The Khuriya Muriya Islands are a group of five islands in the Arabian Sea, 40 km off the southeastern coast of the Sultanate of Oman. The islands form part of the province of Shalim and the Hallaniyat Islands in the governorate of Dhofar. In antiquity the islands were called the Zenobiou Islands or Doliche; the islands were mentioned by several early writers including Ptolemy who numbered them as seven small islands lying in Khuriya Muriya Bay, towards the entrance of the "Persian Gulf". In 1854 the sultan of Muscat presented the islands to Queen Victoria as a gift and responsibility for the islands was granted to the Bombay government in British India. There was some concern at the time that the deed of cession was null since the sultan had no rights over the archipelago; the Red Sea and India Telegraph Company, formed in 1858, intended to use one of the islands as a base for a telegraph connection between Aden and Karachi but the project was abandoned in 1861 after sections of the cable failed.

A group of Liverpool entrepreneurs were granted monopoly rights to harvest the abundant guano deposits, but after having met resistance from the local inhabitants who considered that resource theirs, questions in the British parliament about the advisability of granting monopoly rights to anyone, the mining was abandoned after some 200,000 tons had been extracted between 1855 and 1860. During that period, the archipelago presented a busy scene, with up to 52 ships present on one occasion; when Colonel Miles visited the archipelago in 1883, less than 40 inhabitants lived on Al-Hallaniyah, the main island. The islanders lived in huts of unmortared stone with mat roofs, at certain seasons they moved to caves, they lived on fish and goat's milk exchanging dried fish for dates and rice from passing ships. They fished with hooks since they had neither boat nor nets. In 1886, the islands were attached administratively to Aden. Due to their remoteness, the lack of anchorages and the fact that the inhabitants continued to consider themselves subjects of the Sultan of Muscat, the islands remained un-administered and, for decades, were only sporadically visited by British officials.

While technically part of Aden Colony, the islands, because of their remoteness and inaccessibly, were left to the supervision of the British Resident in the Persian Gulf. As a British possession until 1967, they were administered by the Governor of Aden until 1953 by the British High Commissioner until 1963, by the British Chief Political Resident of the Persian Gulf. On 30 November 1967, Lord Caradon, the British Ambassador to the United Nations, announced that in accordance with the wishes of the local inhabitants, the islands would be returned to Muscat and Oman, despite criticism from President Qahtan Muhammad al-Shaabi that the islands should be transferred to the People's Republic of South Yemen; the boundary between the two countries was not formally settled until 1995 when it was agreed that the islands were on Oman's side of the line. Al-Hallaniyah Masirah Island Talbert, Richard. Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World. P. 4. ISBN 0-691-03169-X; this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Smith, William, ed..

"article name needed". Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. London: John Murray. Mackintosh-Smith, Tim: Travels with a Tangerine: A Journey in the Footnotes of Ibn Battutah "Kuria Muria Islands". Encyclopædia Britannica. 1911. WorldStatesmen - Oman Hazlitt, Classical Gazetteer, "Zenobii ins." Hazlitt, Classical Gazetteer, "Doliche" Nautical Information

Malcolm Douglas Lyon known as Dar Lyon was an English first-class cricketer who played for Somerset County Cricket Club through the 1920s. He was a right-handed top order batsman known for his beautiful driving who captained and kept wicket for the county, he became a politician, a magistrate, colonial administrator and judge in various British colonies. He was Chief Justice of the Seychelles from 1948 to 1957. Born in Caterham, Surrey, on 22 April 1898, Lyon was educated at Rugby School, he enjoyed a lot of success in school cricket, playing in the school XI for three years, captaining the side in his final year. He finished his schooling in the middle of the First World War, was called up for service in the British Army, he served in the ranks of the Royal Field Artillery, but was commissioned as an officer, with the rank of second lieutenant, on 20 February 1917. He was wounded in action during the war. After demobilisation in 1919, Lyon chose to continue his studies at Cambridge. During his first year, he only played one first-class match for the university, against the Marylebone Cricket Club at Lord's, failed to get a'blue'.

His first-class debut however, came earlier than this, when he turned out for Somerset against Cambridge University Cricket Club at the end of May 1920. In the following match, a County Championship tie against Worcestershire, Lyon scored his maiden first-class century, hitting 115 in 135 minutes. During his second year, Lyon got his'blue', appearing in seven first-class matches for Cambridge University before keeping wicket for a strong Cambridge side during the University Match against Oxford University Cricket Club. In a reversal from the previous year, he played for Cambridge University against his Somerset team-mates, he once again kept wicket for a victorious Cambridge side against Oxford the following year. While at Cambridge he was a member of Footlights, president from 1921–23. Lyon was described in his Wisden obituary as being "considered by many to be among the best batsmen who never gained a cap for England". An amateur, he passed 1,000 runs in the 1923 season, was selected to play for the Gentlemen in July of the same year.

He scored 120 in the match. The following season, he was selected to play for'The Rest' against England, in a three-day Test Trial match. Lyon recorded scores of 32 and 3, took a catch in both innings during a three wicket loss. Lyon was the only member of the team not to go on to represent England at Test cricket. Fellow Somerset batsman Jack MacBryan wasn't impressed, saying of his friend, "Dar is a grand chap and a fine cricketer. Don't know what the Test selectors were thinking about." In the season, he hit his highest total in first-class cricket as he made 219 against Derbyshire. He once again represented the Gentlemen, but after scoring 11 in the first innings, was out for a duck in the second. Lyon only made six appearances in the County Championship during the 1925 season, the highlight being a century during the 93 run loss to Warwickshire; the following summer of 1926 was among the last in which Lyon played a significant number of games for Somerset, as he spent more and more time on his legal career, with his 20 appearances yielding 1062 runs.

In a match against the touring Australians, Lyon showed the England selectors what they were missing out on. He played Clarrie Grimmett with little regard for the wrist-spinner's reputation and struck 136 runs in an innings total of only 245 for Somerset, he finished the summer on a high with a further century coming in the final match against Yorkshire. Recognition did come in the form of a call-up for the Marylebone Cricket Club in May 1927, with Lyon making a half-century against Surrey, followed by a century against the New Zealanders. Sporadic performances in the late 1920s and early 1930s were highlighted by centuries against Essex and Surrey; when he was appointed to Gambia in 1932, Lyon's first-class cricket career was all but ended. A further appearance in 1935 against Middlesex resulted in a pair, he returned to Somerset in 1938, played his final season for the county. In 1923 Lyon took up farming in Suffolk. In 1925, he was called to the bar, practising in London, he stood as Liberal party candidate for Bury St Edmunds at the 1929 general election, finishing second.

He was appointed a magistrate in Gambia in 1932. On 9 June 1933 he was appointed to both the Executive and Legislative Councils of Gambia as one of the official advisors of the governor, he was appointed a resident magistrate in Tanganyika, where he served until 1938. With the outbreak of the Second World War, Lyon was again commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Royal Artillery on 28 December 1939, he served as a Deputy Assistant Adjutant-General at the War Office until 1941, when he was given command of a light anti-aircraft artillery regiment. After the war he moved to Kenya, where he was appointed a Resident Magistrate in 1945, he next became Chief Justice of the Seychelles in 1948, serving until 1957 when he was appointed a puisne judge of the Ugandan High Court. In July 1954 a petition signed by a number of leading residents of the Seychelles, asking that Lyon not be appointed for a third term, making various allegations about his conduct, was sent to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Alan Lennox-Boyd in London.

Lennox-Boyd decided there was no case to answer, but the petition caused considerable debate in the House of Commons in July and August 1956. Lyon served in Uganda until 1961, when he retired to the United K

Grace Rogers Cooper was a Smithsonian Institution curator, U. S. textile expert and vexillogist, known for her seminal work Thirteen-Star Flags: Keys to Identification, published in 1973, which exposed a number of "antique" flags as modern replicas. Born in Sharon, she received her bachelor of science degree in 1946 from the University of Maryland, majoring in textiles. After postgraduate work in history and writing, Grace began a long career with the Smithsonian Institution working with textiles. Grace served as curator of the division of textiles from 1948 to 1976, was responsible for many exhibitions on textile history, including the 1964 opening show at the Smithsonian's new Museum of History and Technology. In addition to Thirteen-Star Flags, Cooper authored the 1968 work The Invention of the Sewing Machine, revised and expanded as The Sewing Machine: Its Invention and Development in 1976. Appendix VII, "A Brief History of Cotton Thread," is of particular interest to those who study antique flags.

Cooper joined the North American Vexillological Association in 1979, serving as treasurer from 1980 to 1983 and president from 1983 to 1986. She was first woman to serve in that position. Cooper served as editor of the Association's newsletter, NAVA News, from 1987–1995; the Association honored her with its Whitney Smith Award, for an outstanding contribution to North American vexillology, in 1994. Cooper, Grace R. Thirteen-star Flags: Keys to Identification. Washington, D. C: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1973. Cooper, Grace R; the Invention of the Sewing Machine. Washington, D. C: Smithsonian Institution, 1968. Second edition 1976. ISBN 9780874743302 Cooper, Grace R; the Copp Family Textiles. Washington D. C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1971. Cooper, Grace R; the Scholfield Wool-Carding Machines. Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1959. Works by Grace Rogers Cooper at Project Gutenberg

EuroBasket 2011 was the 37th men's European Basketball Championship, held by FIBA Europe. The competition was hosted by Lithuania; this was the second time EuroBasket had been held in Lithuania, the country having hosted the 1939 championship. FIBA Europe asserted that Lithuania managed to organize the best European championship in its history; the top two teams are guaranteed spots at the 2012 Summer Olympics. EuroBasket 2011 was the largest sporting event in the history of the Baltic states, both in terms of the number of national teams and that of spectators Spain won the title for the second consecutive tournament, after defeating France, by a score of 98–85 in the final. Spain's Juan Carlos Navarro was the tournament's MVP; the group matches were played in four arenas, namely Alytus Arena, Šiauliai Arena, Cido Arena in Panevėžys and an arena in Klaipėda. The second stage matches were played at the Siemens Arena in the capital Vilnius and the playoffs at the new Žalgiris Arena in Kaunas. All tickets were sold for matches in which Lithuania played in a matter of several hours after the start of sale.

Other tickets were sold out in advance for all venues except for Alytus. However the Organizing Committee's policy of selling tickets as a 3-game package meant that in some cases the sold-out arenas were not full as some fans would choose to go to only some of the games their ticket entitled them to; this policy was altered in Panevėžys where there were separate tickets for the games Lithuania played. 20,000 foreign visitors went to Lithuania for the championship. 135,000 local fans visited the arenas. 120,000 people watched EuroBasket 2011 matches in special fan zones that were constructed beside every arena with a large screen and outdoor seating available. Among the foreign teams the Georgian, Slovenian and Latvian national teams had the most fans travelling from their home countries. Georgians had certain city squares decorated in their flags in both Vilnius. Several famous people and heads of states went to championship; this included the president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili, Foreign Minister of Russia Sergey Lavrov and prince of Spain Felipe.

It was first decided that 16 teams would participate in EuroBasket 2011, however FIBA Europe decided on 5 September 2010, in a meeting in Istanbul, that there would be 24 teams in the tournament, after the Qualifying Round was concluded. Lithuania automatically received a place as the hosts, nine other countries that competed in the 2010 FIBA World Championship received a place, 12 Countries were determined through qualifying matches played in August 2010, two more qualifiers were decided in an additional qualifying tournament that took place in August 2011. All but one of the 15 countries that participated in the Qualifying Round qualified for the final tournament; each team consisted of 12 players. Only 1 among the 12 could be a naturalised foreign player, who could not have been in the national team of another nation; some of the teams had players that traced their ancestry to the teams they represent and were allowed to play for that team, such as Germany and Israel. Other teams naturalised players participating in their country's league system, among them Spain, Bulgaria and Poland.

Montenegro and Macedonia each naturalised US-born players who had never played in their league system, but had played in neighbouring Serbia Omar Cook and Bo McCalebb. Other naturalised players moved to their current countries in their youth, with a notable example being Great Britain's Luol Deng, who fled the Sudanese Civil War with his family as a child. Lithuania, Serbia and Finland are notable exceptions, with all of their players having been born in Lithuania, Portugal and Finland respectively. Another exception was Latvia playing without foreign players. Turkey had Enes Kanter, born to Turkish parents in Switzerland as well as Emir Preldzic, born in Zenica and Herzegovina and had played on the national team of Slovenia in the Olympic Qualifying Tournament in 2008 and Slovenian youth national teams; some of the Eastern European national teams, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, were composed or from players playing abroad. This was true for countries that have good basketball players but no powerful clubs or leagues to match that.

On the other hand, for countries with strong leagues, such as Italy, the National teams were composed of players playing in the local league. The same was true for countries weak in basketball as their players are unable to get into strong foreign leagues. Portugal could be an example here. Many NBA players represented their national teams, with the Spanish team having 6 NBA stars, the French team having 5, the Turkish team having 4, so on, it was one of the strongest European basketball competition organized as a lot of European stars helped their nations. The draw ceremony held on 30 January 2011 in the Lithuanian National Drama Theatre, divided the qualified teams into four groups of six, groups A, B, C, D; the hosts of the evening were Vytautas Rumšas. The balls were drawn by retired basketball

The Addington Railway Workshops was a major railway facility established in the Christchurch suburb of Addington in May 1880 by the New Zealand Railways Department. The workshops closed in 1990. Addington Railway Workshops were opened in 1877-8 to overhaul and construct railway equipment, to assemble locomotives being imported from England. In 1889, the workshops were responsible for building the first locomotive to be built by NZR, W 192 and continued to build locomotives up to the early 1920s; as well as railway work, Addington undertook contract work such as the manufacture of gold dredge components. During the 1920s, Addington was re-geared to manufacture and overhaul rolling stock, although it continued to carry out limited overhauls on steam locomotives and the EC and EO class electric locomotives. Limited locomotive construction resumed in 1962 with the construction of the DSC class centre-cab shunting locomotives. Addington assembled the Mitsubishi DSA and DSB class diesel-hydraulic shunting locomotives in 1967-8 and four of the five Toshiba DSJ class centre-cab shunters in 1984.

Due to the rationalisation of the New Zealand Railways Corporation following deregulation in 1987, Addington Workshops closed on 14 December 1990. The site was cleared with the exception of the former water down; the remainder of the site was sold to Ngāi Tahu for redevelopment as a shopping centre, named Tower Junction after the former workshops water tower. The Addington Water Tower is registered with Heritage New Zealand as a Category I heritage building, registration number 5390. Addington Workshops built NZR's first locomotive, W 192. Locomotive building ceased in the 1960s with the DSC class, although four DSJ class locomotives were assembled from imported kitsets in the early 1980s. A AB B BA DSC DSJ ED FA U W WA WAB WF X List of Christchurch railway stations#Addington New Zealand Railways Department Addington Railway Workshops: Working with Wood by Keith G. Brown (2009, New Zealand Railway and Locomotive Society, ISBN 978-0-908573-86-8 Railways of New Zealand - Addington A new engine at the Addington Workshops Photo of Wood Wagon Workshop c1934

Kit Lang is a Canadian actor. Kit Lang was born as Christopher William Lang in Montreal, Quebec, He was raised in the nearby small towns of Hudson and Port Hope, Ontario traveling in between provinces to spend time with his separated parents. In 2001, Lang began his professional career studying drama at Vanier College in Montreal, where he presented at various stage plays during the festival seasons. After two years of training, Lang relocated to Toronto and devoted his time to honing his acting skills at various prestigious institutions under the guidance of reputable acting teachers such as Tom Todoroff/Palmerston Theatre. Having developing his craft, using voice and the Alexander technique both in Shakespearean and modern roles, Lang has showcased in lead performances on stage and in recorded media national and internationally. In theatre, Lang had his stage debut in the'oldest and proudest Toronto theatrical company’. Toronto Star. In an Alumnae Theatre production of Girls Do Brunch at the ‘New Ideas Festival’.

At Alumnae Theatre, Lang was cast in a stage version of Moonlight and Valentino as Valentino, a character based on Rudolph Valentino the 1920s silent film star. In 2006 Lang worked From the Beyond, alongside Eric Peterson and Saul Rubinek, it was around this time Lang became a professional working actor and joined the union guilds for performing artists ACTRA and the Canadian Actors' Equity Association. Other notable stage performances in Lang’s portfolio included award-winning plays Angels in America, Tarantella, A Lonely Impulse of Delight and the British production of Crazy Gary's Mobile Disco; the latter was featured at the 2009 London and Hamilton Fringe Festivals. In film, Lang played the role of Dutch in the award-winning film entitled Gangsters Exchange; the film featured at multiple prominent film festivals internationally Beverly Hills Film Festival, The European Independent Film Festival, Seattle True Independent Film Festival, the New York Film Festival. Gangsters Exchange won multiple awards including: Best Film Award at the Mississauga Independent Film Festival, Best Foreign Film at the 2009 Action On Film International Film Festival, a New York Film Festival Award.

Further credits in films include: The Night Writer, The Blue Knight and Little Red Riding Hood. Trigger premiered at the prestigious Cannes International Film Festival and was in the official selection for Big Bear Lake International Film Festival, Trimedia Film Festival and the Moving Images Film Festival. Since premiering, Trigger is set to release in European cable. Both The Blue Knight and Little Red Riding Hood premiered at the historic Tribeca Cinemas in New York City in March 2010, an event sponsored by the St. Jude Children’s Hospital. In television, Lang has held key performing roles on Canada’s CBC Television’s Gemini Award winning show The Morgan Waters Show, Comedy Central’s Worst Speeches of All Time and in Citytv's Gemini Award-winning drama series Murdoch Mysteries, among others. In the summer of 2010, Lang starred in two feature films shot in New York City, a drama entitled Memoir for Almanac Studios directed by Samuel Gonzalez and a horror film entitled Siodmak for Deviant Children Productions directed by Nicholas Ortiz, Mr. Lang plays leading roles in both.

The films are in post production, Siodmak is set to release late 2011 and Memoir is set to release early 2012. Kit Lang Kit Lang on IMDb