Constantine V was Byzantine emperor from 741 to 775. His reign saw a consolidation of Byzantine security from external threats; as an able military leader, Constantine took advantage of civil war in the Muslim world to make limited offensives on the Arab frontier. With this eastern frontier secure, he undertook repeated campaigns against the Bulgars in the Balkans, his military activity, policy of settling Christian populations from the Arab frontier in Thrace, made Byzantium's hold on its Balkan territories more secure. Religious strife and controversy was a prominent feature of his reign, his fervent support of Iconoclasm and opposition to monasticism led to his vilification by Byzantine historians and writers, who denigrated him as Kopronymos or Copronymus, meaning the dung-named. Constantine was born in the son and successor of Emperor Leo III and his wife Maria. In August 720, at two years of age, he was associated with his father on the throne, appointed co-emperor. In Byzantine political theory more than one emperor could share the throne.
As the position of emperor was in theory, sometimes in practise, elective rather than hereditary, a ruling emperor would associate a son or other chosen successor with himself as a co-emperor to ensure the eventual succession. To celebrate the coronation of his son, Leo III introduced the miliaresion. In 726, Constantine's father issued the Ecloga. Constantine married daughter of the Khazar khagan Bihar, an important Byzantine ally, his new bride was baptized Irene in 732. On his father's death, Constantine succeeded as sole emperor on 18 June 741. Constantine suffered from a chronic medical condition epilepsy or leprosy. In June 742, while Constantine was crossing Asia Minor to campaign on the eastern frontier against the Umayyad Caliphate under Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik, his brother-in-law Artabasdos, husband of his older sister, rebelled. Artabasdos had effective control of the Armeniac theme. Artabasdos struck against Constantine when their respective troops combined for the intended campaign.
Constantine escaped and sought refuge in Amorion, where he was welcomed by the local soldiers, commanded by Leo III before he became emperor. Meanwhile, Artabasdos advanced on Constantinople and, with the support of Theophanes Monutes and Patriarch Anastasius, was acclaimed and crowned emperor. Constantine received the support of the Thracesian themes; the rival emperors bided their time making military preparations. Artabasdos was defeated. Three months Constantine defeated Artabasdos' son Niketas and his Armeniac troops at Modrina and headed for Constantinople. In early November Constantine entered the capital, following a siege and a further battle.. He targeted his opponents, having many blinded or executed. Patriarch Anastasius was paraded on the back of an ass around the hippodrome to the jeers of the Constantinopolitan mob, though he was subsequently allowed to stay in office. Artabasdos, having fled the capital, was apprehended at the fortress of Pouzanes in Anatolia located to the south of Nicomedia.
Artabasdos and his sons were publicly blinded and secured in the monastery of Chora on the outskirts of Constantinople. Like his father Leo III, Constantine supported iconoclasm, a theological movement that rejected the veneration of religious images and sought to destroy those in existence. Iconoclasm was definitively classed as heretical. Constantine's avowed enemies in what was a bitter and long-lived religious dispute were the iconodules, who defended the veneration of images. Iconodule writers applied to Constantine the derogatory epithet Kopronymos. Using this obscene name, they spread the rumour that as an infant he had defiled his own baptism by defaecating in the font, or on the imperial purple cloth with which he was swaddled. Constantine questioned the legitimacy of any representation of Christ; the church father John Damascene made use of the term'uncircumscribable' in relation to the depiction of God. Constantine, relying on the linguistic connection between'uncircumscribed' and'incapable of being depicted', argued that the uncircumscribable cannot be legitimately depicted in an image.
As Christian theology holds that Christ is God, He cannot be represented in an image. The Emperor was active in the theological debate, he presented his religious views at meetings organised throughout the empire, sending representatives to argue his case. In February 754, Constantine convened a synod at Hieria, attended by iconoclast bishops; the council agreed with Constantine's religious policy on images, declaring them anathema, it secured the election of a new iconoclast patriarch. However, it refused to endorse all of Constantine's po
Dinesh Kumar Patel is an Indian right-handed baseball pitcher who played in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization. Along with Rinku Singh, he was the first Indian national to sign a contract with a major American Baseball team. Neither Patel nor Singh had thrown a baseball before beating over 37,000 competitors in The Million Dollar Arm, an Indian reality television show designed to find new baseball talent. Due to extreme poverty and inability to meet the expenses of raising a child, Patel's parents had left him to be raised by his maternal grandmother in Khanpur, a village of Varanasi district. At the age of 14, he started visiting Sampurnanand Stadium in Sigra where he met athletes and trained himself to play field hockey. In 2004, he was selected for a regional sports hostel in Lucknow. Patel won a gold medal in field hockey at the National School Games at Pune in 2006, he is an alumnus of Lucknow. Patel, along with Singh, tried out in front of scouts from 20 Major League Baseball teams in November 2008, reaching 90 miles per hour throwing a baseball.
Reports from Pittsburgh Pirates scouts Joe Ferrone and Sean Campbell led to general manager Neal Huntington signing both to contracts with the organization. With the deal, the pair became the first Indians to sign American major league baseball contracts; the total signing bonus for the two was $8,000. After training, the two returned to visit their families in India before entering Pirates training camp in Bradenton, Florida. Patel, along with Singh, played for the Pirates' Gulf Coast League team, he had a successful, yet brief, 2009 season for the Pirates, picking up a victory on 13 August and finishing with a 1–0 record and 1.42 earned run average, allowing two runs on six hits and no walks in 61⁄3 innings, holding opposing batters to a.192 batting average in six relief appearances. Patel's 2010 season was less successful, with an 8.59 earned run average in 71⁄3 innings, over nine games. He played errorless defense over the two seasons. Patel returned home to finish school, he taught baseball in Delhi, in 2011 he helped his village boys prepare for the second season of the Million Dollar Arm talent hunt for about two months, without charge.
After his return, Patel practiced the javelin throw. Patel participated at the national athletics championship in Kolkata in 2011 and the Federation Cup athletics championship in April 2012. In 2012, Patel said, "My family's emotional conditions have improved. I could renovate the home in the village and my sister's wedding was arranged with the money that I sent home. My family gathered self respect in society, it is always good to see your near and dear ones happy." Patel and Singh's story is the basis for the Walt Disney Pictures sports film, Million Dollar Arm, where Patel is portrayed by Madhur Mittal. List of people from Uttar Pradesh List of people from Lucknow Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference Million-Dollar Arm blog SAJA call-in web radio show with Dinesh Patel, Rinku Singh and JB Bernstein, November 2008
Major-General Sir Horace de Courcy Martelli was a British Army officer who became Lieutenant Governor of Jersey. Educated at the Haileybury, Bedford School, at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Martelli won the Royal Humane Society's Bronze Medal when aged twenty for rescuing a boy from drowning at Southsea on 2 August 1897, he was commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1912,and served in World War I as Deputy Director of Railway Transport for the British Expeditionary Force, as Deputy Assistant Quartermaster General at General Headquarters of the British Expeditionary Force and as Deputy Assistant Quartermaster General for 25th Division before becoming Assistant Quartermaster General for 9th Army Corps in France in 1916. He continued his war service as Temporary Assistant Adjutant General at the War Office from 1917 and than as Assistant Director Mobilisation at the War Office from 1918, he went on to be Assistant Director Quartering at the War Office in 1920, Assistant Quartermaster General at Eastern Command in 1921 and Commander, Royal Artillery for 42nd Division in 1925.
He was appointed Base Commandant for the Shanghai Defence Force in China in 1927 before reverting to the role of Commander, Royal Artillery for 42nd Division again in 1928. His last appointments were as Major-General in charge of Administration at Southern Command in Salisbury in 1930 and as Lieutenant Governor of Jersey in 1934 before he retired in 1939. In retirement he commanded 8th Bn Wiltshire Home Guard. In 1904 he married Ethel Mary Douglas