The Duchy of Schleswig was a duchy in Southern Jutland covering the area between about 60 km north and 70 km south of the current border between Germany and Denmark. The territory has been divided between the two countries since 1920, with Northern Schleswig in Denmark and Southern Schleswig in Germany; the region is called Sleswick in English. The area's traditional significance lies in the transfer of goods between the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, connecting the trade route through Russia with the trade routes along the Rhine and the Atlantic coast. Roman sources place the homeland of the tribe of Jutes north of the river Eider and that of the Angles south of it; the Angles in turn bordered the neighbouring Saxons. By the early Middle Ages, the region was inhabited by three groups: Danes, who lived north of the Danevirke and the Eckernförde Bay, North Frisians, who lived in most of North Frisia, including on the North Frisian Islands, Saxons, who lived in the area south of the Danes and the Frisians.

During the 14th century, the population on Schwansen began to speak Low German alongside Danish, but otherwise the ethno-linguistic borders remained remarkably stable until around 1800, with the exception of the population in the towns that became German from the 14th century onwards. During the early Viking Age, Haithabu – Scandinavia's biggest trading centre – was located in this region, the location of the interlocking fortifications known as the Danewerk or Danevirke, its construction, in particular its great expansion around 737, has been interpreted as an indication of the emergence of a unified Danish state. In May 1931, scientists of the National Museum of Denmark announced that they had unearthed eighteen Viking graves with the remains of eighteen men in them; the discovery came during excavations in Schleswig. The skeletons indicated; each of the graves was laid out from east to west. Researchers surmised that the bodies were entombed in wooden coffins but only the iron nails remained.

Towards the end of the Early Middle Ages, Schleswig formed part of the historical Lands of Denmark as Denmark unified out of a number of petty chiefdoms in the 8th to 10th centuries in the wake of Viking expansion. The southern boundary of Denmark in the region of the Eider River and the Danevirke was a source of continuous dispute; the Treaty of Heiligen was signed in 811 between the Danish King Hemming and Charlemagne, by which the border was established at the Eider. During the 10th century, there were several wars between East Denmark. In 1027, Conrad II and Canute the Great again fixed their mutual border at the Eider. In 1115, King Niels created his nephew Canute Lavard – a son of his predecessor Eric I – Earl of Schleswig, a title used for only a short time before the recipient began to style himself Duke. In the 1230s, Southern Jutland was allotted as an appanage to Abel Valdemarsen, Canute's great-grandson, a younger son of Valdemar II of Denmark. Abel, having wrested the Danish throne to himself for a brief period, left his duchy to his sons and their successors, who pressed claims to the throne of Denmark for much of the next century, so that the Danish kings were at odds with their cousins, the dukes of Slesvig.

Feuds and marital alliances brought the Abel dynasty into a close connection with the German Duchy of Holstein by the 15th century. The latter was a fief subordinate to the Holy Roman Empire; these dual loyalties were to become a main root of the dispute between the German states and Denmark in the 19th century, when the ideas of romantic nationalism and the nation-state gained popular support. The title of Duke of Schleswig was inherited in 1460 by the hereditary kings of Norway, who were regularly elected kings of Denmark and their sons; this was an anomaly -- a king holding a ducal title of which he as king was the liege lord. The title and anomaly survived because it was co-regally held by the king's sons. Between 1544 and 1713/20, the ducal reign had become a condominium, with the royal House of Oldenburg and its cadet branch House of Holstein-Gottorp jointly holding the stake. A third branch in the condominium, the short-lived House of Haderslev, was extinct in 1580 by the time of John the Elder.

Following the Protestant Reformation, when Latin was replaced as the medium of church service by the vernacular languages, the diocese of Schleswig was divided and an autonomous archdeaconry of Haderslev created. On the west coast, the Danish diocese of Ribe ended about 5 km north of the present border; this created a new cultural dividing line in the duchy because German was used for church services and teaching in the diocese of Schleswig and Danish was used in the diocese of Ribe and the archdeaconry of Haderslev. This line corresponds remarkably with the present border. In the 17th century a series of wars between Denmark and Sweden—which Denmark lost—devastated the region economically. However, the nobility responded with a new agricultural system. In the period 1600 to 1800 the region experienced the growth of manorialism of the sort common in the rye-growing regions of eastern Germany; the manors were large holdings with the work done by feudal peasant farmers. They specialized in high quality dairy products.

Feudal lordship was combined with technical modernization, the distinct

Holy Cross Parish is a Roman Catholic parish located in New Britain, United States. Founded on April 8, 1927, it is in the Archdiocese of Hartford and is one of dozens of Polish-American Roman Catholic parishes in New England. Membership in New Britain's original Polish national parish, Sacred Heart, had risen to about 9000 when a movement for a second parish was sponsored by the Holy Trinity Society, founded on April 8, 1927. On November 3, 1927, Bishop John Joseph Nilan authorized Fr. Stephen Bartowski to organize; the first Mass was offered on November 13 at a local hall. Fr. Bartkowski broke ground for a new church on Farmington Ave. on December 29, 1927. A year Fr. Bartkowski offered the first Mass in the new wooden church, dedicated on July 11, 1927 by Auxiliary Bishop Maurice F. McAuliffe. So many Poles soon crossed over from Sacred Heart that Bishop John Joseph Nilan recognized Holy Cross Parish as a national instead of a territorial parish, as planned; the 1936 neo-Gothic church was designed by architect Anthony J. DePace of New York.

The church includes a Casavant Frères Pipe Organ, situated at the back of the gallery under a large west-end rose window. The placement on the central axis allows an organ of modest proportions to fill a large building. Considerable tonal variety is available on the three manual divisions and pedal and includes appropriate divisional choruses that are balanced individually and are structured to work together in the ensemble of the instrument as a whole; the Trompette-en-Chamade is effective not only as the crowning glory for the ensemble but in solo and dialogue roles. While this instrument speaks with a decidedly French accent, it has proven effective in presenting the music of Bach and his contemporaries and in accompanying the singing of the congregation and choirs of the parish. In the year 1928, a new Polish parish was established on Farmington Avenue in the City of New Britain, Connecticut under the leadership of Rev. Stefan Bartkowski; the Most Rev. Maurice F. McAuliffe, Bishop of Hartford, dedicated Holy Cross Church on July 1, 1928.

That same year, eight Sisters of St. Joseph, Third Order of St. Francis were asked to teach the Polish language and religion to the children of the newly founded parish after school hours. In the first two years 600 pupils enrolled; the efforts of the Sisters and the support of the Pastor laid the foundation for the present day parish school. The school was closed in 2015. Holy Cross - Diocesan information Holy Cross - ParishesOnline.com Archdiocese of Hartford Parish School Church Site

Vito Bonventre was a New York City mobster, a leading member of the Brooklyn gang that would become the Bonanno Crime Family. He was arrested but released in 1921 as the leader of a group known as the "Good Killers". Bonventre was murdered in 1930 at the start of a conflict between his gang and a rival gang led by Joe Masseria, referred to as the Castellammarese War. Vito Bonventre was born on January 1875, in the town of Castellammare del Golfo in Sicily. In Castellammare del Golfo, his family was a member of a mafia clan created by an alliance with the Magaddino family in opposition to a mafia clan led by the Buccellato family, he immigrated to the United States just after the beginning of the twentieth century and settled in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. He soon became a member of the local mafia gang led by Nicolo Schiro. Bonventre was arrested on August 16, 1921, in New York City along with Stefano Magaddino, Francesco Puma, Giuseppe Lombardi, Mariano Galante, Bartolomeo DiGregorio for the murder of Camillo Caiozzo in Neptune, New Jersey, a couple of weeks earlier.

Bonventre and the others were arrested following the confession of Bartolo Fontana. Fontana identified the men as members of the "Good Killers", a group of mafioso from Castellammare del Golfo with Bonventre as their leader. Fontana claimed they ordered him to kill Caiozzo in retaliation for the 1916 murder of Magaddino's brother, Pietro, in Sicily, he said that the "Good Killers" were responsible for at least sixteen other murders. Some of the victims he named were connected to the rival Buccellato family in Castellammere del Golfo; these included three Buccellato brothers living in Detroit: Salvatore and Joseph killed in 1917-19 and their cousin, Pietro Buccellato killed in 1917. The government's case against the "Good Killers" collapsed with only Fontana's testimony against them. Fontana went to prison for Caiozzo's murder and the others were released. Magaddino was unnerved by his close call and fled the city becoming the local mafia boss in Buffalo. Bonventre remained in New York as a leading member of the Schiro gang.

With the onset of Prohibition, Bonventre became involved in extensive bootlegging activities. During the early months of the Castellammarese War, Bonventre became a target as Castellammarese-born members of Schiro's gang began to threaten rival boss Joe Masseria's domination over mafia gangs. Masseria forced Schiro to step down as boss of the gang. Afterwards on July 15, 1930, Bonventre was gunned down outside his garage. Bonventre is buried in Calvary Cemetery in Queens. Vito Bonventre at Find a Grave