Associazione Calcio Firenze Fiorentina referred to as Fiorentina, is an Italian professional football club based in Florence, Tuscany. Founded by a merger in August 1926, refounded in August 2002 following bankruptcy, Fiorentina have played at the top level of Italian football for the majority of their existence. Fiorentina has won two Italian Championships, in 1955–56 and again in 1968–69, as well as six Coppa Italia trophies and one Supercoppa Italiana. On the European stage, Fiorentina won the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in 1960–61 and lost the final one year later, they finished runners-up in the 1956–57 European Cup, losing against Real Madrid, came close to winning the 1989–90 UEFA Cup, finishing as runners-up against Juventus after losing the first leg in Turin and drawing in the second one in Avellino. Fiorentina is one of the fifteen European teams that played the finals in all three major continental competitions: the Champions League, the UEFA Cup Winners and the UEFA Cup. Since 1931, the club have played at the Stadio Artemio Franchi, which has a capacity of 43,147.

The stadium has undergone several renovations. Fiorentina are known by the nickname Viola, a reference to their distinctive purple colours. Associazione Calcio Fiorentina was founded in the autumn of 1926 by local noble and National Fascist Party member Luigi Ridolfi, who initiated the merger of two older Florentine clubs, CS Firenze and PG Libertas; the aim of the merger was to give Florence a strong club to rival those of the more dominant Italian Football Championship sides of the time from Northwest Italy. Influential was the cultural revival and rediscovery of Calcio Fiorentino, an ancestor of modern football, played by members of the Medici family. After a rough start and three seasons in lower leagues, Fiorentina reached the Serie A in 1931; that same year saw the opening of the new stadium named after Giovanni Berta, a prominent fascist, but now known as Stadio Artemio Franchi. At the time, the stadium was a masterpiece of engineering, its inauguration was monumental. To be able to compete with the best teams in Italy, Fiorentina strengthened their team with some new players, notably the Uruguayan Pedro Petrone, nicknamed el Artillero.

Despite enjoying a good season and finishing in fourth place, Fiorentina were relegated the following year, although they would return to Serie A. In 1941, they won their first Coppa Italia, but the team were unable to build on their success during the 1940s due to World War II and other troubles. In 1950, Fiorentina started to achieve consistent top-five finishes in the domestic league; the team consisted of great players such as well-known goalkeeper Giuliano Sarti, Sergio Cervato, Francesco Rosella, Guido Gratton, Giuseppe Chiappella and Aldo Scaramucci but above all, the attacking duo of Brazilian Julinho and Argentinian Miguel Montuori. This team won Fiorentina's first scudetto in 1955–56, 12 points ahead of second-place Milan. Milan beat Fiorentina to top spot the following year, but more Fiorentina became the first Italian team to play in a European Cup final, when a disputed penalty led to a 2–0 defeat at the hands of Alfredo Di Stéfano's Real Madrid. Fiorentina were runners-up again in the three subsequent seasons.

In the 1960–61 season, the club won the Coppa Italia again and was successful in Europe, winning the first Cup Winners' Cup against Scottish side Rangers. After several years of runner-up finishes, Fiorentina dropped away in the 1960s, bouncing from fourth to sixth place, although the club won the Coppa Italia and the Mitropa Cup in 1966. While the 1960s did result in some trophies and good Serie A finishes for Fiorentina, nobody believed that the club could challenge for the title; the 1968–69 season started with Milan as frontrunners, but on matchday 7, they lost to Bologna and were overtaken by Gigi Riva's Cagliari. Fiorentina, after an unimpressive start moved to the top of the Serie A, but the first half of their season finished with a 2–2 draw against Varese, leaving Cagliari as outright league leader; the second half of the season was a three-way battle between the three contending teams, Milan and Fiorentina. Milan fell away, instead focusing their efforts on the European Cup, it seemed that Cagliari would retain top spot.

After Cagliari lost against Juventus, Fiorentina took over at the top. The team won all of their remaining matches, beating rivals Juve in Turin on the penultimate matchday to seal their second, last, national title. In the European Cup competition the following year, Fiorentina had some good results, including a win in the Soviet Union against Dynamo Kyiv, but they were knocked out in the quarter-finals after a 3–0 defeat in Glasgow to Celtic. Viola players began the 1970s decade with Scudetto sewed on their breast, but the period was not fruitful for the team. After a fifth-place finish in 1971, they finished in mid-table every year flirting with relegation in 1972 and 1978; the Viola did win the Anglo-Italian League Cup in 1974 and won the Coppa Italia again in 1975. The team consisted of young talents like Vincenzo Guerini and Moreno Roggi, who had the misfortune to suffer bad injuries, above all Giancarlo Antognoni, who would become an idol to Fiorentina's fans; the young average age of the players led to the team being called Fiorentina Ye-Ye.

In 1980, Fiorentina was bought by Flavio Pontello. He changed the team's anthem and logo, leading

Croatia, provisional designation 1906 TM, is a dark asteroid and parent body of the Croatia family, located in the outer regions of the asteroid belt 88 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered in 1906, by astronomer August Kopff at Heidelberg Observatory, named for the independent country of Croatia part of Austria-Hungary; the asteroid was discovered on 3 March 1906, by German astronomer August Kopff at the Heidelberg-Königstuhl State Observatory in southwest Germany, with the use of the photographic method. In the moment of the discovery, the asteroid was in the constellation of Virgo; the discovery was published in the Astronomische Nachrichten magazine, in the article wrote by Professor Wolf. Some astronomers were making measurements for the purpose of determining the orbital elements. From these measurements P. V. Neugebauer from Berlin and M. S. Mello and Simas from Trafaria had independently determined the first orbital elements. Observations had continued, among observers there were A. Kopff, E. Bianchi, A. Abetti, G. Zappa, P. Chafardet, E. Millosevich, J. Palisa, some others.

Observations were made from Berlin, Rome and some other Italian cities. Croatia is the parent body of the Croatia family, a small asteroid family of less than 100 known members, it orbits the Sun in the outer main belt at a distance of 3.0–3.3 AU once every 5 years and 7 months. Its orbit has an inclination of 11 ° with respect to the ecliptic; the body's observation arc begins at Heidelberg, sixteen days after its official discovery observation. In the Tholen classification, Croatia is ambiguous, closest to a carbonaceous C-type and somewhat similar to that of an X-type asteroid, while the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer characterized it as a primitive P-type asteroid. Nesvorný determined the overall spectral type for the Croatia family to be that of an X-type. In July 2013, the so-far best-rated rotational lightcurve of Croatia was obtained by astronomers Romain Montaigut, Arnaud Leroy, Raoul Behrend, René Roy, Donn Starkey, Maurice Audejean, Roberto Crippa and Federico Manzini. Lightcurve analysis gave a longer-than average rotation period of 24.821 hours with a brightness variation of 0.25 magnitude.

The result supersedes photometric observations by Brian Warner and by astronomers at the Palomar Transient Factory, which measured a shorter period of 11.7 and 16.385 hours with an amplitude of 0.16 and 0.32, respectively. According to the surveys carried out by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite IRAS, the Japanese Akari satellite and the NEOWISE mission of NASA's WISE telescope, Croatia measures between 84.44 and 96.491 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo between 0.041 and 0.06. The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link derives an albedo of 0.0577 and a diameter of 87.66 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 9.0. The radius of 28.452 km were determined by use of Argelander's Method. This minor planet was named for the country of Croatia part of Austria-Hungary, after the suggestion made by astronomer Max Wolf, it honors the foundation of the Astronomical Observatory of the Croatian Natural Sciences Society in Zagreb. Asteroid Lightcurve Database, query form Dictionary of Minor Planet Names, Google books Asteroids and comets rotation curves, CdR – Observatoire de Genève, Raoul Behrend Discovery Circumstances: Numbered Minor Planets - – Minor Planet Center 589 Croatia at AstDyS-2, Asteroids—Dynamic Site Ephemeris · Observation prediction · Orbital info · Proper elements · Observational info 589 Croatia at the JPL Small-Body Database Close approach · Discovery · Ephemeris · Orbit diagram · Orbital elements · Physical parameters

Lisbeth Balslev is a Danish operatic soprano with an international career in Wagnerian operas. Balslev was born in Aabenraa and trained as a nurse, she studied singing, first at the Academy of Music and Music Communication in Esbjerg at the opera academy of the Royal Danish Theater in Copenhagen. In 1976, she made her debut at the Royal Danish Theater as Yaroslavna in Prince Igor. After two years, Balslev left the Royal Danish Theater and had her international breakthrough as Senta in Harry Kupfer's staging of Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer at the 1978 Bayreuth Festival. From 1979 to 1983 she sang at the Hamburg State Opera, after which she has worked freelance at La Scala, the Vienna State Opera and Bayreuth among others. In addition to her professional work, Balslev was in 1992 among the founders of an organization which supports orphanages in Romania and provides summer and Christmas vacations for the children. Balslev has received several awards and honors, including Tagea Brandt Rejselegat and the Reumert Prize, of which she was the first recipient.

In 1993, she was made a Dame of the Order of the Dannebrog. Lisbeth Balslev: You come to Bayreuth for the sake of art interview at Wagneropera.net Lisbeth Balslev on IMDb