Fencing is a group of three related combat sports. The three disciplines in modern fencing are the foil, the épée, the sabre. A fourth discipline, appeared in the 1904 Olympics but was dropped after that, is not a part of modern fencing. Fencing was one of the first sports to be played in the Olympics. Based on the traditional skills of swordsmanship, the modern sport arose at the end of the 19th century, with the Italian school having modified the historical European martial art of classical fencing, the French school refining the Italian system. There are three forms of modern fencing, each of which uses a different kind of weapon and has different rules. Most competitive fencers choose to specialize in one weapon only. Competitive fencing is one of the five activities which have been featured in every modern Olympic Games, the other four being athletics, cycling and gymnastics. Fencing is governed by Fédération Internationale d'Escrime. Today, its head office is in Switzerland; the FIE is composed of 145 national federations, each of, recognised by its state Olympic Committee as the sole representative of Olympic-style fencing in that country.

The FIE maintains the current rules used by FIE sanctioned international events, including world cups, world championships and the Olympic Games. The FIE handles proposals to change the rules the first year after an Olympic year in the annual congress; the US Fencing Association has different rules, but adheres to FIE standards. Fencing traces its roots to the development of swordsmanship for duels and self defense. Fencing is believed to have originated in Spain. Treatise on Arms was written by Diego de Valera between 1458 and 1471 and is one of the oldest surviving manuals on western fencing shortly before dueling came under official ban by the Catholic Monarchs. In conquest, the Spanish forces carried fencing around the world to southern Italy, one of the major areas of strife between both nations. Fencing was mentioned in the play The Merry Wives of Windsor written sometime prior to 1602; the mechanics of modern fencing originated in the 18th century in an Italian school of fencing of the Renaissance, under their influence, were improved by the French school of fencing.

The Spanish school of fencing was replaced by the Italian and French schools. The shift towards fencing as a sport rather than as military training happened from the mid-18th century, was led by Domenico Angelo, who established a fencing academy, Angelo's School of Arms, in Carlisle House, London in 1763. There, he taught the aristocracy the fashionable art of swordsmanship, his school was run by three generations of his family and dominated the art of European fencing for a century. He established the essential rules of posture and footwork that still govern modern sport fencing, although his attacking and parrying methods were still much different from current practice. Although he intended to prepare his students for real combat, he was the first fencing master to emphasize the health and sporting benefits of fencing more than its use as a killing art in his influential book L'École des armes, published in 1763. Basic conventions were collated and set down during the 1880s by the French fencing master Camille Prévost.

It was during this time that many recognised fencing associations began to appear in different parts of the world, such as the Amateur Fencers League of America was founded in 1891, the Amateur Fencing Association of Great Britain in 1902, the Fédération Nationale des Sociétés d’Escrime et Salles d’Armes de France in 1906. The first regularized fencing competition was held at the inaugural Grand Military Tournament and Assault at Arms in 1880, held at the Royal Agricultural Hall, in Islington in June; the Tournament featured a series of competitions between army soldiers. Each bout was fought for five hits and the foils were pointed with black to aid the judges; the Amateur Gymnastic & Fencing Association drew up an official set of fencing regulations in 1896. Fencing was part of the Olympic Games in the summer of 1896. Sabre events have been held at every Summer Olympics. Starting with épée in 1933, side judges were replaced by the Laurent-Pagan electrical scoring apparatus, with an audible tone and a red or green light indicating when a touch landed.

Foil was automated in 1956, sabre in 1988. The scoring box reduced the bias in judging, permitted more accurate scoring of faster actions, lighter touches, more touches to the back and flank than before. There are three weapons in modern fencing: foil, épée, sabre; each weapon has its own strategies. Equipment needed includes at least 2 swords, a lamé, a white jacket, underarm protector, two body and mask cords, knee high socks and knickers; the foil is a light thrusting weapon with a maximum weight of 500 grams. The foil targets the torso, but not the legs; the foil has a small circular hand guard. As the hand is not a valid target in foil, this is for safety. Touches are scored only with the tip.

Francis Dunlop was an American jazz drummer. Dunlop, born in Buffalo, New York, grew up in a musical family and began playing guitar at age nine and drums at ten, he received some classical education in percussion. He toured with Big Jay McNeely and recorded with Moe Koffman in 1950 before serving in the Army during the Korean War. After his discharge he played with Sonny Stitt, Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins, Maynard Ferguson, Lena Horne, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk. In his life he recorded with Lionel Hampton, Earl Hines, Ray Crawford, Joe Zawinul. In 1984, Dunlop retired, his brother, Boyd Lee Dunlop, was a jazz pianist, "rediscovered" while living at a nursing home in Buffalo. He was profiled in a New York Times article in December, 2011. With Maynard Ferguson A Message from Birdland Swingin' My Way Through College Maynard Ferguson Plays Jazz for Dancing Maynard'64 With Lionel Hampton Alive & Jumping Lionel Hampton and His Band Live at The Muzeval Lionel Hampton and His Jazz Giants 77 Aurex Jazz Festival'81 Outrageous With Thelonious Monk Monk in France Monk's Dream Criss Cross Thelonious Monk in Italy Miles & Monk at Newport Thelonious Monk in Europe Vol. 1 Thelonious Monk in Europe Vol. 2 Thelonious Monk in Europe Vol. 3 Big Band and Quartet in Concert Misterioso Two Hours with Thelonious Monk in Tokyo Always Know Blue Monk Blues Five Spot Live! at The Village Gate Live in Stockholm 1961 With others Mose Allison, Swingin' Machine Bill Barron, The Tenor Stylings of Bill Barron Richard Davis, The Philosophy of the Spiritual Herman Foster, Have You Heard Herman Foster Dodo Greene, Ain't What You Do Melba Liston, Melba Liston and Her'Bones Billy Mackel, At Last Charles Mingus, Tijuana Moods Martin Mull, Normal Sonny Rollins, Alfie Wilbur Ware, The Chicago Sound Randy Weston, Highlife Leo Wright, Soul Talk Joe Zawinul, To You with Love Frankie Dunlop at Allmusic Leonard Feather and Ira Gitler, The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz.

Oxford, 1999, p. 196

Lapot is the mythical practice of senicide in Serbia: killing one's parents, or other elderly family members, once they become a financial burden on the family. According to T. R. Georgevitch, writing in 1918 about the eastern highlands of Serbia, in the region of Zaječar, the killing was carried out with an axe or stick, the entire village was invited to attend. In some places corn mush was put on the head of the victim to make it seem as if the corn, not the family, was the killer. Georgevitch suggests that this legend may have originated in tales surrounding the Roman occupation of local forts; the Romans... were bellicose people. Their leader ordered all the holders of the fort up to forty years of age to be active fighters, from forty to fifty to be guards of the fort, after fifty to be killed, because they have no military value. Since that period the old men were killed. Anthropologist Senka Kovač, in a study on aging, mentions that the name "lapot" is given to this custom of killing the elderly in eastern Serbia.

In a study published in 1999, Bojan Jovanović argues that earlier anthropologists such as Trojanović, Čajkanović had confused myth with reality and that the well-known story of a grandson who had hidden his grandfather to protect him from lapot after a bad harvest, bringing him back to the village when the old man's wisdom had shown a way to survive, was the basis for establishing that the old should be respected for their knowledge and wise counsel. The tradition was the topic of the 1972 TV docudrama Legenda o Lapotu by Goran Paskaljević, in which after a bad harvest, an elderly man who can no longer work is ritually slain; the 1992 novel Lapot by Živojin Pavlović received the NIN Prize. In 2004, Italian news agency ANSA reported from Belgrade that an attempt by the Serbian government to introduce a law restricting free dispensing of life saving medicines to the over 60s had been described by the Serb media as a case of "lapot". Ubasute Euthanasia Senicide Killing of Old Men, a collection of folktales about senicide