Józef Klemens Piłsudski was a Polish statesman who served as the Chief of State and First Marshal of Poland. He was considered the de facto leader of the Second Polish Republic as the Minister of Military Affairs. After World War I, he held great power in Polish politics and was a distinguished figure on the international scene, he is viewed as a father of the Second Polish Republic re-established in 1918, 123 years after the final Partition of Poland by Austria and Russia in 1795. Seeing himself as a descendant of the culture and traditions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Piłsudski believed in a multi-ethnic Poland—"a home of nations" including indigenous ethnic and religious minorities he hoped would establish a robust union with the independent states of Lithuania and Ukraine, his principal political antagonist, Roman Dmowski, leader of the National Democrat party, by contrast, called for a Poland limited to the pre-Partitions Polish Crown and based on a homogeneous ethnically Polish population and Roman Catholic identity.

Early in his political career, Piłsudski became a leader of the Polish Socialist Party. Believing Poland's independence would be won militarily, he formed the Polish Legions. In 1914, he predicted a new major war would defeat the Central Powers. After World War I began in 1914, Piłsudski's Legions fought alongside Austria-Hungary against Russia. In 1917, with Imperialist Russia faring poorly in the war, he withdrew his support for the Central Powers, was imprisoned in Magdeburg by the Germans. From November 1918, when Poland regained its independence, until 1922, Piłsudski was Poland's Chief of State. In 1919 -- 21 he commanded Polish forces in six border wars. On the verge of defeat in the Polish–Soviet War his forces, in the August 1920 Battle of Warsaw, threw back the invading Soviet Russians. In 1923, with the government dominated by his opponents, in particular the National Democrats, Piłsudski retired from active politics. Three years he returned to power in the May 1926 coup d'état and became Poland's strongman.

From on until his death in 1935, he concerned himself with military and foreign affairs. It was during this period that he developed a cult of personality that has survived into the 21st century. In international affairs, Piłsudski pursued two complementary strategies meant to secure Poland's independence and enhance national security: "Prometheism", aimed at achieving the disintegration of Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union into their constituent nations. Historian Piotr Wandycz characterizes Piłsudski as "an ardent Polish patriot who on occasion would castigate the Poles for their stupidity, cowardice, or servility, he described himself as a Polish-Lithuanian, was stubborn and reserved, loath to show his emotions." Some aspects of Piłsudski's administration, such as establishing Bereza Kartuska prison, remain controversial. Yet, he is highly-esteemed in Polish memory, is regarded, together with his chief antagonist Roman Dmowski, as a founder of the modern independent Poland, he was born 5 December 1867 at their manor near the village of Zułów.

At the time of his birth, the village was part of the Russian Empire... and had been since 1795. Before that, it was in the territory of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. After World War I, they became part of Poland again, were in Poland at the time Piłsudski became Prime Minister of that country. During World War 2, the village became part of the USSR; as of 2020, they are in the Švenčionys District Municipality in Lithuania. The estate was part of the dowry brought by his mother, Maria, a member of the wealthy Billewicz family; the Piłsudski family, although pauperized, cherished Polish patriotic traditions, are characterized either as Polish or as Polonized-Lithuanian. Józef was the second son born to the family. Józef, during the time he attended the Russian gymnasium in Wilno, was not an especially-diligent student. One of the younger Polish students at this gymnasium was the future Russian communist leader Feliks Dzierżyński, who would become Piłsudski's arch-enemy. Along with his brothers Bronisław, Adam and Jan, Józef was introduced by his mother Maria, née Billewicz, to Polish history and literature, which were suppressed by the Russian authorities.

His father named Józef, fought in the January 1863 Uprising against Russian rule of Poland. The family resented the Russian government's Russification policies. Young Józef profoundly disliked having to attend Russian Orthodox Church service and left school with an aversion not only for the Russian Tsar and the Russian Empire, but for the culture, which he knew well. In 1885 Piłsudski started medical studies at Kharkov University, where he became involved with Narodnaya Volya, part of the Russian Narodniki revolutionary movement. In 1886, he was suspended for participating in student demonstrations, he was rejected by the University of Dorpat, whose authorities had been informed of his political affiliation. On 22 March 1887, he was arrested by Tsarist authorities on a charge of plotting with Vilnius socialists to assassinate Tsar Alexander III. In fact, Piłsudski's main connection to the plot was the involvement of his elder brother Bronisław, sentenced to fifteen years of hard labor in eastern Siberia.

Józef received a milder sentence: five years' exile in Siberia, first at Kirensk on th

The Flag Officer Portsmouth was created following changes in the naval shore command organisation in the United Kingdom in July 1969. This role assumed some of the former duties of Commander-in-Chief and Admiral-superintendent, Portsmouth with one area commander the Flag Officer Portsmouth Area. First established in May 1971 until July that year when the title was altered to Flag Officer, Spithead; this office was revived again in August 1975 when the former post of Flag Officer Spithead was abolished. The office existed until October 1996. On 14 October 1968 it was announced in the House Commons debate on the Ministry of Defence discussing part of the changes in the Naval Shore Command Organisation in the United Kingdom, the duties of Area Flag Officer for the Portsmouth Area and Admiral-Superintendent Portsmouth will be carried out by one Flag Officer. In July 1969 the HQ of the C-in-C Portsmouth until that post, together with that of C-in-C Plymouth, were subsumed into the post of C in C Naval Home Command based in Portsmouth.

The two former C-in-C posts were re-graded as Area Flag Officers and a third area flag officer was created the Flag Officer Medway in charge of Medway Area Command. Flag Officer Portsmouth was responsible for the direction of Portsmouth area command, it was an local area command, enlarged into a wider regional command. This office holder reported to Naval Home Command. Included: Rear-Admiral Peter G. La Niece, May 1971 – July 1971Post is renamed Flag Officer Spithead. Rear-Admiral E. James W. Flower, August 1975 – October 1976 Rear-Admiral Wilfrid J. Graham, October 1976 – January 1979 Rear-Admiral Paul E. Bass, January 1979–January 1981 Rear-Admiral Anthony S. Tippet, January 1981 – September 1983 Rear-Admiral John C. Warsop, September 1983 – November 1985 Rear-Admiral Anthony Wheatley, November 1985 – November 1987 Rear-Admiral Kenneth J. Eaton, November 1987 – July 1989 Rear-Admiral Jonathan J. R. Tod, July 1989 – September 1990 Rear-Admiral David K. Bawtree, September 1990 – October 1993 Rear-Admiral Neil E. Rankin, 12 October 1993 – October 1996

The Batrachia are a clade of amphibians that includes frogs and salamanders, but not caecilians nor the extinct allocaudates. The name Batrachia was first used by French zoologist Pierre André Latreille in 1800 to refer to frogs, but has more been defined in a phylogenetic sense as a node-based taxon that includes the last common ancestor of frogs and salamanders and all of its descendants; the idea that frogs and salamanders are more related to each other than either is to caecilians is supported by morphological and molecular evidence, they are for instance the only vertebrates able to raise and lower their eyes, but an alternative hypothesis exists in which salamanders and caecilians are each other's closest relatives as part of a clade called the Procera, with frogs positioned as the sister taxon of this group. The earliest batrachians are the stem-frogs Triadobatrachus and Czatkobatrachus from the Early Triassic, about 250 million years ago. However, several molecular clock estimates place the first appearance of the Batrachia before the Early Triassic.

Most estimates place the divergence in the Permian but some put it as far back as 367 million years ago in the Late Devonian. However, there is no evidence of lissamphibians or lissamphibian-like animals in the fossil record at this time; the tetrapod groups that are hypothesized as ancestors of modern amphibians appear in the Late Carboniferous 300 million years ago. Large fossil tetrapod assemblages are known from the Artinskian stage of the Early Permian about 275 million years ago and contain no lissamphibians, suggesting that the Early Permian may be an upper bound for the age of Batrachia