Amilcare Ponchielli was an Italian opera composer, best known for his opera La Gioconda. He was married to the soprano Teresina Brambilla. Born in Paderno Fasolaro near Cremona Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia, Ponchielli won a scholarship at the age of nine to study music at the Milan Conservatory, writing his first symphony by the time he was ten years old. In 1856 he wrote his first opera—it was based on Alessandro Manzoni's great novel The Betrothed —and it was as an opera composer that he found fame, his early career was disappointing. Maneuvered out of a professorship at the Milan Conservatory that he had won in a competition, he took small-time jobs in small cities, composed several operas, none successful at first. In spite of his disappointment, he gained much experience as the bandmaster in Piacenza and Cremona and composing over 200 works for wind band. Notable among his "original" compositions for band are the first-ever concerto for euphonium, fifteen variations on the popular Parisian song "Carnevale di Venezia", a series of festive and funeral marches that resound with the pride of the newly unified Italy and the private grief of his fellow Cremonese.

The turning point was the big success of the revised version of I promessi sposi in 1872, which brought him a contract with the music publisher G. Ricordi & Co. and the musical establishment at the Conservatory and at La Scala. The role of Lina in the revised version was sung by Teresina Brambilla whom he married in 1874, their son Annibale became minor composer. The ballet Le due gemelle confirmed his success; the following opera, I Lituani of 1874, was well received, being performed at Saint Petersburg. His most well-known opera is La Gioconda, which his librettist Arrigo Boito adapted from the same play by Victor Hugo, set by Saverio Mercadante as Il giuramento in 1837 and Carlos Gomes as Fosca in 1873; the opera contains the famous ballet Dance of the Hours as the third act finale. It was first produced in revised several times; the version that has become popular today was first given in 1880. In 1876 he started working on I Mori di Valenza, although the project dates back to 1873, it was an opera that he never finished, although it was completed by Arturo Cadore and performed posthumously in 1914.

After La Gioconda, Ponchielli wrote the monumental biblical melodrama in four acts Il figliuol prodigo given in Milan at La Scala on 26 December 1880 and Marion Delorme, from another play by Victor Hugo, presented at La Scala on 17 March 1885. In spite of their rich musical invention, neither of these operas met with the same success but both exerted great influence on the composers of the rising generation, such as Giacomo Puccini, Pietro Mascagni and Umberto Giordano. In 1881, Ponchielli was appointed maestro di cappella of the Bergamo Cathedral, from the same year he was a professor of composition at the Milan Conservatory, where among his students were Puccini and Emilio Pizzi, he was interred in the city's Monumental Cemetery. Although in his lifetime Ponchielli was popular and influential only one of his operas is performed today - La Gioconda, it contains a strong and memorable aria for contralto, the great tenor romanza "Cielo e mar", a well-known duet for tenor and baritone titled "Enzo Grimaldo", the soprano set-piece "Suicidio!", the ballet section "The Dance of the Hours", known thanks in part to its having been featured in Walt Disney's Fantasia in 1940, in Allan Sherman's novelty song, "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh", numerous other popular works.

List of operas by Amilcare Ponchielli Kaufman: Annals of Italian Opera: Verdi and his Major Contemporaries. Budden, Julien,'Ponchielli, Amilcare' in The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, ed. Stanley Sadie ISBN 0-333-73432-7 Various authors: Amilcare Ponchielli. Cesare Bignami to Amilcare Ponchielli. November 20, 1875. Conservatorio Universitario de Musica, Uruguay. Adami, Giuseppe. Giulio ricordi e i suoi musicisti. Milano: Edizioni Fratelli Treves, 1933. Albarosa, comp. Amilcare Ponchielli, 1834-1886: Saggi e ricerche nel 150 anniversario della nascita. Casalmorano: cassa rurale ed artigiana di Casalmorano, 1987. Amilcare Ponchielli to Egregio Avvocato. January 3, 1877. Music Library, General Manuscript Collection, Northwestern University, Illinois. Cesari, Gaetano. Amilcare Ponchielli nell'arte del suo tempo. Cremona, 1934. Damerini, Adelmo. Amilcare Ponchielli. Torino: Arione, 1940. DeNapoli, G. Amilcare Ponchielli: La vita, le opere, l'epistolario, le onoranze. Cremona, 1936. Ferraris, Castelli Maria, Giampiero Tintori.

Amilcare Ponchielli. Cremona: Centro Culturale, 1984. Gordon, John. "Circe, La Gioconda, the Opera House of the Mind", in Bronze by Gold, pp. 277–93. Habla, Bernhard, ed. Kongressberichte Oberschützen/Burgenland 1988. Proceedings. Tutzing: Hans Schneider Tutzing, 1992. Hanslick, Eduard. "Gioconda." In Die

The fatlips minnow is a species of suckermouth minnow, first described in the upper Tennessee River system. No fewer than 20 specimens were used for description, the epithet crassilabrum was assigned to the species, separating it from Phenacobius catostomus, with which it had been identified; the first holotype specimen collected in 1947 was an adult female 8 millimetres in length from the River. The distribution of the fatlips minnow is restricted to North America, where it occurs in the upper Tennessee River drainage in western Virginia, western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee and northeastern Georgia, its habitat is riffles in small to medium creeks. The fatlips minnow is believed to have arisen from a P. catostomus -like stock population that re-invaded the upper Tennessee River via reciprocal stream piracy. A genetic sister relationship between P. crassilabrum and P. uranops has been resolved. The ranges of P. crassilabrum and P. uranops complement one another in the Tennessee River system, with the former opting for higher elevations.

In Virginia, P. crassilabrum occupies the lower free-flowing portion of the South Fork of Holston River and Laurel Creek. There are documented instances of nonindigenous occurrences of Phenacobius species; the current population of P. crassilabrum is presumed to be about 10,000 individuals. P. crassilabrum is known to favor gravel riffles in the warm clear waters of small to medium-sized streams and rivers. Species of the genus Phenacobius remain near the bottom of streams, rooting in the ground for their prey of detritus and aquatic insects such as mayfly and caddisfly larvae. Breeding activity has not been observed in P. crassilabrum. Spawning for other Phenacobius species occurs in the spring and summer. Spawning events take place in the preferred gravelly riffles, allowing the released eggs to seek out nooks and crannies within the substrate; the maximum life span described in the genus is three years. P. crassilabrum, while existing in small numbers in comparison to other species sharing its ecosystem, is considered to be of the least concern in terms of conservation status and its population is considered stable.

An additional factor to consider is the movement of non-native fish into the range of P. crassilabrum, threatening habitat and resource availability

Rowland's Mills or Rowland Mills is an unincorporated community located on the western edge of Readington Township in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, United States. In 1760, a gristmill was erected at this site, followed by a sawmill around the time of the American Revolutionary War. A hamlet grew up around the mill complex in the early 19th century along the road connecting Flemington and Clinton. In 1838, Rynear Rowland, whom the village was named after, purchased the mills. At its peak the settlement had a store, a blacksmith shop owned by Oliver Hart Ewing and numerous houses. In the part of the 19th century the community diminished in size and was all but abandoned in the 1920s when the road through it was widened and designated as State Route 30, the predecessor of modern New Jersey Route 31; the Norfolk Southern Railway's Lehigh Line, runs through the community