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Vance Drummond, DFC, AFC (22 February 1927 – 17 May 1967) was a New Zealand–born Australian pilot who fought in the Korean and Vietnam Wars. He initially saw service in the New Zealand military, but joined the Royal Australian Air Force in 1949 and graduated as a sergeant pilot in 1951. Posted to No. 77 Squadron in Korea, he flew Gloster Meteor jet fighters and earned the US Air Medal for his combat skills. He was shot down by a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 in December 1951 and imprisoned for almost two years. After returning to Australia he converted to CAC Sabre jets and in December 1961 became a flight commander with No. 75 Squadron; he subsequently led the squadron's Black Diamonds aerobatic team, and was awarded the Air Force Cross in 1965.

Drummond was promoted to acting wing commander in December 1965 and posted to South Vietnam on staff duties with the United States Air Force. He joined the US Air Force's 19th Tactical Air Support Squadron, operating Cessna Bird Dog aircraft, as a forward air controller in July 1966. That month he earned the Distinguished Flying Cross for his part in rescuing a company of soldiers surrounded by Viet Cong forces. In October he was awarded the South Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry with Silver Star. Drummond took command of No. 3 Squadron, flying Dassault Mirage IIIO supersonic fighters out of Williamtown, New South Wales, in February 1967. His Mirage crashed into the sea during a training exercise on 17 May; neither Drummond nor the plane was found.

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Into Temptation is a 2009 independent drama film written and directed by Patrick Coyle, and starring Jeremy Sisto, Kristin Chenoweth, Brian Baumgartner, Bruce A. Young and Amy Matthews. It tells the story of a prostitute (Chenoweth) who confesses to a Catholic priest (Sisto) that she plans to kill herself on her birthday. The priest attempts to find and save her, and in doing so plunges himself into a darker side of society.

The film was partially inspired by Coyle's father, a kind but belligerent man who had considered becoming a priest in his early life. The script won the McKnight Screenwriting Fellowship from the IFP Minnesota Center for Media Arts. Into Temptation was filmed and set in Coyle's hometown of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Several supporting roles were filled with actors from the Minneapolis–Saint Paul theater area, and Coyle himself performed in a supporting role.

It was produced by Ten Ten Films and Farnam Street II, and distributed by First Look International. With a budget of less than $1 million, filming began in May 2008, and production concluded that December. Cinematography was provided by David Doyle, Russell Holsapple composed the score, and Lee Percy worked as editor. The film touches on themes of temptation, sin, good and evil, redemption and celibacy, as well as the boundaries between a priest providing counsel and getting personally involved with helping parishioners.

Into Temptation was optioned in Hollywood, but talks fell through due to complications from the global recession. The film did not receive a national release but played at theaters in several cities. Although first publicly shown for Coyle's father in December 2008, Into Temptation officially premiered on April 26, 2009, at the Newport Beach Film Festival, where Sisto won the "Outstanding Achievement in Acting" award. The film received generally positive reviews.[4] It was released on DVD on October 27, 2009.

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After the Deluge, also known as The Forty-First Day,[1] is a Symbolist oil painting by English artist George Frederic Watts, first exhibited as The Sun in an incomplete form in 1886 and completed in 1891. It shows a scene from the story of Noah's Flood, in which after 40 days of rain Noah opens the window of his Ark to see that the rain has stopped. Watts felt that modern society was in decline owing to a lack of moral values, and he often painted works on the topic of the Flood and its cleansing of the unworthy from the world. The painting takes the form of a stylised seascape, dominated by a bright sunburst breaking through clouds. Although this was a theme Watts had depicted previously in The Genius of Greek Poetry in 1878, After the Deluge took a radically different approach. With this painting he intended to evoke a monotheistic God in the act of creation, but avoid depicting the Creator directly.

The unfinished painting was exhibited at a church in Whitechapel in 1886, under the intentionally simplified title of The Sun. Watts worked on the painting for a further five years, and the completed version was exhibited for the first time at the New Gallery in 1891. Between 1902 and 1906 the painting was exhibited around the United Kingdom, and it is now in the collection of the Watts Gallery in Compton, Surrey. As Watts did not include After the Deluge in his gift to the nation of what he considered his most significant works, it is not among his better-known paintings. However, it was greatly admired by many of Watts's fellow artists, and has been cited as an influence on numerous other painters who worked in the two decades following its initial exhibition.

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"Cross Road Blues" (commonly known as "Crossroads") is a song written by the American blues artist Robert Johnson. He performed it as a solo piece with his vocal and acoustic slide guitar in the Delta blues-style. The song has become part of the Robert Johnson mythology as referring to the place where he supposedly sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for his musical talent. This is based largely on folklore of the American South that identifies a crossroads as the site where such pacts are made, although the lyrics do not contain any references to Satan or a Faustian bargain.

"Cross Road Blues" may have been in Johnson's repertoire since 1932 and, in 1936, he recorded two performances. One was released in 1937 as a single that was heard mainly in the Mississippi Delta area. The second, which reached a wider audience, was included on King of the Delta Blues Singers, a compilation album of some of Johnson's songs released in 1961 during the American folk music revival.

Over the years, several bluesmen have recorded versions of the song, usually as ensemble pieces with electrified guitars. Elmore James' recordings in 1954 and 1960–1961 have been identified as perhaps the most significant of the earlier renditions. In the late 1960s, guitarist Eric Clapton and the British rock group Cream popularized the song as "Crossroads". Their blues rock interpretation became one of their best-known songs and inspired many cover versions.

Both Johnson and Cream's recordings of the song have received accolades from various organizations and publications. Both have also led the song to be identified as a blues standard as well as an important piece in the repertoires of blues-inspired rock musicians. Clapton continues to be associated with the song and has used the name for the drug treatment center he founded and the series of music festivals to raise money for it.

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The Battle of Grand Gulf was fought on April 29, 1863, during the American Civil War. Union Army forces commanded by Major General Ulysses S. Grant had failed several times to bypass or capture the Confederate-held city of Vicksburg, Mississippi, during the Vicksburg campaign. Grant decided to move his army south of Vicksburg, cross the Mississippi River, and then advance on the city. A Confederate division under Brigadier General John S. Bowen prepared defenses—Forts Wade and Cobun—at Grand Gulf, Mississippi, south of Vicksburg. To clear the way for a Union crossing, seven Union Navy ironclad warships from the Mississippi Squadron commanded by Admiral David Dixon Porter bombarded the Confederate defenses at Grand Gulf on April 29. Union fire silenced Fort Wade and killed its commander, but the overall Confederate position held. Grant decided to cross the river elsewhere.

The next day, Union forces crossed the river at Bruinsburg, Mississippi. A Union victory in the Battle of Port Gibson on May 1 secured the beachhead and forced the abandonment of the position at Grand Gulf, which became a Union supply point. Grant's command moved inland, and after defeating Confederate forces in the Battle of Champion Hill on May 16, began the Siege of Vicksburg two days later. Vicksburg surrendered on July 4, marking a major Confederate defeat and a turning point in the war. The Grand Gulf battlefield is preserved in Grand Gulf Military State Park, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.

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The Inaccessible Island rail (Laterallus rogersi) is a small bird of the rail family, Rallidae. Endemic to Inaccessible Island in the Tristan Archipelago in the isolated south Atlantic, it is the smallest extant flightless bird in the world. The species was described by physician Percy Lowe in 1923 but had first come to the attention of scientists 50 years earlier. The Inaccessible Island rail's affinities and origin were a long-standing mystery; in 2018 its closest relative was identified as the South American dot-winged crake (Porzana spiloptera), and it was decided that both species are best classified in the genus Laterallus.[3][4][5]

A small species, the Inaccessible Island rail has brown plumage, black bill and feet, and adults have a red eye. It occupies most habitats on Inaccessible Island, from the beaches to the central plateau, feeding on a variety of small invertebrates and also some plant matter. Pairs are territorial and monogamous, with both parents being responsible for incubating the eggs and raising the chicks. Its adaptations to living on a tiny island at high densities include low base metabolic rates, small clutch sizes, and flightlessness.

Unlike many other oceanic islands, Inaccessible Island has remained free from introduced predators, allowing this species to flourish while many other flightless birds, particularly flightless rails, have gone extinct. The species is nevertheless considered vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), due to its single small population, which would be threatened by the accidental introduction of mammalian predators such as rats or cats.[4]

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La Salute è in voi! was an early 1900s bomb-making handbook associated with the Galleanisti, followers of anarchist Luigi Galleani, particularly in the United States. Translated as "Health Is in You!" or "Salvation Is within You!", its anonymous authors advocated for impoverished workers to overcome their despair and commit to individual, revolutionary acts. The Italian-language handbook offered plain directions to give non-technical amateurs the means to build explosives. Though this technical content was already available in encyclopedias, applied chemistry books, and industrial sources, La Salute è in voi wrapped this content within a political manifesto. Its contents included a glossary, basic chemistry training, and safety procedures. Its authors were likely Galleani and his friend Ettore Molinari, a chemist and anarchist.

The handbook was first advertised in Galleani's Cronaca Sovversiva, an anarchist newspaper, read by his American followers, in 1906. American police and historians would use the handbook to profile anarchists and imply guilt by possession. A decade after its release, La Salute è in voi! figured prominently in the prosecution of the 1915 Bresci Circle failed bombing of New York City's St. Patrick's Cathedral, in which the case revolved around the anarchists' right to read. Ultimately, the idea of amateurs learning to make bombs from simple instructions was impractical, as the perpetrators of successful political bombings from this era had career backgrounds in explosives.

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The Western Chalukya Empire (/tʃəˈluːkjə/ chə-LOO-kyə) ruled most of the western Deccan, South India, between the 10th and 12th centuries. This Kannada dynasty is sometimes called the Kalyani Chalukya after its regal capital at Kalyani, today's Basavakalyan in the modern Bidar District of Karnataka state, and alternatively the Later Chalukya from its theoretical relationship to the 6th-century Chalukya dynasty of Badami. The dynasty is called Western Chalukyas to differentiate from the contemporaneous Eastern Chalukyas of Vengi, a separate dynasty. Prior to the rise of these Chalukyas, the Rashtrakuta empire of Manyakheta controlled most of Deccan and Central India for over two centuries. In 973, seeing confusion in the Rashtrakuta empire after a successful invasion of their capital by the ruler of the Paramara dynasty of Malwa, Tailapa II, a feudatory of the Rashtrakuta dynasty ruling from Bijapur region defeated his overlords and made Manyakheta his capital. The dynasty quickly rose to power and grew into an empire under Someshvara I who moved the capital to Kalyani.

For over a century, the two empires of Southern India, the Western Chalukyas and the Chola dynasty of Tanjore fought many fierce wars to control the fertile region of Vengi. During these conflicts, the Eastern Chalukyas of Vengi, distant cousins of the Western Chalukyas but related to the Cholas by marriage took sides with the Cholas further complicating the situation. During the rule of Vikramaditya VI, in the late 11th and early 12th centuries, the Western Chalukyas convincingly contended with the Cholas and reached a peak ruling territories that spread over most of the Deccan, between the Narmada River in the north and Kaveri River in the south.[3][4][5][6] His exploits were not limited to the south for even as a prince, during the rule of Someshvara I, he had led successful military campaigns as far east as modern Bihar and Bengal.[7][8][9] During this period the other major ruling families of the Deccan, the Hoysalas, the Seuna Yadavas of Devagiri, the Kakatiya dynasty and the Southern Kalachuris of Kalyani, were subordinates of the Western Chalukyas and gained their independence only when the power of the Chalukya waned during the later half of the 12th century.

The Western Chalukyas developed an architectural style known today as a transitional style, an architectural link between the style of the early Chalukya dynasty and that of the later Hoysala Empire. Most of its monuments are in the districts bordering the Tungabhadra River in central Karnataka. Well known examples are the Kasivisvesvara Temple at Lakkundi, the Mallikarjuna Temple at Kuruvatti, the Kallesvara Temple at Bagali and the Mahadeva Temple at Itagi. This was an important period in the development of fine arts in Southern India, especially in literature, as the Western Chalukya kings encouraged writers in their native language Kannada and Sanskrit.

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Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption was a legally recognized parody religion in the United States established by the comedian and satirist John Oliver. Announced on August 16, 2015, in an episode of the television program Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, the church's purpose was to highlight and criticize televangelists, such as Kenneth Copeland and Robert Tilton, who Oliver argued used television broadcasts of Christian church services for private gain. Oliver also established Our Lady of Perpetual Exemption to draw attention to the tax-exempt status given to churches.

During his show on September 13, 2015, Oliver announced that the church had received "thousands of dollars" and a variety of other items from viewers, and announced that the Church would be shutting down. The segments and later spinoff segments featured the comedian Rachel Dratch as Oliver's fictional wife, Wanda Jo. All donations were given to Doctors Without Borders.

Oliver created two spinoffs of the church in later segments. In April 2018, Oliver founded Our Lady of Choosing Choice, which owned the van labeled "Vanned Parenthood" (a reference to Planned Parenthood), for a segment about crisis pregnancy centers. In June 2021, Oliver set up a church in Florida called Our Lady of Perpetual Health, which owned the health care sharing ministry "JohnnyCare", satirizing the lack of regulations on such ministries.

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Dorothy Eleanor Olsen (née Kocher; July 10, 1916 – July 23, 2019) was an American aircraft pilot and member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs) during World War II. She grew up on her family's farm in Woodburn, Oregon, developing an interest in aviation at a young age. She earned her private pilot's license in 1939, when it was unusual for women to be pilots.

In 1943, Olsen joined the newly formed WASPs as a civil service employee. After training in Texas, she was assigned to the Sixth Ferrying Group in Long Beach, California, where she worked ferrying new aircraft from the factories where they were built to U.S. airbases. She flew more than 20 types of military airplanes, including high-performance fighters such as the P-51 Mustang and the twin-engine P-38 Lightning, which she favored over larger aircraft such as bombers; she was particularly fond of the P-51.

After the war, Olsen retired from flying and moved to Washington State, where she married, raised a family, and lived for the rest of her life. In 2009, she was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal honoring her service during the war. Olsen died in 2019 aged 103.