Irish round towers are early medieval stone towers of a type found in Ireland, with two in Scotland and one on the Isle of Man. As their name Cloigtheach indicates, they were bell towers, though they may have been used for additional purposes. Found in the vicinity of a church or monastery, the door of the tower faces the west doorway of the church. In this way, it has been possible to determine without excavation the approximate site of lost churches, where the tower still exists. Surviving towers range in height from 18 metres to 40 metres, 12 metres to 18 metres in circumference; the masonry differs according to date, the earliest examples being uncut rubble, while the ones are of neatly joined stonework. The lower portion is solid masonry with a single door raised two to three metres above accessible only by a ladder. Within, in some, are two or more floors of wood, it is thought that there were ladders in between; the windows, which are high up, are slits in the stone. The cap, is of stone conical in shape, although some of the towers are now crowned by a circle of battlements.
The main reason for the entrance-way being built above ground level was to maintain the structural integrity of the building rather than for defence. The towers were built with little foundation; the tower at Monasterboice has an underground foundation of only sixty centimetres. Building the door at ground level would weaken the tower; the buildings still stand today because their round shape is gale-resistant and the section of the tower underneath the entrance is packed with soil and stones. The distance from the ground to the raised doorway is somewhat greater than that from the first floor to the second. Excavations in the 1990s, revealing postholes, confirm. However, the use of ladders prior to the construction of such steps cannot be ruled out; the towers were built between the 9th and 12th centuries. In Ireland about 120 examples are thought once to have existed. There are three examples outside Ireland. Two are in eastern Scotland: the Brechin Round Tower and the Abernethy Round Tower, the other is in Peel Castle on St. Patrick's Isle, now linked to the Isle of Man.
Famous examples are to be found at Devenish Island, Glendalough, while that at Clondalkin is the only Round Tower in Ireland to still retain its original cap. With five towers each, County Mayo, County Kilkenny and County Kildare have the most. Mayo's round towers are at Aughagower, Killala and Turlough, while Kildare's are located at Kildare Cathedral, at Castledermot, Oughter Ard and Old Kilcullen; the only known round tower with a hexagonal base is at Kinneigh in County Cork, built in 1014. The round tower at Ardmore, County Waterford, believed to be the latest built in Ireland, has the unique feature of three string courses around the exterior; the purpose of the towers has been somewhat unclear until recent times. A popular hypothesis in the past was that the towers were a redoubt against raiders such as Vikings. If a lookout posted in the tower spotted a Viking force, the local population would enter, using a ladder which could be raised from within; the towers would be used to store other plunderables.
However, there are many problems with this hypothesis. Many towers are built in positions which are not ideal to survey the surrounding countryside and would not work efficiently as watchtowers for incoming attacks. In addition, the doors to these towers would have been wooden and therefore burned down. Furthermore, due to the chimney-like design of the towers, the smoke from the burning door would have been carried upwards inside the tower causing any occupants to suffocate. Indeed, the round towers at Dysert O'Dea and Aghagower show evidence of fire damage around the doorway. There are records of people being burned to death in round towers. Therefore, it is more that the primary reason for the round tower was - as the name cloigtheach indicates - to act as a belfry; the Irish word for round tower, cloigtheach meaning bellhouse indicates this, as noted by George Petrie in 1845. The Irish language has evolved over the last millennium. Dinneen notes the alternate pronunciations and cuilceach for cloigtheach.
The pronounced cloichtheach means stone-house or stone-building. The round tower seems to be the only significant stone building in Ireland before the advent of the Normans in AD 1169-71. UCD Professor of Archaeology Tadhg O'Keeffe has suggested that the towers were high-status royal chapels, citing how two of them were scenes of regicide, he suggested that the windows were arranged clockwise to imitate the order of relic-carrying procession from the elevated door to the top. Daniel O'Connell's tomb at Glasnevin Cemetery had a round tower built above it after his burial in 1847. At what is now the Irish National Heritage Park at Ferrycarrig in County Wexford, there is a 19th-century copy of a round tower, it was erected to the memory of the Wexford men. At St. Ita's Hospital in Portrane, County Dublin, there is a replica round tower built in 1844 as a memorial to George Hampden Evans by his wife. In the
The Honorable Faustine Villanneau Chebou Kamdem Fotso born on June 12, 1989, is a computer scientist and lawyer from Cameroon. In 2012, Fotso was 1st Deputy Mayor of a town in Western Cameroon. In 2013, she was elected MP in the National Parliament Assembly, representing the highlands of the Western Region, she sits on the Constitutional Laws Committee and belongs to the Cameroon People's Democratic Movement. Fotso wrote the publication "Environmental Impact Study in French and Cameroonian Law" in 2009 as part of the Masters Program of International and Environmental Law at the University of Limoges. Fotso is the founder of the charitable association "Flame of Love, of Peace and Justice" that had its inaugural meeting on September 20, 2016. On May 20, 2016, Fotso was awarded the civilian medal to the rank of the officer of the order of value at the 44th National Day of Unity in Baham. Fotso is married to Lucas Fotso, regional director for the Cameroon electric company Aes Sonel Littoral. Together they have five children
Blessed Giovanna Scopelli was an Italian Roman Catholic from Reggio Emilia, a religious from the Carmelites and established her own convent as its first prioress. Scopelli was forbidden to enter the third order branch of that order during her adolescence and waited until her parents died to embrace the religious life. Scopelli was beatified on 24 August 1771 under Pope Clement XIV when the latter approved her local'cultus' – otherwise known as popular devotion – and thus ratified her beatification, she was titled before this as a Servant of God in 1500 when the canonization cause commenced under Pope Alexander VI. Giovanna Scopelli was born in 1428 in Reggio Emilia to Simone and Caterina Scopelli. From her childhood she felt a strong attraction to the religious life though her parents disapproved of this vocation and forbade her to pursue it. Scopelli submitted to this and so led her austere and pious life at home until the death of her parents around 1480, when she decided to form the Carmelite convent of Santa Maria del Popolo while in the process becoming one.
Before she founded this a widow offered to collaborate with her and the former's two daughters and the four lived together in a makeshift convent – a small house – from 1480 until 1484. She bought the church of Saint Bernard in 1485 with the aid of the Bishop Filippo Zoboli. Scopelli became the new convent's first prioress, she refused all gifts – and urged her fellow religious to do the same thing – unless such gifts were given as alms with no conditions attached. In 1487 a priest was assigned to them as their confessor; the nuns became known as "The White Nuns". Scopelli died in mid-1491 and her remains were interred in the gardens of the convent, were found to be incorrupt following their exhumation in 1492, her convent was suppressed in 1797 and her remains moved as a result in 1803. The beatification process commenced under Pope Alexander VI in 1500, when she became titled as a Servant of God and a tribunal was commissioned in order to collect testimonies; the cause reactivated with a diocesan process, inaugurated in 1767 and concluded its business in 1770.
The process culminated on 24 August 1771 when her beatification received the formal approval of Pope Clement XIV who deemed that there was an enduring local'cultus' – otherwise known as popular and longstanding veneration – to the late Scopelli. Saints SQPN
Louis Vallario known as "Big Louie" and "Big Lou", is a member of the Gambino crime family, a top aide to boss John Gotti and Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano in the late 1980s. Vallario was born in New York to first-generation immigrants from Italy; as a child, Vallario was friends with future Gambino mobster John Gotti. During the 1970s, Vallario joined the Gravano crew of the Gambino family in the Bensonhurst and Red Hook sections of Brooklyn. Vallario's illegal activities included loansharking, illegal gambling and labor racketeering. Vallario was a close criminal associate of Frank Fappiano, Edward Garafola, Thomas Carbonaro, Joseph D'Angelo; when Gravano became a government witness, he refused to testify against Vallario. In 1986, Gotti took over the Gambino family. Gravano became consigliere and Vallario took over Gravano's crew. Vallario became one of Gotti's top aides. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Vallario became a prominent figure in the construction industry and enjoyed major influence over the New York City labor unions.
In 1991, dozens of members of the family were indicted and sent to prison on Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act charges, such as racketeering, loansharking, illegal gambling and murder for hire. Gravano turned state's evidence, as Gotti and Consigliere Frank "Frankie Loc" LoCascio were sentenced to life imprisonment in 1992, the same time as Vallario was charged with racketeering. In 1996, Vallario was promoted to the Gambino "Ruling Panel" with mobsters Steven "Stevie Coogan" Grammauta and Michael "Mikey Scars" DiLeonardo, John "Jackie Nose" D'Amico and Peter Gotti. John Gotti created the panel to assist his son John "Junior" Gotti, as acting boss. Vallario sat on the panel until 2002. In April 2001, Vallario was indicted in a corruption case against officials of Service Employees International Union Local 32B-32J. Prosecutors charged. Vallario was sentenced to three years probation. In 2002, Vallario was indicted for murder, loansharking and illegal gambling. On April 23, 2004, Vallario pleaded guilty to the 1989 Weiss murder.
A recycling executive and former city editor of the Staten Island Advance, Weiss was involved with the Gambino family in an illegal landfill scheme. Boss John Gotti ordered Vallario to kill Weiss because Gotti feared Weiss might become a government witness. Vallario shot Weiss to death outside Weiss's home on Staten Island. Vallario was sentenced to 13 years in federal prison; as of December 2011, Vallario is incarcerated in the Fort Dix Federal Correctional Institution in Fort Dix, New Jersey. On October 15, 2013, he was released from prison. Capeci and Gene Mustain. Gotti: Rise and Fall. New York: Onyx, 1996. ISBN 0-451-40681-8 Capeci, Jerry; the Complete Idiot's Guide to the Mafia. Indianapolis: Alpha Books, 2002. ISBN 0-02-864225-2 Davis, John H. Mafia Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the Gambino Crime Family. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. ISBN 0-06-109184-7 Raab, Selwyn. Five Families: The Rise and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires. New York: St. Martin Press, 2005. ISBN 0-312-30094-8 New York Times: Using an Informer, U.
S. Agents Charge 45 in Mafia Crimes By ALAN FEUER
John M. Darby was an American botanist and academic, he created the first systematic catalogue of flora in the southeastern United States. Darby was born in North Adams, Massachusetts in 1804. At the age of ten, his father died, he was apprenticed to a fuller. At the age of 23, he entered Williams College, graduating with an Artium Magister degree from that institution in 1831. After graduation, he was an instructor at Williamstown Academy, at Barhamville Seminary in Columbia, South Carolina. In 1841, he published the first compilation of the botany of the southern United States in his A manual of botany, a companion work to Amos Eaton's Manual of Botany for the Northern States, he was named professor of natural sciences at Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia in 1842. In 1845, Darby returned to Williams College as Professor of Mathematics, but returned South a year to teach again at Barhamville. In 1848, he became principal of the Sigourney Institute in Culloden, Georgia, a school he helped found.
In 1855, he became president and professor of natural science of the Auburn Masonic Female College—today Auburn High School—in Auburn, Alabama. While at Auburn, he expanded his A manual of botany to the more comprehensive Botany of the Southern States, published a textbook on chemistry. In addition, he began producing and selling a patent medicine disinfectant known as "Darby's Prophylactic Fluid", which gained wide use throughout the Southeast. In 1856, he helped found East Alabama Male College in Auburn, today Auburn University; when the East Alabama College opened in 1859, he was appointed professor of natural science at that school, a position he held concurrently with his position at the Auburn Female College. Darby remained professor at Auburn until 1869, when he was elected president of Kentucky Wesleyan College in Millersburg, Kentucky. In 1875, he resigned that position and moved to New York, New York, where he died in 1877. List of Auburn University people
Ovčara was a Serbian transit camp for Croatian prisoners during the Croatian War of Independence, from October to December 1991, the location of the Ovčara massacre. Ovčara is located 5 kilometers southeast of the city of Vukovar, it is a desolate stretch of land where the Vukovar agricultural conglomerate built cattle-raising facilities after World War II. These facilities are storage hangars, which are fenced and can be guarded; the hangars have a big sliding front door, which includes a small door. The Serbian forces turned Ovčara into a prison camp in early October 1991. Aside from the massacre, 3,000 to 4,000 men prisoners were temporarily held in the camp before being transported to the prison in Sremska Mitrovica or to the local army barracks, the transit point for the Serbian detention camps Stajićevo and others; some of the Serb forces were led by Željko Ražnatović "Arkan" who directed much of the pillaging and murder that occurred in Vukovar during and after the siege. At the end of the battle of Vukovar and in the prelude to the Vukovar hospital massacre, numerous men were brought to Ovčara, including wounded patients, hospital staff and some of their family members, former defenders of Vukovar, Croatian political activists and other civilians.
One member of the group standing trial in Belgrade for the executions testified that "among the prisoners, there were quite a number of civilians and wounded persons with bandaged wounds and casts", including a pregnant woman. Several witnesses at the trial, former JNA soldiers confirmed there were civilians present at Ovčara; the archive of the City Government of Vukovar has some testimonies of Ovčara prisoners. When they came out of the buses, they had to run between two rows of Serbian soldiers and other forces, who beat them with rifle butts and other blunt weapons; the beatings continued in the hangars. Ovčara was closed on December 25, 1991, its total count was 64 missing prisoners. On November 18, 1991, the day when the battle of Vukovar ended, the Serbian forces captured the Vukovar hospital, they gathered the wounded fighters and hospital staff, put them in buses and transported them to Ovčara. The prisoners were brought together, executed by firearms, thrown in a trench and covered by earth.
The Ovčara mass grave lies northeast from the facilities, one kilometer from the Ovčara-Grabovo road. It belongs to the category of the mass graves with the remains of prisoners of war and civilians executed in the immediate vicinity or at the place of the grave