The Battle of Poltava was the decisive victory of Peter I of Russia known as "the Great," over the Swedish forces under Field Marshal Carl Gustav Rehnskiöld, in one of the battles of the Great Northern War. It is believed by historians to have been the beginning of the Swedish Empire's decline as a European great power, while the Tsardom of Russia took its place as the leading nation of north-eastern Europe; the battle bears major importance in Ukrainian national history, as Hetman of Zaporizhian Host Ivan Mazepa sided with the Swedes, seeking to create an uprising in Ukraine against the tsardom. Today, at the site of the battle there is a State Cultural Heritage Preserve Complex in Poltava known as the "Poltava Battle Field", which consists of monuments and churches commemorating the event. Charles XII had led Swedish forces to early victories in North Zealand and in the Battle of Narva in November 1700. However, it would take six years. Peter I withdrew from Poland in the spring of 1706, offered to cede his Baltic possessions to Sweden except St. Petersburg, but Charles refused.

Peter subsequently adopted a scorched-earth policy in order to deprive the Swedish forces of supplies. Charles ordered a final attack on the Russian heartland with a possible assault on Moscow from his campaign base in Poland; the Swedish army of 44,000 men left Saxony on 22 August 1707 and marched eastwards. Charles took the field in November after waiting for reinforcements to arrive. Continuing east, he crossed the Vistula River on 25 December 1707 continued through a hostile Masuria and took Grodno on 26 January 1708 after Russian troops had abandoned the city. At the time the Russians had been occupied with a large rebellion of Don Cossacks, known as the "Bulavin Rebellion"; this revolt was contained in part by the forces of the Cossack Hetmanate led by Hetman Ivan Mazepa. The Swedes continued to the area around Minsk, where the army went into winter quarters. Charles left 8,000 dragoons under Maj. Gen. Ernst Detlof von Krassow in western Poland. Poor weather and road conditions kept the Swedish troops in winter quarters until June 1708.

In July the Swedes defeated Marshal Boris Sheremetyev's forces at the Battle of Holowczyn and advanced to the Dnieper River. During the spring Gen. Lewenhaupt in Courland had been ordered to gather supplies and march his army of about 12,000 men to join Charles' forces. However, his departure from Mitau was delayed until late June and he only joined Charles' forces on 11 October. Rather than winter in Livonia or wait for Lewenhaupt, Charles decided to move southward into Ukraine and join Mazepa, who had decided to rebel against Peter. Peter sent Sheremetev to shadow the Swedish army. Lewenhaupt followed south and was attacked while crossing a river near a small village that gave name to the Battle of Lesnaya, losing the supply train and half of his force. In need of resupply, Charles moved towards Baturyn, Mazepa's headquarters, but Russian troops under Aleksandr Menshikov reached the city first. Anticipating the Swedish arrival, Menshikov ordered the merciless massacre of the population, razing the city and destroying or looting arms and food.

By the spring of 1709 Charles' force had shrunk to half of its original size. After the coldest winter in Europe in over 500 years, Charles was left with 20,000 soldiers and 34 cannons. Short of supplies, he laid siege to the Russian fortress at Poltava on the Vorskla River on 2 May 1709. Peter's force of 80,000 marched to relieve the siege. Upon his arrival, Peter built a fortified camp 4 km north of Poltava. While observing the Russian position on 20 June, Charles was struck by a stray bullet, injuring his foot badly enough that he could not stand. In addition, Charles' last hope of reinforcement expired, as the Swedish forces under von Krassow had turned aside to deal with the anti-Swedish Sandomierz Confederation in Poland. Between the Russian and Swedish forces the Yakovetski and Budyschenski woods formed a corridor, which the Russians defended by building six forts across the gap. Peter, in addition, ordered four more redoubts built so the entire system of ten forts would have a T shape, providing flanking fire to a Swedish advance.

Two of the redoubts were still being constructed on the morning of the battle, but 4,000 Russians manned the remaining eight, with 10,000 cavalry under Gen. Aleksandr Danilovich Menshikov stationed behind them; because of his wound, Charles turned over operational command to Field Marshal Carl Gustav Rehnskiöld. Four columns of infantry and six columns of cavalry were to form during the night, 600 meters south of the redoubts, intending to attack before dawn in order to swiftly bypass the redoubt system and hit the Russian fort; the infantry was in place by 2:30 a.m. but the cavalry arrived late, having lost their way. Riding forward, Axel Gyllenkrok observed the Russians at work on the two nearest redoubts and rode back to inform Rehnskiöld. A reconnoitre by Maj. Gen Wolmar Anton von Schlippenbach was discovered by the Russians and the alarm was sounded by the firing of a pistol. Having lost the element of surprise, without sufficient cannon to breach the fortifications, Rehnskiöld consulted with Charles, Carl Piper and Lewenhaupt on whether or not to proceed with the assault.

By the time Rehnskiöld decided to proceed with the attack by quoting, "In the name of God let us go forward", it was nearly 4:00 a.m. on 28 June and dawn was approaching. The Swedes in Carl Gustaf Roos' column overran the first two redoubts, killing every Russian soldier inside them, but by 4:30 a.m. the attempts to take the third redoubt stalled. Lewenhaupt's ten battalions on the right bypassed the firs

Stephen Suleyman Schwartz is an American Sufi journalist and author. He has been published in a variety including The Wall Street Journal, he is the founder and executive director of the Washington, D. C.-based Center for Islamic Pluralism. In 2011–2012 he was a member of Folks Magazine's Editorial Board, he has been an adherent of the Hanafi school of Islam since 1997. His criticism of Islamic Fundamentalism the Wahhabi sect of Sunni Islam, has attracted controversy. Schwartz was born in Ohio to Horace Schwartz, a Jewish independent bookseller, his mother, the daughter of a Protestant preacher, was a career social services worker. Schwartz described both of his parents as "radical leftists and quite antireligious", his father a "fellow traveller", his mother a member of the Communist Party, he was baptized in the Presbyterian church as an infant. The family moved to San Francisco when he was young, where his father Horace became a literary agent. At Lowell High School Schwartz made his first serious writing attempts, focusing on poetry.

He became affiliated with Leninist communism until 1984. After college, Schwartz became a member of the Sailors' Union of the Pacific. With others, he founded a small semi-Trotskyist group FOCUS. In 1985, the S. U. P. Commissioned Schwartz to write Brotherhood of the Sea: A History of the Sailors' Union of the Pacific as part of its of 100th anniversary commemoration. In the 1990s, Schwartz spent a decade as a staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, he was a member of the local union at a branch of the Newspaper Guild. At the end of 1997, he converted to Islam. In 1999, Schwartz left the Chronicle, moved to Sarajevo and Herzegovina, where he lived for the next 18 months. Schwartz supported the Iraq War. On March 25, 2005, Schwartz launched the Center for Islamic Pluralism; the Center is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D. C. with Schwartz as executive director. A Sleepwalker’s Guide to San Francisco: Poems from Three Lustra, 1966–1981. San Francisco: La Santa Espina, 1983. Brotherhood of the Sea: A History of the Sailors’ Union of the Pacific.

New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1986. ISBN 0-88738-121-9. Spanish Marxism vs. Soviet Communism: A History of the P. O. U. M. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1988. ISBN 0-88738-198-7. A Strange Silence: The Emergence of Democracy in Nicaragua. San Francisco: ICS Press, 1992. ISBN 1-55815-071-4. From West to East: California and the Making of the American Mind. New York: The Free Press, 1998. ISBN 0-684-83134-1. Kosovo: Background to a War. London: Anthem Press, 2000. ISBN 1-898855-56-0 Intellectuals and Assassins: Writings at the End of Soviet Communism. New York: Anthem Press, 2001. ISBN 1-898855-55-2; the Two Faces of Islam: The House of Sa'ud from Tradition to Terror. New York: Doubleday, 2002. ISBN 0-385-50692-9. An Activist's Guide to Arab and Muslim Campus and Community Organizations in North America Los Angeles: Center for the Study of Popular Culture, 2003 ISBN 9781886442344 Sarajevo Rose: A Balkan Jewish Notebook. London: Saqi Books, 2005. ISBN 0-86356-592-1. Is It Good for the Jews?: The Crisis of America's Israel Lobby.

New York: Doubleday, 2006. ISBN 0-385-51025-X; the Other Islam: Sufism and the Road to Global Harmony. New York: Doubleday, 2008. ISBN 0-385-51819-6. "Defeating Wahhabism". FrontPage Magazine, October 25, 2002. "A Different Kind of Filial Piety". Wall Street Journal, February 10, 1999. "Ground Zero and the Saudi Connection". The Spectator, September 22, 2001. "Spanish Revision". The Weekly Standard, June 1, 2009. Center for Islamic Pluralism Sailors’ Union of the Pacific history Appearances on C-SPANInterviewsQ&A with Schwartz from National Review Online Booknotes interview with Schwartz on The Two Faces of Islam: The House of Sa'ud from Tradition to Terror, February 2, 2003. Stephen Schwartz: Eternally with Albanians from Telegrafi.com

David Lewis was an American actor, born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was best known for being the original actor to portray Edward Quartermaine from 1978 to 1993 on the American soap opera General Hospital. Lewis was born in Pennsylvania. Lewis was a pioneering actor in television, his first televised role occurring in 1949 on the show Captain Video and His Video Rangers, his credits include appearing in seven episodes of Perry Mason and in the recurring role of Warden Crichton in Batman. Lewis appeared on daytime T. V. making his soap debut on Love of Life as a murderer and playing patriarch Henry Pierce on Bright Promise. Brief guest stints on The Young and the Restless and Days of Our Lives followed. In 1978, he joined the cast of General Hospital in the role of Edward Quartermaine, for which he won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Daytime Drama in 1982. Lewis took time off between 1987 and 1988 for medical recovery and departed in 1989 during which time Edward was believed to be dead.

Lewis continued to come to the studio, however, to tape his voice so wife Lila could have conversations with him. Lewis made his comeback in November 1991 when Edward came back from the dead and in the summer of 1993, Lewis announced he was retiring permanently. Lewis played Charles Ames on the ABC comedy The Farmer's Daughter. Lewis died in Woodland Hills, after a long illness. David Lewis on IMDb David Lewis at the Internet Broadway Database