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The oceanic whitetip shark (Carcharhinus longimanus) is a large pelagic requiem shark inhabiting tropical and warm temperate seas. It has a stocky body with long, white-tipped, rounded fins. The species is typically solitary, though they may gather in large numbers at food concentrations. Bony fish and cephalopods are the main components of its diet and females give live birth.
Though slow-moving, it is opportunistic and aggressive, and is reputed to be dangerous to shipwreck survivors. The IUCN Red List considers the species to be critically endangered. Recent studies show steeply declining populations as they are harvested for their fins and meat. As with other shark species, the whitetip faces mounting fishing pressure throughout its range.
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DeLancey Walker Gill (July 1, 1859 – August 31, 1940) was an American drafter, landscape painter, and photographer. Gill first became noted for his landscape illustrations and watercolors, featuring subjects such as Native American pueblos in addition to his main focus on Washington D.C. Characterized as detailed and meticulous in his landscapes, Gill captured views of working-class and rural areas of Washington not commonly depicted in art of the period. Despite his other work, he continued to paint throughout his life, and taught art classes at the Corcoran School.
Gill was employed as an illustrator and draftsman for the Treasury, followed by similar work for the United States Geological Survey. He was director of the Division of Illustration at the Smithsonian Institution's Bureau of American Ethnology (BAE) from 1889 to 1932. Following the resignation of two of the Smithsonian's photographers in 1898, Gill, while not trained in photography, took over these duties at the BAE. In this role, he produced thousands of photographs of Native American delegations for the Bureau, including notable figures such as Geronimo and Chief Joseph. Gill's photographic work was showcased in Smithsonian publications, the Panama–Pacific Exposition and on a 1923 postage stamp. His portraiture has been praised for its pictorialist qualities and strength of design. He frequently gave clothing (at times outdated or misattributed) to Native American delegates. While Gill's costuming of delegates was considered salvage ethnography in the period, it has been critiqued in modern studies for reinforcing contemporary stereotypes and misrepresenting his subjects and their cultures.
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till Reigning is a live performance DVD by the thrash metal band Slayer, released in 2004 through American Recordings. Filmed at the Augusta Civic Center on July 11, 2004, the performance showcases Slayer's 1986 album, Reign in Blood, played in its entirety with the four original band members on a set resembling their 1986 "Reign in Pain" tour. Still Reigning was voted "best live DVD" by the readers of Revolver magazine, and received gold certification in 2005.
The DVD is notable for the finale, which features Slayer covered in stage blood while performing the song "Raining Blood", leading to a demanding mixing process plagued by production and technical difficulties. The DVD's producer Kevin Shirley spent hours replacing cymbal and drum hits one-by-one. He publicly aired financial disagreements he had with the band and criticized the quality of the recording, and as a result was allegedly subjected to threats and insults from people associated with the band.
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Hypericum sechmenii, or Seçmen's St John's wort, is a rare species of flowering plant of the St John's wort family (Hypericaceae) that is found in the Eskişehir Province of central Turkey. It was first described in 2009 by Turkish botanists Atila Ocak and Onur Koyuncu, who named the species in honor of Özcan Seçmen, a fellow botanist. They assigned the species to the genus Hypericum, and Norman Robson later placed H. sechmenii into the section Adenosepalum.
Hypericum sechmenii is a perennial herb that usually grows in clusters of stems 3–6 centimeters (1–2 inches) tall and blooms in June and July. The stems of the plant are smooth and lack hairs, while the leaves are leathery and do not have leafstalks. Its flowers are arranged in clusters that form a flat-topped shape known as a corymb, and each flower possesses five bright yellow petals. There are several species that are similar in appearance to H. sechmenii, with only minor physical differences that set them apart. The most closely related of these are Hypericum huber-morathii, Hypericum minutum, and Hypericum thymopsis.
Found among limestone rocks, Hypericum sechmenii has an estimated distribution of less than 10 square kilometers (4 square miles), with fewer than 250 surviving plants. Despite containing druse crystals and toxic chemicals that are thought to deter herbivory, the species is threatened by overgrazing from livestock, as well as by other factors like climate change and habitat loss.
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Alan John Bayard Wace FBA FSA (13 July 1879 – 9 November 1957) was an English archaeologist, who served as director of the British School at Athens (BSA) between 1914 and 1923.[a] He excavated widely in Thessaly, Laconia, and Egypt and at the Bronze Age site of Mycenae in Greece. He was also an authority on Greek textiles and a prolific collector of Greek embroidery.
Educated at Shrewsbury School and Pembroke College, Cambridge, Wace initially focused his scholarly interests on Ancient Greek sculpture and modern Greek anthropology. He first attended the BSA in 1902, before moving to the British School at Rome (BSR). While a member of the BSR, he participated in the BSA's excavations at Sparta and in the region of Laconia in southern Greece. Between 1907 and 1912, he surveyed widely in the northern Greek region of Thessaly, before taking a post at the Scottish University of St Andrews in 1912.
In 1914, Wace returned to the BSA as its director, though his archaeological work was soon interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War. During the war, he worked for the British intelligence services and excavated with his long-term collaborator Carl Blegen at the prehistoric site of Korakou. This project generated Wace and Blegen's theory of the long-term continuity of mainland Greek ("Helladic") culture, which contradicted the established scholarly view that Minoan Crete had been the dominant culture of the Aegean Bronze Age, and became known as the "Helladic Heresy". Wace excavated at Mycenae in the early 1920s, and established a chronological schema for the site's tholos tombs which largely proved the "Helladic Heresy" correct.
Wace lost his position at the BSA in 1923, and spent ten years as a curator of textiles at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. In 1934, he returned to Cambridge as the Laurence Professor of Classical Archaeology, and resumed his covert work during the Second World War, serving as a section head for the British intelligence agency MI6 in Athens, Alexandria, and Cairo. He retired from Cambridge in 1944 and was appointed to a post at Alexandria's Farouk I University. During his tenure there, he continued to excavate at Mycenae and unsuccessfully attempted to locate the tomb of Alexander the Great. He was sacked after the 1952 Egyptian Revolution, but continued to excavate, publish and study until his death in 1957. His daughter, Lisa French, accompanied him on several campaigns at Mycenae and later directed excavations there.
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The UEFA Euro 2004 final was the final match of Euro 2004, the 12th European Championship, a football competition organised by UEFA for the senior men's national teams of its member associations. The match was played at the Estádio da Luz in Lisbon, Portugal, on 4 July 2004, and was contested by Portugal, the tournament's hosts, and Greece, the latter playing in their second European Championship. The 16-team tournament consisted of a group stage, from which eight teams qualified for the knockout stage. Both finalists were drawn in Group A of the tournament, and they played each other in the opening game, Greece winning 2–1 in what BBC Sport labelled a "shock defeat" for the hosts. Portugal won their other two group games, against Russia and Spain; Greece drew with Spain and lost to Russia, leaving Portugal top of the group and Greece second. In the knockout stage, Portugal beat England in a penalty shoot-out and then the Netherlands, and Greece beat France in the quarter-final and the Czech Republic in the semi-final.
The final took place in front of 62,865 supporters and was refereed by Markus Merk from Germany. Portugal made several early runs towards the opposition goal, and Greek goalkeeper Antonios Nikopolidis had to make the first save of the match from a shot by Miguel. Angelos Charisteas almost scored for Greece two minutes after that, before a Maniche shot for Portugal from the edge of the Greek penalty area went narrowly wide. The two defences ensured that goal-scoring opportunities were limited, and the score was 0–0 at half-time. Deco had a penalty appeal turned down early in the second half, and it was Greece who took the lead after 57 minutes of the game. Angelos Basinas took Greece's first corner of the match, which was met by Charisteas, who sent a powerful header past goalkeeper Ricardo. Cristiano Ronaldo had an immediate chance to equalise, but his shot from just outside the penalty area was saved by Nikopolidis. Portugal had further chances through Luís Figo and Maniche, and on 74 minutes Ronaldo hit a shot over the crossbar when he was through on goal with only the goalkeeper to beat. Greece held on to complete a 1–0 victory.
Several pundits labelled Greece's tournament win the greatest upset in the history of the European Championship; among these was BBC Sport's John May, who cited Greece's record of never having previously won a match at a major event and their pre-tournament bookmaker odds of 150–1. Otto Rehhagel, Greece's manager, said after the game that "it was an unusual achievement for Greek football and especially for European football", while Portugal manager Luiz Felipe Scolari expressed pain at the result, saying that Greece were the better team and lamenting that Portugal had been beaten by "one piece of sloppy defending". Greece subsequently failed to qualify for the 2006 FIFA World Cup and did not successfully defend their European Championship in 2008. Portugal eventually won the European Championship in 2016.
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Jacques Offenbach (/ˈɒfənbɑːx/;[n 1] 20 June 1819 – 5 October 1880) was a German-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s to the 1870s, and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Franz von Suppé, Johann Strauss II and Arthur Sullivan. His best-known works were continually revived during the 20th century, and many of his operettas continue to be staged in the 21st. The Tales of Hoffmann remains part of the standard opera repertory.
Born in Cologne, Kingdom of Prussia, the son of a synagogue cantor, Offenbach showed early musical talent. At the age of 14, he was accepted as a student at the Paris Conservatoire; He found academic study unfulfilling and left after a year, but remained in Paris. From 1835 to 1855 he earned his living as a cellist, achieving international fame, and as a conductor. His ambition, however, was to compose comic pieces for the musical theatre. Finding the management of Paris's Opéra-Comique company uninterested in staging his works, in 1855 he leased a small theatre in the Champs-Élysées. There, during the next three years, he presented a series of more than two dozen of his own small-scale pieces, many of which became popular.
In 1858 Offenbach produced his first full-length operetta, Orphée aux enfers ("Orpheus in the Underworld"), with its celebrated can-can; the work was exceptionally well received and has remained his most played. During the 1860s, he produced at least eighteen full-length operettas, as well as more one-act pieces. His works from this period include La belle Hélène (1864), La Vie parisienne (1866), La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein (1867) and La Périchole (1868). The risqué humour (often about sexual intrigue) and mostly gentle satiric barbs in these pieces, together with Offenbach's facility for melody, made them internationally known, and translated versions were successful in Vienna, London, elsewhere in Europe and in the US.
Offenbach became associated with the Second French Empire of Napoleon III: the emperor and his court were genially satirised in many of Offenbach's operettas, and Napoleon personally granted him French citizenship and the Légion d'honneur. With the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, and the fall of the empire, Offenbach found himself out of favour in Paris because of his imperial connections and his German birth. He remained successful in Vienna, London and New York. He re-established himself in Paris during the 1870s, with revivals of some of his earlier favourites and a series of new works, and undertook a popular US tour. In his last years he strove to finish The Tales of Hoffmann, but died before the premiere of the opera, which has entered the standard repertory in versions completed or edited by other musicians.
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The Hanford Engineer Works (HEW) was a nuclear production complex in Benton County, Washington, established by the United States federal government in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project during World War II. It built and operated the B Reactor, the first full-scale plutonium production reactor. Plutonium manufactured at the HEW was used in the atomic bomb detonated in the Trinity test in July 1945, and in the Fat Man bomb used in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in August 1945. The HEW was commanded by Colonel Franklin T. Matthias until January 1946, and then by Colonel Frederick J. Clarke.
The director of the Manhattan Project, Brigadier General Leslie R. Groves Jr., engaged DuPont as the prime contractor for the design, construction and operation of the HEW. DuPont recommended that it be located far from densely populated areas, and a site on the Columbia River, codenamed Site W, was chosen. The federal government acquired the land under its war powers authority and relocated some 1,500 nearby residents. The acquisition was one of the largest in US history. Disputes arose with farmers over the value of the land and compensation for crops that had already been planted. The acquisition was not completed before the Manhattan Project ended in December 1946.
Construction commenced in March 1943 on a massive and technically challenging project. Most of the construction workforce, which reached a peak of nearly 45,000 in June 1944, lived in a temporary construction camp near the old Hanford townsite. Administrators, engineers and operating personnel lived in the government town established at Richland, which had a wartime peak population of 17,000. The HEW erected 554 buildings, including three graphite-moderated and water-cooled reactors (B, D and F) that operated at 250 megawatts. Natural uranium sealed in aluminum cans (known as "slugs") was fed into them.
B Reactor went critical in September 1944 and, after overcoming neutron poisoning, produced its first plutonium in November. Irradiated slugs were processed in two huge, remotely operated chemical separation plants (T and B) where the plutonium was extracted using the bismuth-phosphate process. Radioactive wastes were stored in underground tanks. The first batch of plutonium was processed in the T plant between December 1944 and February 1945 and delivered to the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory. The identical D and F reactors came online in December 1944 and February 1945, respectively. The HEW suffered an outage on 10 March 1945 when a Japanese balloon bomb struck a high-tension power line. The total cost of the HEW up to December 1946 was over $348 million (equivalent to $4.1 billion in 2023). The Manhattan Project ended on 31 December 1946 and control of the HEW passed from the Manhattan District to the Atomic Energy Commission.
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Cora Agnes Benneson (June 10, 1851 – June 8, 1919) was an American attorney, lecturer, and writer. She was one of the first women to practice law in New England. Benneson was raised in Quincy, Illinois, to parents involved in local politics, religious organizing, and philanthropy; her parents regularly invited prominent guests to their home, including the writers and philosophers Amos Bronson Alcott and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Benneson began her university studies in 1875 at the University of Michigan, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1878, a Bachelor of Laws in 1880, and a Master of Arts in 1883. After earning her master's degree, she was admitted to the bars of Illinois and Michigan.
From 1883 to 1885, Benneson traveled the world to learn about legal cultures, and in particular how they affected women; however, she often took a nativist and racist or stereotypical view of those cultures. When she returned to the United States, Benneson undertook a nationwide lecture tour to speak about her travels and observations. In 1886, she briefly worked as an editor of West Publishing's law reports before taking up a history fellowship at Bryn Mawr College under then-professor Woodrow Wilson.
In 1888, Benneson moved to Boston, where she opened a law practice and continued to write and lecture. She was licensed to practice law in Massachusetts in 1894 and was appointed a special commissioner to the Council Chamber by the Massachusetts Governor Frederic T. Greenhalge in 1895. A member of various organizations, Benneson was made a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1899 and elected secretary of its Social and Economic Science Section in 1900. She turned her attention to opening a school for the "Americanization of Foreigners" in 1918. She died on June 8, 1919, at the age of 67, the day before her diploma to open the school arrived.
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John Herschel Glenn Jr. (July 18, 1921 – December 8, 2016) was an American Marine Corps aviator, astronaut, businessman, and politician. He was the third American in space, and the first American to orbit the Earth, circling it three times in 1962.[3] Following his retirement from NASA, he served from 1974 to 1999 as a U.S. Senator from Ohio; in 1998, he flew into space again at the age of 77.
Before joining NASA, Glenn was a distinguished fighter pilot in World War II, the Chinese Civil War and the Korean War. He shot down three MiG-15s, and was awarded six Distinguished Flying Crosses and eighteen Air Medals. In 1957, he made the first supersonic transcontinental flight across the United States. His on-board camera took the first continuous, panoramic photograph of the United States.
Glenn was one of the Mercury Seven, military test pilots selected in 1959 by NASA as the nation's first astronauts. On February 20, 1962, Glenn flew the Friendship 7 mission, becoming the first American to orbit the Earth, the third American and fifth person in history to be in space. He received the NASA Distinguished Service Medal in 1962, the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 1978, was inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame in 1990, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012.
Glenn resigned from NASA in January 1964. A member of the Democratic Party, Glenn was first elected to the Senate in 1974 and served for 24 years, until January 1999. In 1998, at age 77, Glenn flew on Space Shuttle Discovery's STS-95 mission, making him the oldest person to enter Earth orbit, the only person to fly in both the Mercury and the Space Shuttle programs, and the first Member of Congress to visit space since Congressman Bill Nelson (D-FL) in 1986. Glenn, both the oldest and the last surviving member of the Mercury Seven, died at the age of 95 on December 8, 2016.
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