The Battle of Dien Bien Phu was a climactic confrontation of the First Indochina War that took place between 13 March and 7 May 1954. It was fought between the French Union's French Far East Expeditionary Corps and Viet Minh communist revolutionaries, it was, from the French view before the event, a set piece battle to draw out the Vietnamese and destroy them with superior firepower. As a result of blunders in French decision-making, the French began an operation to insert support, the soldiers at Điện Biên Phủ, deep in the hills of northwestern Vietnam; the operation's purpose was to cut off Viet Minh supply lines into the neighboring Kingdom of Laos, draw the Viet Minh into a major confrontation in order to cripple them. The plan was to resupply the French position by air, was based on the belief that the Viet Minh had no anti-aircraft capability; the Viet Minh, under General Võ Nguyên Giáp, surrounded and besieged the French. They brought in vast amounts of heavy artillery and managed to move these bulky weapons through difficult terrain up the rear slopes of the mountains.

The Viet Minh were able to dig tunnels through the mountain, emplaced the artillery pieces overlooking the French encampment. In March, a massive artillery bombardment by the Viet Minh ensued; the strategic positioning of their artillery made it nearly impervious to French counter-battery fire. Tenacious fighting on the ground ensued, reminiscent of the trench warfare of World War I. At times the French repulsed Viet Minh assaults on their positions while supplies and reinforcements were delivered by air; as key positions were overrun, the perimeter contracted and the air resupply on which the French had placed their hopes became impossible. As the Viet Minh antiaircraft fire took its toll and fewer of those supplies reached the French; the garrison was overrun in May after a two-month siege, most of the French forces surrendered. A few of them escaped to Laos; the French government in Paris resigned, the new Prime Minister, the left-of-centre Pierre Mendès France, supported French withdrawal from Indochina.

The Battle of Điện Biên Phủ was decisive. France agreed to withdraw its forces from all its colonies in French Indochina, while stipulating that Vietnam would be temporarily divided at the 17th parallel, with control of the north given to the Viet Minh as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh, the south becoming the State of Vietnam, nominally under Emperor Bảo Đại, preventing Ho Chi Minh from gaining control of the entire country. By 1953, the First Indochina War was not going well for France. A succession of commanders – Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque, Jean Étienne Valluy, Roger Blaizot, Marcel Carpentier, Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, Raoul Salan – had proven incapable of suppressing the insurrection of the Viet Minh fighting for independence. During their 1952–1953 campaign, the Viet Minh had overrun vast swathes of Laos, Vietnam's western neighbor, advancing as far as Luang Prabang and the Plain of Jars; the French were unable to slow the Viet Minh advance, who fell back only after outrunning their always-tenuous supply lines.

In 1953, the French had begun to strengthen their defenses in the Hanoi delta region to prepare for a series of offensives against Viet Minh staging areas in northwest Vietnam. They set up fortified towns and outposts in the area, including Lai Châu near the Chinese border to the north, Nà Sản to the west of Hanoi, the Plain of Jars in northern Laos. In May 1953, French Premier René Mayer appointed Henri Navarre, a trusted colleague, to take command of French Union Forces in Indochina. Mayer had given Navarre a single order—to create military conditions that would lead to an "honorable political solution". According to military scholar Phillip Davidson, On arrival, Navarre was shocked by. There had been no long-range plan since de Lattre's departure. Everything was conducted on a reactive basis. Combat operations were undertaken only in response to enemy threats. There was no comprehensive plan to develop the organization and build up the equipment of the Expeditionary force. Navarre, the intellectual, the cold and professional soldier, was shocked by the "school's out" attitude of Salan and his senior commanders and staff officers.

They were going home, not as victors or heroes, but not as clear losers either. To them the important thing was that they were getting out of Indochina with their reputations frayed, but intact, they gave concern for, the problems of their successors. Navarre began searching for a way to stop the Viet Minh threat to Laos. Colonel Louis Berteil, commander of Mobile Group 7 and Navarre's main planner, formulated the hérisson concept; the French army would establish a fortified airhead by airlifting soldiers to positions adjacent to key Viet Minh supply lines to Laos. They would force them to withdraw. "It was an attempt to interdict the enemy's rear area, to stop the flow of supplies and reinforcements, to establish a redoubt in the enemy's rear and disrupt his lines". The hedgehog concept was based on French experiences at the Battle of Nà Sản. In late-November and early-December 1952, Giáp had attacked the French outpost at Nà Sản, an "air-land base", a fortified camp supplied only by air; the French had beaten back Giáp's forces inflicting heavy losses on them.

The French hoped that by repeating the strategy on a much larger scale, they would be able to lure

The River Dart is a river in Devon, England which rises high on Dartmoor, releases to the sea at Dartmouth. The river's name is presumed to be Brythonic Celtic meaning'river where oak trees grow' due to the banks of the lower Dart being covered in ancient woods of native oak; the Cornish word for oak is derow. Bray notes in 1832 that the name was spelled'Darant'; the river begins as two separate branches. The paths along these rivers offer attractive walking, there are several small waterfalls; the rivers are crossed by a number of clapper bridges, notably at the hamlet of Postbridge. After leaving the moor, the Dart flows southwards past Buckfast Abbey and through the towns of Buckfastleigh and Totnes. At Totnes, where there is a seventeenth-century weir, it becomes tidal, there are no bridges below the town. A passenger ferry operates across the river from the village of Dittisham to a point adjacent to the Greenway Estate; the home of the late crime writer Agatha Christie, this has stunning views across the river, the house and gardens are now owned by the National Trust and are open to the public.

The Dart estuary is popular for sailing. The village of Kingswear and town of Dartmouth are on the east and west sides of the estuary, are linked by two vehicle ferries and a passenger ferry; the Kingswear Regatta is held each year. The deep water port of Dartmouth is a sheltered haven; the entrance to the river from the sea is a rocky entrance with cliffs either side. On the East side Kingswear Castle sits close to the water's edge, on the west side Dartmouth Castle is built on a rocky promontory at sea level; the castles once operated a defensive chain across the estuary, raised at dusk to destroy enemy ships attempting to attack the harbour. The remains of the operating mechanisms for the chain are still visible in Dartmouth castle; the flooded ria that forms the lower reaches of the Dart, with its deep water and steeply sloping valley sides, is a considerable barrier to crossing traffic. There are no bridges below Totnes. At the mouth of the river, it separates the communities of Kingswear. There have been proposals to bridge the river here.

Instead the two places are linked by, in order going upstream, the Lower Ferry, Passenger Ferry and Higher Ferry. The Lower and Higher ferries both carry the Higher one linking the A379 road; some 2.5 miles upstream of Dartmouth, the Greenway Ferry carries pedestrians across the river from the village of Dittisham to Greenway Quay. A further 5 miles upstream is Totnes, where the river is spanned by two road bridges, a railway bridge and a footbridge over. Totnes Bridge is the nearest bridge to the sea and is a road bridge built in 1826-28 by Charles Fowler; some 1,000 feet upstream is Brutus Bridge, constructed in 1982 as part of a road traffic-relief scheme and carrying the concurrent A385 and A381 roads. A further 0.5 miles upstream, the railway bridge carries the National Rail Exeter to Plymouth line over the river. Upstream of the railway bridge is a footbridge, built in 1993 to provide access to the Totnes terminus of the South Devon Railway; the lower section of the River Dart forms Dartmouth Harbour, a deep water natural harbour with a long history of maritime usage.

In modern times, the port's commercial activity has declined, but it is still a busy port for local fishing vessels and a wide variety of yachts and other private boats. Several local companies specialise in shipbuilding and repairs to small tonnage craft. Dartmouth is the home of the Britannia Royal Naval College and as a result is visited by sizeable naval ships. Smaller naval tenders are seen carrying out training exercises in the harbour and river. Large cruise ships are occasional visitors, with the largest visitor to date being the MV Royal Princess. Upstream, the Dart is navigable to seagoing vessels as far as the weir in Totnes; the river dries out for 2 miles below Totnes at spring tide low water, but vessels drawing up to 3 foot can proceed to Totnes from one and a half hours after low water. Above the weir, the river is navigable only to small craft such as canoes. Several companies operate trips on the river, including Dart Pleasure Craft Limited, who trade as River Link and operate the Passenger Ferry between Dartmouth and Kingswear.

These include cruises from Dartmouth to Totnes, which can be combined with journeys on the Paignton and Dartmouth Steam Railway and an open top bus between Totnes and Paignton to create a circular trip. The harbour and port are popular leisure boating locations, several marinas and boat yards are located on the river; the Port of Dartmouth Royal Regatta takes place annually over three days at the end of August. The upper reaches of Dartmoor those on the Dart, are a focal point for whitewater kayakers and canoeists; the best known sections of the river are: Upper Dart from Dartmeet to Newbridge. The Loop from Newbridge to Holne Bridge; the Lower from Holne Bridge to Buckfastleigh. Sections of the East and West Dart above Dartmeet, as well as the Webburn are paddled when conditions permit; this is somewhat controversial, as riparian landowners and those responsible for local fisheries maintain that the East and West Dart should not be paddled. The lower reaches of the Dart, including the estuary are suitable for flat water touring.

Angling

PathSolutions is a Silicon Valley startup and software company of a network troubleshooting application, founded in 2007. The company focuses on VoIP troubleshooting software, its main product is named TotalView. TotalView has been used in medium to large corporations in the consumer, computer networking, aerospaceindustriies. PathSolutions's corporate headquarters is in California, it has a sales office in Folsom, California. PathSolutions was founded in 1999 as NetLatency by a Silicon Valley network engineer; the company was renamed in 2007. The original product name was SwitchMonitor, was renamed TotalView in 2010. PathSolutions owns the trademarks: QueueVision; these features are both bundled into TotalView. In 2014, TotalView was awarded InfoWorld's Technology of the Year Award. InfoWorld picked PathSolutions as an Editor's Choice in 2014. In June 2018, the company announced TotalView version 9 at Cisco Live and demonstrated it in a TWIT.tv podcast. TotalView is a software program that performs network troubleshooting, that continuously collects the stats from switches and other devices in a network, reports on their status in a Graphical User Interface.

It is an AI-based network monitoring model, has interactive network diagram tools. It installs on a Windows computer. Features include network analysis, packet loss testing, extrapolated data for predictive analysis, a'QueueVision' report on VoIP quality, daily'Network Weather Reports' via email. Product reviews of TotalView 9 are available online from GestaltIT.com, BytesofCloud.com TotalView includes a stand-alone call simulator tool for VoIP, for quality testing of VoIP systems. Official website

Tirukozhambiam Kokileswarar Temple is a Hindu temple located at Thanjavur district of Tamil Nadu, India. The presiding deity is Shiva, he is called as Kokileswarar. His consort is Soundara Nayaki, it is one of the 275 Paadal Petra Sthalams - Shiva Sthalams glorified in the early medieval Tevaram poems by Tamil Saivite Nayanar saints Tirunavukkarasar and Thirugnana Sambandar. According to Hindu legend, a person named Chandan was reborn as a nightingale due to the curse of Indra, he reassumed his original form here. The main idol is a shivalinga. There are the footprints of a cow upon the shivalinga; the temple is under the administration of the Thiruvaduthurai Adheenam. "Sri Kokileswarar temple". Dinamalar. "Kokileswarar Temple, Tirukozhambam". Shiva Temples of Tamil Nadu, Paadal Petra Sivasthalangal

Island Shangri-La, Hong Kong is a five-star luxury hotel of Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts. It is located in Admiralty, Hong Kong and is the sister hotel to the Kowloon Shangri-La in Tsim Sha Tsui East, Kowloon, it is housed in a 213-metre, 57-storey skyscraper opened on 1 March 1991. The Island Shangri-La, Hong Kong was opened on 1 March 1991 as part of Pacific Place, a complex of office towers, hotels and a shopping centre at 88 Queensway in Admiralty; the hotel was part of phase two out of three, the initial phase having opened in 1988, the final third phase in 2004. It contains 565 guestrooms which start at US$606 per night, of which 34 are suites which start at US$1,041 per night. Spread through the top half of the tallest tower of the complex, 213 metres tall; the hotel contains eight restaurants, a business centre, a 24-hour health club, a 645-square-metre ballroom, seven function rooms. The bottom half of the tower contains office space known as "Two Pacific Place". Pacific Place contains two other luxury hotels: the JW Marriott Hotel Hong Kong and the Conrad Hong Kong.

The complex is directly connected to Admiralty Station, part of Hong Hong's Mass Transit Railway that opened in 1979. The hotel's interior was designed by Leese Robertson Freeman Designers. 771 Viennese chandeliers are used throughout the interior, while carpets are provided by Tai Ping, whose hand-knotted carpets are handwoven in independent factories in China and Nepal. The proximity of the Hong Kong Park, covering 80,000 m² has meant that the hotel has become popular with leisure travellers who are able to jog there in the mornings, according to former VP and GM Wolfgang Krueger; the Great Motherland of China, which contains 250 panels, is the centrepiece of the hotel's art collection. It scales an internal wall of over 16 stories and can only be seen by guests riding the elevator in the centre of the hotel; the hotel holds over 900 artworks and hosts art fairs and auctions. It was created by 40 artists from Beijing over six months; as well as auctions in its ballroom by the likes of Bonhams that focus on contemporary Asian art, the hotel was selected as the venue for art entrepreneur Dong Myeong Kim's Bank Art Fair, which showcased over 100 emerging Korean artists on floors 41 and 42 as part of Art Basel Hong Kong from 23–26 May 2013.

The hotel has 531 standard rooms of 479 square feet, 17 executive suites at 880 square feet, 14 Harbour View Suites at 944 square feet, two speciality suites at 1,416 square feet and a Presidential Suite of 2,253 square feet. Each has floor to ceiling glass windows with views of Victoria Peak; the rooms are all scented with the hotel's own brand fragrance, which it has made available for sale. The hotel contains eight restaurants. Fine dining facilities includes the two-Michelin-starred Cantonese restaurant Summer Palace and the former one-Michelin-starred French cuisine Restaurant Petrus, both of which received the recognition in the guide's inaugural 2009 Hong Kong and Macau edition. Summer Palace maintained its 2-star Michelin Guide rating in the 2014 edition. Located on Level 8, the Health Club offers pilates circuit classes. Treatments include the signature Caviar Crystal Soothing Treatment, using the European approach of entrusting selected products such as jojoba, almond and rosemary oil for spa treatments in order to be unobtrusive.

The club contains two for couples and one for men. Official website

1971 Hagihara, provisional designation 1955 RD1, is an Eoan asteroid from the outer region of the asteroid belt 12 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 14 September 1955, by the Indiana Asteroid Program at the Goethe Link Observatory near Brooklyn, United States, it was named after Japanese astronomer Yusuke Hagihara. Hagihara is a member of the Eos family, the largest asteroid family in the outer main belt consisting of nearly 10,000 asteroids, it orbits the Sun in the outer main-belt at a distance of 2.7–3.2 AU once every 5 years and 2 months. Its orbit has an inclination of 9 ° with respect to the ecliptic; the asteroid's observation arc begins with its discovery observation at Goethe in September 1955. According to the survey carried out by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer with its subsequent NEOWISE mission, Hagihara measures 12.3 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo of 0.135, neither typical for stony nor for carbonaceous bodies. As of 2017, the asteroid's composition and spectral type, as well as its rotation period and shape remain unknown.

This minor planet was named in honour of Yusuke Hagihara on the occasion of his 81st birthday. He was professor of astronomy at director of the Tokyo Observatory, he served as vice-president of the International Astronomical Union and was the president of its Commission VII. Hagihara is best known for the discussion of stability problems in celestial mechanics and his theory of libratory motions, as well as for important contributions to the study of the velocity distribution of free electrons in planetary nebulae, his important five-volume treatise on celestial mechanics; the official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 1 August 1978. 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 1971 Hagihara at AstDyS-2, Asteroids—Dynamic Site Ephemeris · Observation prediction · Orbital info · Proper elements · Observational info 1971 Hagihara at the JPL Small-Body Database Close approach · Discovery · Ephemeris · Orbit diagram · Orbital elements · Physical parameters