terms in the United States House of Representatives representing Virginia's 1st congressional district. He later served two terms in the Virginia House of Delegates representing Norfolk.

Early and family life, military service and education
Francis Mallory was born in 1807 in Elizabeth City County, Virginia, part of the Hampton Roads seaport and (now) metropolitan area, to the former Frances Lowry Stephenson (1786-1845), and her husband, Charles King Mallory (1781-1820), who briefly served as Lieutenant Governor of Virginia in 1812. His grandfather and namesake, Col. Francis Mallory (1740-1781) was a Virginia militia officer who married three times before his death in the Skirmish at Waters Creek while defending Hampton during the Patriot's Siege of Yorktown near the end of the American Revolutionary War.

Young Francis Mallory had a sister Mary (1810-1853) and two younger brothers, William Stevenson Mallory (1817-1857) and Charles King Mallory (1820-1875). He attended the private Hampton Academy and began a career as a naval officer after his father's death in Norfolk in 1820, accepting a midshipman's commission in the United States Navy and serving from 1822 to 1828.

Dr. Mallory graduated from the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in 1831. He may have had a first wife who died in 1830. He married Mary Francis Wright, and in 1850 the family lived at Old Point Comfort in Elizabeth City County with their sons Francis Jr. (1834-1863) and Charles O'Connor (Connor) Mallory (1842-1877) and daughters Abby, Mary, Kate and Alice. Two other sons died in infancy, and their parents would choose to be buried beside them. Dr. Mallory's namesake son would die at the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863 and his fellow C.S.A. officer/cousin Charles King Mallory days later. Charles O'Connor Mallory (1842-1877) enlisted as a private in the 6th Virginia Infantry in April 1861, rose to the rank of Sergeant Major after being transferred to the 55th Virginia Infantry, surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse, became a farmer in Essex County, Virginia and had sons to carry on the family's military tradition.

Tenure in the House of Representatives
Dr. Mallory established a medical practice in the area surrounding Norfolk, Virginia. He won election to the U.S. House of Representatives to represent Virginia's 1st congressional district in 1836, but lost to Democrat Joel Holleman two years later. During that re-election campaign, Holleman promised that he would resign if a Whig became President in 1840. William Henry Harrison did win the Presidency and Dr. Mallory won the election to complete the rest of the term, as well as the following election, thereby serving as the area's Congressman until March 1843.

Career after Congress
He also served as Navy Agent in Norfolk during the administration of President Millard Fillmore (a fellow Whig) in the early 1850s. His political career continued as a Delegate in the Virginia General Assembly, representing Norfolk city from 1854 to 1859.

For many years, Mallory lobbied the Virginia General Assembly on behalf of a railroad line to Norfolk, despite rival railroad and shipping interests from Richmond and Petersburg. In 1851, Dr. Mallory and the Norfolk interests finally succeeded in obtaining a legislative charter as well as financing from the Virginia Board of Public Works to form the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad (N&P).

In 1853, the new railroad hired a 26-year-old civil engineer and Virginia Military Institute graduate from Southampton County named William Mahone. Small-statured "Little Billy" Mahone was frugal with expenses yet managed to build the N&P to high construction standards. He designed and implemented an innovative corduroy roadbed through the Great Dismal Swamp between South Norfolk and Suffolk. The design included a log foundation laid at right angles beneath the surface of the swamp, and rented enslaved labor built it. Still in use 150 years later, it withstands immense tonnages of export coal traffic en route to coal piers at Norfolk's Lambert's Point. Mahone was also responsible for engineering and building a 52 mile-long tangent track between Suffolk and Petersburg which remains a major artery of modern Norfolk Southern rail traffic (although rebuilt after the American Civil War).

Personal life
Dr. Mallory survived the Yellow Fever epidemic which swept through Norfolk in 1855 and killed 2,000 of its 6,000 citizens. However, the many deaths as well as financial hardship delayed construction of his new railroad for more than a year. After the railroad was completed in 1858, he stepped down and Mahone became its new president.

Francis Mallory owned 17 slaves in 1840. Either census information has been lost or misindexed, or he only owned slaves indirectly during the last census in his lifetime; his brother Charles Mallory owned 11 slaves in nearby Hampton in 1850, and 13 in 1860.

Death and legacy
Dr. Mallory died in Norfolk on March 26, 1860.

Francis Mallory Elementary School of the Hampton City Public Schools and Mallory Street in Hampton's historic Phoebus section near Fort Monroe are named in his honor.

Electoral history
1837; Mallory was elected with 50.26% of the vote, defeating Democrat Joel Hollerman.

title: Francis Mallory


text:
Fredi Washington

Fredericka Carolyn "Fredi" Washington (December 23, 1903 – June 28, 1994) was an American stage and film actress, civil rights activist, performer, and writer. Washington was of African American descent. She was one of the first Black Americans to gain recognition for film and stage work in the 1920s and 1930s.

Washington was active in the Harlem Renaissance (1920s–1930s). Her best- known film role was as Peola in Imitation of Life (1934). She plays a young light-skinned Black woman who decides to pass as white. Her last film role was in One Mile from Heaven (1937). After that she left Hollywood and returned to New York to work in theatre and civil rights activism.

Early life
Fredi Washington was born in 1903 in Savannah, Georgia, to Robert T. Washington, a postal worker, and Harriet "Hattie" Walker Ward, a dancer. Both were of African American and European ancestry. Washington was the second of their five children. Her mother died when Fredi was 11 years old. As the oldest girl in her family, she helped raise her younger siblings, Isabel, Rosebud, and Robert, with the help of their grandmother.

After their mother's death, Fredi and her sister Isabel were sent to the St. Elizabeth's Convent School for Colored Girls in Cornwells Heights, near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her father eventually remarried and his second wife died while pregnant with the couple's first child. He married a third time and had four additional children, giving the family a total of nine children.

While Fredi was still in school in Philadelphia, her family moved north from Georgia to Harlem, New York. Washington graduated from Julia Richman High School in New York City.

Early entertainment career
Washington's entertainment career began in 1921 as a chorus girl in the Broadway musical Shuffle Along. She was hired by dancer Josephine Baker as a member of the "Happy Honeysuckles," a cabaret group. Baker became a friend and mentor to her. Washington's collaboration with Baker led to her being discovered by producer Lee Shubert. In 1926, she was recommended for a co-starring role on the Broadway stage with Paul Robeson in the play Black Boy. She quickly became a popular, featured dancer, and toured internationally with her dancing partner, Al Moiret.

Washington turned to acting in the late 1920s. Her first movie role was in Black and Tan (1929), in which she played a Cotton Club dancer who was dying. She acted in a small role in The Emperor Jones (1933) starring Robeson. Washington played Cab Calloway's love interest in the musical short Cab Calloway's Hi-De-Ho (1934).

Imitation of Life
Her best-known role was in the 1934 movie Imitation of Life. Washington played a young light-skinned Black woman who chose to pass as white to seek more opportunities in a society restricted by legal and social racial segregation. As Washington had visible European ancestry, the role was considered perfect for her, but it led to her being typecast by filmmakers. Moviegoers sometimes assumed from Washington's appearance—her blue-gray eyes, pale complexion, and light brown hair—that she might have passed in her own life. In 1934, she said the role did not reflect her off-screen life, but "If I made Peola seem real enough to merit such statements, I consider such statements compliments and makes me feel I've done my job fairly well."

She told reporters in 1949 that she identified as Black "...because I'm honest, firstly, and secondly, you don't have to be white to be good. I've spent most of my life trying to prove to those who think otherwise ... I am a Negro and I am proud of it." Imitation of Life was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, but it did not win. Years later, in 2007, Time magazine ranked it as among "The 25 Most Important Films on Race."

Activism
Washington's experiences in the film industry and theater led her to become a civil rights activist. In an effort to help other Black actors and actresses find more opportunities, in 1937 Washington co-founded the Negro Actors Guild of America (NAG), with Noble Sissle, W. C. Handy, Paul Robeson, and Ethel Waters. The organization's mission included speaking out against stereotyping and advocating for a wider range of roles. Washington served as the organization's first executive secretary.

She was also deeply involved with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, known as the NAACP. While working with the NAACP, Washington fought for more representation and better treatment of Black actors in Hollywood; because of her own success, she was one of the few Black actors in Hollywood who had some influence with white studio executives.

In addition to working for the rights and opportunities of Black actors, Washington also advocated for the federal protection of Black Americans. She was a lobbyist for the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, which the NAACP supported. It was passed by the House but lost in the Senate, which was dominated by the Solid South.

Later work
Washington played opposite Bill Robinson in Fox's One Mile from Heaven (1937), in which she played a light-skinned Black woman claiming to be the mother of a "white" baby. Claire Trevor plays a reporter who discovers the story and helps both Washington and the white biological mother (Sally Bane) who had given up the baby. According to the Museum of Modern Art in 2013: "The last of the six Claire Trevor 'snappy' vehicles [Allan] Dwan made for Fox in the 1930s tests the limits of free expression on race in Hollywood while sometimes straining credulity."

Washington appeared in the 1939 Broadway production of Mamba's Daughters, along with Ethel Waters and Georgette Harvey. She later became a casting consultant for the stage productions of Carmen Jones (1943) and George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess.

Leaving Hollywood for radio
Despite receiving critical acclaim, she was unable to find much work in the Hollywood of the 1930s and 1940s. Studios preferred Black actresses with darker skin, who were usually typecast as maids, cooks or other servants. Directors were also reluctant to cast a light-skinned Black actress in a romantic role with a white leading man; the film production code prohibited suggestions of miscegenation. Interracial marriage was illegal in the South and many other states. Hollywood directors did not offer her any romantic roles. As one modern critic explained, Fredi Washington was "...too beautiful and not dark enough to play maids, but rather too light to act in all-Black movies..."

Washington had a dramatic role in a 1943 radio tribute to Black women, Heroines in Bronze, produced by the National Urban League, but there were few regular dramatic radio programs in that era with Black protagonists. She wrote an opinion piece for the Black press in which she discussed how limited the opportunities in broadcasting were for Black actors, actresses, and vocalists, saying that "...radio seems to keep its doors sealed [against] colored artists."

In 1945 she said: "'You see I'm a mighty proud gal, and I can't for the life of me find any valid reason why anyone should lie about their origin, or anything else for that matter. Frankly, I do not ascribe to the stupid theory of white supremacy and to try to hide the fact that I am a Negro for economic or any other reasons. If I do, I would be agreeing to be a Negro makes me inferior and that I have swallowed whole hog all of the propaganda dished out by our fascist-minded white citizens.'"

Writer
Washington was a theater writer, and the entertainment editor for The People's Voice (1942–1948), a newspaper for African Americans founded by Adam Clayton Powell Jr., a Baptist minister and politician in New York City. He was married to her sister Isabel Washington Powell.

Washington was outspoken about racism faced by African Americans. She worked closely with Walter White, president of the NAACP, to address pressing issues facing Black people in America.

Personal life
In 1933, Washington married Lawrence Brown, the trombonist in Duke Ellington's jazz orchestra. That marriage ended in divorce. In 1952, Washington married a Stamford dentist, Hugh Anthony Bell, and moved to Greenwich, Connecticut.

She was a devout Catholic.

Death
Fredi Washington Bell died, aged 90, on June 28, 1994. She died from pneumonia following a series of strokes at St. Joseph Medical Center in Stamford, Connecticut.

Legacy and honors

 * In 1975, Washington was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame.
 * In 1979, Washington received the CIRCA Award for lifetime achievement in the performing arts.
 * In 1981, Washington received an award from the Audience Development Company (AUDELCO), a New York-based nonprofit group devoted to preserving and promoting African-American theater.

Filmography

 * Square Joe (1922), her film debut
 * Black and Tan (1929)
 * The Emperor Jones (1933)
 * Imitation of Life (1934)
 * Ouanga (1936)
 * One Mile from Heaven (1937)

title: Fredi Washington


text:
Matthias de l'Obel

Mathias de l'Obel, Mathias de Lobel or Matthaeus Lobelius (1538 – 3 March 1616) was a Flemish physician and plant enthusiast who was born in Lille, Flanders, in what is now Hauts-de-France, France, and died at Highgate, London, England. He studied at the University of Montpellier and practiced medicine in the low countries and England, including positions as personal physicians to two monarchs. A member of the sixteenth-century Flemish School of Botany, he wrote a series of major treatises on plants in both Latin and Dutch. He was the first botanist to appreciate the distinction between monocotyledons and dicotyledons. The Lobelia plant is named after him.

Life
Mathias de l'Obel was born in Lille (Flemish Rijsel) in the County of Flanders, Spanish Netherlands, now French Flanders in 1538, the son of Jean De l'Obel, a lawyer whose practice specialized in aristocrats in the army. Relatively little is known about his life. By the age of sixteen he had already developed an interest in both botany and medicine. He spent some time traveling and studying in Italy in 1551 and 1563–1564 before studying medicine in Leuven and at Montpellier in France. He sought out Montpellier due to the reputation of Guillaume Rondelet, as had his earlier contemporary, Carolus Clusius. It is said that l'Obel was Rondelet's favourite pupil, and on his death in 1566 l'Obel inherited all his manuscripts. His botanical field work was under the supervision of Rondelet's son-in-law, Jacques Salomon d'Assas. He matriculated at the University of Montpellier on 22 May 1565, at the age of twenty-seven. He remained in Montpellier for a further two years, furthering his studies, including botanical expeditions in the Languedoc region.

From 1566–1571, for about four years, he traveled and then he settled in Elizabethan England for about four years (1566–1571), together with his fellow student Pierre Pena (1535–1605), probably as a Protestant refugee. He lived on Lime Street, London in any area containing many Protestant refugees from the continent ("come for religion"), among fellow Flemings, like James Garrett the apothecary. There he also came to know the English botanist, John Gerard. He and Pena brought with them their botanical collection and carried out botanical exploration in England before returning to the Low Countries sometime between 1571 and 1574.

In 1596, age 58, L'Obel married Isabeau Laigniez (1576-1642) in Lille. Of their children, one daughter, Mary l'Obel, married Louis Le Myre (Ludovicus Myreus), who collaborated with him, the other, Anne l'Obel married John Wolfgang Rumler. Both sons-in-law, le Myre and Rumler were pharmacists, with good reputations in London society. He eventually moved permanently to England in 1596. Among the English botanists, his closest friend was Thomas Penny, whom he had first met in Montpellier, and to whom he pays tribute in his dedication of the Stirpium adversaria (1571). l'Obel died in Highgate in 1616 at the age of 78, and was buried in the churchyard of St Denis.

L’Obel’s coat of arms displayed on his books alludes to his name, with two poplar (abele) trees (French Aubel).

Work
Following his studies in Montpellier l'Obel set up a medical practice in England (1566–1571), living initially in London, and then in Somerset, near Bristol at the home of his patron, Edward St. Loe. There he was joined in botanical expeditions by Clusius. On his return to continental Europe, he practised in Antwerp (1571–1581) and then Delft (1581–1584). The period from 1571 to 1596, after his return from England, was one of the most productive in his life, with two major publications. Delft had been the residence of William, Prince of Orange (William the Silent) since 1572, and became the capital of the newly independent Netherlands in 1581. In Delft l'Obel served as personal physician (hofarts) to the Protestant Prince William. The exact date of this appointment is uncertain, but his Kruydtboeck (1581) is dedicated to the Prince, and the title page describes l'Obel as Medecijn der Princ. suggesting it was some time between returning to the Low Countries in 1571 and 1581. His name also appears on a list of court personnel dated 1578. William, however, was assassinated in 1584. Claims that after William's death, l'Obel was employed by the Estates General, the governing body of the Netherlands, have been disputed. Following the assassination l'Obel became a city physician in Middelburg, which was then a prosperous centre of trade and capital of the province of Zeeland. He was responsible for the establishment of a botanical herb garden there, and would have known Ambrosius Bosschaert (1573–1621), the artist, best known for his meticulous flower paintings, who was a member and eventually dean of the Saint Luke’s Guild in Middelburg.

In 1596 he moved from Middelburg, returning once more to England, becoming personal physician and botanicus regius (Botanist Royal) to King James I of England in 1607. From there he periodically returned to Middelburg for a visit. Amongst his responsibilities in England was as superintendent of the botanical garden of Lord Zouch in Hackney, a partnership brought about by Clusius. This was a physic garden and at the time, one of the few in existence in England. It became a gathering place for botanists, enabling l'Obel to become an important link between England and the continent. He also accompanied Lord Zouch on his posting as ambassador to Denmark in 1598, where he carried out botanical exploration. The latter was published in 1605 as an appendix to the second edition of Stirpium adversaria. It was through Zouch that he obtained the post of botanicus regius.

In 1597 he became involved in a controversy surrounding his friend John Gerard. In 1596 he had provided a preface to Gerard's Catalogus. The following year, Gerard was working on a translation of Dodoens's Stirpium historiae pemptades sex (1583), to be published by John Norton, the Queen's Printer. James Garrett, on a visit to the Norton's publishing house, saw the proofs and alerted Norton as to both errors and unattributed borrowings from Lobelius. Norton then hired Lobelius as an expert editor, but when Gerard discovered this, he had Lobelius dismissed, and had the work published under his own name as The Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes (1597). Lobelius provides an account of this in his Stirpium illustrationes (1655) in which he accuses Gerard of plagiarism.

He spent much of his life looking for a rational way to classify plants that could be tested by empiricism.

In the Stirpium of 1571, it is the form of the leaves and their venation that he favoured. In doing so he distinguished between grass-like plants with long straight parallel veins, while the majority had broad leaves with net-like venation. He was the first to recognise the fundamental difference between monocotyledons (grass-like) and dicotyledons, although he never suggested names to group these plants under.

Life and times
Lobelius has been described as the least well known of a group variously called the Ecole flamande de Botanique du XVIme siècle (16th century Flemish school of botany) or Flemish "Fathers of Botany", which, in addition to Lobelius, included Carolus Clusius and Rembert Dodoens. Lobelius and others have stated that the collection and cultivation of plants had been a preoccupation in the Southern Netherland (Flanders or Galliae Belgicae) since the crusades, and that Flemish gardens contained many rare plants, although these were destroyed in the civil wars of the sixteenth century, and he mentions many important growers such as Carolus de Croy, and his wife Marie de Brimeu, Joannes de Brancion and Joannes van der Dilf.

At the opening of the sixteenth century the general belief was that the plant world had been completely described by Dioscorides, in his De Materia Medica. During Lobelius' lifetime, botanical knowledge was undergoing enormous expansion, partly fueled by the expansion of the known plant world by New World exploration, the discovery of printing and the use of wood-block illustration. This period is thought of as a botanical Renaissance. Europe became engrossed with natural history from the 1530s, and gardening and cultivation of plants became a passion and prestigious pursuit from monarchs to universities. The first botanical gardens appeared as well as the first illustrated botanical encyclopaedias, together with thousands of watercolours and woodcuts. The experience of farmers, gardeners, foresters, apothecaries and physicians was being supplemented by the rise of the plant expert. Collecting became a discipline, specifically the Kunst- und Wunderkammern (cabinets of curiosities) outside of Italy and the study of naturalia became widespread through many social strata. The great botanists of the sixteenth century were all, like Lobelius, originally trained as physicians, who pursued a knowledge of plants not just for medicinal properties, but in their own right. Chairs in botany, within medical faculties were being established in European universities throughout the sixteenth century in reaction to this trend, and the scientific approach of observation, documentation and experimentation was being applied to the study of plants.

These were also turbulent times. Following the protestant reformation in the mid sixteenth century, and the subsequent counter-reformation there was much religious intolerance and persecution, while in the Netherlands the northern provinces started a rebellion against the governing Spaniards, the Eighty Years War (1568–1648). As a result many people fled or emigrated and many herbal and botanical gardens were destroyed. Lobelius stated that it was becoming increasingly difficult to live in his native Flanders.

Stirpium adversaria nova (1570-1)
Lobelius' first publication, Stirpium adversaria nova (1571) was written at the end of his stay in England, published in London and dedicated to Elizabeth I. It was written in collaboration with Pierre Pena (Petrus Pena), his fellow student and traveling companion from Provence, and was an important milestone in botanical history, placing emphasis on medicine and botany as sciences that must be based on thorough and exact observation. The extent of Pena's contribution is unknown, although his name appears first on the title page (see illustration). Like his contemporaries, l'Obel's interest in plants was driven by their pharmacological properties. The Stirpium was l'Obel's major botanical work and included information on about 1,200–1,300 plants that they had collected in the area around Montpellier, in the Cévennes, in the Low Countries, and in England, and included additional information on cultivation and the manufacture of plant products, such as beer. This was one of the earliest attempts to classify plants according to their natural affinities, rather than their medical uses. L'Obel based this on the form of their leaves. His concepts of genus and family formed the basis of later more definitive classifications such as that of Linnaeus, and some of his groupings have survived into modern times. Although it was eventually to be the work on which l'Obel's reputation would rest, based on the system of classification that he set out, at the time of its publication, it met with only moderate success and much criticism.

Plantarum seu stirpium historia (1576)
The Stirpium adversaria was followed five years later by Plantarum seu stirpium historia (1576). This was a two volume publication consisting of a new work, the Stirpium observationes together with a re-issue of the Stirpium adversaria, titled Nova stirpium adversaria as a companion piece, together with a treatise on herbal remedies by Rondelet and a multilingual index to the composite work. It included 1,486 engravings of plants, including those from works by Pietro Mattioli, Rembert Dodoens, and Charles de l’Écluse. In 1581 he produced his Kruydtboeck, a Dutch translation of the former work. This was well received and considered a milestone in plant systematics. Lobelius' hometown of Lille sent him a gift of 50 pounds in recognition of the importance of the work.

Late works
In 1605 he reissued the Stirpium, including in it an essay on the pharmacological studies of his mentor, Guillaume Rondelet, the Pharmacopoeia Rondelletii. At the time of his death in 1616, his Stirpium illustrationes was unpublished, and was not published till 1655 (in part) by William How. In the meantime, John Parkinson had used it in his Theatrum botanicum (1640).

Attributed works
A further publication, the Stirpium seu Plantarum Icones (1581) in the form of a Flora was for a long time attributed to l'Obel, despite his name not appearing anywhere in it or mentioning it in his correspondence, and is still sold and displayed in museums as one of his works. However, there is good evidence that this was a work produced by the well known Antwerp publisher Christophe Plantin for Severinus Gobelius, physician to the Duke of Prussia. Plantin had a large collection of wood-cuts, both produced in his workshop or purchased by him, with which he illustrated many of the major botanical publications of the time, which he assembled according to the classification used by Lobelius in his Kruydtboeck of the same year. This work was reissued in 1591 as Icones stirpium.

List of selected publications

 * see, , ,

 * - Also available as
 * Reissued as:
 * including Rondelet's Formulae remediorum, to be appended as a companion volume to his Plantarum, seu, Stirpium historia of the same year.
 * Third version 1605.

 * 2nd ed. 1618 (posthumous) as Pharmacopoeia Rondelletii
 * 2nd ed. 1618 (posthumous) as Pharmacopoeia Rondelletii
 * 2nd ed. 1618 (posthumous) as Pharmacopoeia Rondelletii
 * 2nd ed. 1618 (posthumous) as Pharmacopoeia Rondelletii

 * Posthumous
 * 3rd. edition P & I Chouët| 1620
 * 3rd. edition P & I Chouët| 1620
 * 3rd. edition P & I Chouët| 1620

 * Attributed
 * 3rd ed. 1655 Warren, London
 * 3rd ed. 1655 Warren, London
 * 3rd ed. 1655 Warren, London

Eponomy
The plant genus Lobelia Plum. ex L., and the botanical family Lobeliaceae were named after him by Charles Plumier in 1703.

Books

 * (see also The Jewel House)
 * (see also The Jewel House)
 * (see also The Jewel House)
 * (see also The Jewel House)
 * (see also The Jewel House)
 * (see also The Jewel House)

Historical sources

 * (2nd edition 1599)
 * (2nd edition 1599)

Chapters

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title: Matthias de l'Obel


text:
Leftvent

Leftvents are small, deep-sea lophiiform fish comprising the family Linophrynidae distributed throughout tropical to subtropical waters of all oceans.

The name of the type genus Linophryne has been translated from the Greek to mean "toad that fishes with a net", an allusion to the fishes' impressive use of mimicry in luring prey. One of several families of anglerfishes, the Linophrynidae are not well studied, and only one species is given a common name: the netdevil, Borophryne apogon. For this reason, the name "netdevil" can sometimes refer to any linophrynid.

Description
With roughly spherical to slightly elongated, gelatinous, and scaleless bodies and large triangular heads, leftvents possess a body plan typical of deep-sea anglerfish. In females only, long, sharp fang-like teeth line the jaws of a cavernous maw. An illicium (a modified dorsal spine; the "fishing rod") — and an esca (a bulbous, bioluminescent "fishing lure") are present, also in females only. The illicium is shorter and the esca larger and complex compared to those found in some other anglerfish families, and its conformation is unique to each species. Most distinctively, Linophryne (the most diverse genus) possess greatly elongated and highly complex hyoid (chin) barbels: these barbels are forked (with three to five main branches) and may be longer than the standard length of the fish, trailing below it in a tree-like manner. Sessile bioluminescent organs are also present on the branches of this barbel.

The complexity and length of the hyoid barbel varies widely among species, with some having no forkings. In Haplophryne, barbels are absent altogether, and the illicium is reduced to a rounded flap.

Symbiotic bacteria belonging to the family Vibrionaceae are responsible for the luminescence; the strain of bacteria is apparently different in each species. The bacteria are believed to originate from the surrounding seawater and colonise the organs via external ducts. The light produced is bluish to greenish, and the host female presumably has some control over its production.

Like other deep-sea anglers, leftvents have watery flesh and poorly ossified bones; the skin, which in females is a dark brown to black in life (but colourless in Haplophryne), is extremely fragile and abrades with ease. Males are more or less colourless. Females possess strong sphenotic and preopercle spines and highly distensible stomachs. Males, other than lacking lures, barbels, and (in most species) jaw teeth, have larger olfactory organs and tubular eyes; short and stout denticular teeth are also present. Sexual dimorphism is extreme: females may reach a length of 23 cm, while males remain under 5 cm.

The pelvic fins and pelvic bone are absent in both sexes; the present fins are small and rounded. The dorsal fin and anal fin are of roughly equal size, both positioned far back from the head, and retrorse.

Life history
Adult leftvents have been trawled from both mesopelagic and benthopelagic depths, ranging from 500 to 4000 m below the ocean surface. Few details are known of their life history: mature females are poor swimmers and likely remain motionless much of the time, waiting for both mates and prey to approach their lures. The female's distensible stomach permits the ingestion of a wide variety of prey (lanternfish are a common catch), even prey larger than the anglerfish herself. The diminutive males do not feed following their metamorphosis from larval to adult form: they are obligate parasites and exist only to provide sperm to females. Males are believed to be attracted to females by the latter's species-specific lures and pheromones, on which the males home in with the help of their oversized olfactory organs and eyes.

Once a female is located, the male latches onto her with his otherwise useless teeth. Through enzymatic processes, the tissues of the male gradually begin to coalesce with the tissues of the female, resulting in a permanent attachment and a shared circulatory system, forming a hermaphroditic chimera. The development of the male's large testes — which was delayed prior to this point — begins, and all other organs in the male's body degenerate. Several males may thus attach to the same female with no apparent ill effects befalling her.

Leftvents are presumed not to be guarders (that is, they do not care for eggs after release), with females releasing buoyant eggs into the water, which become part of the zooplankton; these may be contained within gelatinous rafts. The larvae remain near the shallower limits of the mesopelagic zone where they presumably feed on plankton and marine snow. The larval epidermis is greatly inflated; this may help the larvae maintain neutral buoyancy. Upon metamorphosis, the fish descend to deeper water. Males likely outnumber females by a wide margin, and physically mature more quickly, though as noted above they do not mature sexually until they attach to a female.

Fossil record
A fossil of what may be Linophryne indica was found in Late Miocene strata of Los Angeles, California, along with a fossil of the related Borophryne apogon, during the construction of a metrorail in 1993.

At least two fossils of Acentrophryne longidens have been found in Late Miocene-aged limestone from Rosedale, California.

title: Leftvent


text:
Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture

Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture is an autonomous prefecture of the People's Republic of China. It is located in northwestern Hunan province. It consists of one city, Jishou, and seven counties: Baojing, Fenghuang, Guzhang, Huayuan, Longshan, Luxi, and Yongshun. Jishou is the capital. Of the 2,480,000 residents, 66.6% are ethnic minorities from 25 different ethnic groups, including 860,000 Tujia and 790,000 Miao.

History
Xiangxi has a long history. The land was sparsely inhabited during the Shang dynasty, through the Warring States period up to the era of the Sui dynasty and Tang dynasty. It fell under the influence of the Chu state during the Warring States era. Later, it became part of the Western and Eastern Han dynasty. After the collapse of the Han dynasty, it came under the control of the Shu dynasty during the Three Kingdoms period of China. Then the area became a subject of the Jin dynasty. When the Yuan dynasty was established, the region became a part of the Hubei province. Soon later, Hubei and Hunan province became one single province called Huguang. The Ming dynasty reestablished the Xiangxi Autonomous Prefecture and attached it to Hunan province.

Upon the establishment of modern China, the national government gave the region autonomous status and county level status. This meant that the provincial government had less control over the region compared to other counties.

Geography
Western Hunan, also known as "Western Hunan Region" or "Western Hunan", is a collective name for the entire "western region of Hunan" including Zhangjiajie City, Xiangxi Autonomous Prefecture, Huaihua City and the western counties of Shaoyang City (Suining, etc.). This area is surrounded by the two mountains of Wuling and Xuefeng and the Yungui Plateau. It is the place where the upper reaches of Yuanshui and Lishui and their tributaries converge. Economically, this region sometimes includes Zhangjiajie City, Xiangxi Autonomous Prefecture, Huaihua City, Shaoyang City, Loudi City, as well as Jianghua County and Jiangyong County in Yongzhou City, Shimen County and Taoyuan County in Changde City, Anhua County in Yiyang City, etc. Historically, the western part of Hunan belongs to Qianzhong County, Wuling County, Yuanling County, Chenyuan Yongjing Military Reserve Road, Chenyuan Road, Xiangxi Appeasement Office and Xiangxi Administrative Region. 12

Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture is located in the northwest of Hunan Province, bordered by Sangzhi County and Yongding District of Zhangjiajie City in the northeast; Yuanling County, Chenxi County and Mayang Miao Autonomous County in Huaihua City in the southeast; Songtao Miao Autonomous County in Tongren District, Guizhou Province in the southwest; Xiushan Tujia and Miao Autonomous County in Qianjiang Development Zone, Chongqing in the west. It is adjacent to Laifeng County and Xuanen County, Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Hubei Province. The geographical coordinates are 109°10-110°22.5 east longitude and 27°44.5-29°38 north latitude. The total area of the administrative area is 15,500 square kilometers.

The western Hunan region in a broad sense not only includes Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, but also extends to Zhangjiajie City and Huaihua City, covering an area of 78,700 square kilometers. This area is famous for its rich natural resources and unique national culture, including Wulingyuan, Nanshan National Park, Tianmen Mountain and other famous attractions.

Climate
Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture is located in a low-latitude zone and has a humid subtropical monsoon climate. It is characterized by the influence of the topography of the Wuling Mountains: the winter is relatively cold, the summer temperature is high and humid, the spring and summer are wet and rainy, the weather is changeable, the autumn weather turns cooler, the temperature drops, the monsoon is obvious, and the four seasons are distinct. The average temperature for many years is between 16.0~17.0 °C, the average temperature in January is between 4.5~5.2 °C, and the extreme minimum temperature is -15.5 °C (January 30, 1977); the average temperature in July is between 21.9~22.8 °C, and the extreme maximum temperature is 40.6 °C (1959 8 29th of the month). The average annual growth period is 340 days, the annual frost-free period is 282 days, the longest is 340 days, and the shortest is 235 days. The annual sunshine hours are 1151.6~1390.5 hours, and the total annual radiation is 376.6~412.2. Kilojoules/square centimeter. The average annual precipitation is 1284.2~1416.9 mm, and the average annual rainfall days is 171.80 days. The maximum daily precipitation over the years is 344.1 mm, and the minimum daily precipitation over the years is 32.4 mm. Rainfall is concentrated from April to September every year, accounting for 70.8~77.3% of the annual precipitation.

Human population
In the sixth national census in 2010, the resident population of Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture was 1967,096, accounting for 77.21%. The population of the Tujia family is 1089,301, accounting for 42.75%; the population of the Miao family is 863,141, accounting for 33.88%.

According to the seventh census data, at 00:00 on November 1, 2020, the resident population of Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture was 2488,105. Among them, the ethnic minorities dominated by the Tujia and Miao ethnic groups accounted for 80.5%.

By the end of 2022, the total population of Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture was 2.902 million, and the resident population was 2.461 million. Among them, the urban population is 1.285 million, and the rural population is 1.176 million. The urbanization rate is 52.21%, an increase of 0.64 percentage points over 2021. The annual number of births in the state is 19,600, with a birth rate of 6.46‰. The annual death toll was 13,500, and the mortality rate was 4.44‰. The annual natural population growth rate is 2.02‰.

Economy
In 2022, Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture achieved a GDP of 81.75 billion yuan, an increase of 3.8%. Among them, the added value of the primary industry was 12.06 billion yuan, an increase of 3.1%; the added value of the secondary industry was 23.74 billion yuan, an increase of 1.6%; and the added value of the tertiary industry was 45.95 billion yuan, an increase of 5.2%. The added value of the primary industry, the secondary industry and the tertiary industry accounted for 14.7%, 29% and 56.3% of the gross domestic product respectively, of which the industrial added value accounted for 23.1% of the gross domestic product. First, the contribution rate of the second and tertiary industries to economic growth is 12.6%, 12.2% and 75.2% respectively; the contribution rate of industry to economic growth is 5.9%. The added value of high-tech industries was 7.15 billion yuan, an increase of 6.3%, accounting for 8.7% of GDP.

Modern reforms
Ever since the reforms by Deng Xiaoping, the region has developed substantially. The introduction of a large number of advanced production equipment and various types of automated production factories accelerated the growth of industries. In 2008, the total production value totaled 22,666 billion yuan.

Crop production
Agricultural products such as rice, wheat, corn, soybeans, electricity, cement, wood, cigarettes, fertilizers, yarn and cloth became primary products.

Government
The current CPC party secretary of the autonomous prefecture is Guo Zhenggui, and the current mayor is Long Xiaohua.


text:
Emil von Reznicek

Emil Nikolaus Joseph, Freiherr von Reznicek (4 May 1860, in Vienna – 2 August 1945, in Berlin) was an Austrian composer of Romanian-Czech ancestry.

Life
Reznicek's grandfather, Josef Resnitschek (1787–1848), was a trumpet virtuoso and band leader in the Imperial regiments Nos. 32 (Esterhazy), based in Budapest, and 60 (Gustav Wasa), based in Vienna where he played music with Johann Strauss Sr. and Joseph Lanner. Reznicek's father Josef Resnitschek/Reznicek (1812–1887) entered the army as a cadet and eventually became Feldmarschall-Lieutenant, the second-highest rank in the Austrian army, gaining an ordinary diploma of nobility in 1851 and the rank as a Baron (Freiherr) in 1859. His mother, Clarisse Fürstin Ghika Budești (1837–1864), belonged to the influential Ghika family of Romania. Emil Nikolaus was the half-brother of the artist, Ferdinand von Řezníček (1868–1909). His daughter Felicitas (1904–1997) became a journalist, writer, and pioneer of female mountain climbing. During the Nazi era she joined the German resistance movement and informed for MI6. His son Fritz (February 22, 1887 - February 7, 1983) was a lieutenant in the Austrian Army.

Reznicek passed his childhood in Vienna, until the family moved to Graz in 1874. He began piano lessons in 1871; his first compositions date from 1876–78, when he was a student in Graz and at the Staatsgymnasium in Marburg an der Drau (Maribor). He studied law and music in Graz from 1878–80. He never finished his law degree, but continued to study music with Wilhelm Mayer (also known as W. A. Rémy). Finally, he went to Leipzig to study with Carl Reinecke and Salomon Jadassohn. He gained his diploma as a composer on 9 June 1882.

Subsequently, he apprenticed as a conductor at various theaters in Graz, Zürich, Stettin, Jena, Bochum, Berlin, and Mainz. and then moved to Prague in 1886 Neues Deutsches Landestheater. In 1890 Reznicek became Kapellmeister of the 88th Infantry in Prague, but was dismissed in 1892 after fighting a duel. After that he would see his greatest triumph with the premiere of Donna Diana (16 December 1894). That success opened up his career as conductor; he briefly ran for the succession of Eduard Lassen at Weimar and was Hofkapellmeister at Manheim in 1896–1899.

In June 1897 his first wife Milka Thurn-Valsassina (1864–1897) died and two years later he married Berta Juillerat-Chasseur (1874–1939). From 1899 to 1902 the couple settled at Wiesbaden, where Reznicek wrote his fifth opera Till Eulenspiegel, which premiered in 1902 at Karlsruhe under the direction of Felix Mottl. In the autumn of 1902, Reznicek moved to Charlottenburg, then a wealthy suburb of Berlin, where he remained for the remainder of his life.

In Berlin, Reznicek enjoyed a good start with the premiere of his first symphony and a revival of Till Eulenspiegel at the Court-opera. But he subsequently distanced himself from the circle of Emperor Wilhelm II. In 1905 he composed some songs with obvious left-wing tendencies. For economic reasons, he was forced to accept the position of chief conductor of the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra (1906–08) and Warsaw Opera (1907/08), where he introduced Salome by Richard Strauss and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg by Richard Wagner. In 1909–11 Reznicek assumed the position of chief conductor at Hans Gregor's Komische Oper an der Weidendammbrücke at Berlin (not related to the modern Komische Oper of Berlin). Today, Gregor is considered to be the founder of modern Regietheater; Reznicek's experience there registers in his operas beginning with Ritter Blaubart (1915–1917). Gregor closed his enterprise upon becoming Intendant at the Court Opera in Vienna in 1911.

1911 proved to be a decisive year. Reznicek's wife Berta fell seriously ill and was in critical condition for a month, and the composer's autobiography of 1940 indicates that he seriously considered suicide at the time. Instead, he condensed his feelings in the confessional tone poem Schlemihl (1912). Schlemihl met with immediate success and launched a new phase in Reznicek's career as a composer, becoming the first instalment of a trilogy that also included Der Sieger (1913) and Frieden - Eine Vision (1914). In 1914–15 he wrote In memoriam, a requiem for the fallen soldiers of all nations. In 1915/16 came his next opera, Ritter Blaubart, which premiered at Darmstadt in 1920 due to wartime censorship. With the Weimar Republic came public recognition: Reznicek was nominated for a professorship at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin and for a seat in the Prussian Academy of Fine Arts. Reznicek himself responded with a continuous flow of new music until the spring of 1935.

When the Nazi Party came to power in 1933, Reznicek (who was not interested in politics) had a problem: his wife Berta was of Jewish origin (although she had been raised as a Calvinist). Soon there were threats to blackmail the family. Berta only in the very last moment was prevented from suicide. She retired completely from public life and died early in 1939 of a heart attack.

Reznicek's daughter Felicitas attempted to leave Germany for Switzerland, but received no permit to work there. Therefore, she remained in Berlin, where she entered the German resistance movement as early as 1934. Later, she also collaborated with the British MI6, becoming one of its most important informants. (Winston Churchill bestowed on her British citizenship in 1951). She had a personal relationship with Hitler's Adjudant Fritz Wiedemann and therefore access to the innermost circles of the Nazi regime.

On the other hand, Emil-Ludwig (1898–1940), Reznicek's youngest son, was a fervent Nazi sympathizer even before 1933, joining the party and the SS. When he appeared in Nazi uniform in 1933, Reznicek was outraged and a complete split of the family was prevented only with the promise never to discuss politics. In 1934, Reznicek accepted Strauss's invitation to become the German delegate at the ständige Rat für die Internationale Zusammenarbeit der Komponisten. Contrary to the opinion promulgated by Ernst Krenek, this was not a Nazi-organisation but an invention of Richard Strauss tolerated by the Nazi-Propaganda. With some restrictions the Rat operated rather independently (at least up to 1941); organising festivals and concerts with modern music in all its member states. Reznicek organised these concerts in Germany and in due course he was able to present compositions which were not particularly in-line with the Nazi-ideology (e.g. the music of Jewish composers such as Dukas and Wladigeroff or jazz-inspired works like The Rio Grande by Constant Lambert.

When the Nazi party tightened the grip on the Rat in 1942, Reznicek tried to resist and eventually resigned. Already in 1940 he had raised some suspicion at the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda with his autobiography, which was destined for publication but prohibited by censorship. During his final years, the performance of his works in Germany diminished considerably. In 1943 he was evacuated from Berlin to Baden (near Vienna). There he suffered a stroke on Christmas Day 1943, from which he never fully recovered. Becoming more and more demented he was allowed to come back to Berlin in February 1945. He died on 2 August 1945 from hunger-typhus. He was buried in the first coffin sold in Berlin after the war, and the pall bearers removed their suits, socks and shoes due to security reasons suggested by the Soviet major at the border of east and west Berlin.

Reznicek was a friend of Richard Strauss, but relations between the two were ambivalent. Reznicek's symphonic poem Schlemihl (1912) has been seen as a parody of Strauss' A Hero's Life, though in his autobiography Reznicek rejected this interpretation. By his own account, his greatest influence was, in fact, Gustav Mahler. Sardonic humour features in much of Reznicek's music, from the prankster Till Eulenspiegel and the jibbering Blaubart of Ritter Blaubart to the Dance around the Golden Calf in Der Sieger and the expressionist Tarantella movement of the Dance Symphony (No. 5, 1925).

Reputation
Today, Reznicek is mainly remembered for the overture to his opera Donna Diana, composed in 1894. The overture is a popular stand-alone piece at symphonic concerts, and it served as the theme for the American radio (1947–1955) series Challenge of the Yukon, which later migrated to the TV series (1955–1958) Sergeant Preston of the Yukon. It was also used in the 1950s on the BBC's Children's Hour by Stephen King-Hall for his talks on current affairs.

Reznicek's break-through as a composer came with Donna Diana in 1894. This opera differs considerably from his first three operas written for Prague. Historically Donna Diana (written exactly at the same time as Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel opera) marks the decisive step away from Wagner-imitation to Wagner-reception in the way of going beyond Wagner. (Strauss, with his Guntram failed to achieve this aim.) Reznicek's next opera Till Eulenspiegel goes further in exploiting the concept of a Volksoper including older music styles. In the 1908 revision of Donna Diana he eliminated further hints of Wagner. Nevertheless, in the years after Donna Diana he did not fulfill the expectations Donna Diana had raised. It was only with his experience at the Komische Oper Berlin and the illness of his second wife that Reznicek found a new and very personal style, one that can be described as a sort of musical expressionism. In a letter to Ernst Déczy in 1921, he claimed to have modernized his style considerably. He never left the realm of tonal composition, but he often made use of bi-tonal constructions. And in the dramaturgy of his operas he was clearly influenced by silent-movie aesthetics. Reznicek was skeptical about the Schoenberg concept of twelve-tone composition, but not against atonalism per se. He greatly admired Alban Bergs Wozzeck and Lulu. Reznicek also was open to all types of music as possible sources for his own compositions; old music from the pre-Bach era, but also modern dance music and Jazz. (He made use of a Jazz-band in his operas Satuala, Benzin, Das Oper and even the ballet Das goldene Kalb. All this he amalgamated into his own post-Wagnerian style, creating an early example of Polystylistic Composition. The critics of his time did not understand this concept and often accused him of Eulenspiegelei.

In the late 1920s, he was respected as one of the most important German composers of the 1860s generation. But even then his fame began to be surpassed by the modern music of younger composers. Like so many composers who had adhered to tonal music in the 20th century, and being still active after WW I, his music fell into oblivion after WW II with the rise of modernism. In the case of Reznicek, the situation was also aggravated by the false accusation that he had been a Nazi sympathizer. In the 1970s, the only conductor who tried to give Reznicek's music some exposure to modern audiences was the late Gordon Wright. Together with Felicitas von Reznicek he founded the Reznicek society with such prominent members as Maurice Abravanel, Max Burle-Marx and Igor Kipnis. But with the passing of Gordon Wright this society stopped all activities. In 2012, Reznicek's great-grandson founded the Reznicek-Archiv at Wedemark which is now the central point for all Reznicek research. The archive also digitized all printed Reznicek scores and inserted them in the International Music Score Library Project. In 2013, the Editio Reznicek also began, with the aim to publish the numerous scores of Reznicek which had remained in manuscript.

Symphonies

 * Symphony No. 1, "Tragic" in D minor (composed 1902)
 * Symphony No. 2, "Ironic" in B-flat (composed 1904)
 * Symphony No. 3, "Im alten Stil" in D major (composed 1918)
 * Symphony No. 4 in F minor (composed 1919)
 * Symphony No. 5, "Tanz-Symphonie" (composed 1924)

Other Orchestral works

 * Studysymphony (Graz 1881, lost)
 * Studysymphony Nr. 1 (Leipzig 1882, lost)
 * Studysymphony Nr. 2 (Leipzig 1882, lost)
 * Eine Lustspielouvertüre (1881/1896; also Piano4hg.)
 * Sinfonische Suite Nr. 1 e-Moll (1883)
 * Sinfonische Suite D-Dur (1884) (fragment only)
 * Grünne-Marsch Band (1890; also Piano4hg)
 * Probszt-Marsch Band (1891) [only Pf-Score extant]
 * Gebet aus der Oper Emerich Fortunat Band (1891)
 * Der rote Sarafan Band (1891)
 * Sinfonische Suite Nr. 2 D-Dur (1896)
 * Wie Till Eulenspiegel lebte, Sinfonisches Zwischenspiel in Form einer Ouvertüre (1900; = Zwischenaktmusik from Till Eulenspiegel)
 * Goldpirol: Idyllische Ouvertüre (1903); (2. Version 1936 as: Frühlingsouvertüre: Im deutschen Wald)
 * Praeludium und chromatische Fuge für großes Orchester cis-Moll (1904; 1. Version; 2. Version; also arr. for Organ 1921)
 * Nachtstück für Violine or Violoncello and small Orchestra (1905)
 * Serenade G-Dur Strings (1905, rev. 1920)
 * Introduktion und Valse-Capriccio for Violin and Orchestra D-Dur (1906; lost)
 * Schlemihl – Ein Lebensbild, Sinfonische Dichtung (with Tenor-Solo; 1912)
 * Praeludium und (Ganzton-)Fuge c-Moll (1913, also arr. for Organ 1920)
 * Der Sieger – Ein symphonisch-satyrisches Zeitbild, Sinfonische Dichtung (with Alt-Solo, mixed Choir; 1913)
 * Der Frieden – A vision for Oragan, Orchestra and mixed Choir (1914)
 * Marsch for Orchestra/Band/Piano (1915)
 * Konzertstück für Violine und Orchester E-Dur (1918)
 * Konzert für Violine und Orchester e-Moll (1918)
 * Thema und Variationen Tragische Geschichte (mit Bariton-Solo; 1921) (also version without Bariton-Solo)
 * Traumspiel-Suite for small orchestra (1921; also Pf.-solo)
 * Potpourri aus Die wunderlichen Geschichten des Kapellmeister Kreisler for Salonorchestra (1922; also for Pf-Solo)
 * Valse pathetique für Orchestra/Salonorchestra/Piano (1923)
 * Valse serieuse (Ernster Walzer) (1924; original 3rd. movement of Tanzsinfonie)
 * Raskolnikoff, Fantasie-Ouvertüre Nr. 1 (1925)
 * Raskolnikoff, Fantasie-Ouvertüre Nr. 2 (1925) (lost)
 * Suite aus Die beste Polizei für Strings (1926)
 * Festouvertüre Dem befreiten Köln (1926)
 * Sinfonische Variationen über Kol Nidrey (1929) [Theme = Vorspiel zur Oper Holofernes]
 * Raskolnikoff, Fantasie-Ouvertüre Nr. 3 (1. Version 1929; 2. Version 1930)
 * Karneval-Suite for small orchestra (1931/43 = Zwischenaktmusik aus Gondoliere des Dogen)
 * Mea culpa Strings (1932; = Vorspiel zu Das Opfer)

Stage works

 * Die Jungfrau von Orleans, opera in 3 acts after Friedrich Schiller (composed 1884-86)
 * Andreas Hofer, Singspiel in 1 Akt by Albert Lortzing (Revision by Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek [including two numbers composed by Reznicek)] (composed 1887
 * Satanella, opera in 2 acts on a libretto by Reznicek (composed 1887)
 * Emerich Fortunat, opera in 2 acts on a libretto by Reznick/Dubsky (composed 1888)
 * Donna Diana, opera in 3 acts after Agustín Moreto's El desdén con el desdén (composed 1894, revised 1908 and 1933)
 * Till Eulenspiegel, opera in 2 acts after Johann Fischart's Eulenspiegel Reimensweiss (composed 1900, revised 1933/34)
 * Die verlorene Braut, operetta (composed 1910) (not performed)
 * Der Arzt wider Willen, opera in 2 acts by Charles Gounod (translated and arranged for the German stage by Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek) (1910)
 * Die Angst vor der Ehe, operetta after Taufstein and Urban (composed 1912)
 * Ritter Blaubart, opera in 2 acts on a libretto by H. Eulenberg (composed 1915-17)
 * Traumspiel, Stage music to August Strindbergs drama (1915)
 * Nach Damaskus III, Stage music to August Strindbergs drama (1918, not performed)
 * Die wunderlichen Geschichten des Kapellmeister Kreisler, (1922; Stage music to Carl Meinhards drama after E.T.A.Hoffmann) lost
 * Kreislers Eckfenster (1923; Stage music to Carl Meinhards drama after E.T.A.Hoffmann) [lost]
 * Holofernes, opera in 2 acts after Friedrich Hebbel's Judith und Holofernes (composed 1922)
 * Die beste Polizei (1926; Stage music to Herbert Eulenbergs drama)
 * Marionetten des Todes, Ballett in 4 parts Bi (1927; = Tanzsinfonie with choreography by Ellen von Cleve-Petz)
 * Satuala, opera in 3 acts on a libretto by R. Laukner (composed 1927)
 * Benzin, opera in 2 acts on a libretto by Calderón de la Barca (composed 1929)
 * Spiel oder Ernst?, opera in 1 act on a libretto by Poul Knudsen (composed 1930)
 * Der Gondoliere des Dogen, opera in 1 act on a libretto by Poul Knudsen (composed 1931) [The Doge's Gondolier]
 * Das Opfer, opera in 1 act on a libretto by Poul Knudsen (composed 1932)
 * Das goldene Kalb, ballet in 4 parts on a scenario of Viggo Cavling (composed 1934/35) [The Golden Calf]

Chamber music

 * Nachtstück Violine or Violoncell and Piano (1905; also arr. for small orchestra)
 * Stringquartet Nr. 1 c-minor (1882) [Altmann Nummer 1]
 * Stringquartet Nr. 2 c-sharp minor (1906)
 * Stringquartet-Fragment c-sharp minor (ca 1920; only Mov. 1.-3)
 * Stringquartet Nr. 3 c-sharp minor (1921) [Altmann Nr. 2]
 * Stringquartet Nr. 4 d-minor (1922) [Movement 1.+ 2. arranged from Stringquartet c-sharp minor 1907; Movement 3.+ 4. new ][Altmann Nr. 3]
 * Allegro alla polacca for Stringquartet (1922; originally new 4th movement for Quartett in d minor)
 * Stringquartet Nr. 5 e-minor (1925/30)
 * Stringquartet Nr. 6 B Major (1932) [2.+3. movement taken from Quartet Nr. 5 e-minor] [Altmann Nr. 4]
 * 2 Movements for Stringquartet(?; Fragments)
 * Vorspiel zu Holofernes (Kol Nidrey) Violin and Piano (1925)
 * Für unsere Kleinen – Movement for Pianotrio (1921)
 * Walzer-Lied für Pianotrio (1924; Excerpt from Valse pathetique; also Piano solo)

Piano

 * Hexenszene aus Macbeth (composed Marburg 1876-78) (lost)
 * Zwei Fantasiestücke (composed Marburg 1876–1878; published 1882/1896)
 * Letzte Gedanken des Selbstmörders for piano (composed 1878-81) [Last Thoughts of the Suicide] (lost)
 * Vier Klavierstücke (composed 1880)
 * Eine Lustspiel-Ouvertüre, reduction for four-hands piano (composed 1883, published 1896)
 * Probszt-Marsch (composed 1891)
 * Sinfonische Suite Nr. 2 D maior, reduction for Piano four hands (1896)
 * Marsch (1915; alsoOrchestra, Band)
 * Traumspiel-Suite, reduction for piano (composed 1921)
 * Potpourri from Die wunderlichen Geschichten des Kapellmeister Kreisler (1922; also version for Salonorchestra)
 * Walzer-Lied (1924; Excerpt from Valse pathetique; arr. also for Pianotrio)
 * Ernster Walzer (composed 1924)
 * Valse Pathétique (composed 1924, orchestrated 1924)
 * Vier sinfonische Tänze, (composed 1924, including Ernster Walzer; orchestrated in 1925 with newly added Ländler as 3rd. movement)
 * Menuett, piano reduction from the stage music to Polizei (composed 1926)
 * Liebeserklärung (composed 1943)

Organ

 * Präludium und chromatische Fuge in C sharp minor (composed 1907, arr. for Oran in 1921)
 * Präludium und Fuge in C minor (composed 1913, arr. for Organ in 1918)
 * Fantasie "Kommt Menschenkinder, rühmt und preist" (composed 1930)

Works for Choir

 * Choir for a choir-concert at the Gymnasium of Marburg (1877) (lost)
 * Requiem (Studywork Graz 1878–1881, lost)
 * Requiem d-minor Josef Schmeykal for Soli, mixed Choir, Organ and Orchestra (1894; lost)
 * Messe F-Maior for Soli, mixed Choir and Orchestra (1898 to commemorate the 50th Year of the ascension to the throne of Emperor Franz Josef 1; lost)
 * In Memoriam, Alt, Bariton, mixed Choir, Organ and Strings (1915, 1929, 1936)
 * Vater unser, Choralfantasie for mixed Choir and Organ (1919)
 * Sieben deutsche Volkslieder from the 16. und 17. Century for mixed Choir/Piano (1924)
 * Der steinerne Psalm for mixed Choir, Orgel and Orchestra (1929; Text: Karl Bröger)
 * Vom ewigen Frieden, Kantate for Soli, mixed Choir and large Orchestra, (1930, Text: Reznicek, not performed)
 * Wiewohl ein armer Narr ich bin: Deutsches Volkslied of the 16. Century for mixed Choir (1930) [1. Version]
 * Von rechter Lieb und Stetigkeit. Deutsches Volkslied of the 16. Century for Voice/Pf or Chor/Organ (1933) [2.+3. Version]
 * Sieben deutsche Volkslieder aus dem 16. und 17. Jahrhundert for mixed Chor/Klavier, 2. Folge (1936)

Songs

 * Ruhm und Ewigkeit (Glory and eternity) Tenor or Mezzosopran and Orchestra (1903; Text: Nietzsche)
 * Drei deutsche Volkslieder aus Des Knaben Wunderhorn for small Orchestra/Piano (1905)
 * Zwei Balladen aus Friedericianischer Zeit, Bass and Orchestra/Piano (1912, Text: Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué, Georg von Kries)
 * Vier Bet- und Bußgesänge für Alt or Bass and small Orchestra/Piano (1913, Text: Bibble)
 * Drei Stimmungen (1883; Reznicek)
 * Trois Mélodies (1897; ?, Goethe)
 * Drei Gesänge eines Vagabunden (1904; M. Drescher)
 * Drei Gedichte (1904; M. Drescher)
 * Drei Gedichte (1904; Henckell)
 * Drei Lieder (1905; Bierbaum, Forrer, Henckell)
 * Schelmische Abwehr (1905; Henckell)
 * Drei Lieder (1918; Owiglas; Mörike; Eichendorf)
 * Die Schiffbrüchigen (1921; Drescher)
 * Madonna a Rhein. ein deutsches Wiegenlied (1924; H.H.Cramer)
 * Sieben Lieder für mittlere Singstimme und Klavier (1939; Ginzkey, Lilienkron, Höcker)
 * Wächterlied (1939; nach einer Volksweise des 16. Jahrhunderts)

Selected discography

 * Theme and Variations after the poem "Tragische Geschichte (Tragic Story)" by Adelbert von Chamisso for large orchestra and baritone. Performed by Barry McDaniel (baritone) and the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Carl Schuricht (Schuricht-Edition Vol. 14, combined with works by Richard Strauss, Hans Pfitzner, and Max Reger) (Hänssler).
 * Symphony No. 1 in D minor "Tragische (Tragic)", Vier Bet- und Bußgesänge (Four Songs of Prayer and Repentance). Performed by Marina Prudenskaya (mezzo-soprano) and the Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt (Oder) conducted by Frank Beermann. CPO 777 223-2
 * Symphony No. 2 in B flat major "Ironische (Ironic)" and No. 5 "Tanz-Symphonie (Dance Symphony)". Performed by the Bern Symphony Orchestra conducted by Frank Beermann. CPO 777 056-2
 * Symphony No. 3 in D major "Im alten Stil (In an Old Style)" and No. 4 in F minor. Performed by the Robert Schumann Philharmonic of the Theater Chemnitz. conducted by Frank Beermann. CPO 777 637-2
 * Symphony No. 3 in D major and Symphony No. 4 in F minor. Performed by the Philharmonia Hungarica conducted by Gordon Wright. Koch Schwann CD11091. (1984/85)
 * Der Sieger (The Victor) for alto and orchestra. Performed by Beate Koepp (alto) and the WDR Symphony Orchestra and Choir (Cologne) conducted by Michail Jurowski. CPO 999 898-2
 * Schlemihl, Symphonic Life Story for tenor and orchestra and Fantasy Overture No. 2 'Raskolnikoff'. Performed by Nobuaki Yamamasu (tenor) and the WDR Symphony Orchestra conducted by Michail Jurowski. CPO 999 795-2
 * A Comedy Overture, Theme and Variations after the poem "Tragische Geschichte" by Adelbert von Chamisso for large orchestra and baritone and Symphonic Variations on 'Kol Nidrey'. Performed by Alexander Vassiliev (bass) and the WDR Symphony Orchestra conducted by Michail Jurowski. CPO 999 795-2
 * Idyllic Overture "Goldpirol (Golden Oreole)", Symphonic Entr'acte in form an overture "Wie Till Eulenspiegel lebte (How Till Eulenspiegel Lived)", Konzertstück for violin and orchestra in E major, Prelude and Fugue in C minor and Nachtstück (Night Piece) for violin, horns, harp and string orchestra. Performed by Sophie Jaffé (violin) and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Marcus Bosch. CPO 777 983-2
 * Carnival Suite in an Old Style, Dream Play Suite and Symphonic Suite No. 1 in E minor. Performed by the Staatskapelle Weimar conducted by Stefan Solyom. CPO 555 056-2
 * Donna Diana (opera, 1894). Performed by Max Wittges (bass), Manuela Uhl (soprano) and others, Kiel Opera Chorus and Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Ulrich Windfuhr. CPO 999 991-2
 * Ritter Blaubart (opera, 1918). Performed by David Pittman-Jennings (baritone), Arutjun Kotchinian (tenor) and others, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin conducted by Michail Jurowski. CPO 999 899-2
 * Benzin(opera, 1928). Prformed by Kouta Räsänen, Johanna Stojkovic, Guibee Yang, Susanne Thielemann, Matthias Winter, Chor der Oper Chemnitz, Robert-Schumann-Philharmonie, Frank Beermann. CPO 777 653-2
 * String Quartet No. 3 in C-sharp minor (1921). Performed by the Franz Schubert String Quartet (Combined with Erich Wolfgang Korngold's String Quartet No. 1 in A major, Op. 16). Nimbus 5506-2

title: Emil von Reznicek


text:
Naval Base San Diego

Naval Base San Diego (also known as 32nd Street Naval Station) is a United States Navy base in San Diego, California. It is the world's second largest surface ship naval base. Naval Base San Diego is the principal homeport of the United States Pacific Fleet, consisting of over 50 ships and over 150 tenant commands. The base is composed of 13 piers stretched over 1600 acre of land and 326 acre of water. The total on base population is over 24,000 military personnel and over 10,000 civilians.

History
The 1600 acre of land on which the Naval Base sits today was occupied in 1918 by a coalition of concrete ship building firms known as the Emergency Fleet Corporation, under the single company name Pacific Marine Construction. But Pacific Marine began to lose profits with the conclusion of World War I, and negotiated a return of the land back to the City of San Diego. Meanwhile, the Navy was exploring the small tract of land to establish a west coast ship repair facility and moved on the opportunity to acquire the land. By 1920, the Navy and the Emergency Fleet Corporation had negotiated the transfer of land improvements to the United States Navy. Still, three obstacles stood in the way of a Navy repair facility: the coalition company, Schofield Engineering Co., still retained an option to purchase the existing plant; a local shipping board had not granted permission for more construction; and finally, Congress had not yet passed an appropriations bill to authorize funds to begin work.

Nevertheless, by June 1920, Congress passed the appropriations bill- $750,000 of which was earmarked for the navy repair base. With the money appropriated, Schofield still delayed in releasing their option on the land. At the time, Admiral Roger Welles, then Commandant of the 11th Naval District, had grown weary of Schofield's delaying tactics and threatened to pull stakes and establish a repair base in San Pedro, Los Angeles, California.

His threats worked. On 21 February 1921, Welles assumed formal custody of the property. In May 1921, Commander H.N. Jensen, Commanding Officer of the repair tender USS Prairie, was directed to moor at the site to establish repair operations. On 23 February 1922, acting Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt Jr. issued General Order 78 establishing the facility as the U.S. Destroyer Base, San Diego.

During its first years in commission, the base grew rapidly as repair facilities expanded, torpedo and radio schools were established, and more shops were constructed. During 1924, the base decommissioned 77 destroyers and commissioned seven.

By 1937, the Destroyer Base had added two additional tracts of land and by then, its 29 buildings and other improvements amounted to a cost of more than $3.2 million.

The base then expanded heavily during World War II, and by 1942, the Navy had added expanded fleet training schools, and an amphibious force training unit. By the following year, it was determined the scope of operations exceeded the base's basic function as a Destroyer Base. On 7 October 1943, the base was re-designated the U.S. Repair Base, San Diego, a title it retained throughout World War II. Between 1943 and 1945, the newly named base performed conversion, overhaul, maintenance, and battle damage repair to more than 5,117 ships. Central to this maintenance were the Navy's construction and delivery of 155 new floating dry docks deployed to various bases, including three 3,000-ton, three 1,000-ton and one 900-ton floating docks remaining at the San Diego Repair Base. The floating dry docks became the central repair and training facilities on the base which were crucial to the World War II mission.

After World War II, base operations were again reorganized, with a post-war mission to provide logistical support (including repair and dry-docking) to ships of the active fleet. On 15 September 1946, the Secretary of the Navy re-designated the repair base Naval Station, San Diego. By the end of 1946, the base had grown to 294 buildings with floor space square footage of more than 6900000 sqft, berthing facilities included five piers of more than 18000 ft of berthing space. Land then totaled more than 921 acre and 16 mi of roads. Barracks could accommodate 380 officers and 18,000 enlisted men. More than 3,500 sailors could be fed in the galley at a single sitting on the base.

Later, in the 1990s, the Naval Station became the principal homeport of the then U.S. Pacific Fleet, when the Long Beach Naval Shipyard was closed for the final time on 30 September 1994. Naval Station San Diego was realigned under Commander, Navy Region Southwest and became one in a triad of metropolitan Navy bases that now make up the bulk of the metro area Navy's presence. With that change, the base became the hub of all Navy port operations for the Region, assumed logistical responsibility for both Naval Medical Center San Diego and the Region headquarters and was re-designated Naval Base San Diego.

Operations
Naval Base San Diego is home port to approximately 54 ships, including 46 U.S. Navy ships, two Littoral Combat Ships, two U.S. Coast Guard cutters, and eight ships of the Military Sealift Command, as well as research and auxiliary vessels.

Ashore, the base has approximately 150 separate tenant commands and other Navy support facilities, each having specific and specialized fleet support missions. The base is a workplace for approximately 26,000 military, civilian, and contract personnel. Additionally, the base has rooms to house more than 4,000 men and women in modern apartment-like barracks, including new state-of-the-art residential towers.

Support services on base includes less direct and indirect fleet support: waterfront operations, force protection (security), supply, Navy Exchange and Commissary shopping centers, bachelor quarters, food services, public affairs, administration, transient personnel administration, fiscal management, equal employment opportunity, civil engineering, family services, recreation on the base and near various military family housing areas, medical and dental care, religious services, transportation, utilities, legal support, counseling and assistance, facility maintenance, fire protection, educational services, and child care for more than 300 children daily at the base Child Development Center.

The base has a plant value of $4.5 billion.

An explosion and fire on the USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6) on July 12, 2020 resulted in the eventual decommissioning and scrapping of the ship.

Homeported ships
(As of November 2023)

Amphibious Assault Ships

 * USS Essex (LHD-2)
 * USS Boxer (LHD-4)
 * USS Tripoli (LHA-7)
 * USS Makin Island (LHD-8)
 * USS Green Bay (LPD-20)
 * USS San Diego (LPD-22)
 * USS Anchorage (LPD-23)
 * USS Somerset (LPD-25)
 * USS John P. Murtha (LPD-26)
 * USS Portland (LPD-27)
 * USS Germantown (LSD-42)
 * USS Comstock (LSD-45)
 * USS Ashland (LSD-48)
 * USS Harpers Ferry (LSD-49)
 * USS Pearl Harbor (LSD-52)

Cruisers

 * USS Princeton (CG-59)
 * USS Cowpens (CG-63)
 * USS Chosin (CG-65)
 * USS Lake Erie (CG-70)
 * USS Cape St. George (CG-71)

Destroyers

 * USS Curtis Wilbur (DDG-54)
 * USS Russell (DDG-59)
 * USS Paul Hamilton (DDG-60)
 * USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62)
 * USS Stethem (DDG-63)
 * USS O'Kane (DDG-77)
 * USS Preble (DDG-88)
 * USS Mustin (DDG-89)
 * USS Chafee (DDG-90)
 * USS Pinckney (DDG-91)
 * USS Momsen (DDG-92)
 * USS Chung-Hoon (DDG-93)
 * USS Halsey (DDG-97)
 * USS Sterett (DDG-104)
 * USS Stockdale (DDG-106)
 * USS Spruance (DDG-111)
 * USS Lenah H. Sutcliffe Higbee (DDG-123)
 * USS Jack H. Lucas (DDG-125)
 * USS Zumwalt (DDG-1000)
 * USS Michael Monsoor (DDG-1001)
 * USS Lyndon B. Johnson (DDG-1002)

Littoral Combat Ships

 * USS Fort Worth (LCS-3)
 * USS Jackson (LCS-6)
 * USS Montgomery (LCS-8)
 * USS Gabrielle Giffords (LCS-10)
 * USS Omaha (LCS-12)
 * USS Manchester (LCS-14)
 * USS Tulsa (LCS-16)
 * USS Charleston (LCS-18)
 * USS Cincinnati (LCS-20)
 * USS Kansas City (LCS-22)
 * USS Oakland (LCS-24)
 * USS Mobile (LCS-26)
 * USS Savannah (LCS-28)
 * USS Canberra (LCS-30)
 * USS Santa Barbara (LCS-32)
 * USS Augusta (LCS-34)

Supply and Support Ships

 * USNS Bob Hope (T-AKR-300) Transferred to MARAD
 * USNS Mercy (T-AH-19)
 * USNS Henry J. Kaiser (T-AO-187)
 * USNS Yukon (T-AO-202)
 * SS Curtiss (T-AVB-4)

In fiction and literature
Naval Base San Diego is the setting for the 2005 naval thriller novel Treason by Don Brown.

Aerial view
The Navy has promised to alter the design of one of the buildings on site, which from above clearly resembles a Nazi swastika pitched at the correct 45-degree angle the nazis used. A report by SFGATE suggests that top officials in the navy knew what the design of the building would look like prior to the installation

title: Naval Base San Diego


text:
The Performance Group

The Performance Group (TPG) was an experimental theater troupe that Richard Schechner founded in 1967 in New York City. TPG's home base was the Performing Garage in the SoHo district of Lower Manhattan. After 1975, tensions led to Schechner's resignation in 1980. The troupe reinvented itself as The Wooster Group under the leadership of director and theatre artist Elizabeth LeCompte.

History
TPG was an "environmental theatre" – meaning that each production took place in an entirely redesigned space. Most of TPG's productions were directed by Schechner, though others including Joan MacIntosh, Stephen Borst, James Griffiths, Leeny Sack, Elizabeth LeCompte, and Spalding Gray either directed their own works or works by others. TPG's designers included Jerry Rojo, Michael Kirby, and Jim Clayburgh. Some of TPG's productions were collages of various texts, other productions were radical deconstructions of classics, and some works were brand new. Schechner resigned as artistic director in 1980. At that time, Elizabeth LeCompte became the artistic director of the company which was renamed The Wooster Group and continued to operate out of the Performing Garage.

Productions
Many TPG works premiered and then were modified over several years. TPG's major works are (unless otherwise noted, productions were directed by Schechner): Dionysus in 69 (1968), based on Euripides' The Bacchae, text by Schechner based on group improvisations; Makbeth (1969), (based on Shakespeare), text devised by Schechner; Commune (1970), a group devised work with the text arranged by Schechner and the company, which won Joan MacIntosh an OBIE for Distinguished Performance in 1970; The Tooth of Crime (1972) by Sam Shepard; Mother Courage and Her Children (1975) by Bertolt Brecht; The Marilyn Project (1975), by David Gaard); Oedipus (1977) by Seneca; Cops (1978) by Terry Curtis Fox; The Survivor and the Translator (1978) performed and directed by Leeny Sack; The Balcony (1979) by Jean Genet.

In 1975, some members began to develop their own productions, led by Spalding Gray and Elizabeth LeCompte. The trilogy (Three Places in Rhode Island) was performed in the Performing Garage but was not attributed to TPG. Performances include Sakonnet Point (1975), Rumstick Road (1978), Nyatt School (1978), and Point Judith (an epilogue) (1979). Eventually this divide led to the change in organization that created The Wooster Group.

title: The Performance Group


text:
Eber Finn

Éber Finn (modern spelling: Éibhear Fionn), son of Míl Espáine, was, according to medieval Irish legend and historical tradition, a High King of Ireland and one of the founders of the Milesian lineage, to which medieval genealogists traced all the important Gaelic royal lines.

According to the Lebor Gabála Érenn, the ancestors of the Gaels were living in the Iberian peninsula, ruled by two of the sons of Míl, Éber Donn and Érimón. After Míl's uncle Íth made a voyage to Ireland but was murdered by its three kings, Mac Cuill, Mac Cécht and Mac Gréine of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the seven sons of Míl led an invasion in thirty-six ships. They landed in County Kerry and fought their way to Tara. On the way, the wives of the three kings, Ériu, Banba and Fodla, requested that the island be named after them: Ériu is the earlier form of the modern name Éire, and Banba and Fodla were often used as poetic names for Ireland, much as Albion is for Britain.

At Tara the sons of Míl met the three kings, and it was decreed that the invaders return to their ships and sail a distance of nine waves from Ireland, and if they were able to land again, Ireland would be theirs. They set sail, but the Tuatha Dé used magic to brew up a storm, in which five of the sons were drowned, leaving only Eber Finn, Érimón and Amergin the poet, to land and take the island in the Battle of Tailtiu. Amergin divided the kingship between Érimón, who ruled the northern half, and Éber Finn, the southern.

A year after the Battle of Tailtiu, Éber Finn became unhappy with his half, fought a battle his brother at Airgetros, lost and was killed. Érimón became sole ruler of Ireland. The High Kingship would alternate between the descendants of Éber Finn and the descendants of Érimón. Éber's sons included Conmáel, Ér, Orba, Ferón and Fergna.

Geoffrey Keating dates his reign to 1287 BC, the Annals of the Four Masters to 1700 BC.

title: Eber Finn


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title: User talk:64.60.74.172


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Samuel Laws

Samuel Spahr Laws (March 23, 1824 – January 9, 1921) was an American minister, professor, physician, college president, businessman and inventor best known today as the inventor of the Laws Gold Indicator, a predecessor of the ticker tape machine. He was an 1848 graduate and class valedictorian of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio and a member of the Alpha chapter of Beta Theta Pi, founded nine years before his graduation in 1839.

Westminster College
Samuel Spahr Laws became a professor at Westminster College in 1854. At the college's first commencement in June 1855, the board of trustees elected Laws to the position of president of the college. Laws was officially confirmed to the position in October of that year. His term as president of Westminster was highly successful. He raised funds to establish an endowment that compared favorably with the more established east coast schools, and enrollment ranked fourth among all colleges of the Presbyterian Church. Laws had a dominating personality, and he did not tolerate well interference from other school officials. Laws came into conflict with the Westminster trustees over matters of discipline, and at the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861 he was arrested and tried for treason after refusing to sign an oath of allegiance to the federal government. As a Virginia native, Laws was a southern sympathizer. He was removed from his position and jailed for three months in a St. Louis, Missouri prison, where he spent his time reading Aristotle. Laws was released on the condition that he leave the United States. He spent 1862 teaching in Paris, but in 1863 he returned to the United States and settled in New York.

New York Gold Exchange
In 1863, Laws returned to New York from Paris, and he found a job as manager of New York City's Gold Exchange and an amateur electrician, invented the gold indicator to put an end to the crush of messenger boys scurrying into the Exchange and back out to their clients with the latest gold price in hand. As the price of gold changed, an electrical signal sent from the trading floor would cause a hand on the device—a clocklike dial rimmed with numerals—to move until it pointed to the latest trading price.

Laws initially placed a gold indicator in a window at the Exchange, but he soon began installing them, through his newly founded Reporting Telegraph Co., in brokerage firms throughout Manhattan and pushing the latest prices of gold over the telegraph wires. Thus, as early as 1866, brokerage houses willing to pay the monthly fee could base trades on up-to-the-minute market information rather than waiting for runners to bring the news. In June 1869, Laws hired a penniless would-be inventor named Thomas A. Edison as mechanical supervisor.

University of Missouri
Laws served as president of the University of Missouri from 1876 to 1889. After he stepped down from the presidency in 1889, he moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where he continued to write books and manage his investments. In 1893 he accepted a teaching position in Columbia, South Carolina at the Presbyterian Theological Seminary, where he taught until his retirement in 1898. Following retirement from his teaching career, he lived in Richmond, Virginia, Washington, D.C., and finally Asheville, North Carolina where he died in 1921.

Legacy
Miami University named the building that housed most of the Richard T. Farmer School of Business after Laws, and at the University of Missouri, residential building Laws Hall and Laws Observatory were also named in honor of him.

title: Samuel Laws


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Brace Yourself for the Mediocre

Brace Yourself for the Mediocre is the first and only album of the band Roper, released October 19, 2004. It was put together by lead singer Reese Roper before he had put the rest of the band together. The album has a pop punk sound, although HM comments that it "has much more in common with the raw side than... with Simple Plan or Relient K.

The albums contains lyrics that avoid the clichés of pop punk and deliver scathing wit alongside representations of faith, typical of Reese Roper.

Track listing

 * 1) "Hello Lamewads" – 3:16
 * 2) "You're With Stupid" – 2:27
 * 3) "Amplify" – 3:59
 * 4) "Vendetta" – 3:47
 * 5) "Red Eye to Miami" – 2:56
 * 6) "Quicksilver" – 3:21
 * 7) "1985" – 3:20
 * 8) "Say Sayonara" – 3:32
 * 9) "How Your Halo Fell" – 3:30
 * 10) "Day of Pigs" – 2:37
 * 11) "Fireflies" – 3:28
 * 12) "You're Still The One" (Shania Twain cover) – 2:57
 * 13) "In Excelsis Deo" – 3:42

Personnel

 * Additional Music:
 * Drums: Frank Lenz, Jason White
 * Bass: Elijah Thomson
 * Organ: Phil Bennett
 * Guitar: Bob Schiveley, Ethan Luck

 * Additional Vocals:
 * Adam Davis
 * Sam Hernandez
 * Mick Leonardi
 * Justin McRoberts
 * Eli Salazar
 * Dennis Simmons
 * Jason White
 * Dan Romero
 * Illustrations: Barak Hardley

 * Touring Band Lineup:
 * Reese Roper: Vocals, Nord
 * Jonathan Till: Bass Guitar
 * Jonathan Byrnside: Lead Guitar
 * Matt "emo" Emmett: Rhythm Guitar, Backup Vocals
 * Nick White: Drums

Charts
Album - Billboard (North America)

title: Brace Yourself for the Mediocre