Larissa is the capital and largest city of the Thessaly region in Greece. It is the fourth-most populous city in Greece with a population of 144,651 according to the 2011 census, it is capital of the Larissa regional unit. It is a principal agricultural centre and a national transport hub, linked by road and rail with the port of Volos, the cities of Thessaloniki and Athens; the municipality of Larissa has 162,591 inhabitants, while the regional unit of Larissa reached a population of 284,325. Legend has it. Hippocrates, the "Father of Medicine", died here. Today, Larissa is an important commercial, transportation and industrial centre of Greece. There are a number of highways including E75 and the main railway from Athens to Thessaloniki crossing through Thessaly; the region is directly linked to the rest of Europe through the International Airport of Central Greece located in Nea Anchialos a short distance from Larissa. Larissa lies on the river Pineios; the municipality Larissa has an area of 335.98 km2, the municipal unit Larissa has an area of 122.586 km2, the community Larissa has an area of 88.167 km2.

The Larissa Chasma, a deep gash in the surface of Dione, a natural satellite of Saturn, was named after Larissa. The climate of Larissa is semi-arid in the cool version but it is close to a hot summer Mediterranean climate; the winter is mild, some snowstorms may occur. The summer is hot, temperatures of 40 °C may occur. Thunderstorms or heavy rain may cause agricultural damage. Larissa receives 413 mm of rain per year. According to Greek mythology it is said that the city was founded by Acrisius, killed accidentally by his grandson, Perseus. There lived Peleus, the hero beloved by the gods, his son Achilles. In mythology, the nymph Larissa was a daughter of the primordial man Pelasgus; the city of Larissa is mentioned in Book II of Iliad by Homer: Hippothous led the tribes of Pelasgian spearsmen, who dwelt in fertile Larissa- Hippothous, Pylaeus of the race of Mars, two sons of the Pelasgian Lethus, son of Teutamus. In this paragraph, Homer shows that the Pelasgians, Trojan allies, used to live in the city of Larissa.

It is that this city of Larissa was different to the city, the birthplace of Achilles. The Larissa that features as a Trojan ally in the Iliad was to be located in the Troad, on the other side of the Aegean Sea. Traces of Paleolithic human settlement have been recovered from the area, but it was peripheral to areas of advanced culture; the area around Larissa was fruitful. The name Larissa is in origin a Pelasgian word for "fortress". There were many ancient Greek cities with this name; the name of Thessalian Larissa is first recorded in connection with the aristocratic Aleuadai family. It was a polis. Larissa was a polis during the Classical Era. Larissa is thought to be where the famous Greek physician Hippocrates and the famous philosopher Gorgias of Leontini died; when Larissa ceased minting the federal coins it shared with other Thessalian towns and adopted its own coinage in the late 5th century BC, it chose local types for its coins. The obverse depicted the nymph of the local spring, for whom the town was named.

The reverse depicted a horse in various poses. The horse was an appropriate symbol of Thessaly, a land of plains, well known for its horses. There is a male figure. Larissa, sometimes written Larisa on ancient coins and inscriptions, is near the site of the Homeric Argissa, it appears in early times, when Thessaly was governed by a few aristocratic families, as an important city under the rule of the Aleuadae, whose authority extended over the whole district of Pelasgiotis. This powerful family possessed for many generations before 369 BC the privilege of furnishing the tagus, the local term for the strategos of the combined Thessalian forces; the principal rivals of the Aleuadae were the Scopadae of Crannon, the remains of which are about 14 miles south west. Larissa was the birthplace of Meno, who thus became, along with Xenophon and a few others, one of the generals leading several thousands Greeks from various places, in the ill-fated expedition of 401 meant to help Cyrus the Younger, son of Darius II, king of Persia, overthrow his elder brother Artaxerxes II and take over the throne of Persia.

The constitution of the town was democratic, which explains why it sided with Athens in the Peloponnesian War. In the neighbourhood of Larissa was celebrated a festival which recalled the Roman Saturnalia, at which the slaves were waited on by their masters; as the chief city of ancient Thessaly, Larissa was taken by the Thebans and directly annexed by Philip II of Macedon in 344. It remained under Macedonian control afterwards, except for a brief period when Deme

The Lions of Al-Rassan is a work of historical fantasy novel by Canadian writer Guy Gavriel Kay. It is set in a peninsula of the same world in which The Sarantine Mosaic and The Last Light of the Sun are set, is based on Moorish Spain; the novel concentrates on the relationships between the three peoples: the Kindath, the Asharites, the Jaddites, although the religions of the Kindath and Jaddites, as described in the novel, bear no relation to Judaism and Christianity. The three protagonists in the novel are from each of these three races and religions: Jehane bet Ishak, a Kindath physician in Fezana. Like most of Kay's novels, this contains a large amount of religious strife. At the opening of the novel, the peninsula of Al-Rassan is split between three Jaddite kingdoms in the north and Asharite kingdoms in the south, of which Cartada and Ragosa figure most prominently in the story. After centuries of being dominated by the Asharites, the Jaddite kingdoms are regaining their strength, while the once-powerful khalifate of Al-Rassan is divided and vulnerable.

In Fezana, a city in the north of Al-Rassan close to the borderlands with Valledo, Jehane unwittingly prevents one of her patients, a merchant named Husari ibn Musa, from being executed by Asharite King Almalik of Cartada during a purge of Fezana's leading citizens. By giving Husari shelter when the danger is revealed, Jehane puts her own life in danger; as a result, she flees Fezana at the same time that the Jaddite commander Rodrigo Belmonte of Valledo and his company have come to Al-Rassan for their parias gold - regular tribute given to the Jaddite kingdoms. A different group of Valledans, led by the brother of the powerful constable of Valledo, brutally attack a village outside the walls of Fezana. Rodrigo steps in to halt the slaughter of the villagers, leading to the eventual death of the brother; as a result, Rodrigo is exiled by King Ramiro. Rodrigo and Jehane make their way to the court of King Badir. Almalik set up the purge in Fezana to be blamed on his longtime courtier Ammar ibn Khairan.

Ammar assassinates the father. The new king Almalik II exiles Ammar from Cartada and Ammar travels to Ragosa. Rodrigo and Jehane are brought together in the court of King Badir, where Ammar and Rodrigo are hired as mercenaries, Jehane as a physician, they form a close connection. Jehane develops feeling for Ammar but sees her relationship with Rodrigo to be that of friends; the admiration of the two men for each other is obvious, as they are the'best' each nation has to offer. However the shelter and stability they find in the wealthy and worldly city of Ragosa is threatened by events occurring far beyond the city walls; the Jaddites begin a holy war against the Asharite kingdom of Ammuz and the Kindath city of Soriyya, in a rough parallel to the Crusades. Clerics from Ferrieres urge the kings of the Jaddite kingdoms of Esperaňa to launch their own wars of reconquest against their Asharite neighbours. To the south of Al-Rassan, in the Majriti Desert lands, the Muwardis, who practice a stricter version of the Asharite religion, are impelled to intervene in the affairs of Al-Rassan, as much to repel the Jaddites as to cleanse the Asharite lands of their luxury-loving leaders.

Both the Jaddites and the Asharites exhibit violent outbreaks against the Kindath. Jehane's father, the famed physician Ishak ben Yonannon and her mother, are rescued by Rodrigo just as a violent mob in Fezana storm the Kindath quarter with the intent of massacring its residents. Ishak performs an astonishing operation on Diego, the young son of Rodrigo, savagely assaulted by the Muwardi; the deep loyalties of Rodrigo Belmonte and Ammar ibn Khairan to Valledo and Cartada mean that their eventual conflict becomes inevitable. The two meet on the battlefield, each at the head of opposing armies; the two commanders duel and one is killed. The story concludes with an afterword set some years in the future, which reveals firstly that the Jaddite kingdoms have recaptured Al-Rassan and the identity of the victor of the duel; the interplay between bigotry and tolerance is a major theme of the novel. The stories of the main characters are interwoven in such a way that each is responsible for saving the lives of persons who are loved by the others.

The surgery to save Diego Belmonte is seen as a key event: "In this scene, the son of a Jaddite warleader is saved through an Asharite's warning and a Kindath's medical skill. The possibility of cooperation between people of different faith is glimpsed as an ideal that leads to the miraculous, in this case an extraordinary act of surgery, it is in the Epilogue, in the Kindath city of Sorenica, rebuilt after its destruction by Jaddites at the outset of their holy war, where the possibilities of co-existence are realized. The uses and misuses of religion for political ends are demonstrated in the novel, with rulers and clergy using religion to manipulate the people and their leaders into desired courses of action; the definition of civilization and the search for the attributes of a civilized society in a hard divided world is another

Shijian 11-01 is a Chinese technology demonstration satellite, launched in November 2009. It was built by the Aerospace Dongfanghong Satellite Company, is being operated by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation. Shijian 11-01 was launched from the SLS-2 pad of Launch Area 4 at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre, atop a Long March 2C carrier rocket. Liftoff occurred at 02:45 GMT on 12 November 2009; the satellite separated into an orbit with an apogee of 699.9 kilometres, a perigee of 690.5 kilometres, 98.3° inclination. It has the International Designator 2009-061A. In total, eight satellites of the Shijian 11 series were launched between 2011 and 2014, they may form a missile warning or SIGINT constellation