The history of North Korea began at the end of World War II in 1945. The surrender of Japan led to the division of Korea at the 38th parallel, with the Soviet Union occupying the north, the United States occupying the south; the Soviet Union and the United States failed to agree on a way to unify the country, in 1948 they established two separate governments – the Soviet-aligned Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the Western-aligned Republic of Korea – each claiming to be the legitimate government of all of Korea. In 1950 the Korean War broke out. After much destruction, the war ended with a stalemate; the division at the 38th parallel was replaced by the Korean Demilitarized Zone. Tension between the two sides continued. Out of the rubble North Korea built an industrialized command economy. Kim Il-sung led North Korea until his death in 1994, he developed a pervasive personality cult and steered the country on an independent course in accordance with the principle of Juche. However, with natural disasters and the collapse of the Soviet Bloc in 1991, North Korea went into a severe economic crisis.

Kim Il-sung's son, Kim Jong-il, succeeded him, was in turn succeeded by his son, Kim Jong-un. Amid international alarm, North Korea developed nuclear missiles. In 2018, Kim Jong-un made a sudden peace overture towards the United States. From 1910 to the end of World War II in 1945, Korea was under Japanese rule. Most Koreans were peasants engaged in subsistence farming. In the 1930s, Japan developed mines, hydro-electric dams, steel mills, manufacturing plants in northern Korea and neighboring Manchuria; the Korean industrial working class expanded and many Koreans went to work in Manchuria. As a result, 65% of Korea's heavy industry was located in the north, due to the rugged terrain, only 37% of its agriculture. A Korean guerrilla movement emerged in the mountainous interior and in Manchuria, harassing the Japanese imperial authorities. One of the most prominent guerrilla leaders was the Communist Kim Il-sung. Northern Korea had little exposure to Western ideas. One partial exception was the penetration of religion.

Since the arrival of missionaries in the late nineteenth century, the northwest of Korea, Pyongyang in particular, had been a stronghold of Christianity. As a result, Pyongyang was called the "Jerusalem of the East". At the Tehran Conference in November 1943 and the Yalta Conference in February 1945, the Soviet Union promised to join its allies in the Pacific War within three months of victory in Europe. On August 8, 1945, after three months to the day, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan. Soviet troops advanced and the US government became anxious that they would occupy the whole of Korea. On August 10, the US government decided to propose the 38th parallel as the dividing line between a Soviet occupation zone in the north and a US occupation zone in the south; the parallel was chosen. To the surprise of the Americans, the Soviet Union accepted the division; the agreement was incorporated into General Order No. 1 for the surrender of Japan. The division placed sixteen million Koreans in the American zone and nine million in the Soviet zone.

Soviet forces began amphibious landings in Korea by August 14 and took over the northeast, on August 16 they landed at Wonsan. On August 24, the Red Army reached Pyongyang. US forces did not arrive in the south until September 8. During August, People's Committees sprang up across Korea, affiliated with the Committee for the Preparation of Korean Independence, which in September founded the People's Republic of Korea; when Soviet troops entered Pyongyang, they found a local People's Committee established there, led by veteran Christian nationalist Cho Man-sik. Unlike their American counterparts, the Soviet authorities recognized and worked with the People's Committees. By some accounts, Cho Man-sik was the Soviet government's first choice to lead North Korea. On September 19, Kim Il-sung and 66 other Korean Red Army officers arrived in Wonsan, they had fought the Japanese in Manchuria in the 1930s but had lived in the USSR and trained in the Red Army since 1941. On October 14, Soviet authorities introduced Kim to the North Korean public as a guerrilla hero.

In December 1945, at the Moscow Conference, the Soviet Union agreed to a US proposal for a trusteeship over Korea for up to five years in the lead-up to independence. Most Koreans demanded independence but Kim and the other Communists supported the trusteeship under pressure from the Soviet government. Cho Man-sik opposed the proposal at a public meeting on January 4, 1946, disappeared into house arrest. On February 8, 1946, the People's Committees were reorganized as Interim People's Committees dominated by Communists; the new regime instituted popular policies of land redistribution, industry nationalization, labor law reform, equality for women. Meanwhile, existing Communist groups were reconstituted as a party under Kim Il-sung's leadership. On December 18, 1945, local Communist Party committees were combined into the North Korean Communist Party. In August 1946, this party merged with the New People's Party to form the Workers' Party of North Korea. In December, a popular front led by the Workers' Party dominated elections in the North.

In 1949, the Workers' Party of North Korea merged with its southern counterpart to become the Workers' Party of Korea with Kim as party chairman. Kim established the Korean People's Army aligned with the Communists, formed from a cadre of guerrillas and former soldiers who had gained combat experience in battles against the Japanese and Nationalist Chinese troops. From their ranks, using Soviet advisers and equipment, Kim con

The Hour of the Dragon known as Conan the Conqueror, is a fantasy novel by American writer Robert E. Howard featuring his sword and sorcery hero Conan the Cimmerian, it was one of the last Conan stories published before Howard's suicide, although not the last to be written. The novel was first published in serial form in the December, 1935 through April, 1936 issues of the pulp magazine Weird Tales; the first book edition was published by Gnome Press in hardcover in 1950. The Gnome Press edition retitled the story Conan the Conqueror, a title retained by all subsequent editions until 1977, when the original title was restored in an edition issued published by Berkley/Putnam in 1977; the Berkley edition reverted the text to that of its original Weird Tales publication, discarding edits. Editions have followed Berkley and published under the original title; the 1997 film Kull the Conqueror is loosely based on The Hour of the Dragon, replacing Conan with Kull but otherwise keeping the same basic plot.

The plot is a loosely based on a melange of motifs from previous Conan short stories, most notably "The Scarlet Citadel", with which its early chapters shares an identical storyline: Conan and placed in a monster-infested dungeon, finds an unexpected ally and escapes. Meanwhile, the population of the Aquilonian capital, believing him dead, riots and is ready to accept an alternative King. From here the two diverge: The Scarlet Citadel, a short story, ends with Conan coming back when the rioting just started and making short work of his foes; the book begins when Conan is about forty-two, during his reign as the King of Aquilonia, deals with a plot by a group of conspirators to depose him in favor of Valerius, heir to Conan's predecessor Numedides, whom he had slain to gain the throne. To accomplish this they resort to necromancy, resurrecting Xaltotun, an ancient sorcerer from the forgotten empire of Acheron. With his aid, the Aquilonian army occupied. Conan, captured, is slated for execution until a sympathetic slave girl, risks her life to free him.

Conan's quest to retrieve the Heart of Ahriman in order to defeat the wizard and regain his throne takes him through all the kingdoms of the Hyboria Age. After his eventual triumph, he vows to make Zenobia his queen, it was Howard's only full-length novel about Conan, is considered by many to be one of his best works. It was written for British publisher Dennis Archer and was submitted to them in May 1934. Archer had made the suggestion of a novel. However, the publisher went bankrupt before the novel could be printed and it was held by the Official Receiver; the story was first published as a five-part serial in Weird Tales between the months of December 1935 to April 1936. It was first published in book form in hardcover by Gnome Press in 1950 under the title Conan the Conqueror, a title retained by all editions until 1977; the first paperback edition was published by Ace Books in 1954. The novel has been reissued a number of times since by various publishers, notably Lancer Books in 1967 and Berkley/Putnam in 1977.

Donald M. Grant, Inc. published an edition in 1989, with illustrations by Ezra Tucker, as volume XI of their deluxe Conan set. More the novel appeared in the collections The Essential Conan, Conan Chronicles Volume 2: The Hour of the Dragon and Conan of Cimmeria: Volume Two, it has been translated into Japanese, Finnish, German, Czech, Russian and Spanish. In the hardcover Gnome Press edition of the Conan stories, Conan the Conqueror follows the short stories collected as King Conan. In both editions it precedes the Björn Nyberg/L. Sprague de Camp novel The Return of Conan. Reviewing the Gnome Press edition, Groff Conklin found the novel to have "real merit" considered as an imaginative work, but characterized Howard's writing as "only average laden with bombast", he recommended the book to "those who like to lean back and read with their minds closed". L. Sprague de Camp, acknowledging that Howard was "an almost-very-good writer... with limiting quirks," praised the novel as "a sanguinary combination of sorcery and swordplay."

In 1974, the story was adapted by Roy Thomas, Gil Kane and John Buscema in Marvel Comic's Giant-Size Conan #1-4 and Savage Sword of Conan #8, 10. The lead story in Giant-Size Conan #1 was a 25-page chapter from The Hour of the Dragon; the plan was to adapt the novel over the first six issues, but Giant-Size Conan #4 was the last full color chapter. The story was concluded in the black & white magazine Savage Sword of Conan #8 and #10. A number of amateur audiobook editions exist, including one narrated by Morgan Saletta released as part of SF Audio's Second Book Challenge. There is an eight and half hour professional commercial reading available under the title of The Bloody Crown of Conan; the 1997 film Kull the Conqueror is loosely based on The Hour of the Dragon, replacing Conan with Kull but keeping the b

The City of Medicine Lake is a city in Hennepin County, United States. The population was 371 at the 2010 census; the city is located on a peninsula. "Medicine Lake Park" was developed as part of Plymouth, Minnesota by Jacob Barge around 1887. He sold lots to "city folks" to build cabins to get away from the "bustle" of city life; the City of Medicine Lake became an independent municipality in 1944. That year, residents voted to separate from Plymouth, Minnesota though Plymouth surrounds the city geographically; the move toward separation was spearheaded by Mr. Les Johantgen, Mr. Charles Brudigan and Mr. Ernest Ertl, among others. Residents held a meeting on April 1944, to discuss separation from Plymouth; the first referendum on this separation was duly recorded on April 24th of the same year. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 0.33 square miles, of which 0.18 square miles is land and 0.15 square miles is water. The city is surrounded by the city of Plymouth, forms a peninsula stretching into the lake that it is named after.

The 45th Parallel passes directly through the City of Medicine Lake, as well as through Medicine Lake. Minnesota State Highway 55 is 0.5 mile from the community. As of the census of 2010, there were 371 people, 160 households, 104 families residing in the city; the population density was 2,061.1 inhabitants per square mile. There were 174 housing units at an average density of 966.7 per square mile. The racial makeup of the city was 89.8% White, 4.3% African American, 1.3% Native American, 2.2% Asian, 2.4% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.3% of the population. There were 160 households of which 23.8% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 51.9% were married couples living together, 7.5% had a female householder with no husband present, 5.6% had a male householder with no wife present, 35.0% were non-families. 28.1% of all households were made up of individuals and 8.2% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.32 and the average family size was 2.88.

The median age in the city was 47.7 years. 21.6% of residents were under the age of 18. The gender makeup of the city was 47.7 % female. As of the census of 2000, there were 368 people, 159 households, 94 families residing in the city; the population density was 2,133.1 persons per square mile. There were 170 housing units at an average density of 985.4 per square mile. The racial makeup of the city was 95.38% White, 0.54% African American, 2.45% Asian, 1.63% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.36% of the population. 23.9% were of German, 14.0% Norwegian, 13.7% Swedish, 6.4% Dutch, 6.1% English and 5.1% Polish ancestry. There were 159 households out of which 25.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 54.1% were married couples living together, 3.8% had a female householder with no husband present, 40.3% were non-families. 32.7% of all households were made up of individuals and 6.3% had someone living alone, 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.31 and the average family size was 3.02.

In the city, the population was spread out with 20.9% under the age of 18, 6.3% from 18 to 24, 29.9% from 25 to 44, 32.3% from 45 to 64, 10.6% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 41 years. For every 100 females, there were 103.3 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 104.9 males. The median income for a household in the city was $70,750, the median income for a family was $100,382. Males had a median income of $51,250 versus $37,125 for females; the per capita income for the city was $45,942. None of the families and 1.1% of the population were living below the poverty line, including no under eighteens and none of those over 64. Medicine Lake is part of the Wayzata Public Schools. Students can attend public schools in other school districts chosen by their families under Minnesota's open enrollment statute. Wayzata Public Schools has set attendance boundaries so that children living in the City of Medicine Lake attend the following progression of schools: Sunset Hill Elementary School Wayzata East Middle School Wayzata High SchoolWayzata High School is operated by the Wayzata School District, has 3500 students in grades 9 to 12, making it the largest secondary school by enrollment in Minnesota.

Projected enrollment for the 2012-2013 School Year is 3617. It is the largest Minnesota secondary school by structural size, with an interior of 487,000 square feet; the school is part of the Lake Conference. In 2008, Newsweek ranked the school #940 "List of the 1300 Top High Schools in America." Terry Gilliam – American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. His family moved to Medicine Lake soon after Gilliam was born in Minneapolis in 1940. City of Medicine Lake website U. S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Medicine Lake, Minnesota Medicine Lake Sailing Club

The history of Arab Christians spans from the earliest adoption of Christianity by Arab tribes during the time of the Late Roman Empire to their modern history in Arab societies. The earliest Arab Christians belong to the pre-Islamic period. There were many Arab tribes; these included the Nabateans and the Ghassanids, who were of Qahtani origin and spoke Yemeni Arabic as well as Greek. These tribes received subsidies and protected the south-eastern frontiers of the Roman and Byzantine Empires in north Arabia. However, a number of minority Christian sects were persecuted as heretic under Roman and Byzantine rules; the tribes of Tayy, Abd Al-Qais, Taghlib were known to have included a large number of Christians prior to Islam. The southern Arabian city of Najran was a center of Arab Christianity. Letters exist in Syriac that record the persecution of believers by the king of Yemen in the 6th century, when the latter had adopted Judaism. Cosmas Indicopleustes records the launch of a punitive expedition from Ethiopia in response.

The leader of the Arabs of Najran during the period of persecution, Al-Harith, was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church as St. Aretas. No literature has been preserved in Arabic from this period; the rise of Islam led to large areas of the Near East coming under the rule of Muslim Arabs. This resulted in substantial Christian populations coming under Islamic rule; the invasions were seen by the occupied as more like a large-scale raid with tribute being paid. The Arabs saw things in these terms themselves. Christians who were persecuted as heretics began to enjoy more religious freedom under initial Arab Muslim occupation than they had under Roman and Byzantine rule. Christians continued to write in Greek, Syriac or Coptic. However, over time as conversions occurred, there was a need for works in Arabic; the first to write in Arabic was Severus Ibn al-Muqaffa. As "People of the Book", Christians in the region are accorded certain rights by theoretical Islamic law to practice their religion free from interference or persecution.

However it was conditional to pay a special amount of money by non-Muslims called "Jizyah". This could be paid in form of either cash or goods a wealth of animals, in exchange for their safety and freedom of worship. In practice, things were less clear, the obligation was seen as levied on a community rather than individuals. At times this was used by Muslims to oppress Christians. At the same time, non-Muslims were not allowed to be involved in the army. In the 9th century, Islamic rulers had Christian or Jewish physicians, such as Hunain Ibn Ishaq; the History of the Patriarchs of the Coptic Church of Alexandria contains lengthy eye-witness accounts of how Christians in Egypt were treated under various Islamic rulers. Arab Christians still do. Many of Arab literature's most noted poets were Arab Christians, many Arab Christians were physicians, government officials, men of letters. Twice a Stranger by Bruce Clark. Publisher: Granta Books # ISBN 1-86207-924-2, # ISBN 978-1-86207-924-3 has limited information on Assyrian Christians.

Not Even My Name: A True Story by Thea Halo. Publisher: Picador. Ed edition ISBN 0-312-27701-6, ISBN 978-0-312-27701-7 A History of the Modern Middle East by William L. Cleveland. # Publisher: Westview Press. Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company ISBN 0-395-98067-4, ISBN 978-0-395-98067-5 Arab-Christian Heritage Arab World Studies Notebook The Arab Christians: From the Eastern Question to the Recent Political Situation of the Minorities The Arab Christians of the Middle East: A Demographic Perspective

Amor d'un'ombra e gelosia d'un'aura known as Narciso, is an opera in three acts composed by Domenico Scarlatti to a libretto by Carlo Sigismondo Capece. It premiered in Rome in January 1714 at the private theatre of Maria Casimira of Poland who had commissioned the work; the libretto is based on two fables from Ovid's Metamorphoses: Echo and Narcissus and Cephalus and Procris. Queen Maria Casimira had taken up residence in Rome in 1699 following the death of her husband Jan III Sobieski and her subsequent exile from Poland. Once in Rome she became an active figure the city's musical life. In 1709, Domenico Scarlatti succeeded his father Alessandro as her court composer, his librettist, Carlo Capece, was her private court poet. Amor d'un'ombra e gelosia d'un'aura premiered at Maria Casimira's private theatre in the Palazzo Zuccari in January 1714 and proved to be the last of the several operas which Scarlatti had composed for her. Five months after the premiere, she departed for France. In addition to Scarlatti's opera, the 1714 Carnival opera season in Rome saw the premieres of Caldara's Tito e Berenice and Gasparini's Lucio Papirio.

These two were the result of a competition set by Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, a prominent patron of the arts in Rome. Two rival academies, the Accademia degli Arcadi and the Accademia dei Quirini, were each to sponsor an opera to be performed in the newly renovated Teatro Capranica. Ottoboni would give a generous gift to the academy. According to a French correspondent at the time, Tito e Berenice had less success with the audiences than Lucio Papirio, but the best opera presented that season was Amor d'un'ombra e gelosia d'un'aura. A revised version of the opera with the addition of two arias and two duets composed by Thomas Roseingrave opened at the Haymarket Theatre in London on 30 May 1720 under the title Narciso. Roseingrave published the overture and arias of the opera, the only vocal music of Scarlatti, printed in his lifetime. Capece's original libretto was adapted for the London performance by Paolo Antonio Rolli who eliminated the role of Nicandro. While the cast for the Rome premiere is unknown, the principal roles in the London performance were taken by Margherita Durastanti, Anastasia Robinson, Benedetto Baldassari, Ann Turner Robinson.

The Haymarket Theatre Narciso proved to be the last time one of Scarlatti's operas was performed in his lifetime. The discovery of a copy of the manuscript score in the library of Friedrich Chrysander led to several late 20th and early 21st century revivals. A version using the voices of opera singers but with the characters portrayed on stage by marionettes was produced in 2002 at the Besançon International Music Festival. Notes Sources Boyd, Malcolm. "Nova Scarlattiana". The Musical Times, Vol. 126, No. 1712, pp. 589–593. Retrieved 23 February 2014. Capece, Carlo Sigismondo. Amor d'un'ombra e Gelosia d'un'aura. Antonio de' Rossi Franchi and Sartori, Orietta. Drammaturgia romana, Vol. 2. Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura. ISBN 8887114064 Kirkpatrick, Ralph. Domenico Scarlatti. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691027080

John Horace Ragnar Colvin, CMG was a British sailor, intelligence officer and military historian. The Colvin family had a long history of service to Queen and country, both in the military and administration. John Horace Ragnar Colvin was the son of Admiral Sir Ragnar Colvin. Relatives included Walter Mytton and Auckland lieutenant-governor of the North-West Provinces and Oudh. Brenda Colvin was an important landscape architect, author of standard works in the field and a force behind its professionalisation. Sidney Colvin was a critic and great friend of Robert Louis Stevenson. Colvin married twice, his first marriage was to Anne Manifold in 1948, which ended in 1963. His second was to Moranna Cazenove in 1967; each marriage produced a son and a daughter.. His former wife Anne married Admiral Sir Anthony Synnot, a senior officer in the Royal Australian Navy, became Lady Synnot. One of Colvin's children was an Australian journalist. Mark wrote of his father's career in his Shadow: Memoirs of a Spy's Son.

He was educated at the Royal Naval College and passed into the Royal Navy in the early part of the Second World War. During the War, he served in the Far East. Among other exploits, he joined combined operations in Colombo, served behind Japanese lines in Vietnam, he emerged from undercover work to accept the surrender of the Japanese command in Saigon on Japan's capitulation, remained in the South Vietnamese capital for a year. After leaving the Royal Navy with the rank of lieutenant commander, Colvin studied at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies in London and joined the Secret Intelligence Service, he was posted to a number of Cold War hotspots including Oslo and Kuala Lumpur. His most high-profile postings, were Consul-General in Hanoi from 1966–67 at the height of the American bombing campaign in the Vietnam War, where he was succeeded by Brian Stewart, he was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1968 following his return from Hanoi. On retirement from SIS, Colvin advised David Rockefeller for eight years in Hong Kong as a vice-president of the Chase Manhattan Bank.

He retired to London in 1988. Colvin wrote military history, his best-selling works were Not Ordinary Men, which examined the Battle of Kohima, Decisive Battles, which looked at twenty crucial battles throughout history. He published a memoir of his time in Hanoi and Ulan Bator called Twice Around the World. Colvin was an active member of several of London's gentlemen's clubs, the St James's Club, Brooks's, the Beefsteak, as well as, the Academy Club. Twice Around the World: Some Memoirs of Diplomatic Life in North Vietnam and Outer Mongolia. London: Leo Cooper, 1991. ISBN 0850522897 OCLC 27727233 Not Ordinary Men: The Story of the Battle of Kohima. London: L. Cooper, 1994. Reprinted. Volcano Under Snow: Vo Nguyen Giap. London: Quartet Books, 1996. ISBN 0704371006 OCLC 34626596 Nomonhan. London: Quartet Books, 1999. ISBN 070437112X OCLC 41605113 Decisive Battles: Over 20 Key Naval and Military Encounters from 480 BC to 1943. London: Headline, 2003. ISBN 0755310705 OCLC 56464280 von Bulow, Claus, "John Colvin".

The Independent, 16 October 2003. "John Colvin". Telegraph, 8 October 2003. "http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article1167380.ece" Times Online, 8 October 2003