Luigi Pirandello was an Italian dramatist, novelist and short story writer whose greatest contributions were his plays. He was awarded the 1934 Nobel Prize in Literature for "his magical power to turn psychological analysis into good theatre." Pirandello's works include novels, hundreds of short stories, about 40 plays, some of which are written in Sicilian. Pirandello's tragic farces are seen as forerunners of the Theatre of the Absurd. Pirandello was born into an upper-class family in the village of u Càvusu, a poor suburb of Girgenti, his father, belonged to a wealthy family involved in the sulphur industry, his mother, Caterina Ricci Gramitto, was of a well-to-do background, descending from a family of the bourgeois professional class of Agrigento. Both families, the Pirandellos and the Ricci Gramittos, were ferociously anti-Bourbon and participated in the struggle for unification and democracy. Stefano participated in the famous Expedition of the Thousand following Garibaldi all the way to the battle of Aspromonte, Caterina, who had hardly reached the age of thirteen, was forced to accompany her father to Malta, where he had been sent into exile by the Bourbon monarchy.

But the open participation in the Garibaldian cause and the strong sense of idealism of those early years were transformed, above all in Caterina, into an angry and bitter disappointment with the new reality created by the unification. Pirandello would assimilate this sense of betrayal and resentment and express it in several of his poems and in his novel The Old and the Young, it is probable that this climate of disillusion inculcated in the young Luigi the sense of disproportion between ideals and reality, recognizable in his essay on humorism. Pirandello received his elementary education at home, but was much more fascinated by the fables and legends, somewhere between popular and magic, that his elderly servant Maria Stella used to recount to him than by anything scholastic or academic. By the age of twelve, he had written his first tragedy. At the insistence of his father, he was registered at a technical school, but switched to the study of the humanities at the ginnasio, something which had always attracted him.

In 1880, the Pirandello family moved to Palermo. It was here, in the capital of Sicily, he began reading omnivorously, above all, on 19th-century Italian poets such as Giosuè Carducci and Arturo Graf. He started writing his first poems and fell in love with his cousin Lina. During this period, the first signs of serious contrast between Luigi and his father began to develop; as a reaction to the ever-increasing distrust and disharmony that Luigi was developing toward his father, a man of a robust physique and crude manners, his attachment to his mother would continue growing to the point of profound veneration. This expressed itself, after her death, in the moving pages of the novella Colloqui con i personaggi in 1915, his romantic feelings for his cousin looked upon with disfavour, were taken seriously by Lina's family. They demanded that Luigi abandon his studies and dedicate himself to the sulphur business so that he could marry her. In 1886, during a vacation from school, Luigi went to visit the sulphur mines of Porto Empedocle and started working with his father.

This experience was essential to him and would provide the basis for such stories as Il Fumo, Ciàula scopre la Luna as well as some of the descriptions and background in the novel The Old and the Young. The marriage, which seemed imminent, was postponed. Pirandello registered at the University of Palermo in the departments of Law and of Letters; the campus at Palermo, above all the Department of Law, was the centre in those years of the vast movement which would evolve into the Fasci Siciliani. Although Pirandello was not an active member of this movement, he had close ties of friendship with its leading ideologists: Rosario Garibaldi Bosco, Enrico La Loggia, Giuseppe De Felice Giuffrida and Francesco De Luca. In 1887, having definitively chosen the Department of Letters, he moved to Rome in order to continue his studies, but the encounter with the city, centre of the struggle for unification to which the families of his parents had participated with generous enthusiasm, was disappointing and nothing close to what he had expected.

"When I arrived in Rome it was raining hard, it was night time and I felt like my heart was being crushed, but I laughed like a man in the throes of desperation."Pirandello, an sensitive moralist had a chance to see for himself the irreducible decadence of the so-called heroes of the Risorgimento in the person of his uncle Rocco, now a greying and exhausted functionary of the prefecture who provided him with temporary lodgings in Rome. The "desperate laugh", the only manifestation of revenge for the disappointment undergone, inspired the bitter verses of his first collection of poems, Mal Giocondo, but not all was negative. "Oh the dramatic theatre! I will conquer it. I cannot enter into one without experiencing a strange sensation, an excitement of the blood through all my veins..." Because of a conflict with a Latin professor, he was forced to leave the University of Rome and went to Bonn with a letter of

Robert E. Hails was an American military officer who served as the vice commander of Tactical Air Command, Air Force deputy chief of staff for systems and logistics at the Pentagon, commander of the Warner Robins Air Logistics Center, he flew a B-24 during the Pacific Theater of World War II and was one of the few to fly the SR-71 Blackbird. As the Director of Maintenance Engineering, Air Force Logistics Command, he was responsible for engineering and developing pilotless reconnaissance aircraft used during the Vietnam War. Hails became a member of the Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame and the Georgia Aviation Hall of Fame and worked for McDonnell Douglas and Vought Corporation, he died in 2012

List of urban rail systems in Thailand lists urban rail transit systems in Thailand. As of 2018, Bangkok is the only Thai city. Bangkok Metropolitan Region is, as of 2018; the BTS Skytrain consists of the Sukhumvit Line and the Silom Line. The underground Metropolitan Rapid Transit consists of two lines, the Blue Line and Purple Line; the elevated Airport Rail Link links to Suvarnabhumi Airport. Although proposals for the development of rapid transit in Bangkok had been made since 1975, leading to plans for the failed Lavalin Skytrain, it was only in 1999 that the BTS began operation. Commuter Rail State Railway of Thailand will operate Red Line and Light Red Line Airport rail link SRT Electrified Train operates Airport Rail Link Rapid transit BTS Skytrain operates Light Green Line and Dark Green Line Metropolitan Rapid Transit operates Blue Line, Purple Line and the future Orange Line Monorail Mass Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand will operate Pink Line and Yellow Line Nonthaburi and Pak Kret will be served by three MRT lines: MRT Purple Line, MRT Brown Line, MRT Pink Line.

These lines are the part of M-Map. Nonthaburi Civic Center Station will be the central metro station of Nonthaburi Province. Rangsit Municipality will be served by SRT Dark Red Line, the part of SRT Red Lines commuter rail. In the future, the line will be extended north to Thammasat University; the city will be served by three BRT lines. Samut Prakan Municipality is served by the Sukhumvit Line, part of the BTS Skytrain; the full extension from Bearing to Kheha opened in December 2018. Samut Sakhon municipality will be served by the SRT Dark Red Line, part of the SRT Red Lines commuter rail. In the future, the line will link Maha Chai in Samut Sakhon. In Phitsanulok, there is a plan to build a tramway system; the project will be modelled on the Sydney tramway network. Pattaya City had a plan to build a monorail line consisting of ten stations; as of 2018, there has been no progress. Chiang Mai Municipality has one existing monorail system, Chiang Mai Zoo Monorail, used for excursions within the zoo.

Plans for an electric rail system have been discussed for years. In 2018, the plans seem to have gained traction; the Mass Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand announced that the bidding process for a tram network in Chiang Mai could begin in 2020. The 35 km tramway, both below ground, is estimated to cost 86 billion baht, it is projected that the first of three lines could break ground in 2021, the system could be operational by 2027. In Khon Kaen, there is a plan to build a Light Rail with several lines. In 2016, a 26 kilometer-long light rail line was proposed; the light rail line, to be funded by local government and businesses instead of the central government, hopes to begin construction in 2019. Nakhon Ratchasima Municipality has a plan to build five elevated bus rapid transit lines with the name Korat Rapid Transit; as of 2018, there has been no progress. There is a plan to build a tramway system of several lines; the project will be modelled on the Sydney tramway network. Udon Thani had a plan to build a monorail line with several lines.

Hat Yai monorail is a planned 12.54 kilometer-long elevated monorail consisted of 12 stations. As of 2016, the line is being studied by the government; the design of the stations has been completed. The project will cost 15,799 million baht to construct, it is hoped that construction will begin in 2019. State Railway of Thailand has a plan to build commuter rail linking Hat Yai and Songkhla by reusing a defunct railway line that closed in 1978; as of 2015, there has been no progress. The Mass Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand announced in 2018 that bidding to construct a 60 kilometre-long, 23 station tram network in Phuket will commence in 2020; the 39 billion baht tram is part of the government's Private-Public-Partnership plan which ensures it will be fast-tracked. The planned route stretches from Takua Thung District in Phang Nga Province to Chalong in Phuket. Phase one will connect Phuket International Airport with about 40 kilometres, it will take three years to complete. The project will be modelled on the Sydney tramway network.

Mass Rapid Transit Master Plan in Bangkok Metropolitan Region List of tram and light-rail transit systems List of bus rapid transit systems List of rapid transit systems Phuket Island Light Rail Transit Khon Kaen Light Rail Transit

Romare Bearden Park is a 5.4-acre public park located at 300 S. Church Street in Charlotte, North Carolina. Named for Charlotte born artist Romare Bearden, it opened in late August 2013, it is across the street from BB&T Ballpark, the home of the International League's Charlotte Knights. Located in Uptown Charlotte, the park offers fitness and cultural arts programs throughout the year; the park design is based on Bearden’s collages and paintings as interpreted by supervising artist Norie Sato. It features two gardens, a courtyard of dining tables with chairs on a bed of crushed granite, a formal event green field, a play area with interactive digital chimes including dance chimes, several waterfalls; the grand opening took place on August 31-September 1, 2013. Plan for Romare Bearden Park, Video

Elisabeth Röckel was a German soprano opera singer and the wife of the composer Johann Nepomuk Hummel. She was a sister of the opera singer Joseph August Röckel who played Florestan in the second version of Beethoven’s opera Fidelio, which premiered in the Theater an der Wien in 1806. In the same year she came to Vienna, where she lived in a flat in the theater, together with her brother. In a register of the residents of the theater she is named "Elis Rökel". According to this register in another flat of the theater lived the famous singer Anna Milder-Hauptmann with her family, who played the title role of Fidelio, she became a close friend of Elisabeth. Many sources show that Elisabeth met Beethoven who fell in love with the beautiful young girl and wanted to marry her, but in April 1810 Elisabeth Röckel got an engagement at the theater in Bamberg where she made her stage debut as Donna Anna in Mozart's Don Giovanni and became a friend of the writer E. T. A. Hoffmann; the German musicologist Klaus Martin Kopitz has suggested that Beethoven wrote his famous Bagatelle No. 25 for piano known as "Für Elise", in the days of Elisabeth Röckel's departure from Vienna.

It had the inscription "Für Elise am 27 April zur Erinnerung von L. v. Bthvn". Indeed, Anna Milder-Hauptmann named her "Elise" in a letter to her. During the days before Beethoven's death and her husband Hummel visited Beethoven several times, cut and saved a lock of his hair; this was discovered in 1934 in Florence by Wilhelm Hummel, a descendant of Johann Nepomuk Hummel. The lock of hair is now in the Beethoven Center of the San Jose State University. Sources Mark Kroll: Johann Nepomuk Hummel: A Musician’s Life and World, Maryland: Scarecrow Press 2007, ISBN 978-0-8108-5920-3 Klaus Martin Kopitz: Beethoven, Elisabeth Röckel und das Albumblatt "Für Elise", Cologne: Dohr, 2010, ISBN 978-3-936655-87-2 Michael Lorenz: "'Die enttarnte Elise'. Die kurze Karriere der Elisabeth Röckel als Beethovens'Elise'", Bonner Beethoven-Studien vol. 9, Bonn: Beethoven-Haus, 2011, pp. 169–190 Abstract online Michael Lorenz: "Maria Eva Hummel. A Postscript", Vienna 2013 Klaus Martin Kopitz: Beethovens "Elise" Elisabeth Röckel.

Neue Aspekte zur Entstehung und Überlieferung des Klavierstücks WoO 59, Die Tonkunst, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 48–57 Notes

Ernest Smith was an English amateur first-class cricketer, who played twenty one games for Oxford University from 1888 to 1891, 154 matches for Yorkshire County Cricket Club from 1888 to 1907, four for the Marylebone Cricket Club from 1892 to 1902. Smith was born in Morley, West Riding of Yorkshire, educated at Clifton College and University College, Oxford. In a first-class career that lasted from 1888, when he was 18, till 1928, when he was 58, he played cricket for Oxford and Cambridge Universities Past and Present, fifteen matches for The Gentlemen, North of England, Gentlemen of England and C. I. Thornton's XI and, among other teams, twenty-seven games for H. D. G. Leveson-Gower's XI. In 242 first-class matches, Smith scored 7,686 runs at 21.46, with a highest score of 164 not out for H. D. G. Leveson-Gower's XI against Cambridge University in 1912. In 1891 he scored 154 for North against he and Charles de Trafford adding 254 in 105 minutes. A right-arm fast bowler, Smith took 454 wickets at 25.69, with a best return of 7 for 40 for Yorkshire against MCC in 1893.

For Oxford University in 1890 he took 13 for 146 in the match against Lancashire. Standing six feet one inch tall, he was a good fieldsman. Smith was a schoolteacher. In 1958 A. A. Thomson said of him: "Ernest was one of that devoted band of August schoolmasters – they survive to-day – who pack their boys off home and add a kind of academic gaiety to the month's cricket." He added that Smith could "defend like a lowered portcullis if Yorkshire were in serious trouble" or bat "like a charging cavalry leader". Smith died in April 1945 in Sussex, his brother, A. E. Smith, played one first-class game for the "English Residents" in Philadelphia in 1890. Media related to Ernest Smith at Wikimedia Commons Cricinfo Profile