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2005 Zarand earthquake

An earthquake affected several villages in the Kerman province of Iran on February 22, 2005, at 05:55:23 local time. The shock measured 6.4 on the moment magnitude scale and had a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe). Zarand is located 740 km southeast of Tehran. The maximum recorded peak ground acceleration was 0.51 g at Shirinrud dam. The United States' National Earthquake Information Center and the Belgian' Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters both show that 612 died and 1,411 were injured in the event.

Damage and casualties
Four villages, each having around 1,000 inhabitants, were reported completely destroyed, and 30% to 70% of buildings in more than 40 villages were reported damaged. It is estimated that the population of the affected area exceeds 30,000. A great portion of population of several villages are severely affected because of poor condition of buildings. The epicenter of the quake was in a mountainous and sparsely inhabited area. It is believed that the death toll could have been much higher if the quake had stricken a more densely populated area like Bam.

Previous events
The region of Zarand is close to an active fault, known as the Kuhbanan fault in the north east of the city. Its trend is northwest-southeast and its length is 160 km. Zarand has been hit by several quakes in the last 70 years, with the oldest recorded one going back to 1933. On December 20, 1977, at 04:34 Iran Standard Time (23:34 December 19 UTC), the area was hit by a 6.2-magnitude earthquake leaving 521 dead and 3 villages completely destroyed. On December 26, 2003, another devastating earthquake happened in Bam, 200 km southwest of Zarand, which is in the same province.

title: 2005 Zarand earthquake


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Nepean High School

Nepean High School may refer to:

 * Nepean High School (Ottawa), Canada
 * Nepean Creative and Performing Arts High School, Penrith, Australia (formerly known as Nepean High School)

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

title: Nepean High School


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Californian Dialect

Californian Dialect
A mutation of what is being discussed at Votes for deletion/Californian Accent. Mikkalai 22:41, 22 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * Delete --Yath 22:45, 22 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete Original made-up-stuff. Daniel Quinlan 08:02, Feb 23, 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep has as valid a claim as Ebonics. This article needs time for organic growth.  ALKIVAR ™[[Image:Radioactive.svg|18px|]] 22:58, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)


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Tower house

A tower house is a particular type of stone structure, built for defensive purposes as well as habitation. Tower houses began to appear in the Middle Ages, especially in mountainous or limited access areas, to command and defend strategic points with reduced forces. At the same time, they were also used as an aristocrat's residence, around which a castle town was often constructed.

Europe

After their initial appearance in Ireland, Scotland, the Frisian lands, Northern Spain and England during the High Middle Ages, tower houses were also built in other parts of western Europe, especially in parts of France and Italy. In Italian medieval communes, urban palazzi with a very tall tower were increasingly built by the local highly competitive patrician families as power centres during times of internal strife. Most north Italian cities had a number of these by the end of the Middle Ages, but few now remain, notably two towers in Bologna, twenty towers in Pavia and fourteen secular towers in the small city of San Gimignano in Tuscany now the best group to survive.

Scotland has many fine examples of medieval tower houses, including Drum Castle, Craigievar Castle and Castle Fraser, and in the unstable Scottish Marches along the border between England and Scotland the peel tower was the typical residence of the wealthy, with others being built by the government. In 17th century Scotland these castles became the pleasure retreats of the upper classes. While able to adopt a military nature, they were furnished for comfort and social interaction.

Tower houses are commonly found in northern Spain, especially in Navarre and the Basque Country, some of them dating to the 8th century. They were mainly used as noble residences and were able to provide shelter against enemies, starting with the Muslims and later Aragón and Castile. Due to complex legal charters, few had boroughs attached to them, thus they are usually found standing alone in some strategic spot like a crossroad, rather than on a height. During the petty wars among the Basque nobles from 1379 to 1456, the upper floors (with defensive capacity) of most of them were demolished. Few have survived unscathed to the present day. Since then they have been used only as residences by their traditional noble owners (Saint Ignatius of Loyola was born in one of them, which stands to this day) or converted into farmhouses.

To the west of the Basque Country, in Cantabria and Asturias similar tower houses are found. Furthest west in Spain, in Galicia, medieval tower houses are in the origin of many Modern Age pazos, noble residences as well as strongholds.

Large numbers of tower houses can be found across Portugal, particularly in the north of the country. By the 15th century they had lost their military or residential uses, and were often either expanded into larger manors or converted into hunting lodges for the aristocracy.

A feature peculiar to Germany is the few preserved tower houses of Ratisbon, reminiscent of those in San Gimignano.

In the Balkans, a distinctive type of tower house (kule) was built during the Ottoman occupation, developed in the 17th century by both Christians and Muslims in a period of decline of Ottoman authority and insecurity. The tower house served the purpose of protecting the extended family.

In the Baltic states, the Teutonic Order and other crusaders erected fortified tower houses in the Middle Ages, locally known as "vassal castles", as a means of exercising control over the conquered areas. These tower houses were typically not intended to be used in any major military actions. For this purpose, the crusaders relied on a number of larger order castles. A number of such tower houses still exist, well-preserved examples include Purtse, Vao and Kiiu castles in Estonia.

Caucasus and Asia

One theory suggests that private tower-like structures proliferate in areas where central authority is weak, leading to a need for a status symbol incorporating private defences against small-scale attacks. For example, the North Caucasus was a country where fierce competition over limited natural resources led to chronic feuding between neighbours. There are numerous examples of tower houses in Svanetia, Chechnya and Ingushetia, where a clan-like social structure survived well into the 20th century. Numerous examples of Svan tower houses are found in Chazhashi and Ushguli. See Vainakh tower architecture for details.

The Yemeni city of Shibam has hundreds of tower houses. Many other buildings in the Asir and Al-Bahah provinces of Saudi Arabia also have many stone towers and tower houses called a "qasaba".

Similarly, hundreds of Tibetan tower houses dot the so-called Tribal Corridor in Western Sichuan, some 50 metres high with as many as 13 star-like points, and the oldest are thought to be 1,200 years old. They appear to have been created as much for prestige among village families as for defence.

Kaiping and some other towns in South China retain a plethora of watchtowers, or diaolous. Although they were built mainly as protection against forays by bandits, many of them also served as living quarters. Some of them were built by a single family, some by several families together or by entire village communities.

North America
Most notable in the New World might be considered a focal element of the Mesa Verde Anasazi ruin in Colorado, United States. There is a prominent structure at that site which is called the "tower house" and has the general appearance characteristics of its counterparts in Britain and Ireland. This four-story building was constructed of adobe bricks circa 1350 AD, and its rather well-preserved ruins are nestled within a cliff overhang. Other accounts date this ruin somewhat earlier. The towers of the ancient Pueblo people are both of smaller ground plan than Old World tower houses, and are generally only parts of complexes housing communities, rather than isolated structures housing an individual family and their retainers, as in Europe.

title: Tower house


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Holocaust (miniseries)

Holocaust (full title: Holocaust: The Story of the Family Weiss) (1978) is an American television miniseries which aired on NBC over four nights, from April 16 — April 19, 1978.

It dramatizes the Holocaust from the perspective of the Weiss family, fictional Berlin Jews Dr. Josef Weiss (Fritz Weaver), his wife Berta (Rosemary Harris), and their three children—Karl (James Woods), an artist married to Inga (Meryl Streep), a Christian woman; Rudi (Joseph Bottoms); and teenage Anna (Blanche Baker). It also follows Erik Dorf (Michael Moriarty), a fictional "Aryan" lawyer who becomes a Nazi out of economic necessity, rising within the SS and gradually becoming a war criminal.

Holocaust highlights numerous events which occurred both up to and during World War II, such as Kristallnacht, the construction of Jewish ghettos, the Nazi T4 Euthanasia Program, and, later, the construction of death camps and the use of gas chambers.

The miniseries won several awards and received positive reviews, but was also criticized. In The New York Times, Holocaust survivor and political activist Elie Wiesel wrote that it was "Untrue, offensive, cheap: As a TV production, the film is an insult to those who perished and to those who survived." However, the series played a major role in public debates on the Holocaust in West Germany after its showing in 1979, and its impact has been described as "enormous".

The series has been widely credited with bringing the term "Holocaust" into popular usage to describe the extermination of the European Jews.

Part 1: The Gathering Darkness
1935 — Karl and Inga celebrate their wedding in Berlin. Erik Dorf gets a job in the SS as right-hand man to top-level Nazi Reinhard Heydrich (David Warner).

1938 — Dorf warns Dr. Weiss to leave Germany. Berta is adamant about staying. During Kristallnacht, Berta's father is attacked. Dorf impresses Heydrich by orchestrating the pogrom and gets promoted. Karl is arrested and sent to Buchenwald concentration camp. As a Polish citizen, Dr. Weiss is deported to Warsaw. The Weiss home is seized by a Nazi. Berta and the children move in with Inga's Nazi-supporting family. Rudi runs away.

1939 — Dorf rises within Nazi society as he helps Heydrich plan the transport of Jews to occupied Poland. In Warsaw, Dr. Weiss serves as an Elder in the Judenrat (Jewish council) and works as a doctor serving the Jewish community.

1940 — On New Year's Eve, a distraught Anna runs away and is soon raped by SA stormtroopers in the street. Catatonic afterwards, she is committed to the Hadamar killing centre, where she and others suffering mental illness are gassed under the Nazi Aktion T4. Rudi reaches German-occupied Prague. He falls in love with Helena (Tovah Feldshuh). They decide to run away together.

Part 2: The Road to Babi Yar
1941 — Berta is transported to the Warsaw Ghetto. Reunited with Dr. Weiss, she becomes a schoolteacher. Inga travels to Buchenwald, where family friend Müller (Tony Haygarth) is an officer. In exchange for transferring Karl from the quarry, where he is being worked to death, Müller forces Inga to submit to sex. Heydrich and Dorf order the commanders of the Einsatzgruppen to Russia to begin massacring Jews. Dorf finds himself forced to participate in an execution. After one of Dr. Weiss's nurses is executed for smuggling food for the ghetto's children, his brother Moses joins a Zionist resistance group. In occupied Kiev, Rudi and Helena witness the Babi Yar massacre, along with Dorf. Dr. Weiss and the ghetto elders learn from a spy that the Nazis are exterminating the Jews. Dorf and family enjoy Christmas around Berta's stolen piano. They find Weiss family photos hidden in it. Dorf tells his daughter to burn them. Müller torments Karl with the knowledge that he extorts sex from Inga once a month, in exchange for passing her letters to Karl.

1942 — Heydrich and Dorf convene the Wannsee Conference, at which the "Final Solution" is planned. Rudi and Helena join up with Jewish partisans.

Part 3: The Final Solution
1942 — Karl is transferred to the propaganda art studio at Theresienstadt, the paradise ghetto in Czechoslovakia, maintained by the Nazis to fool Red Cross and neutral observers. Karl and the other artists secretly sketch the brutal reality of the camp. While living among the partisans, Rudi marries Helena. Dorf and Heydrich accompany Himmler to a mass shooting. Disgusted by how grisly it is, Himmler demands a more efficient murder method be found. Dorf attends a demonstration of a gas van. The partisans ambush a group of Ukrainian Trawnikis. Rudi is traumatized when he must kill one. Moses smuggles guns into the Warsaw ghetto. Himmler, Heydrich and Dorf plan the expansion of Auschwitz into a mass killing center. Inga convinces Müller, who has fallen in love with her, to denounce her and have her sent to Theresienstadt, where she joins Karl. After Heydrich's assassination, Dorf oversees construction of the death camps, choosing the pesticide Zyklon B for mass extermination. Some of Karl's sketches are discovered by the Nazis. Dorf has Karl and the other artists tortured, but they refuse to reveal where the rest of their sketches are. Dr. Weiss and the ghetto elders are ordered to select 6000 Jews a day for transport to Treblinka for extermination.

Part 4: The Saving Remnant
1942 — Dorf asks for a transfer back to Berlin, which is denied. His wife reassures him that what he is doing is right. Dorf tours Auschwitz and observes the murder of Jews in the gas chambers. Dr. Weiss is caught saving Jews from the transport trains by falsely claiming they have contagious illnesses. He and Berta are sent to Auschwitz. Rudi is injured when the partisans attack a German barracks. Karl learns Inga is pregnant, just before he is sent to Auschwitz.

1943 — Moses and the Zionists start the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Berta and the women of her barracks are gassed. After three weeks of resistance, the Uprising is suppressed. Moses and the survivors are shot to death. Dorf learns his uncle is protecting Jews on a road construction project. Dorf has them all, including Dr. Weiss, sent to the gas chamber. Most of the partisans, including Helena, are killed during a botched attack on German troops. Rudi is sent to Sobibór death camp. He escapes during the Sobibór uprising.

1945 — As Auschwitz is evacuated, Karl is found dead in his barracks, slumped over one final sketch. Dorf is captured by the United States Army. Told he will be tried for war crimes, he says he was only following orders. Confronted by photographic evidence of the atrocities, he commits suicide by taking a cyanide pill. Rudi finds Inga in Theresienstadt after its liberation. She introduces him to her baby with Karl. She has named him Josef, after Dr. Weiss. She shows Rudi Karl's drawings, which she hid from the SS. They are to be given to a museum in Prague as a record of the Holocaust for future generations. Rudi joins a group smuggling Jewish orphans into Palestine.

Cast

 * Starring

 * Also starring

Production
Holocaust was produced by Robert Berger and filmed on location in Austria and West Berlin. It was broadcast in four parts, from April 16 to April 19, 1978. The series earned a 49% market share. It was also well received in Europe.

The 9½ hour program starred Fritz Weaver, Meryl Streep, James Woods, and Michael Moriarty, as well as a large supporting cast. It was directed by Marvin J. Chomsky, whose credits included ABC's miniseries Roots (1977). The teleplay was written by novelist-producer Gerald Green, who later adapted the script as a novel.

Artworks seen during the series's closing credits were created by Lithuanian–Jewish artist Arbit Blatas. Karl's paintings were created by Austrian painter Georg Eisler.

The miniseries was rebroadcast on NBC from September 10 to September 13, 1979.

Home media
In the U.S., Holocaust was released as a Region 1 DVD by Paramount Pictures and CBS Home Entertainment on May 27, 2008. The release of the Region 2 DVD followed on 15 August 2010. A disclaimer on the DVD packaging states that it may be edited from the original network broadcast version, and it is shorter at 446 mins. The Region 4 DVD is unusually in native NTSC format, not having been converted to PAL. No information about the cut in footage has been released.

In the U.S. and Canada, a 452-minute version was released as a 2-disc Blu-ray set on September 24, 2019.

Reception
Some critics accused the miniseries of trivializing the Holocaust. The television format was believed to limit how realistic the portrayal could be. In addition, the fact that NBC made a financial gain as a result of advertising resulted in charges that it had commercialized a vast tragedy. The producers of the series rebutted these charges by stating that it educated the public by raising its awareness of the Holocaust. With the exception of films such as The Diary of Anne Frank (1959), Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), and The Hiding Place (1975), this was the first time in which many Americans had seen a lengthy dramatization of the Holocaust.

The television critic Clive James commended the production. Writing in The Observer (reprinted in his collection The Crystal Bucket), he commented:

"The German Jews were the most assimilated in Europe. They were vital to Germany's culture—which, indeed, has never recovered from their extinction. They couldn't see they were hated in direct proportion to their learning, vitality and success. The aridity of the Nazi mind was the biggest poser the authors had to face. In creating Erik Dorf they went some way towards overcoming it. Played with spellbinding creepiness by Michael Moriarty, Erik spoke his murderous euphemisms in a voice as juiceless as Hitler's prose or Speer's architecture. Hitler's dream of the racially pure future was of an abstract landscape tended by chain-gangs of shadows and crisscrossed with highways bearing truckloads of Aryans endlessly speeding to somewhere undefined. Dorf sounded just like that: his dead mackerel eyes were dully alight with a limitless vision of banality."

The historian Tony Judt described the series as "the purest product of American commercial television — its story simple, its characters mostly two-dimensional, its narrative structured for maximum emotional impact" and he also wrote that, when it is shown in Continental Europe, it was "execrated and abominated by European cinéastes from Edgar Reitz to Claude Lanzmann" and he responded to these negative reviews of the miniseries by noting that "these very limitations account for the show's impact", especially in West Germany, where it was aired over four consecutive nights in January 1979 and coincided with public interest in the Majdanek trials. The viewership was estimated to consist of up to 15 million households or 20 million people, approximately 50% of West Germany's entire adult population. Judt describes the public interest as "enormous".

After each part of Holocaust was aired, a companion show was aired in which a panel of historians answered viewers' questions by telephone. Thousands of shocked and outraged Germans called the panels. The German historian Alf Lüdtke wrote that the historians "could not cope" because thousands of angry viewers asked how such acts had happened. Subsequently, the Gesellschaft für deutsche Sprache ranked the term "Holocaust" as the German Word of the Year for the publicity associated with it.

During an introductory documentary that preceded the first broadcast of the series in Germany, Peter Naumann, then a right-wing terrorist with two accomplices, tried to blow up the transmission towers of the ARD transmitters at Koblenz and near Münster (station Nottuln), to prevent the broadcast. At the Koblenz transmitter, the supply cables were damaged, and the transmitter failed for one hour. Several hundred thousand television viewers could not see the program during this time. Naumann later became a politician with the NPD.

The Polish community in the United States found the miniseries controversial and inaccurate. It argued against the portrayal of soldiers as Polish military who supervised transports of Jews and killed them during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. It noted that many Poles were also killed in the concentration and death camps.

Around the world, various unrepentant Nazis raged against the miniseries: Ernst Zundel led a fierce and unsuccessful attempt to have the show banned from airing in Canada, and a group of American Nazis who were aligned with James K. Warner tried and failed to have NBC grant them a "right of response" which would have granted them equal prime-time coverage to present their "alternate" view of World War II events.

In 1982, during the rule of the military dictatorship of Chile, the series was censored by Televisión Nacional de Chile, beginning a row that ended when its programming director Antonio Vodanovic renounced the channel.

Commenting on what he saw as the sentimentality and low production values of the series, Dr Jonathan Miller said “I suppose it’s only fitting we should turn the Nazis into a soap.”

Awards
Holocaust won Emmy Awards for Outstanding Limited Series, as well as acting awards for Meryl Streep, Moriarty, and Blanche Baker. Morton Gould's music score was nominated for an Emmy and a Grammy Award for Best Album of Original Score for a Movie or a Television Program. Co-stars David Warner, Sam Wanamaker, Tovah Feldshuh, Fritz Weaver, and Rosemary Harris were all nominated for, but did not win, Emmys. However, Harris won a Golden Globe Award (for Best TV Actress – Drama) for her performance, as did Moriarty (for Best TV Actor – Drama).

Influence
Holocaust was watched by an estimated 120 million viewers in the United States when it was first broadcast in 1978.

The series has been widely credited with bringing the term "Holocaust" into popular usage to describe the extermination of the European Jews.

In 1979, Holocaust was broadcast in West Germany, where it was watched by an estimated 20 million people, then 36% of the nation's television-owning population. Later that same year, the West German parliament removed the statute of limitations on war crimes. The series is credited with educating many Germans, particularly what was then the younger generation, about the scale of common people's participation in the Holocaust. Der Spiegel stated that Holocaust "managed to do what hundreds of books, plays, films and TV broadcasts, thousands of documents and all concentration camp trials in three decades of postwar history had failed to do: to inform Germans about the crimes committed against the Jews in their name in such a way that millions were shaken."

On its fortieth anniversary, in January 2019, the series was rebroadcast on German television, in connection with Alice Agneskirchner's documentary, How the Holocaust Came To TV, which described the impact of the broadcast on the original German audience. A survey at the time showed that fewer than half of all German school children had any knowledge of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

title: Holocaust (miniseries)


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User:Chris Knowles

Name: Christopher David Knowles

Born: Leighton, England, 1983

Christopher David Knowles currently lives in London, and works for Omnifone.

Wikipedia Articles
N/A

title: User:Chris Knowles


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Jacquelin Holzman

Jacquelin Holzman (born 1935) is a Canadian politician who served as the 55th mayor of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, from 1991 to 1997. Before that, she was an Ottawa city councillor from 1982 to 1991.

Early life and advocacy
Holzman was born in Ottawa, Ontario to parents Sally Feldman and Israel Feldman. She has one sister, Evelyn Greenberg.

Holzman was an advocate for multiple causes before she became a politician. In the 1950s, Holzman joined the National Council of Jewish Women. She also became an advocate for people with disabilities, focusing her efforts on affordable housing and employment opportunities for people with disabilities. In this capacity Holzman was involved in founding Ottawa's Tamir Foundation as well as the Salus Corporation for supportive and rehabilitative housing.

City council
Backed by "several prominent Conservatives", Holzman was elected to Ottawa city council in 1982 representing the Richmond Ward (now Bay Ward), defeating future mayor Bob Chiarelli. Shortly after her re-election to a second term, Ottawa Citizen citizen staff writer Jacquie Miller described Holzman as "probably the most fiscally conservative councillor" during her first term, and contrasted her with councillors who were less sympathetic to large building development projects.

Acclaimed in the 1985 election, she soon ran into controversy in her second term over an expansion to the Carlingwood Shopping Centre. Holzman supported the expansion but many of her constituents were opposed. In the 1988 Ottawa municipal election, she faced a strong challenge from Alex Cullen, but was re-elected with more than 50% of the vote.

Mayor of Ottawa
Throughout her time in city council, Holzman was a close ally of mayor Jim Durrell. When Durrell did not run for re-election, Holzman ran against left-leaning councillor Nancy Smith. Holzman ran on a pro-development and tax cut platform and defeated Smith and interim mayor Marc Laviolette. Holzman was the first Jewish woman to be mayor of Ottawa.

During Holzman's first term, she advocated in favour of the Charlottetown Accords, and worked to increase Ottawa's international status. In 1993 she represented Ottawa in Kyoto at the Third Capitals of the World Conference, and in the same month she led a trade mission to Taiwan to promote Taiwanese investment and tourism in Ottawa. She also supported Taiwan establishing a diplomatic office in Ottawa. Despite Holzman's reputation for fiscal conservatism, future Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson (then a newly elected city councillor) was described in The Canadian Encyclopedia as "a thorn in the side of then mayor Jacquelin Holzman over several expenditures he wouldn't support" because of his own reluctance to approve expenses.

In the 1994 mayoral election she faced a number of challengers. One major debate during her second term regarded the mayor's desire to build the unity tower which had been approved for the then-new Ottawa City Hall. In November 1996 she announced that she would not run for re-election. She was expected to face a difficult election against city councillor Jim Watson, who succeeded her as mayor.

Post-mayoral work
The same year that she retired from political life, Holzman became the chair of the Ottawa Congress Centre, a position which she held for several years.

In 1998, Holzman was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Ottawa. She also received a diagnosis in 1998 of breast cancer. Even though she was no longer mayor, Holzman held a press conference and shared the diagnosis with the public to encourage people to seek out mammograms, which made prominent news in outlets like the Ottawa Citizen. She subsequently became an advocate for causes related to breast cancer.

In 2002 Holzman became chair of the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. In 2007, she was appointed to the board of the National Capital Commission. Holzman is also a co-founder of the group Compassionate Ottawa, which advocates for palliative care and end-of-life options in Ottawa.

A proposal in February 2020 sought to name the pedestrian bridge crossing Highway 417 at Harmer Street in Ottawa's Kitchissippi Ward the "Jackie Holzman Bridge". The motion passed, and the bridge opened in September 2020.

Honours

 * Honorary Doctorate, University of Ottawa (1998)
 * Lifetime Achievement Award Recipient, Volunteer Ottawa (2020)

title: Jacquelin Holzman


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User:Velocity5957

My page. Nothing here yet.

--Velocity5957 22:52, 22 Feb 2005 (UTC)

title: User:Velocity5957


text:
Jean-Robert Gauthier

Jean-Robert Gauthier, (October 22, 1929 – December 10, 2009) was a Canadian politician.

A chiropractor by training, he entered politics as trustee on a local school board. He was elected to the House of Commons of Canada to represent the riding of Ottawa East in the 1972 election as a Liberal Party Member of Parliament. He remained its representative for several decades winning by large majorities each time in the safe Liberal seat.

In 1984, he was appointed opposition whip and became a member of the party's shadow cabinet. His highest profile came during his time as official languages critic for the Liberal caucus, in which Gauthier was a strident defender of official bilingualism. Locally, he was known for campaigning to have an aquarium built in Ottawa. With the Liberal victory in the 1993 election, he ran for Speaker of the House but lost to Gilbert Parent.

In 1994, he was appointed to the Senate, where he fought for the rights of French-speaking Canadians. He retired on his 75th birthday in 2004. In the Senate, he listed his Senate division as "Ontario" from November 23, 1994, to December 3, 2001, and as "Ottawa – Vanier" from December 4, 2001, until his retirement.

He was made an Officer of the Legion of Honour by the French Government in 2002. In September 2006, the Jean-Robert Gauthier Catholic Elementary School opened in the Barrhaven district of Ottawa.He was made a member of the Order of Canada in 2007. In 2009, he was made a member of the Order of Ontario.

title: Jean-Robert Gauthier


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Mary Walker-Sawka

Mary Walker-Sawka (born c. 1916) was a Canadian film producer, who was the first woman ever to seek the leadership of a major federal political party in Canada. She was a surprise last-minute candidate at the 1967 leadership convention of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, a centre-right party that formed the official opposition in the House of Commons of Canada at the time. Unlike other leadership candidates, who had spent months campaigning, announcing policy positions and travelling across the country to meet delegates, Walker-Sawka announced and filed her candidacy just a few days before the convention began.

The convention had been called after a revolt by party members against the leadership of John Diefenbaker. Walker-Sawka said that she was a Diefenbaker supporter, but was running because she felt she could "add a few things" to Diefenbaker’s program. She gave a short speech setting out her ideas for PC party policy:
 * Canada should withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD);
 * Canada should closely supervise its foreign aid programs to ensure that aid does not end up on the black market;
 * all houses more than 20 or 30 years old should be torn down and re-built;
 * Old Age Security payments should be increased to $100 per month;
 * the education system should be modernized, and at least six languages should be taught in schools;
 * the 11% federal sales tax should be eliminated.

She implored women to support her out of solidarity with her desire to advance women's equality in politics.

She was one of only three candidates, along with Michael Starr and Wallace McCutcheon, who did not include any French language comments in their speeches. The Globe and Mail reported that she "looked like a housewife who had mistakenly wandered on stage while looking for a bingo game". Walker-Sawka stated that as head of a film production company, she had never had time to be a housewife. She was nominated by her sole supporter, Marian Ray, but had no seconder. Some time passed before Barbara Wheeler, a delegate for George Hees, seconded Walker-Sawka's nomination in order to save her the embarrassment. Walker-Sawka won only two votes on the first ballot and was dropped from the ballot.

In November 1967 Walker-Sawka sent a telegram to federal cabinet minister Judy LaMarsh, lobbying to be appointed as head of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on the grounds that she had experience in film and television production, and was willing to do the job for "half the price" of outgoing president Alphonse Ouimet. She was not selected for the position. In December she was the only candidate from the September leadership contest who was not invited to take part in a party strategy session, because she could not bring any significant base of support and the party had doubts about how active and committed she was as a member.

She was a partner with her husband Paul Sawka in the film production company Palmar Productions. In 1968 Palmar Productions released its feature film The Man Who Wanted Nothing. Walker-Sawka was the film's director. The film, which Walker-Sawka described as a "metaphysical comedy", was submitted to the 20th Canadian Film Awards in 1968, but won no awards and never received any subsequent commercial distribution.

title: Mary Walker-Sawka


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Ursa

Ursa is a Latin word meaning bear. Derivatives of this word are ursine or Ursini.

Ursa or URSA may also refer to:

General

 * Ursa (Finland), a Finnish astronomical association
 * Ursa (spider), a spider genus in the family Araneidae
 * Ursa Major, the Great Bear constellation
 * Ursa Minor, the Small Bear constellation
 * HMS Ursa, the name of two ships of the Royal Navy
 * Blackmagic URSA, a digital movie camera

Places

 * Ursa, Illinois, a village in the United States
 * Ursa, a village in Gârcov Commune, Olt County, Romania
 * Ursa Motoșeni, the former name of Motoșeni Commune, Bacău County, Romania

People

 * Urša, feminine given name

Media

 * Ursa, a monster in the film After Earth
 * Ursa, a mother of Zuko and Azula in the franchise Avatar: The Last Airbender
 * Ursa, a girlfriend of Bear in the television series Bear in the Big Blue House
 * Ursa, a character in the animation series Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears
 * Ursa, a bear-like race in the franchise Dota
 * Ulfsaar the Ursa Warrior, a notable character of that race
 * Ursa, a character in the franchise Open Season
 * Ursa (DC Comics), a kryptonian villain in the franchise Superman
 * Ursa Corregidora, a protagonist in the novel Corregidora
 * Ursa Wren, a fictional character in the animation series Star Wars Rebels
 * Ursas, a type of antagonistic monster featured in the animation series RWBY
 * URSA (album), 2016 studio album by Novembre

title: Ursa


text:
Diósgyőr

Diósgyőr ( Hungarian: [ˈdioːʒɟøːr]) is a historical town in Hungary, today it is a part of Miskolc. The medieval castle in Diósgyőr was a favourite holiday residence of Hungarian kings and queens; today it is a popular tourist attraction. The city part has a heavy industrial background. The football team of Miskolc is also named after Diósgyőr; their soccer stadium lies within the district.

Origin of the name
Dió means walnut, referring to the abundant walnut trees in the area. Győr is an archaic version of the word gyűrű, meaning "ring". It probably refers to the rounded shape of the first castle erected on the hill.

The history of Diósgyőr and the castle

The area has been inhabited since ancient times, as the remains of a settlement found near the castle testify. The name of the town was first mentioned by the anonymous author of Gesta Hungarorum around 1200, as Geuru, the archaic spelling for Győr: "After our leader Árpád left Szerencs with his army (...) he gave the land between Tapolca and the river Sajó, called Miskolc at the time, and the town named Győr to Böngér, father of Bors."

The first castle was probably built in the 12th century, but destroyed during the Mongol invasion. The castle that stands today was most likely erected in the times of King Béla IV, in the 13th century.

The castle had its prime during the reign of Louis I (Louis the Great). In 1364 the nearby town Miskolc was annexed to the Diósgyőr estate. Diósgyőr lost some of its importance when the political union between Hungary and Poland ended.

After the Battle of Mezőkeresztes in 1596, the Ottomans occupied the area; Diósgyőr remained under Turkish occupation,  ruled by the Pasha of Eger until 1687, when this part of the country was freed from Turkish rule. By this time the castle lost all of its military importance.

Even though Miskolc and Diósgyőr were connected by a bus line (from 1903), and by tramway (from 1906), a travel guide dated from 1922 still mentions Diósgyőr as a separate town. On January 1, 1945, the two towns officially joined, and Greater Miskolc came into existence. At first they were connected only by the new factory that was built between them, but the two former towns soon grew together, and today it's hard to pinpoint the boundaries of the historical Miskolc and the historical Diósgyőr.

The Pauline monastery of Diósgyőr
The Pauline monastery was founded by Palatine István at the end of the 13th century, with his support until his death. The monastery also had a scriptorium; one of the codices created here had been copied by a monk named László for the Church on the Avas Hill, now held in the archives of Eger.

In 1526, when Hungary was divided into three parts (the Western territories were occupied by the Habsburgs, Transylvania was an independent state, and the rest was under Turkish occupation), Gáspár Serédy, one of the lords loyal to King Ferdinand, ravaged the monastery, on the grounds that the abbot was supposedly a follower of Ferdinand's rival King John Zápolya. In 1549 Zsigmond Balassa, the new owner of the Diósgyőr estate, destroyed the monastery and occupied its estates. In 1700 the Order of Pauline rebuilt the monastery, but Joseph II dissolved the religious orders in the country and secularised their wealth. From this time the building of the monastery was used by the Forestry Department of Diósgyőr.

In 1973, before the building of a large housing estate began, archaeological excavations were carried out in the area. According to their findings, it seemed the monastery was a rectangular building around a rectangular courtyard, with a cloister. The remains of the place of worship haven't been found, but the archaeologists uncovered a four-room building that had been destroyed by fire. According to medieval sources, Palatine István built the monastery next to his villa, and it is possible that the building the archaeologists uncovered was part of Palatine's private quarters. The recovered artifacts can be seen in the museum in the northeastern tower of the castle. The Gothic statue called "the Diósgyőr Madonna" can also be seen here.

Trivia

 * The castle of Diósgyőr was on the reverse side of the 200 Hungarian Forint banknote used between 1998 and 2009. The obverse side shows King Charles Robert (an imaginary portrait, as no portraits of him survive).

title: Diósgyőr


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Wallace McCutcheon (politician)

Malcolm Wallace McCutcheon, (May 18, 1906 – January 23, 1969) was a Canadian lawyer, actuary and politician.

Life and career
Wallace McCutcheon was born in London, Ontario. During World War II, he was a member of the Wartime Prices and Trade Board.

Together with Edward Plunkett Taylor and Colonel W. Eric Phillips, he was a founder of the Argus Corporation, an investment company that controlled a variety of businesses, including Massey Ferguson farm machinery and Dominion grocery stores.

He was appointed to the Senate of Canada on August 9, 1962, on the recommendation of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker. McCutcheon sat in the caucus of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada and represented the senatorial division of Gormley, Ontario.

He served as a Minister without portfolio in Diefenbaker's government from his appointment to February 11, 1963, when he was promoted to Minister of Trade and Commerce. His promotion was generally regarded as a move to shore up support for the Progressive Conservatives among members of Canada's financial sector.

The Progressive Conservatives were defeated in the 1963 federal election, and the Diefenbaker government resigned on April 21, 1963. McCutcheon later supported Dalton Camp's efforts to call a leadership review and remove Diefenbaker as party leader.

McCutcheon provided financial support for the Progressive Conservative Party of British Columbia in the 1963 provincial election. He was also a fundraiser for the University of Toronto.

McCutcheon ran for the leadership of the PC Party at the 1967 leadership convention, placing sixth out of eleven candidate on the first ballot, and withdrawing from the race after the second ballot to endorse the eventual winner, Robert Stanfield.

McCutcheon ran as an unabashed "small-c conservative", i.e., a candidate of the party's right-wing. He had considerable support and financing from Bay Street, Toronto's financial district.

He campaigned aggressively against "big government" and "creeping socialism". He used dozens of attractive young women in his demonstration at the convention (dubbed "blonde goddesses" by the Toronto Star), and advocated a guaranteed annual income of $10,000 per adult as an alternative to the various social programs offered by different levels of government. He also advocated a "made-in-Canada" constitution to replace the British North America Acts and to guarantee the rights of Canadians, including language and cultural rights. He opposed public medicare.

He resigned from the Senate on May 13, 1968, in order to contest the 1968 federal election as the Progressive Conservative candidate in the Ontario riding of York—Simcoe. He placed second with 13,100 votes (37.3% of the vote), compared to 15,906 won by John Roberts.

McCutcheon died in 1969, at the age of 62.

Archives
There is a Malcolm Wallace McCutcheon fonds at Library and Archives Canada.

title: Wallace McCutcheon (politician)


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Thomas Urquhart (politician)

Thomas Urquhart (April 16, 1858 – February 16, 1931) was a Canadian politician and mayor of Toronto.

Early life
Urquhart was born in Wallacetown, Dunwich Township, Elgin County, Canada West. His parents were Sarah McCallum and Alexander Cameron Urquhart, a pioneer tailor and storekeeper who immigrated from Dingwall, Ross and Cromarty, Scotland to Canada in 1847.

He attended public school in Wallacetown until he was 13 years old. He then spent years working with his father. At 21, he was appointed municipal clerk of the Township of Dunwich. Later, he became secretary of the Agricultural Society of West Elgin and secretary of the West Elgin Reform Association.

He decided to enter law, and after passing the matriculation examination in 1881, he entered a law office in St. Thomas. In 1882 he entered a second law as a student. In 1886, he graduated from Osgoode Hall Law School as barrister and solicitor.

Career
Urquhart entered into different law partnerships over the next many years. One partnership was with his brother Daniel Urquhart.

He took a strong role in civic affairs, and was elected alderman in Toronto’s Ward 4 in 1900 and re-elected in 1901-1902, prior to being elected to the mayor’s chair for three successive years. Thomas was elected mayor in 1903 over Oliver Howland and Daniel Lamb. In 1904 he was re-elected by acclamation, and in 1905 he defeated George Horace Gooderham.

A strong Liberal, he was chosen by his party to contest the riding of West Toronto for the legislature against Hon. Thomas Crawford. In 1904, he contested the riding of Toronto North for Parliament against Sir George Foster. In 1906, he ran unsuccessfully for the Ontario legislature against W. K. McNaught in Toronto North in a provincial byelection.

While he was mayor, he always guarded against encroachments of corporations to destroy the city’s sovereignty over its own streets. During that time, many applications were made by electric railway companies for franchises in adjoining municipalities, and it was feared the Toronto Street Railway Co. would acquire a perpetual franchise in Toronto. He watched every move made and succeeded in keeping Toronto free of entanglements.

He attended the first meeting in Berlin (now Kitchener) regarding the proposals to establish the hydroelectric system, and he also advocated public ownership of telephones. The Great Toronto fire of 1904 occurred during his time as mayor.

Personal life
Urquhart was a leader in the Toronto Baptist community, active in both the Walmer Road Baptist Church and the Aurora Baptist Church. He was also a member of the Orange Order in Canada.

He was first married to Margaret S. McDonald of Peterborough, Ontario, who died in 1925. He married Mary Ellen Hall in 1927.

After becoming ill at his office, Urquhart was taken to his home at 136 Hillsdale Avenue in Toronto, where he died on February 16, 1931, from influenza. He was buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery on February 18.

title: Thomas Urquhart (politician)