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Simultaneous death

Simultaneous death is a problem of inheritance which occurs when two people (sometimes referred to as commorientes) die at, or very near, the same time, and at least one of them is entitled to part or all of the other's estate on their death. This is usually the result of an un-natural death occurring from events such as an accident, a homicide, or a murder-suicide.

Under the common law, if there was any evidence whatsoever that one party had survived the other, even by a few moments, then the estates would be distributed in that order. However, the decedents could write (or have written) a clause in the will that requires their property to be distributed as though each had predeceased the other.

Some wills now include Titanic clauses (named for the RMS Titanic, which caused many simultaneous deaths among testators and executors). These clauses lay out explicit instructions for dealing with simultaneous death.

United States
To alleviate problems of proving simultaneous death, many states in the United States have enacted the Uniform Simultaneous Death Act, which provides that each spouse will be treated as though they predeceased the other if they die within 120 hours of one another, unless a specific clause in the will deals with this particular possibility.

The Act also states that the 120-hour rule is not applicable if the result would be that the estate is intestate, and would therefore be escheated to the state.

England and Wales
The common law provision that, without evidence, there can be no presumption as to which of the commorientes died first, was superseded by the passage of the Law of Property Act 1925, Section 184. Under this statute, where the order of death of two persons is uncertain, the elder of the two is deemed to have died first. This can cause difficulties where for example the elder person had children prior to marriage. The rules can be ousted if inappropriate by an explicit provision in a will.

An example is the death in 1941 of Josiah Stamp and his son Wilfred Stamp who died together when Josiah's house was bombed; Josiah was said to be the second richest man in England. The family paid death duty twice.

Wills generally have a survivorship clause, typically of 30 days, so that both partner's estates are dealt with as though they were already widowed at the point of death; in cases of intestacy, the survivorship clause is set at 28 days.

It is HM Revenue and Customs's longstanding practice to apply a concessionary treatment for inheritance tax purposes in such cases which reduces the burden on surviving family members.

Switzerland
The only case where a dead person can inherit from another deceased person occurs when there is a provable time span between their deaths. If it cannot be reliably ascertained who died first, courts will assume that all involved persons have died at exactly the same time. So, in case of commorientes, nobody will inherit from the other person.

Denmark
In cases where two persons, who stand to inherit one another, die in circumstances where it cannot be determined who died first, neither party is assumed to have survived the other.

title: Simultaneous death


text: File:NesBattleTank.jpg

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

title: File:NesBattleTank.jpg


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Guanidine

Guanidine is the compound with the formula HNC(NH2)2. It is a colourless solid that dissolves in polar solvents. It is a strong base that is used in the production of plastics and explosives. It is found in urine predominantly in patients experiencing renal failure. A guanidine moiety also appears in larger organic molecules, including on the side chain of arginine.

Structure
Guanidine can be thought of as a nitrogenous analogue of carbonic acid. That is, the C=O group in carbonic acid is replaced by a C=NH group, and each OH is replaced by a group. Isobutene can be seen as the carbon analogue in much the same way. A detailed crystallographic analysis of guanidine was elucidated 148 years after its first synthesis, despite the simplicity of the molecule. In 2013, the positions of the hydrogen atoms and their displacement parameters were accurately determined using single-crystal neutron diffraction.

Production
Guanidine can be obtained from natural sources, being first isolated in 1861 by Adolph Strecker via the oxidative degradation of an aromatic natural product, guanine, isolated from Peruvian guano.

A laboratory method of producing guanidine is gentle (180-190 °C) thermal decomposition of dry ammonium thiocyanate in anhydrous conditions:

The commercial route involves a two step process starting with the reaction of dicyandiamide with ammonium salts. Via the intermediacy of biguanidine, this ammonolysis step affords salts of the guanidinium cation (see below). In the second step, the salt is treated with base, such as sodium methoxide.

Guanidinium cation
The conjugate acid is called the guanidinium cation,. This planar, symmetric ion consists of three amino groups each bonded to the central carbon atom with a covalent bond of order 4/3. It is a highly stable +1 cation in aqueous solution due to the efficient resonance stabilization of the charge and efficient solvation by water molecules. As a result, its pKaH is 13.6 (pKb of 0.4) meaning that guanidine is a very strong base in water; in neutral water, it exists almost exclusively as guanidinium. Due to this, most guanidine derivatives are salts containing the conjugate acid.

Testing for guanidine
Guanidine can be selectively detected using sodium 1,2-naphthoquinone-4-sulfonic acid (Folin's reagent) and acidified urea.

Industry
The main salt of commercial interest is the nitrate [C3]. It is used as a propellant, for example in air bags.

Medicine
Since the Middle Ages in Europe, guanidine has been used to treat diabetes as the active antihyperglycemic ingredient in French lilac. Due to its long-term hepatotoxicity, further research for blood sugar control was suspended at first after the discovery of insulin. Later development of nontoxic, safe biguanides led to the long-used first-line diabetes control medicine metformin, introduced to Europe in the 1950s & United States in 1995 and now prescribed to over 17 million patients per year in the US.

Guanidinium chloride is a now-controversial adjuvant in treatment of botulism. Recent studies have shown some significant subsets of patients who see no improvement after the administration of this drug.

Biochemistry
Guanidine exists protonated, as guanidinium, in solution at physiological pH.

Guanidinium chloride (also known as guanidine hydrochloride) has chaotropic properties and is used to denature proteins. Guanidinium chloride is known to denature proteins with a linear relationship between concentration and free energy of unfolding. In aqueous solutions containing 6 M guanidinium chloride, almost all proteins lose their entire secondary structure and become randomly coiled peptide chains. Guanidinium thiocyanate is also used for its denaturing effect on various biological samples.

Recent studies suggest that guanidinium is produced by bacteria as a toxic byproduct. To alleviate the toxicity of guanidinium, bacteria have developed a class of transporters known as guanidinium exporters or Gdx proteins to expel the extra amounts of this ion to the outside of the cell. Gdx proteins, are highly selective for guanidinium and mono-substituted guanidinyl compounds and share an overlapping set of non-canonical substrates with drug exporter EmrE.

Other
Guanidinium hydroxide is the active ingredient in some non-lye hair relaxers.

Guanidine derivatives
Guanidines are a group of organic compounds sharing a common functional group with the general structure. The central bond within this group is that of an imine, and the group is related structurally to amidines and ureas. Examples of guanidines are arginine, triazabicyclodecene, saxitoxin, and creatine.

Galegine is an isoamylene guanidine.

title: Guanidine


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Constructionism (learning theory)

Constructionist learning is the creation by learners of mental models to understand the world around them. Constructionism advocates student-centered, discovery learning where students use what they already know to acquire more knowledge. Students learn through participation in project-based learning where they make connections between different ideas and areas of knowledge facilitated by the teacher through coaching rather than using lectures or step-by-step guidance. Further, constructionism holds that learning can happen most effectively when people are active in making tangible objects in the real world. In this sense, constructionism is connected with experiential learning and builds on Jean Piaget's epistemological theory of constructivism.

Seymour Papert defined constructionism in a proposal to the National Science Foundation titled Constructionism: A New Opportunity for Elementary Science Education as follows:

"The word constructionism is a mnemonic for two aspects of the theory of science education underlying this project. From constructivist theories of psychology we take a view of learning as a reconstruction rather than as a transmission of knowledge. Then we extend the idea of manipulative materials to the idea that learning is most effective when part of an activity the learner experiences as constructing a meaningful product."

Some scholars have tried to describe constructionism as a "learning-by-making" formula but, as Seymour Papert and Idit Harel say at the start of Situating Constructionism, it should be considered "much richer and more multifaceted, and very much deeper in its implications than could be conveyed by any such formula."

Papert's ideas became well known through the publication of his seminal book Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas (Basic Books, 1980). Papert described children creating programs in the Logo educational programming language. He likened their learning to living in a "mathland" where learning mathematical ideas is as natural as learning French while living in France.

Instructional principles
Constructionist learning involves students drawing their own conclusions through creative experimentation and the making of social objects. The constructionist teacher takes on a mediational role rather than adopting an instructional role. Teaching "at" students is replaced by assisting them to understand—and help one another to understand—problems in a hands-on way. The teacher's role is not to be a lecturer but a facilitator who coaches students to attaining their own goals.

Problem-based learning
Problem-based learning is a constructionist method which allows students to learn about a subject by exposing them to multiple problems and asking them to construct their understanding of the subject through these problems. This kind of learning can be very effective in mathematics classes because students try to solve the problems in many different ways, stimulating their minds.

The following five strategies make problem-based learning more effective:
 * 1) The learning activities should be related to a larger task. The larger task is important because it allows students to see that the activities can be applied to many aspects of life and, as a result, students are more likely to find the activities they are doing useful.
 * 2) The learner needs to be supported to feel that they are beginning to have ownership of the overall problem.
 * 3) An authentic task should be designed for the learner. This means that the task and the learner's cognitive ability have to match the problems to make learning valuable.
 * 4) Reflection on the content being learned should occur so that learners can think through the process of what they have learned.
 * 5) Allow and encourage the learners to test ideas against different views in different contexts.

Constructionism in social sciences
Not only can constructionism be applied to mathematics but to the social sciences as well. For example, instead of having students memorize geography facts, a teacher could give students blank maps that show unlabeled rivers, lakes, and mountains, and then ask the students to decipher where major cities might be located without the help of books or maps. This would require students to locate these areas without using prepared resources, but their prior knowledge and reasoning ability instead.

Digital storytelling is another application of constructionism to the social sciences. Students can visit institutions in the local community, to understand and document their histories, develop local maps using tools like OpenStreetMap to enrich digital maps and debate the purpose and activities of local public institutions to build an understanding of political science (civics). Digital storytelling has been used by government schools in Bengaluru to develop students understanding in the social sciences.

Constructionism and technology
Papert was a huge proponent of bringing technology to classrooms, beginning with his early uses of the Logo language to teach mathematics to children. While constructionism has, due to its impetus, been primarily used in science and mathematics teaching (in the form of inquiry-based science), it is arguable that it developed in a different form in the field of media studies in which students often engage with media theory and practice simultaneously in a complementary praxis. More recently it has gained a foothold in applied linguistics in the field of second language acquisition (SLA). One such application has been the use of the popular game SimCity as a means of teaching English using constructionist techniques.

Beginning in the 1980s, The LEGO Group funded research of Papert's research group at the MIT Media Laboratory, which at the time was known as the "Epistemology and Learning Group." When LEGO launched its LEGO Mindstorms Robotics Invention System in 1998, which was based on the work of his group, it received permission to use the moniker "Mindstorms" from Seymour's 1980 book title. In The LEGO Group's LEGO Serious Play project, business people learn to express corporate issues and identity through the medium of plastic bricks.

From 2005 to 2014, there was the One Laptop Per Child initiative to put constructionist learning into practice in the developing world. The aim was to provide $100 laptops to every child in the developing world.

Computer programming languages
A number of programming languages have been created, wholly or in part, for educational use, to support the constructionist approach to learning. These languages are dynamically typed, and are reflective. They include:
 * Logo is a multi-paradigm language, which is an easier-to-read adaptation and dialect of Lisp, without the parentheses. Logo is known for its introduction of turtle graphics to elementary schoolchildren in the 1980s. Its creators were Wally Feurzeig, Cynthia Solomon, and Papert.
 * Smalltalk is an object-oriented language that was designed and created at Xerox PARC by a team led by Alan Kay.
 * AgentSheets is an early block-based programming environment for kids to create games and simulations. It is developed by Alexander Repenning
 * Etoys is being developed since the 1990s under the direction of Alan Kay, most recently by the Viewpoints Research Institute, based on Morphic tile scripting. Etoys was initially targeted at primary school math and science education.
 * Physical Etoys is an extension of Etoys that allows to control different devices such as Lego NXT, Arduino Board, Sphero, Kinect, Duinobot, Wiimote among others.
 * Scratch was developed in the early 21st century at MIT Media Lab Lifelong Kindergarten Group led by Papert's pupil Mitchel Resnick. Like Etoys, it is based on Morphic tile scripts. Scratch was initially designed specifically to enhance the development of technological fluency at after-school centers in economically disadvantaged communities.
 * StarLogo TNG was developed by the MIT Scheller Teacher Education Program under Eric Klopfer. It combines a block programming interface with 3D graphics. It is targeted at programming games and game-like simulations in middle and secondary schools.
 * NetLogo was developed by Uri Wilensky. It was developed to teach children computational reasoning and thinking, and extends the Logo language by enabling the existence of many, many turtles at the same time. NetLogo is widely used not only in the K–12 environment, but also by researchers interested in the concept of agent-based modeling
 * AgentCubes is a block-based programming environment for kids to create 3D games and simulation. It is developed by Alexander Repenning
 * Easy Java Simulations or Ejs or EJS was developed by Open Source Physics under Francisco Esquembre. The user is working at a higher conceptual level, declaring and organizing the equations and other mathematical expressions that operate the simulation. It is targeted at programming physics simulations in secondary schools and universities.
 * LEGO WeDo is a graphical programming language for children of age 7 years and up, used with the LEGO WeDo power function hub.
 * LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 is a dataflow graphical programming language for children age 10+.
 * Robot Emil is a constructionist educational tool for children. It is targeted at primary schools and teaches programming step by step.

title: Constructionism (learning theory)


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Talk:Electrocution

Death and injury
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Spinningspark (talk • contribs) 16:39, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
 * "...approximately 20% of reported electrocution injuries are fatal." Emergency Care: A Textbook for Paramedics, ISBN 0702025860.
 * "Electrocution injuries are 5% of admissions to major burns centers." Catastrophic Perioperative Complications and Management, ISBN 331996125X.
 * "Indirect electrocution from lightning often causes severe burns but is not necessarily fatal." Agricultural Medicine: A Practical Guide, ISBN 0387301054.
 * "Because electrocution injuries cause massive musclespasms, you should also suspect a spinal injury." Professional Rescuer CPR, ISBN 0763743321.
 * "In total, there were over 47,000 children killed or injured by electrocution." Bangladesh Health and Injury Survey, ISBN 9280638556.
 * "General damages award of $150,000 for hunter who suffered electrocution injury was not excessive, where hunter testified that he was left with no feeling except pressure in his feet and with shooting pain around his knees..." West's Southern Reporter.
 * "Electrocution injuries may appear trivial on cursory exam..." Common Hand Problems in Primary Care, ISBN 1560532092.

Not injury! Electrocution and electrocuted means death from an electrical current entering a body. We are allowing people to use the word incorrectly. It does not have two meanings. Jaygee17.7 (talk) 08:33, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
 * So you say, but we follow reliable sources on Wikipedia. There are plenty of sources that include injury in electrocution.  Where are your dources saying it is only death? SpinningSpark 08:46, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
 * The etymology of the word is a contraction of electro-execution. So if we only allow the original meaning of words then only death by electric chair would be allowed.  But meanings of words change constantly with usage.  If we adopted original meanings only as a principle then battery (crime) would be moved to battery, awful would be a redirect to awe and alcohol would be a redirect to mascara! SpinningSpark 09:03, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

After some light research half the dictionaries agree and the other half disagreed. Another word that was a clear cut definition is now lost to a sloppy multi use meaning. Yay Jaygee17.7 (talk) 09:00, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I note that the OED, possibly the most respected English dictionary in the world, supports the "injury" definition and does not qualify that with "informal usage" or some such. SpinningSpark 09:10, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

However, Cambridge and others do not include injury. Like I said, half don't agree with you. Jaygee17.7 (talk) 09:19, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Remeber that the purpose of dictionaries is to report on word usage, not to prescribe word usage and will typically lag behind changing uses. In any case, dictionaries are not always the best sources for technical definitions of word usage.  Electrocution is a medical condition and we should be looking in reliable medical sources where a more nuanced description can be found. I don't think a case can be made for exclusion here based on RS saying this is a misuse of terminology, I'm just not seeing that.  It is possible though, that we could decide to limit the scope of our article to death only.  But it would have to be made clear in the lead that this is an article scope only, not us asserting the correct usage of the word (that's not our business to do). SpinningSpark 10:51, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

I have digested what you have written. It is not as clear cut as I had first thought.I was hoping to enjoy the simplicity of saying electric shock (injury) or electrocution/electrocuted (death) to describe an electrical incident or accident. The continued missuse (now accepted) has blurred the meaning which results in clarification being needed every time it is used. Kind of step backwards here. Jaygee17.7 (talk) 11:58, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

 * Electrocution used to mean exclusively a fatal injury. Now it includes non-fatal injuries.  Time marches on.  Let it go. Constant314 (talk) 12:25, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

Already accepted the useage and ended my objections. Thanks for you unnecessary comments to a discussion that was already finished. Muppet Jaygee17.7 (talk) 23:20, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

Thank you *SpinningSpark for taking the time to explain and justify the correct usage. Jaygee17.7 (talk) 00:34, 31 October 2021 (UTC)

 * I am a lawyer and the LEGAL definition of electrocution is 'An electrocution means that a person has died as a result of an electricity.' it is often ignorantly and incorrectly used for injury by electric shock, please use the Legal Definition and not the incorrectly common usage https://electrocuted.com/blog/electrocution-vs-shock/. (Markylon (talk) 14:46, 17 December 2022 (UTC))     (Moved comments by  to appropriate place on talk page)
 * Wikipedia documents common usage of the term "electrocute" and is not bound by legal definitions. Lawmakers are free to use the word as they wish, but they have no say on how the word is used by others. Constant314 talk) 15:08, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
 * We might be "ignorantly and incorrectly" using the word, but you have ignorantly and incorrectly failed to say in what statute that legal definition was established and in what jurisdiction. How do you know that it is defined that way in all jurisdictions.  Laughably, on the site you used to back up your claim I found "Other lawyers turn to our team when they have an electrocution injury ..." and "Fighting for Families After Electrocution Injuries and Wrongful Death" (my bolding).  Thanks for the plug of your law firm, but I won't be using them. SpinningSpark 18:29, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

Useless page
Someone said in 2012 that this page should be merged into electrical injury (and partly into electric chair imho) and he's right because there is literally nothing is on this page that couldn't fit in either of those two articles. At BEST the page could be something like "List of electrocutions" but that seems rather dumb too. The only reason this page seems to exist is to be anal about the prescriptivist nonsense that NOOOOOO YOU CAN'T USE IT WHEN THE PERSON DIDN'T DIE!!! Oh come off it, it's popular usage and it's here to stay. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.165.250.227 (talk • contribs) 19:19, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

Was Andreas Cuneus injured?
The article implies that Andreas Cuneus was injured by the "extreme shock" he received in 1746. I cannot find evidence that the shock was "extreme" (rather than just unexpected), or that Andreas Cuneus (or Cunaeus), a Latinization of the Dutch name "Andreas van der Kun", was actually injured by the shock. --Lambiam 11:31, 9 May 2021 (UTC)
 * This book claims he was rendered unconcious which is kind of injurous. The book says this was "the first recorded electric shock created by a man-made contrivance."  However this book (page 52) says that Cuneus' shock was predated by one von Kleist accidentally gave to himself. SpinningSpark 12:26, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
 * But since electric machines had been around for all of the 18th century (albeit less powerful ones), it is unlikely that he was the first either. SpinningSpark 12:34, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

title: Talk:Electrocution


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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Yujiro Fujiwara

 This page is an archive of the proposed deletion of the article below. Further comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was delete. Woohookitty 07:02, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

Yujiro Fujiwara
not yet a not notable person. seems a vanity page Cate 13:49, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Speedy delete, following new vanity policy. --Several Times 14:18, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete nn vanity. -- Etacar11   00:51, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete nn vanity. JamesBurns 03:03, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.


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Battletank (video game)

Garry Kitchen's Battletank is an action video game released by Absolute Entertainment in September 1990 for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The game is similar to the Atari game Battlezone, and supports one player. It was considered to be a poorly designed game, as it was intended to become a space flight game for the Commodore 64 during its development.

Gameplay
The player is placed inside a tank, hence the game has a first person view. The tank is equipped with a smokescreen, a missile launcher, a 150mm cannon, and a .50 caliber machine gun. The object of the game is to destroy enemy tanks and helicopters in the area. If the player fires the tank's guns for too long, they will overheat and will take time to cool down.

Reception
VideoGames & Computer Entertainment's David Plotkin gave Battletank an overall score of 8 out of 10, commending its controls, graphics, and gameplay.

title: Battletank (video game)


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Rachel Douglas-Home, 27th Baroness Dacre

Rachel Leila Douglas-Home, 27th Baroness Dacre (née Brand, 24 October 1929 – 25 December 2012 ) was an English peer.

Early life
Lady Dacre was a daughter of Thomas Brand, 4th Viscount Hampden and 26th Baron Dacre, and his wife, Leila Emily Seely, a granddaughter of Sir Charles Seely, 1st Baronet, and a great-great-granddaughter of John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford. She was also a great-granddaughter of William Montagu Douglas Scott, 6th Duke of Buccleuch and through him a direct descendant of Charles II of England.

Peerage
The ancient English barony, created by writ of summons, fell into abeyance between her and her younger surviving sister (The Hon Mrs Ogilvie Thompson) upon her father's death in 1965 and was called out of abeyance in 1970 in favour of The Hon Mrs Douglas-Home, whilst the Hampden viscountcy passed to her uncle.

Personal life
She married on 26 July 1951 The Hon William Douglas-Home, third son of Charles Douglas-Home, 13th Earl of Home, and a younger brother of the 14th Earl of Home, better known as Sir Alec Douglas-Home, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. They were third cousins, due to their common descent from James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Abercorn. Dacre and her husband lived in Hampshire, and had four children:

 * James Thomas Archibald Douglas-Home, 28th Baron Dacre (16 May 1952 – 8 May 2014), who married in 1979 Christine Stephenson. On his death, their only child, Emily (b. 7 Feb 1983), became 29th Baroness Dacre.
 * The Hon. Sarah Douglas-Home (b. 4 July 1954), married in 1977 Nicholas Dent and has issue.
 * The Hon. Gian Leila Douglas-Home (b. 23 June 1958).
 * The Hon. Dinah Lilian Douglas-Home (b. 22 Jan 1964), married in 1989 Harry Marriott and has issue.

Her husband died in 1992. Dacre herself died on 25 December 2012 and was succeeded by her son James, who became the 28th Baron Dacre. All of her children, and their descendants, are in remainder to the Dacre barony.


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Southside High School (Fort Smith, Arkansas)

Southside High School is a comprehensive public high school in Fort Smith, Arkansas, United States. Southside provides secondary education for students in grades 9 through 12 and is one of two public high schools in Fort Smith, the other being Northside High School, both of which are administered by the Fort Smith School District. The school is a three-time recipient of the National Blue Ribbon Schools Award of Excellence by the U.S. Department of Education (ED).

The school was opened in 1963 and has had over 15,000 graduates. Since 1966, the school has been accredited by AdvancED, formerly North Central Association Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement. Southside was ranked 625th in Newsweek's Top 1,300 High Schools in the U.S. in 2008. In 2008, Southside was the recipient of "Best Practice School" by Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe. For the 2007-2008 school year, Southside received the Siemen's Award for Advanced Placement exam scores. Southside was in Newsweek's Top 1,000 High Schools in America for the 2009-2010 school year.

Campus
The building originally consisted of 44 classrooms in total and was continually expanded beginning in 1968:
 * 1968: 9-room wing
 * 1973: 12-room wing
 * 1977: 600-seat auditorium
 * 1978: All-weather track
 * 1981: Physical education facility
 * 1988: New stadium
 * 1988: 10-room wing for business and financial classes and a cafeteria addition
 * 1997: Athletic complex (weight room, dressing room, training area, and office space)
 * 1999: 12-classroom addition for science classes.
 * 2000: Fine arts complex (band, orchestral, choral, drama, speech, and counseling facilities)
 * 2008: Indoor athletic training facility
 * 2008: A new bathroom addition underneath the stadium bleachers
 * 2008: The remodeling of 2 of the bathrooms (1 male, 1 female)
 * 2009: Re-constructed parking lots
 * 2009: Landscaping including a Columbia blue sculpture
 * 2011: Installation of artificial turf football field and overhaul of HVAC systems
 * 2020: Classroom and administrative wing addition
 * 2020: Expanded cafeteria and Commons area
 * 2021: Freshman Center, 2500-seat basketball arena

Principals

 * Victor Stewart, 1963–1982
 * Wayne Haver, 1982–2018
 * Lisa Miller, 2018–2021
 * Jeff Prewitt, 2021–Present

Graduating statistics
The first graduating class was the Class of 1966 with 282 graduates. In the Class of 2004, there were 417 graduates. The Class of 2018 was the largest graduating class with 518 graduates. Southside had its 10,000th graduate in the Class of 1991, its 15,000th graduate in the Class of 2003, and its 20,000th graduate in the Class of 2014. In 1963/1964 the tenth grade was the highest class, in 1964/1965 the eleventh grade was the highest class and the class of 1965/1966 became the first graduating senior class.

Awards and recognition
The school flies three flags for "Excellence in Education" presented by previous presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton at ceremonies held in Washington, D.C.
 * In 1982–1983, Southside received its first National Blue Ribbon "School of Excellence" recognition.
 * In 1986–1987, the first year any previously selected school was eligible to be renominated, Southside was one of only four schools nationally to be selected to repeat as a "School of Excellence."
 * In 1999–2000, Southside was recognized for the third time as a "School of Excellence".
 * Siemens Award for Advanced Placement 2008
 * Two students have been recognized as a state winner of a Siemens AP Scholar Award.
 * Eight students have been recognized as Presidential Scholars.

Advanced Placement (AP)
Fort Smith Southside offers AP courses in:

 * English Language & Composition; English Literature & Composition;  Calculus AB;  Calculus BC; Statistics;
 * Spanish Language & Culture; US Govt./Politics;  American History;  World History;  European History;
 * Psychology; Human Geography;
 * Chemistry; Physics 1 (Algebra-based);  Physics 2 (Algebra-based);  Biology;  Environmental Science;
 * Music Theory;  Computer Science A;  Computer Science Principles;  Seminar;  Research;

Mascot
The Southside High School mascot was originally the Rebels (de facto Johnny Reb, a personification of a Confederate soldier). The mascot and the school's fight song "Dixie" were controversial, due to their being "perceived symbols of racism." In 2000, Principal Wayne Haver banned the display of the Confederate flag at the school and at school events. Talk of replacing Johnny Reb with a Mustang had circulated since the 1980s but no change was made until the summer of 2015.

On June 23, 2015, a Fort Smith School Board committee banned the playing of "Dixie" and voted to replace the Rebels nickname before the 2016–17 school year.

On July 27, 2015, the Fort Smith School Board voted 7–0 to change the Rebel mascot and fight song.

Southside principal Wayne Haver stated that a new fight song would be implemented immediately for use at all school-related events for the 2015–16 school year. On July 30, 2015, Haver announced that the new fight song would be "Wabash Cannonball", which he selected with the help of band director Sean Carrier, after he had listened to more than 500 fight songs.

To select a new mascot before the 2016–17 school year, Southside principal Haver headed a selection committee which included business leaders, alumni, and students. Beginning with the 2016–2017 school year, Southside's official nickname became the Mavericks.

Football
Southside football teams have won seven state championships at the state's highest classification (1983, 1988, 1991, 1992, 1998, 2002, 2006). Four of those titles came under longtime Southside head coach Barry Lunney Sr., who left the school after the 2004 season to coach for conference rival Bentonville. Coach Jeff Williams took over the program and led Southside to their most recent title in 2006, his second year. In 2008 and in 2009, Southside made surprising runs to the state championship game, but fell short to Bentonville in 2008 and to Springdale Har-Ber in 2009. In the early 1960s when Fort Smith High School was separated into two schools, the split was the start of one of the premier high school sports rivalries in Arkansas. Because Fort Smith is divided down the middle by Rogers Avenue and Southside sits on one side of Rogers Avenue and Northside sits on the other, the game has been called the "Battle of Rogers Avenue". This game has become a huge event locally in the city of Fort Smith and the surrounding area (usually drawing around 10,000 people to the event), even elevating to the level of shutting down some local schools and businesses on the day of the game. Southside beat Northside, for the first time, in 1978 and repeated in 1979. The 2010 game at Southside was filmed by NFL Network as part of their American Great Rivalries program and aired on national television in January 2011; the Rebels won the game 56-29.

Fort Smith Southside has several sports rivalries, including:

 * Northside Grizzlies
 * Bentonville Tigers
 * Springdale Har-Ber Wildcats
 * Greenwood Bulldogs

Volleyball
Fort Smith Southside volleyball teams have won seven state championships (4A - 1997; 5A - 1999, 2003, 2004; 7A - 2006, 2009, 2013).

Bowling
The bowling teams of Southside High have been one of the state's most successful with state championships in 2008, 2009 (boys), and 2010 (girls).

Track and field
The Southside track teams won three consecutive 7A class state track championships (2009, 2010, 2011). The Lady Mavericks are one of the state's most successful with 10 state track championships (1981, 1982, 1983, 1985, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 2007).

Educational competitions
The school has routinely done well in education/knowledge based competitions, to include:
 * Quiz bowl State Champions (3A - 1996; 7A - 2007, 2010, 2013, 2014)
 * National Science Bowl (NSB) – Arkansas Regional (and State) Champions (2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2013, 2014)
 * National Science Bowl – National Event 2007 (tied-13th place)
 * Knowledge Master Open State Champions (01F, 02S, 02F, 03S, 06F, 07S, 07F, 09S, 09F, 10F, 11F, 12F)

Notable alumni

 * Denny Altes - Member of the Arkansas House of Representatives.
 * Jim Files - Former NFL linebacker with the NY Giants.
 * Madison Marsh - Miss America 2024
 * Jeff McKnight - Former MLB player (New York Mets, Baltimore Orioles)
 * Hunter Doohan - Actor who played Tyler Galpin in Wednesday (TV series)


text:
User:Shirley Grace

I am a big fan of wikimedia who finally decided to join what I view as the flagship of the wikimedia world.

Works in Progress
/TKT edit

/Nukeland Cinema edit

Wikipedia Pages and Projects I watch

 * WikiProject Webcomics
 * WikiProject Comics

List of Wikipedia Reference Pages
Template_messages, Community_Portal, Template_messages/Image_namespace, WikiProject_Webcomics,

Other Wikimedia I Contribute To
The Archive/Wiki for the college radio station of Binghamton University: 90.5 FM WHRW, Binghamton, NY. I am an administrator for this wiki.
 * The WHRW Archive

A parody site of Wikipedia. I authored the article about The Philippines - Unencylopedia style.
 * Unencyclopedia

The wiki about the website HomestarRunner.
 * The HomestarRunner Wiki

title: User:Shirley Grace


text:
Nicolas-Joseph Beaurepaire

Nicolas-Joseph Beaurepaire (7 January 1740, in Coulommiers, Seine-et-Marne – 2 September 1792) was a French officer.

Born in Coulommiers, he commanded the defence of Verdun against the invading Allied armies of the First Coalition, shortly before they were stopped at the Battle of Valmy. He chose death by suicide to avoid the dishonour of surrendering Verdun.

He was buried in the Panthéon, though his body has since disappeared.

title: Nicolas-Joseph Beaurepaire


text:
Duala

Duala or Douala can refer to:

Relating to Cameroon

 * Duala people, an ethnic group in Cameroon
 * Duala language, part of the Bantu languages
 * Douala, the largest city in Cameroon, founded by the Duala people
 * Rudolf Duala Manga Bell (1873–1914), a Duala king and resistance leader
 * Alexandre Douala Manga Bell (1897–1966), son of above
 * Roudolphe Douala (born 1978), Cameroonian footballer

Other

 * Douala, Guinea, a village in the Nzérékoré Prefecture, Guinea
 * Duala language, alternative spelling for Australian Aboriginal Dhuwal language
 * GERMAN SHIP Duala, a Kriegsmarine accommodation ship

title: Duala


text: User talk:82.50.144.6

title: User talk:82.50.144.6


text:
Asterix the Legionary

Asterix the Legionary is the tenth Asterix book in the Asterix comic book series by Rene Goscinny and Albert Uderzo. It was first published as a serial in Pilote magazine, issues 368–389, in 1966.

Synopsis
Asterix and Obelix are setting off for a wild boar hunt when they encounter Panacea, a former childhood resident of the village who has since moved to Condatum, and Obelix immediately falls in love with her. Some hours later, Panacea receives word that her fiancé, Tragicomix, has been forcibly-conscripted into the Roman army and shipped to North Africa; and Obelix, although heartbroken, promises to bring him back.

Asterix and Obelix travel to Condatum, where they learn that Tragicomix has already left for Massilia, the Mediterranean port from which the soldiers depart, and enlist themselves in the army to follow him, alongside Hemispheric the Goth; Selectivemploymentax the Briton; Gastronomix the Belgian; Neveratalos the Greek; and Ptenisnet, an Egyptian tourist who spends the entire book believing himself to be in a holiday camp.

After completing basic training (and repeatedly and comically driving their instructors to the verge of tears), the newly formed unit sets off as reinforcements to Caesar against Scipio, Afranius, and King Juba I of Numidia. Asterix and Obelix soon find out that Tragicomix has gone missing in action after a skirmish, and raid Scipio's camp to recover him. This results in the Battle of Thapsus, in which the confusion over the Gauls' unorthodox assault and the similarity of both armies' uniforms cause a default victory for Caesar after the frustrated Scipio sounds the retreat. The Gauls are cornered by Caesar after the battle is over; but released and sent home for their assistance in his victory. Asterix and Obelix thereafter celebrate at home, while Panacea and Tragicomix return to Condatum to marry.

Film adaptations

 * Elements of the plot of this album were combined with Asterix the Gladiator for the 1985 animated film Asterix Versus Caesar.
 * The Raft of the Medusa sequence (see below) was incorporated into the 2002 live-action film Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra.

Commentary

 * This is the first time Asterix does not join the usual album-ending banquet (he is still visible in the final panel, albeit not at the banquet tables), an absence not repeated until Asterix and the Magic Carpet two decades later.
 * When the pirates are first sunk, the ship's wreckage is a parody of the 19th century painting The Raft of the Medusa. In the English version, the pirate captain even bemoans, "We've been framed, by Jericho", a pun on the artist Géricault. In the French original, he says, "Je suis médusé" ("I am dumbfounded", or, most literally, "I am Medused").
 * The legionaries in Asterix's unit are comic stereotypes of various nationalities, which parodies the French Foreign Legion's recruitment of foreigners.
 * The hair of the Belgian legionary resembles that of the Belgian comic character Tintin.
 * In the later part of the story, the Egyptian makes comments in hieroglyphics about hairy body parts — this is based on a child's game in France that involves repeating back a rhyme of whatever was last said in the form of "old hairy (body part)".
 * The plot is partly inspired by a 1939 Laurel and Hardy film, The Flying Deuces (Les Conscrits), in which the pair join the French Foreign Legion after Hardy falls in love with a woman who turns out to have a husband in the legion. Laurel and Hardy later appeared as legionaries in Obelix & Co..
 * The line "timeo Danaos et dona ferentes" ("I fear the Greeks, even those bearing gifts") is used as a standard mnemonic reference to Tragicomix's name.

In other languages

 * French – Astérix légionnaire
 * German – Asterix als Legionär
 * Croatian - Asterix legionar
 * Spanish – Asterix legionario
 * Catalan – Astèrix legionari
 * Portuguese – Astérix Legionário
 * Dutch – Asterix en het 1e Legioen
 * Greek – Ο Αστερίξ λεγεωνάριος
 * Finnish –Asterix legioonalaisena
 * Irish - Asterix ar Pháirc an Chatha
 * Scottish Gaelic - Asterix an Saighdear Ròmanach
 * Italian – Asterix legionario
 * Latin – Asterix Legionarius
 * Korean – 로마군이 아스테릭스 –
 * Danish – Asterix i trøjen
 * Swedish – Asterix drar i fält
 * Serbian – Астерикс, легионар/Asteriks, legionar
 * Turkish – Asteriks Lejyoner
 * Brazilian Portuguese – Asterix legionário
 * Bengali – অ্যাস্টেরিক্স রোমান সৈনিক

Reception
On Goodreads, it has a score of 4.29 out of 5.

authors: Я сошла с ума

title: Asterix the Legionary


text:
James Tibbits Willmore

James Tibbits Willmore (Handsworth September 1800 – 12 March 1863 London) was a British engraver.

Biography
He was born at Bristnal's End, Handsworth (then Staffordshire, now West Midlands). Contemporaneous authorities differ on the spelling of his middle name, as seen in the citations below.

His father, James Willmore, was a manufacturer of silverware. At the age of fourteen Willmore was apprenticed to the Birmingham engraver William Radclyffe. His younger brother Arthur Willmore (1814–1888) trained with him, and also became an engraver. Radclyffe had received drawing lessons in Birmingham from Joseph Barber. He married, and in 1823 he went to London where he worked for Charles Heath for three years. He later worked on the plates of William Brockedon's Passes of the Alps and Turner's England and Wales.

He made engravings after Chalon, Leitch, Stanfield, Landseer, Eastlake, Creswick and Ansdell, and especially after Turner. Willmore engraved thirteen pictures on copper for Turner's England and Wales series, beginning in 1828, and eight on steel for his Rivers of France. He made a number of large single plates after Turner, including Ancient Italy in 1842. The next year he exhibited this print at the Royal Academy (the first he had shown there), and was elected an associate engraver of the academy.

He died on 12 March 1863 and is buried on the western side of Highgate Cemetery.

title: James Tibbits Willmore


text:
7166 Kennedy

7166 Kennedy, provisional designation, is a stony Nysian asteroid from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 5 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 15 October 1985, by American astronomer Edward Bowell at Lowell's Anderson Mesa Station near Flagstaff, Arizona, in the United States. The asteroid was named after Malcolm Kennedy of the Astronomical Society of Glasgow.

Orbit and classification
Kennedy is a member of the Nysa family (405), the largest asteroid family of the main belt, consisting of stony and carbonaceous subfamilies. The family, named after 44 Nysa, is located in the inner belt near the Kirkwood gap (3:1 orbital resonance with Jupiter), a depleted zone that separates the central main belt. It is, however, a non-family asteroid from the main belt's background population when applying the hierarchical clustering method to its proper orbital elements.

It orbits the Sun in the inner main-belt at a distance of 2.1–2.8 AU once every 3 years and 9 months (1,384 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.13 and an inclination of 4° with respect to the ecliptic. The body's observation arc begins with a precovery taken at Palomar Observatory in June 1954, more than 31 years prior to its official discovery observation at Anderson Mesa.

Physical characteristics
Kennedy has been characterized as a common stony S-type asteroid by PanSTARRS photometric survey.

Rotation period
In December 2012, a rotational lightcurve of Kennedy was obtained from photometric observations in the R-band by astronomers at the Palomar Transient Factory in California. Lightcurve analysis gave a rotation period of 3.659 hours with a brightness amplitude of 0.52 magnitude (U=2).

Diameter and albedo
According to the survey carried out by the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, Kennedy measures 5.129 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo of 0.267, while the Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes an albedo of 0.21 and calculates a diameter of 4.42 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 14.08.

Naming
This minor planet was named in memory of Malcolm Kennedy (1944–1997), secretary of the Astronomical Society of Glasgow. He was born and raised in New Zealand and became a civil engineer in Scotland. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 8 August 1998 (M.P.C. 32348).

title: 7166 Kennedy


text:
Governor-general of Norway

The governor-general of Norway (Rigsstatholder or Riksståthållare, both meaning 'lieutenant of the realm' (see stadtholder)), was the appointed head of the Norwegian Government in the absence of the monarch, during the union with Denmark and Sweden.

Etymology
(Stattholder) means "steward". Its component parts literally translate as "place holder," or as a direct cognate, "stead holder", it was a term for a "steward" or "lieutenant". However, this is not the word for the military rank of lieutenant, which is løytnant in Norwegian.

Governors-general appointed by the kings of Norway and Denmark
The office of Governor-general of Norway was established in 1556 and was occupied with occasional interruptions until 1814. The Governor-general was normally at the same time Lensherre (Governor) of Akershus len (after 1662; Akershus amt), and was the highest authority in the country.

List of governors-general (Stattholdere) during the Union between Denmark and Norway
!colspan=7|Office vacant (1739–1750)
 * -style="text-align:center;"

!colspan=7|Office vacant (8 February 1771 – 25 July 1809)
 * -style="text-align:center;"

Governors-general appointed by the kings of Norway and Sweden
The following describes the office of governor as it was from 1814 during the union with Sweden:

The office came into existence by the Norwegian Constitution, of 4 November 1814 where the paragraphs 12, 13 and 15 stipulated that a governor-general of Swedish or Norwegian nationality could be appointed. The governor-general resided in Christiania (today Oslo) and led the Government in the absence of the monarch, when he resided in his Swedish capital Stockholm. The Council was normally led by the governor-general, who had two votes, unless the Monarch was present, at which point he would lose his authority and merely become the first among equals, or prime minister of the council.

The post was held by Swedish appointees from 1814 until 1829, when it was vacated by natural causes. Protests left the position empty until 1836, when it was filled by a Norwegian appointee. He was succeeded in 1841 but the successor Severin Løvenskiold laid down his office in 1856, after which it would not be reinstated. The demand to abandon the office completely was ultimately granted in 1873 by King Oscar II.

List of governors-general (Stattholdere) during the Union between Sweden and Norway
!colspan=7|Office vacant (1829 – 1836)
 * -style="text-align:center;"

!colspan=7|Office vacant (1840 – 1841)
 * -style="text-align:center;"

!colspan=7|Office vacant (1856 – 1873) Then it was abolished
 * -style="text-align:center;"

Sources and references

 * WorldStatesmen – Norway
 * Statholderembetet 1572–1771

title: Governor-general of Norway


text:
Creamed corn

Creamed corn (which is also known by other names, such as cream-style sweet corn) is a type of creamed vegetable dish made by combining pieces of whole sweetcorn with a soupy liquid of milky residue from immature pulped corn kernels scraped from the cob. Originating in Native American cuisine, it is now most commonly eaten in the Midwestern and Southern United States, as well as being used in the French Canadian dish pâté chinois ('Chinese pie': a dish like shepherd's pie). It is a soupy version of sweetcorn, and unlike other preparations of sweetcorn, creamed corn is partially puréed, releasing the liquid contents of the kernels.

Additional ingredients
Canned creamed corn does not usually contain any cream, but some homemade versions may include milk or cream. Sugar and starch may also be added. Commercial, store-bought canned preparations may contain tapioca starch as a thickener.

title: Creamed corn


text:
Becoming Madame Mao

Becoming Madame Mao is a historical novel by Anchee Min detailing the life of Jiang Qing (spelled in the novel as "Jiang Ching"). She became Madame Mao after her marriage to Mao Zedong. In this story Min tries to cast a sympathetic light on one of the most controversial political figures in the People's Republic of China.

Plot summary
The novel starts with the main character's suicide, before moving on to her early childhood.

Madame Mao is born to a very poor family around 1910 (early enough to have had her feet bound although due to a severe infection the bindings were taken off). She has an abusive father who kicks her and her concubine mother out of the house at an early age. Her mother ends up as a concubine and servant and the young 'Madame Mao' runs away to her grandparents. Anchee Min, the author, seems to attribute a lot of Madame Mao's later actions to her childhood—and that a lot of her incessant claims to power actually come from a need to be desired and to feel close to Mao rather than a deep need for power herself. Madame Mao's dream is to become an actress but she only achieves mediocre success. Using the stage name Lan Ping, she spends a few years in Shandong province (where she becomes a Communist due to a lover of hers) and then Shanghai. In Shanghai she had some success in playing Nora in Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House, and the author clearly parallels Nora's strength and inability to be controlled with Lan Ping's strong personality and need to be in control and the center of attention. The play is closed down since it is perceived to be too subversive by the authorities. She even ends up in prison for a short time but is released after signing a document denouncing Communism. After what seems like a string of rejections as well as a few serious lovers and two husbands, she travels to Yan'an, Mao's revolutionary base, to become part of his movement. The book does not offer much explanation for the switch from actress to countryside revolutionary except that she certainly had been involved in revolutionary elements (anti-Japanese plays, etc.) and that with the absence of work as an actress she did not have many options. Also, joining the Communist revolution seemed to be a common choice for young discontented students and others in their 20s.

In Yan'an, she soon meets Mao as the leading actress in patriotic plays. They meet frequently and finally become lovers. Mao is still married to his second wife He Zizhen (his first died as a revolutionary), who is in Russia and mentally unstable, but by the time she returns to China, Mao and Lan Ping have married and she is put in a mental hospital. The Communist Party is very much against Mao's affair with Lan Ping, in large part because they have worked hard to build up the image of his second wife as a martyr for the cause and do not want Mao's image to be tarnished in any way as an adulterer. The Party is supposed to emphasize discipline and unity. The affair continues despite (or perhaps is enhanced because of) these odds and the disapproval of many Communists. Finally, Lan becomes pregnant and Mao is allowed to divorce He Zizhen and marry her, under the condition that she stay out of the public eye and is not involved in politics at all. Her name is changed to Jiang Qing.

During the years before Communists gain full control of mainland China, the relationship seems to go well, although the passion is reduced. Jiang follows Mao everywhere, even to the field, and becomes his secretary when he is sick.

However, things change once the Communists triumph. They move to the Forbidden City in Beijing and live in separate quarters. Mao begins to lead a totally separate life with much traveling and entertaining. As she is not allowed by the party to be in the public eye, she is not a part of all of this. She becomes very lonely and depressed. Mao has many affairs, especially bringing young virgins in from the countryside for his pleasure. Things last in this way for 17 years with the majority of Chinese people not even able to name the wife of the great Chairman.

However, Jiang Ching has never lost her ambition to be powerful and loved and noticed. She sees a glimmer of opportunity at Mao's low point—two years after the launch of the Great Leap Forward which proved disastrous. She begins slowly to reemerge from the shadows and spends some time in Shanghai building up a network of actors and producers (her great passion is still opera and theater). Finally, she approaches Mao to reveal that a current popular play is actually subversive against the emperor. She feeds on his paranoia that those closest to him are actually plotting against him. He gives her some permission to carry on her activities and develop some propagandist plays that exalt him. Slowly she builds up her own friends and aides who can be trusted. Finally, in 1966 she is actually allowed to make an important speech and helps Mao develop the concepts behind the Cultural Revolution. Eventually, Mao puts her in charge of the 'ideology side of the business' and she wields an enormous amount of power.

Madame Mao, as she is now called, organizes festivals for revolutionary plays and begins to work closely with the student movements which have always been so important in China. She organizes and speaks to rallies of thousands of people to help launch the Cultural Revolution. Finally, Mao and Jiang decide to launch a student-led army called the Red Guards that she would be in charge of. The Red Guards end up having more power than the official military for a number of years and wreak havoc throughout the country. Her relationship with Mao is no longer romantic in the least but is mutually beneficial: 'For him, it is the security of his empire that she aids and for her, the role of a heroine. In retrospect she not only has broken the Party's restriction, she runs the nation's psyche. She is gripped by the vision that she might eventually carry on Mao's business and rule China after his death.

As Madame Mao's power grows, so does her worry about Mao and his constantly changing allegiances and worries about betrayals. He emphasizes that the public only trusts her because he is backing her. His dementia and paranoia grows as he ages. At one point Mao invites a bunch of the 'old boy's over for a meeting without inviting her. She says: ' I should have known that my husband was doing the two-faced trick. I should have understood that although Mao had been promoting me, my new power unnerves him and he needs to have another force to balance the game.'

In Mao's final months, Madame Mao is desperate for him to name her as his successor or at the very least to give a definitive statement that she represents him. She desperately wants his power after his death but if that's not possible at the very least she needs protection from all the party members who are ready to attack her. She sends investigators to extract forced confessions from her enemies and becomes increasingly paranoid and power-obsessed herself. She forms a power circle called the Gang of Four with herself as the leader, Zhang Chunqiao (whom she found in Shanghai and gave much power to), Wang Hongwen (whom she found as a student and Mao promoted to Vice Chairman of the Communist party) and another disciple, Yao Wenyuan.

In September 1976, Mao dies at the age of 83. When Mao's will is eventually found, he has named Hua Guofeng, a provincial governor from his home province, as his successor. Madame Mao had quickly sensed that her enemies would triumph—at Mao's funeral she was barely acknowledged. A few weeks after Mao's death she is arrested.

Madame Mao remains in prison from 1976 to 1991. Her daughter, Li Na, picks up what Madame Mao disliked and dropped what her mother liked or wanted her to do. Madame Mao has "saved enough handkerchiefs and socks to make a rope." She commits suicide by hanging herself on May 14, 1991. She was on Death Row the whole time, although she was not executed since her captors would have preferred to extract a confession of repentance from her.

Sheryl WuDunn of The New York Times stated that the earlier parts of the novel are "seems mostly embroidered history" instead of being completely made up, and that later events focus on Jiang Ching and have less focus on outside events like the Great Leap Forward.

Reception
According to WuDunn the writing is "simple, searing, poetic and also at times overdramatic".

Publishers Weekly stated that it is a "spellbinding", "highly dramatic, psychologically penetrating and provocative narrative" that is "foremost a character study" of Jiang Ching. According to PW, the vignettes were "effective" in telling the story.

Kirkus Reviews stated that the novel, despite the author's skill in creating "A remarkable act of historical imagination", "never truly captures Jiang Ching’s character."

title: Becoming Madame Mao


text:
Egghead Software

Egghead Software was an American computer software retailer. Founded in 1984, it filed for bankruptcy in 2001 and its domain name was acquired by Amazon.com.

History
The company was founded by Victor D. Alhadeff in 1984, as a single store in Bellevue, Washington.

Customers were able to sign up for a "CUE" card ("Customer Updates and 'Eggs' tras") that would provide discounts.

By June 1987, when Alhadeff was 40 years old, the company had 50 stores on the West Coast of the United States.

In June 1988, the company became a public company via an initial public offering. Within a year, the stock price dropped from $17 per share to $11 per share and top executives, including the founder, were sued for fraud for failing to disclose material facts about the true condition of the company's inventory systems and finances.

By December 1989, the company had 206 stores, but closed 20 of them due to losses and inventory issues and theft.

In June 1993, the company released its first software product, Egghead Express, which allowed customers to place and manage orders.

In 1995, the company moved its headquarters from Issaquah, Washington, east of Seattle, to Spokane. At that time, it had 2,500 employees and operated retail stores in 30 states.

Also in 1995, when the development manager of Windows 95 wanted to test compatibility, he bought a copy of every program for sale at an Egghead store.

In 1996, George Orban became chairman and in January 1997, he became CEO. In May 1996, Egghead sold its Corporate, Government & Education division to Software Spectrum for $45 million (~$ in ). At that time, the stock price was $6 per share and there was speculation of a takeover of the company.

In February 1997, the company announced it would close 77 of its 156 stores and reported additional losses.In May 1997, the company acquired competitor Surplus Software Inc. for $31.5 million (~$ in ).

In January 1998, the company reported a loss and announced it would close all 80 of its remaining stores, lay off 600 of its 800 employees, and sell only through its website, Egghead.com. Its stock price fell 18% on the news.

In July 1998, during the dot-com bubble, shares soared to $25 (~$ in ) as investors bought up shares of internet companies.

In 1999, the company merged with OnSale.com in a $375 million (~$ in ) all-stock transaction. The company kept the Egghead.com name and the CEO of Onsale, Jerry Kaplan, became CEO of the combined company.

In December 2000, right before Christmas, the company's servers were compromised, and it feared that the credit card data of over 3.7 million people was stolen. The company first publicly denied that there was a problem, then notified Visa Inc., which notified banks, who notified consumers, causing the breach to escalate into a full-blown scandal. Many credit cards were cancelled. The company later discovered that credit card information was not obtained.

In August 2001, the company filed bankruptcy and worked out a deal to be acquired by Fry's Electronics. However, the deal fell apart after Fry's accused Egghead of failing to provide financial documents, and in December 2001, the company sold its domain name to Amazon.com.

title: Egghead Software


text:
Slayer rule

The slayer rule, in the U.S. law of inheritance, stops a person inheriting property from a person they murdered (so that, for example, a murderer cannot inherit from parents or a spouse they killed).

While a criminal conviction requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt, the slayer rule applies to civil law, not criminal law, so the petitioner must only prove the murder by a preponderance of the evidence, as in a wrongful death claim meaning on the civil standard of proof of the balance of probability. Hence, even a slayer who is acquitted of the crime of murder can lose the inheritance by the civil court running the estate.

So far, 47 states have codified the slayer statute, either by adopting the Uniform Probate Code (UPC) or a version of the code that includes the slayer statute.

Statutory response to slayers
At common law, American courts used two different theories when dealing with early slayer cases. Some courts would disinherit the slayer because of the public policy principle that a slayer should not profit from his crime (No Profit theory).

No Profit theory
In Mutual Life v. Armstrong (1886), the first American case to consider the issue of whether a slayer could profit from their crime, the US Supreme Court set forth the No Profit theory (the term "No Profit" was coined by legal scholar Adam D. Hansen in an effort to distinguish early common law cases that applied a similar outcome when dealing with slayers), a public policy justification of slayer statutes: "It would be a reproach to the jurisprudence of the country if one could recover insurance money payable on the death of the party whose life he had feloniously taken."

Other courts were reluctant to disinherit a slayer in absence of a legislatively codified statute directing the court to do so (Strict Construction theory).

Strict Construction theory
The Strict Construction theory (the term "Strict Construction" was coined by legal scholar Adam D. Hansen in an effort to distinguish early common law cases that dealt applied a similar outcome when disinheriting slayers) originated from Judge John Clinton Gray's dissent in Riggs v. Palmer (1889). Judge Gray argued that the criminal law already established punishment for slayers. A court denying the estate to a slayer was to, in effect, add significant further punishment to what a slayer received under the criminal statute. Judge Gray argued that this was not something the court was permitted to do without an express, written statute. In Judge Gray's opinion, the court could not simply create or imagine such statutes so as to obtain a morally pleasing result.

Slayer statutes codify the public policy principle that a murderer cannot profit from his crime. Slayer statutes provide a right of civil action to a victim's successors for the purpose of directing the victim's testate/intestate property away from the slayer. Such an action is brought by a successor, or other party of interest (e.g., life insurance company, bank), on behalf of the victim's estate. The slayer statute applies to both real and personal property that would have been acquired by intestacy or by will.

In 1936, legal scholar John W. Wade proposed a No Profit theory statutory fix to promote uniformity amongst the states in dealing with slayer cases. In 1969, the Uniform Law Commission included No Profit theory language in its first promulgation of the Uniform Probate Code (UPC). Forty-eight states have enacted laws that strip a slayer of any inheritance benefit he would have gained from his unlawful act.

United States
In the United States, most jurisdictions have enacted a slayer statute, which codifies the rule and supplies additional conditions. Such laws have sometimes been construed narrowly because the relevant statutes are criminal in nature, and serve to take away someone's rights that are otherwise afforded by law. Interpreted this way, a slayer statute will not prevent the killer from acquiring title to the property by other means. In jurisdictions with a common law slayer rule, a slayer statute may serve to extend and supplement the common law rule, rather than limiting it. For example, where the statute requires the heir to have been convicted to bar inheritance, a common law slayer rule that does not have this requirement may still serve to bar inheritance.

Arizona
In 2012, the Arizona legislature amended Arizona's slayer rule to include the lesser crime of manslaughter in an effort to subject more killers to civil disinheritance. Prior to the 2012 amendment, only killers found guilty of murder in the first or second degree would be disinherited under Arizona's slayer rule. Several specific cases (e.g., Grace Pianka; Douglas Grant;  and Gilbert Ramos) prompted the Arizona legislature to amend Arizona's slayer rule by 1) expressly defining “intentional and felonious” to mean any individual who is found guilty of murder in the first or second degree, or the lesser crime of manslaughter; 2) allowing victims to place the decedent's estate in constructive trust immediately from the time of the killing; and 3) allowing the victims to place the slayer's estate (i.e., life insurance benefits) in constructive trust, in the case of murder-suicide.  Arizona now touts its slayer rule as the strongest in the nation.

Illinois
A person found guilty of financial exploitation, abuse or neglect cannot inherit any benefit from their victim.

Kansas
Kansas prohibits a slayer's inheritance where suicide is shortly after the murder.

Maryland
The Maryland slayer rule is harsher than most other states. In addition to prohibiting murderers from inheriting from their victims, Maryland's slayer rule prohibits anyone else from inheriting from murder victims through their murderers; Maryland's slayer rule is thus similar in structure to corruption of blood.

For example, a mother leaves her son $50,000, and leaves her son's child (her grandchild) $100,000. She leaves her residuary estate (i.e., whatever else is left of the estate) to her daughter. If the son kills his mother, then under Maryland law, the son's child will inherit the $100,000; however the son's $50,000 (which is also the indirect inheritance of the grandchild through his father), is not available under Maryland law to either the son, or his child. The $50,000 becomes part of the mother's residuary estate and goes to the daughter.

Missouri
The Missouri slayer rule only exists in common law. It has not been codified. There has not been a proposed slayer statute by the legislature in recent years. The Missouri Supreme Court found a slayer statute to be unnecessary in Lee v. Aylward, when determining whether contingent beneficiaries, children of the slayer, or the next of kin should be the heirs of the victim's estate. The court's holding relied on the Model Probate Code and several jurisdictions favoring the contingent beneficiaries, and assuming the victim would disfavor the children of the slayer would call for "inappropriate speculation." Although the Supreme Court of Missouri references the Model Probate Code in Lee, the Model Probate Code has not been adopted by Missouri legislation.

Texas
Texas law states "No conviction shall work corruption of blood or forfeiture of estate." However, if a beneficiary of a life insurance policy or contract is convicted and sentenced (including accomplices) in willfully bringing about the death of the insured, proceeds are then paid in accordance with the Texas Insurance Code.

Washington
A person found guilty of financial exploitation, abuse or neglect cannot inherit any benefit from their victim.

United Kingdom
A similar principle in the United Kingdom is governed by the Forfeiture Act 1982.

title: Slayer rule


text:
Donovan Patton

Donovan Patton (born March 1, 1978) is an American actor and television host. Patton graduated from the Interlochen Arts Academy and acted in Shakespeare plays such as Much Ado About Nothing and Romeo and Juliet before replacing Steve Burns as the host of the television program, Blue's Clues in 2002. Series co-creator Angela Santomero stated that Patton brought Joe, his character, closer to the preschool viewer, as Joe was more willing to "jump into a problem rather than figuring it out first like Steve". After Blue's Clues ended in 2006, Patton then voiced Bot on Nickelodeon's Team Umizoomi (2010–2015), and in 2021, he began voicing CatRat on the Netflix original DreamWorks series Gabby's Dollhouse.

Although most of his career has been in children's television programs, Patton has also appeared in independent films, such as Black Wine (2005), Awake (2013), Lies I Told My Little Sister (2014), The Broken Ones (2017), The Murder (2019), The Anniversary (2019), Psycho Escort (2020), and DieRy (2020), and in television shows, such as Blue Bloods (2011), Nurse Jackie (2011) and Damages (2012).

He also appeared in video games, such as Grand Theft Auto V (2013), Lego Jurassic World (2015), Star Wars: The Old Republic – Knights of the Fallen Empire (2015), Halo 5: Guardians (2015), Horizon: Zero Dawn (2017), and God of War (2018).

Early life and education
Patton was born on a U.S. military base in Guam to Michael Patton (1951–2014), an Air Force meteorologist, and Darlene Curtis (born 1952), who worked for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. He has an older brother, Casey, and a younger half-sister, Annabelle. After his parents divorced when he was 3, he, his brother, and their mother moved to Colorado. They moved to Las Vegas when Donovan was 12. Patton graduated from the Interlochen Arts Academy in northwest Michigan in 1996, having transferred there his junior year.

Career
His first acting roles were in Shakespeare plays such as Much Ado About Nothing and Romeo and Juliet. He took acting classes in Manhattan while working odd jobs such as a book clerk and a video deliveryman.

Blue's Clues
Patton's "big break" came in the autumn of 2000 when he was cast to replace Steve Burns as Joe, the second host of the Nickelodeon children's television program Blue's Clues. At the time, Patton worked as a waiter and a part-time actor in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York. He was originally set up for a part in Blair Witch Project 2 at the time, but he considered the role as Joe "a happy accident". Patton became a "household name" and has been called "an unqualified star to the 5-and-under set and their parents". He was subjected to "the same kind of scrutiny" as Burns, who was involved in Patton's selection and helped train him, to earn the role. Patton was selected out of 1,500 auditions. He had never seen the show before his audition, but like Burns was the favorite with preschool test audiences. He said, "I am convinced that I got that part because of a Christopher Walken impression I sometimes do. There's a tape out there, somewhere, with both Steve Burns and myself doing a Blue's Clues scene both as Christopher Walken, which we did at the screen test. I haven't seen the tape, but I know somewhere it still exists". Burns trained Patton to take over the host spot and advised him not to "think of [the show] as children's TV", but rather as "acting and telling the truth". Burns left the show in January 2001, with the transition episodes airing in April 2002.

According to Traci Paige Johnson, one of the producers and creators of Blue's Clues, Patton's character was more like a preschooler and more innocent than Steve. Angela Santomero, another producer and creator, stated that Patton's characterization as Joe brought him closer to the preschool viewer as Joe was more willing to "jump into a problem rather than figure it out first like Steve". Patton liked working on Blue's Clues because, as he stated, "I got to go be a kid for twelve hours a day". He called the show's crew "a real fun little family" and a "well-oiled machine" by the time he joined the show. Patton remained on the show for 50 episodes, until it ended its run in 2006, and also appeared in its spin-off, Blue's Room, which premiered in 2004. Several years later, Patton said he had not yet grasped the enormity of replacing Burns, even after he became a parent and witnessed the show's effect on his own children. He admitted that he preferred when his daughter watched the Steve episodes.

Patton, alongside Burns, appeared in the first episode of the 2019 revival Blue's Clues & You!, reprising their roles as Joe and Steve respectively to help their cousin Josh (who was played by Josh Dela Cruz) learn how to take care of Blue. Patton and Burns continued to make recurring appearances throughout the remainder of the series, and prominently co-starred in the Paramount+ movie Blue's Big City Adventure in 2022.

Later roles
In 2012, Patton appeared in the short films Awake and Pharmboy, the latter of which was directed by his longtime friend Lawrence Feeney. Mark Finguerra, the director of Awake, was able to look past the potential typecasting of Patton's role in Blue's Clues to cast him in a darker role. Patton had impressed him in an audition for an earlier feature film. Finguerra called Patton a "complete professional [and a] tremendous actor", and enjoyable on set. He appeared in the soap opera One Life to Live, in which he played, in a departure of his previous roles, "a very angry man". In 2014, he appeared in a small movie shot mostly in New Jersey, entitled Lies I Told My Little Sister, directed by William Stribling and starring Lucy Walters. He also stars in Four for Fun, a film by Jason Cook, alongside Jacob Young, Brytni Sarpi, and Annika Foster.

Personal life
Patton called his career, with its mixture of children's television and darker roles in independent films, "an odd experience" and told a reporter that he had spent half his life at Nickelodeon. In 2009, he was cast as Bot, the robot superhero, on the children's show Team Umizoomi through the relationships he had made at Nickelodeon on Blue's Clues. He found working on Team Umizoomi "comforting" because many of the same crew, producers, and creators had also worked on Blue's Clues. It was the first time he had worked as a voice-over artist, unlike on Blue's Clues, when he was able to be more physical acting in front of a blue screen. He said, about Team Umizoomi, "the work the animators have done on it has been superlative". He stated that he enjoyed working on Team Umizoomi because it gave him the opportunity to participate in a show from its inception, which he had missed with Blue's Clues. Patton said his voice performance of Bot, which he modeled on Brent Spiner's performance as the android Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation and was influenced by Mel Blanc's work in the classic Warner Bros. cartoons, "ended up sounding more like my natural voice, with a teeny bit of superhero in there". Despite both roles in Blue's Clues and Team Umizoomi requiring him to sing, he did not consider himself a natural singer and felt that he had to work hard at it. He said, about being cast as Bot, "I get to be a superhero. Who doesn't want to be a superhero?" Patton was the only main cast member to stay on Team Umizoomi for its entire run, voicing Bot in all episodes spread through its four seasons.

Patton is married to his wife Jackie and has two children. They live in Los Angeles. He is active in several charities in the New York City area, including Literacy Inc., the Make-a-Wish Foundation, and the Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, a large children's hospital.

Shorts
Video
 * Dr. Ice (1996) – Waiter
 * It's Joe Time (2002) – Joe
 * Blue's Clues: Meet Joe! (2002) – Joe
 * Blue's Big Band (2003) – Joe
 * Blue's Biggest Stories (2006) – Joe
 * Blue's Jobs (2006) – Joe
 * Meet Blue's Baby Brother (2006) – Joe
 * Blue Takes You to School (2003) – Joe
 * Fred's Birthday (2006) – Joe

title: Donovan Patton


text:
Prunella Gee

Prunella Mary Gee (born 17 February 1950) is an English counsellor, therapist and former actress, best known for her work as an actress in the 1970s and 1980s, and for the role of Doreen Heavey in Coronation Street, a part she first played in 1999. Doreen appeared in 17 episodes before returning as a permanent character in 2002 and 2003. She came back the following year for three episodes, proving to be Gee's final television role.

Early life and education
The daughter of a businessman living in Rutland, Gee was privately educated at Benenden School, where she was in the year below Princess Anne.

Wanting to become an actress, she studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, where she won the Spotlight Award for Best Actress in 1972; she then spent six months in repertory performing in works by J. B. Priestley, George Bernard Shaw, William Shakespeare, Georges Feydeau and Joe Orton.

Television and film work
Her first television role was as Anna Fitzgerald in Granada Television's 1930s drama serial Shabby Tiger (1973), in which she rose to overnight notoriety by becoming the first actress to show full frontal nudity on British television. She was quickly hailed as Britain's answer to Brigitte Bardot or Sophia Loren. In a 2002 interview, Gee recalled: "I was working in serious theatre, but got a reputation of being a sex symbol. I was too young to know any better so I tended to go with the flow."

Gee made her film debut in 1975, alongside Sidney Poitier, Michael Caine, and Nicol Williamson, in The Wilby Conspiracy, for which she was nominated Best Newcomer in the Evening News Film Awards. The same year she starred as journalist Sandy Williams in Cover Story, episode 8 of the police drama series The Sweeney.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Gee had guest roles in many television shows, including Return of the Saint, The Glittering Prizes, Hammer House of Horror, The Professionals, and Alas Smith & Jones. She also made regular appearances on the game shows Call My Bluff and Give Us A Clue.

In 1976, Gee starred as Sheila in Waris Hussein's production of Waiting For Sheila for the ITV Sunday Night Drama slot.

She appeared as Del Henney's girlfriend Rebecca Westgate in the second series of the ITV drama serial Fallen Hero in 1979.

In 1981, she starred as Miss Griffin in Nigel Kneale's short-lived LWT sci-fi comedy series Kinvig, alongside Tony Haygarth.

In 1983, she appeared opposite Sean Connery as nurse Patrica Fearing in the James Bond film Never Say Never Again. Other movies throughout the decade included 1985's Number One, where she played a news reporter interviewing Bob Geldof's lead character, and in 1988 she played Sting's wife in Stormy Monday.

In 1985, she appeared as Penelope Keith's disruptive actress sister in the ITV sitcom Moving, and the following year co-starred with Pat Phoenix in Constant Hot Water.

In 1989, she made a guest appearance in the Going Away episode of the ITV comedy series After Henry, and another in the short-lived comedy series, Split Ends, starring Anita Dobson, in a part specially created for her in the episode titled The Brush Off.

In 1998, she played Catherine McKay, a fading adult film star in the romantic comedy film Merchants of Venus, filmed in Los Angeles, in which she starred with Michael York, Beverly D'Angelo and Brian Cox. Although well received by the critics, Merchants of Venus was not made commercially available until 2002, when it was released on DVD.

Gee's last television role was as Doreen Heavey in Coronation Street, the mother of Maxine Peacock and a part she played in regular intervals from 1999 to 2004. The character of Doreen was scatty and flirty, and during her time on the show, had a brief flirtation with Mike Baldwin, a feud with Vera Duckworth, and was a constant source of irritation for her son-in-law Ashley Peacock, when she arrived at his and Maxine's house following a split with her husband Derek, whom she was reconciled with in 2003.

Theatre work
Gee has had a long and varied career on the stage. David Storey cast her in his production of The Farm in 1973, her future husband Ken Campbell gave her the role of the Goddess of Chaos in his acclaimed play Illuminatus in 1976, and in 1988, she played all three women in Last of the Red Hot Lovers.

From 1989 to 1990, she starred as the blind Suzy in a national tour of Wait Until Dark. She took on the double role of Alice in Double Take, at the Liverpool Playhouse in 1990. The same year she devised and starred in Warhola with Snoo Wilson as Warhol (taken from The Philosophy of Andy Warhol) at Offstage and the Carib Theatre, Trinidad.

From 1991 to 1992, she acted in the play Time and Time Again, which included dates at the Theatre Royal, Bath. Shortly after, she played Romaine in the Agatha Christie play Witness for the Prosecution.

In 1994, she appeared as Kate in William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, a production which was directed by Val May.

Gee gave up acting in 2004. She briefly returned in 2011 when she appeared in the short film Trimming Pablo.

Post-acting career
Since 2006, she has worked as a counsellor and therapist in Camden, London.

On 13 April 2013, Gee appeared as the very special guest at a 43tv Retro TV Sweeney Meet in Hammersmith, London where she gave an after dinner talk about her career in television and film.

The same month, in her capacity as a counsellor, Gee was interviewed on Jo Good's BBC London 94.9 radio show, talking about addiction. On the programme, Gee revealed that she had given up acting because she had started her training as a counsellor whilst she was by then playing "mums and grannies", and there were not as many acting parts for her. She had tried to do the two together, but realised that she could not give her full attention to both. Gee said that she "bravely" said to her agent: "that's it", and that she wanted to be taken out of Spotlight. She added: "It was the most liberating thing I've ever done".

Personal life
Gee was once in a relationship with Michael Winner. She married the actor and director Ken Campbell in 1978, with whom she had a daughter, Daisy; the couple divorced after five years but remained on good terms.

Television and film

 * Shabby Tiger (TV 1973) – Anna Fitzgerald
 * The Wilby Conspiracy (1975) – Rina Van Niekirk
 * The Sweeney (TV 1975) – Sandy Williams
 * The Last of the Best Men (TV 1975) – Annette
 * Quiller (TV 1975) – Diane
 * The Glittering Prizes (TV 1976) – Carol Richardson
 * Waiting for Sheila (TV 1976) – Sheila Seathwaite
 * Call My Bluff (1977–1980) – Herself
 * Return of the Saint (TV 1978) – Leila Sabin
 * Turtle's Progress (TV 1979) – Samantha
 * Fallen Hero (TV 1979) – Rebecca Westgate
 * Hammer House of Horror (TV 1980) – Mary Winter
 * The Professionals (TV 1980) – Sarah Gresham
 * Kinvig (TV 1981) – Miss Griffin
 * Cry Freedom (1981) – Susan
 * Never Say Never Again (1983) – Patricia Fearing
 * Moving (TV 1985) – Liz Ford
 * Number One (1985) – Interviewer
 * Alas Smith & Jones (TV 1985) – Sarah
 * No Place Like Home (TV 1986) – Abigali
 * Constant Hot Water (TV 1986) – Miranda Thorpe
 * Stormy Monday (1988) – Mrs. Finney
 * Executive Stress (TV 1988) – Valerie Davenport
 * After Henry (TV 1989) - Alison
 * Split Ends (TV 1989) – Jo Thomas
 * Easy Target (1998) – Wife
 * Merchants of Venus (1998) – Catherine McKay
 * Coronation Street (TV 1999–2004) – Doreen Heavey
 * Trimming Pablo (2011) – Edna

title: Prunella Gee


text:
Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn, 3rd Baronet

Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn, 3rd Baronet (c. 1692 – 26 September 1749) was a Welsh politician and landowner who sat in the British House of Commons from 1716 to 1749, when he died in office. A member of the Tory party, he was also a prominent Jacobite sympathiser. He helped engineer the downfall of Prime Minister Robert Walpole in 1742 and engaged in negotiations with the exiled Stuarts prior to the Jacobite rising of 1745 but did not participate in the rebellion himself. Watkin died in a hunting accident in 1749.

Life
Williams-Wynn was the eldest son of Sir William Williams, 2nd Baronet, of Llanforda near Oswestry in Shropshire and Jane Thelwall. His grandfather, also Sir William Williams was Solicitor General under James II and led the prosecution of the Seven Bishops in 1688. His mother was a descendant of the antiquary Sir John Wynn, In 1719, a later Sir John Wynn died, and through his mother's kinship Watkin inherited the Wynnstay estates on condition he added "Wynn" to his name, followed by his father's title and lands on his death in 1740. Through his first wife, Ann Vaughan (c. 1695–1748), Williams-Wynn acquired extensive estates in Montgomeryshire and Denbighshire and over time became the pre-eminent landowner in North Wales. When Anne died in March 1748, he married another heiress, his god-daughter Frances Shackerley (1721–1803); his son and heir, Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn, 4th Baronet (1749–1789) was born a few months before Sir Watkin's death in a hunting accident in September 1749.

Political career
After graduating from Jesus College, Oxford, Williams-Wynn became Member of Parliament or MP for Denbighshire in 1716. His first recorded speech in Parliament did not occur until 1727 but he was an active member of the Tory Jacobite faction. As a leader of the Cycle of the White Rose, a Welsh Jacobite society, he "burnt the King's picture" during the 1722 General Election and opposed a "loyal address" to George I following the Atterbury Plot. He also served as Mayor of Oswestry in 1728/1729 and of Chester in 1736/1737.

His money and connections made Williams-Wynn a formidable local political power; in 1722, nine out of eleven Parliamentary seats in North Wales returned Tory candidates. While fiercely contested, the election confirmed the dominance of Robert Walpole and the Whig party; their exclusion from government resulted in the continuing expression of Jacobite sympathies among the more extreme Tories. Williams-Wynn employed Welsh colliers to threaten Whig supporters in the 1733 Chester mayoral election but overtly Jacobite displays were rare and often rooted in Tory opposition to Welsh religious Nonconformists. The complexity of Jacobite support was demonstrated in 1736 when Williams-Wynn and other Tory Jacobites voted against repealing the Test Act and removing legal restrictions on those who were not members of the Church of England, such as Nonconformists and Catholics like the exiled Stuarts. Opposition to religious minorities, in general, was fuelled by memories of the divisions that led to the 1639–1651 Wars of the Three Kingdoms; it was particularly strong in Wales due to the early 18th century Welsh Methodist revival. When the Tory leader Sir William Wyndham died in 1740, Williams-Wynn led the campaign against Walpole, in partnership with Sir John Hynde Cotton, allegedly one of "the most zealous Jacobites in England." In contrast to Williams-Wynn, Cotton was a gifted orator who helped organised the Parliamentary campaign against Walpole.

In the 1741 General Election, Walpole targeted Williams-Wynn's Denbighshire seat; although he won the popular vote by 1352 votes to 933, 594 of these were disallowed, returning his rival. He sat instead for Montgomeryshire and after Walpole's resignation in 1742, regained his seat of Denbighshire on appeal. However, the chief beneficiaries of Walpole's fall were the so-called Patriot Whigs and a Tory faction led by Lord Gower who became Lord Privy Seal in 1742. This led Jacobites like Williams-Wynn and the 4th Duke of Beaufort to re-open negotiations with Stuart agents such as Francis Sempill.

In early 1744, Cotton accepted a government position in Henry Pelham's so-called Broad Bottom Ministry and Williams-Wynn voted with the government for the first time in his career. Although Britain and France were then engaged in the War of the Austrian Succession, in October 1744 he secretly travelled to Versailles where Louis XV assured him of French support for a Jacobite rising. In common with many other Jacobites, Williams-Wynn's support was conditional on a substantial French military landing in England. When Charles Stuart invaded England during the 1745 Rising, Williams-Wynn remained in London to attend Parliament, only sending an oral message promising help when a French army arrived, an offer that arrived too late to help Charles. After the Rebellion ended, the testimony of Prince Charles' former secretary Murray of Broughton led to the execution of Lord Lovat; he also implicated a number of Tories, including Williams-Wynn and Cotton but the government decided against further prosecutions. The Tories were now split into a "Jacobite" faction led by Williams-Wynn and those who followed Lord Gower; in an effort to stir up support and differentiate themselves, Williams-Wynn and others participated in Jacobite demonstrations at the 1747 Lichfield Races. Despite these efforts, the 1747 General Election reduced the Jacobite Tories to a largely irrelevant rump.

Despite his failure to participate in the 1745 Rising, Williams-Wynn wrote to Prince Charles in December 1747, assuring him that his supporters wished "for nothing more than another happy opportunity wherein they may exert themselves more in deeds than in words, in the support of your Royal Highness's dignity and interest and the cause of liberty." The tendency to say one thing and do another was not uncommon; for example, Cotton urged Louis XV to invade in August 1745, despite being a government minister at the time.

The demonstration at Lichfield was one of the last significant displays of Jacobite sentiment, although his son the 4th Baronet re-established the White Rose Cycle in 1770, where it served as a club for a range of independent opinions.

Legacy
He was buried at Ruabon in the parish church of St Mary's. His widow, Dame Frances, commissioned a monument from the sculptor Michael Rysbrack completed in 1755; it was too large for the existing chancel and a new south-east chapel was built to house it.

He commissioned the building of a new mansion at Wynnstay to replace the original by William Eyton in 1616, later destroyed by fire in 1858. At his death, his estates stretched over five Welsh counties and into the English county of Shropshire, reputedly producing an estimated rental income of £20,000. This was a very substantial sum at the time but it was also rumoured that his political activities left his heir with debts of over £120,000.

Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn left a number of items to Jesus College, including a massive silver-gilt punch bowl weighing more than 200 oz and holding 10 impgal. This was used at a dinner in 1814, celebrating the defeat of Napoleon; attendees included the Tsar of Russia, Frederick of Prussia, General Blücher, Metternich, the Prince Regent, the Duke of York and the Duke of Wellington.

A portrait of Williams-Wynn by Thomas Hudson was acquired by Jesus College in 1997; it is not on public display as it hangs in the Senior Common Room of the college. It shows him wearing a sky-blue coat, a symbol used by Tory Jacobite sympathisers.

title: Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn, 3rd Baronet


text:
Bedell

Bedell may refer to:

People

 * Arthur Bedell (fl.1572), English MP for Lichfield
 * Berkley Bedell (1921–2019), American politician
 * (1868–1958), cofounder of Physical Review, the first American journal of physics
 * Geraldine Bedell, journalist and author
 * Grace Bedell (1848–1936), author of a letter to President Lincoln that inspired his beard
 * Gregory T. Bedell (1817–1892), Episcopal Bishop of Ohio
 * Howie Bedell (born 1935), former Major League Baseball player
 * Lew Bedell (1919–2000), comedian and founder of the Era and Doré record labels
 * John Patrick Bedell, gunman involved in the 2010 Pentagon shooting
 * Ralph Clairon Bedell, Chief Executive of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community 1955–1958
 * Richard Bedell (died 1572), English MP
 * William Bedell (1571–1642), Anglican churchman

Other uses

 * Bedel or Bedell, an administrative official at universities in several European countries
 * Bedell (company), a legal and fiduciary firm
 * Bedell Crossing, Maine, a village, United States
 * Bedell, New Brunswick, a settlement, Canada
 * Bedell, New York, a hamlet, United States
 * Bedell Building, former name of Cascade Building, Portland, Oregon, United States
 * Bedell Covered Bridge, New Hampshire, United States
 * Esquire Bedell, a junior ceremonial officer of a university

title: Bedell


text:
File:BornUnderABadSign.jpg

Summary
Cover of Albert King's Born Under A Bad Sign Album

title: File:BornUnderABadSign.jpg