Michelin
Michelin is a French tyre manufacturer based in Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne région of France. It is the second largest tyre manufacturer in the world after Bridgestone and larger than both Goodyear and Continental. In addition to the Michelin brand, it owns the BFGoodrich, Tigar, Riken and Uniroyal tyre brands. Michelin is notable for its Red and Green travel guides, its roadmaps, the Michelin stars that the Red Guide awards to restaurants for their cooking, for its company mascot Bibendum, colloquially known as the Michelin Man. Michelin's numerous inventions include the pneurail and the radial tyre. Michelin manufactures tyres for space shuttles, automobiles, heavy equipment and bicycles. In 2012, the Group produced 166 million tyres at 69 facilities located in 18 countries. In 1889 two brothers, Édouard Michelin and André Michelin, ran a rubber factory in Clermont-Ferrand, France. One day, a cyclist turned up at the factory; the tyre was glued to the rim, it took over three hours to remove and repair the tyre, which needed to be left overnight to dry.
The next day, Édouard Michelin took the repaired bicycle into the factory yard to test. After only a few hundred metres, the tyre failed. Despite the setback, Édouard was enthusiastic about the pneumatic tyre, he and his brother worked on creating their own version, one that did not need to be glued to the rim. Michelin was incorporated on 28 May 1889. In 1891 Michelin took out its first patent for a removable pneumatic tyre, used by Charles Terront to win the world's first long distance cycle race, the 1891 Paris–Brest–Paris. In the 1920s and 1930s, Michelin operated large rubber plantations in Vietnam. Conditions at these plantations led to the famous labour movement Phu Rieng Do. In 1934, Michelin introduced a tyre which, if punctured, would run on a special foam lining, a design now known as a run-flat tyre. Michelin developed and patented a key innovation in tyre history, the 1946 radial tyre, exploited this technological innovation to become one of the worlds leading tyre manufacturers; the radial was marketed as the "X" tyre.
It was developed with Citroën 2CV in mind. Michelin had bought the then-bankrupt Citroën in the 1930s; because of its superiority in handling and fuel economy, use of this tyre spread throughout Europe and Asia. In the U. S. the outdated bias-ply tyre persisted, with market share of 87% in 1967. In 1966, Michelin partnered with Sears to produce radial tyres under the Allstate brand and was selling 1 million units annually by 1970. In 1968, Michelin opened its first North American sales office, was able to grow that market for its products rapidly. In 1968, Consumer Reports, an influential American magazine, acknowledged the superiority of the radial construction, setting off a rapid decline in Michelin's competitor technology. In the U. S. the radial tyre now has a market share of 100%. In addition to the private label and replacement tyre market, Michelin scored an early OEM tyre win in North America, when it received the contract for the 1970 Continental Mark III, the first American car with radial tyres fitted as standard.
In 1989, Michelin acquired the merged tyre and rubber manufacturing divisions of the American firms B. F. Goodrich Company and Uniroyal, Inc. from Clayton, Dubilier & Rice. Uniroyal Australia had been bought by Bridgestone in 1980; this purchase included the Norwood, North Carolina manufacturing plant which supplied tyres to the U. S. Space Shuttle Program. Michelin controls 90% of Taurus Tyre in Hungary, as well as Kormoran, a Polish brand; as of 1 September 2008, Michelin is again the world's largest tyre manufacturer after spending two years as number two behind Bridgestone. Michelin produces tyres in France, Spain, the USA, the UK, Brazil, Japan and several other countries. On 15 January 2010, Michelin announced the closing of its Ota, Japan plant, which employs 380 workers and makes the Michelin X-Ice tyre. Production of the X-Ice will be moved to Europe, North America, elsewhere in Asia. Michelin participated in MotoGP from 1972 to 2008, they introduced radial construction to MotoGP in 1984, multi-compound tyres in 1994.
They achieved 360 victories in 36 years, from 1993 to 2006, the world championship had gone to a rider on Michelins. In 2007, Casey Stoner on Bridgestone tyres won the world championship in dominating fashion, Valentino Rossi and other top riders complained that Michelins were inferior. Rossi wanted Bridgestones for the 2008 season. In 2008, Michelin committed errors of judgment in allocating adequate tyres for some of the race weekends. Dani Pedrosa's team switched to Bridgestones in the midst of the season, a unusual move that caused friction between Honda Racing Corporation and their sponsor Repsol YPF. Other riders expressed concerns and it seemed that Michelin might not have any factory riders for the 2009 season, leading to rumours that Michelin would withdraw from the series altogether. Dorna and the FIM announced that a control tyre would be imposed on MotoGP for the 2009 season and Michelin did not enter a bid ending its participation in the series at the end of 2008. Mi
Pince-nez
Pince-nez is a style of glasses, popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, that are supported without earpieces, by pinching the bridge of the nose. The name comes from French pincer, "to pinch", nez, "nose". Although pince-nez were used in Europe in the 15th, 16th, 17th centuries, modern ones appeared in the 1840s and reached their peak popularity around 1880 to 1900. These, as their name would suggest, possess a C-shaped bridge, composed of a curved, flexible piece of metal which would provide the tension needed to stay on the nose; this variety is the earliest style of true pince-nez. They were in wide use from the 1820s through to the 1940s, were available in a variety of styles – ranging from the early nose-padless type of the 19th century to the gutta-percha variety of the American Civil War era, on to the plaquette variety of the 20th century; the bridges were subject to constant wear from repeated flexing when being set and removed from the face, so would break or lose their tension.
An advantage of this variety was that one size could fit a variety of nose bridges, but its inability to manage astigmatism or maintain a fixed pupillary distance meant that it was fundamentally flawed for a large proportion of wearers. The "astig"— so called for its ability to manage astigmatism— or "bar-spring" pince-nez consists of a sliding bar connecting the lenses which can be separated by pulling the lenses away from each other placed on the bridge of the nose and released; the tension in the spring clips the device in place. The bar consists of two sliders connected by a spring; the nose pads are cork and are attached directly to the frames. They can either be static; this variety was popular from the 1890s to the 1930s, after which they were seen. They were created and marketed as'sporting pince-nez', which were purportedly more difficult to jar from the face than the other varieties as well as being more comfortable to wear for longer periods; the principle advantage was that unlike the C-bridge pince-nez, whose lenses rotated as they were placed on the nose, the astig's lenses did not rotate and therefore could correct for astigmatism in ways that were impossible with previous varieties of pince-nez.
They still did not account for pupillary distance, however. In 1893 a Frenchman named Jules Cottet developed and patented a finger-piece eyeglass which functioned by connecting the two lenses by a hard, unflexing bridge and clipping onto the bridge of the nose via springs located in the nose-rests; the wearer could pinch onto a pair of levers located above or in front of the bridge to open the planquettes, release the levers to allow them to close onto the nose of the wearer. Because the lenses did not rotate, these devices could correct for astigmatism, because they did not move in relation to each other, they could account for the user's pupillary distance. Cottet registered his patent in France and the United States but did not pursue production and sold the patent to a London-based eye wear manufacturer who in turn sold it to an American firm; the design remained unused for years until it was acquired by American Optical who marketed it under the brand name "Fits-U". In this guise it replaced most other nose-pinching varieties of eye wear.
Pince-nez spectacles were worn by both women. Since they can be uncomfortable to wear for extended periods if the wrong bridge size is chosen, because the constant wearing of glasses was out of fashion at the time, pince-nez were suspended from a ribbon or chain worn around the neck, tied to the buttonhole of a lapel, or attached to a special ear-mount or to a hair-pin. Women used a special brooch-like device pinned to the clothing, which would automatically retract the line to which the glasses were attached when they were not in use. Oxford spectacles: The distinction between this style and pince-nez is not drawn; the style was developed in the 19th century when a professor at Oxford University accidentally broke off the handle from a pair of lorgnette spectacles. He reputedly affixed two small nose-pads to the frame and found that he could use the tension in the folding spring to perch them on his nose. Whether or not this story is apocryphal is unknown. Oxfords are undoubtedly descended from the lorgnette, as early examples of them had handles in addition to nose-pads.
In style Oxfords are much like the C-bridge as the tension is provided by a flexible, sprung piece of metal. Oxfords were popular up until the 1930s, were manufactured as both frames and as 4 piece mounts for frameless, although the latter are hard to find. Nose spectacles were developed in the 15th century and were among the earliest practical vision correction aids, they were worn up until the 18th century. They consisted of simple frames made of metal, they were designed for long sightedness, as reading lenses were the only ones that could be manufactured at that time. Original examples of nose spectacles are exceedingly hard to find in good condition today, command large sums as collectors' pieces whenever they come onto the market. Pince-nez is central to the murder mystery in the Sherlock Holmes story The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez. Another murder mystery, Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers, features a victim found dead in a bathtub wearing nothing but a
Eileen Gray
Eileen Gray was an Irish architect and furniture designer and a pioneer of the Modern Movement in architecture. Over her career, she was associated with many notable European artists of her era, including Kathleen Scott, Adrienne Gorska, Le Corbusier, Jean Badovici, with whom she was romantically involved, her most famous work is the house known as E-1027 in France. Gray was born Kathleen Eileen Moray Smith on 9 August 1878, near Enniscorthy, in County Wexford, Ireland, she was the youngest of five children in a Protestant Anglo-Irish family. Her father, James MacLaren Smith, was a Scottish landscape painter, he encouraged Gray's interest in drawing. Although he was a minor figure, James corresponded with major artists of the day, her parents’ marriage broke up when she was eleven and her father left Ireland to live and paint in Europe. Gray's mother, Eveleen Pounden, was a granddaughter of Francis Stuart, 10th Earl of Moray, she became the 19th Baroness Gray in 1895 after the death of her uncle.
Although the couple was separated by this point, Gray's father changed his name to Smith-Gray by royal licence and the four children were from on known as Gray. Gray split her upbringing between Brownswood House in Ireland and the family's home in Kensington, London. Both Gray's brother and father died in 1900. Gray attended a school in Dresden, Germany but was educated by governesses. Gray's serious art education began in 1900 at the Slade School in London. Gray was a registered fine arts student at Slade from 1900 to 1902. Although fine arts education was typical for a young woman of Gray's class, Slade was an unusual choice. Known as a bohemian school, the classes at Slade were co-educational, usual for the time. Gray was one of 168 female students in a class of 228. Gray's teachers at Slade included Henry Tonks and Frederick Brown. While at Slade, Gray met furniture restorer Dean Charles in 1901. Charles was Gray's first introduction to lacquering and she took lessons in the technique from his company in Soho.
In 1902, Gray moved to Paris with Jessie Gavin. They enrolled at the Académie Colarossi, an art school popular with foreign students, but soon switched to the Académie Julian. In 1905, Gray returned to London to be with her ill mother. For the next two years, she studied lacquering with Dean Charles before returning to Paris; when she returned to Paris, Gray began training with Seizo Sugawara. Sugawara was from Jahoji, a village in northern Japan famous for its lacquer work, he was in Paris to restore the lacquer pieces Japan had sent to the Exposition Universale. Gray was so dedicated to learning the trade that she suffered the so-called lacquer disease, a painful rash on her hands, but that did not stop her from working. In 1910, Gray opened a lacquer workshop with Sugawara. By 1912, she was producing pieces to commission for some of Paris's richest clients. Gray served as an ambulance driver at the beginning of World War I before returning to England to wait out the war with Sugawara. After the war Gray and Sugawara returned to Paris.
In 1917, Gray was hired to redesigning the Rue de Lota apartment of society hostess Juliette Lévy. Known as Madame Mathieu Levy, Juliette owned the fashion house and millinery shop; the Rue de Lota apartment has been called "the epitome of Art Deco." A 1920 issue of Harper’s Bazaar describes the Rue de Lota apartment as ‘thoroughly modern although there is much feeling for the antique’. The furniture included some of Gray's best known designs – the Bibendum Chair and the Pirogue Day Bed; the Bibendum chair was a take on the Michelin Man with tire like shapes sitting on a chromed steel frame. The Pirogue Day Bed was finished in patinated bronze lacquer; the critical and financial success of the project prompted Gray to open her own shop in 1922. Jean Désert was located on the fashionable Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris; the shop was named after Gray's love of the North African desert. Grey designed the facade of the shop herself. Jean Désert sold the abstract geometric rugs woven in Evelyn Wyld's workshops.
Clients included Ezra Pound and Elsa Schiaparelli. Early on Gray used luxurious materials like exotic woods and furs. In the mid-1920s, her pieces became simpler and more industrial, reflecting her growing interest in the work of Le Corbusier and other Modernists. Jean Désert closed due to financial losses in 1930. By 1921, Gray was romantically involved with Romanian architect and writer Jean Badovici, 15 years her junior, he encouraged her growing interest in architecture. From 1922/1923 to 1926 Gray created an informal architectural apprenticeship for herself as she never received any formal training as an architect, she studied theoretical and technical books, took drafting lessons, arranged to have Adrienne Gorska take her along to building sites. She traveled with Badovici to study key buildings and learned by reworking architectural designs. In 1926, she started work on a new holiday home near Monaco to share with Badovici; because a foreigner in France couldn’t wholly own property, Gray bought the land and put it in Badovici’s name, making him her client on paper.
Construction of the house took three years and Grey remained on site while Badovici visited occasionally. The house was given the enigmatic name of E-1027, it was code for the lovers' names. E-1027 is described as a masterpiece. E-1027 is a white cuboid built on rocky land on raised on pillars. According to Frances S
Michelin Guide
Michelin Guides are a series of guide books published by the French tyre company Michelin for more than a century. The term refers to the annually published Michelin Red Guide, the oldest European hotel and restaurant reference guide, which awards up to three Michelin stars for excellence to a select few establishments; the acquisition or loss of a star can have dramatic effects on the success of a restaurant. Michelin publishes a series of general guides to cities and countries, the Green Guides. In 1900, there were fewer than 3,000 cars on the roads of France. To increase the demand for cars and, car tires, car tire manufacturers and brothers Édouard and André Michelin published a guide for French motorists in 1900, the Michelin Guide. Nearly 35,000 copies of this first, free edition of the guide were distributed. Four years in 1904, the brothers published a guide to Belgium similar to the Michelin Guide. Michelin subsequently introduced guides for Tunisia. In 1909, an English-language version of the guide to France was published.
During World War I, publication of the guide was suspended. After the war, revised editions of the guide continued to be given away until 1920, it is said that André Michelin, whilst visiting a tire merchant, noticed copies of the guide being used to prop up a workbench. Based on the principle that "man only respects what he pays for", Michelin decided to charge a price for the guide, about 750 francs or $2.15 in 1922. They made several changes, notably listing restaurants by specific categories, adding hotel listings, removing advertisements in the guide. Recognizing the growing popularity of the restaurant section of the guide, the brothers recruited a team of inspectors to visit and review restaurants, who were always anonymous. Following the usage of the Murray's and Baedeker guides, the guide began to award stars for fine dining establishments in 1926. There was only a single star awarded. In 1931, the hierarchy of zero, one and three stars was introduced. In 1936, the criteria for the starred rankings were published:: "A good restaurant in its category": "Excellent cooking, worth a detour": "Exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey".
In 1931 the cover of the guide was changed from blue to red, has remained so in all subsequent editions. During World War II, publication was again suspended, but in 1944, at the request of the Allied Forces, the 1939 guide to France was specially reprinted for military use. Publication of the annual guide resumed on 16 May 1945, a week after VE Day. In the early post-war years the lingering effects of wartime shortages led Michelin to impose an upper limit of two stars; the first Michelin Guide to Italy was published in 1956. It awarded no stars in the first edition. In 1974, the first guide to Britain since 1931 was published. Twenty-five stars were awarded. In 2005, Michelin published its first American guide, covering 500 restaurants in the five boroughs of New York City and 50 hotels in Manhattan. In 2007, a Tokyo Michelin Guide was launched. In the same year, the guide introduced Étoile. In 2008, a Hong Kong and Macau volume was added; as of 2013, the guide is published in 14 editions covering 23 countries.
In 2008, the German restaurateur Juliane Caspar was appointed editor-in-chief of the French edition of the guide. She had been responsible for the Michelin guides to Germany and Austria, she became first non-French national to occupy the French position. The German newspaper Die Welt commented on the appointment, "In view of the fact German cuisine is regarded as a lethal weapon in most parts of France, this decision is like Mercedes announcing that its new director of product development is a Martian." Red Guides have listed many more restaurants than rival guides, relying on an extensive system of symbols to describe each one in as little as two lines. Reviews of starred restaurants include two to three culinary specialties. Short summaries were added in 2002/2003 to enhance descriptions of many establishments; these summaries are written in the language of the country for which the guide is published but the symbols are the same throughout all editions. Michelin reviewers are anonymous. Many of the company's top executives have never met an inspector.
The inspectors write reports that are distilled, in annual "stars meetings" at the guide's various national offices, into the r
Asterix
Asterix or The Adventures of Asterix is a series of French comics. The series first appeared in the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Pilote on 29 October 1959, it was written by René Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo until the death of Goscinny in 1977. Uderzo took over the writing until 2009, when he sold the rights to publishing company Hachette. In 2013, a new team consisting of Jean-Yves Ferri and Didier Conrad took over; as of 2017, 37 volumes have been released. The series follows the adventures of a village of Gauls as they resist Roman occupation in 50 BC, they do so by means of a magic potion, brewed by their druid Panoramix, which temporarily gives the recipient superhuman strength. The protagonists, the title character Asterix and his friend Obelix, have various adventures; the "ix" ending of both names alludes to the "rix" suffix present in the names of many real Gaulish chieftains such as Vercingetorix and Dumnorix. In many of the stories, they travel to foreign countries, though others are set in and around their village.
For much of the history of the series, settings in Gaul and abroad alternated, with even-numbered volumes set abroad and odd-numbered volumes set in Gaul in the village. The Asterix series is one of the most popular Franco-Belgian comics in the world, with the series being translated into 111 languages and dialects; the success of the series has led to the adaptation of its books into 13 films: nine animated, four live action. There have been a number of games based on the characters, a theme park near Paris, Parc Astérix; the first French satellite, Astérix, launched in 1965, was named after the comics character. As of 2017, 370 million copies of Asterix books have been sold worldwide, with co-creators René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo being France's best-selling authors abroad. Prior to creating the Asterix series and Uderzo had had success with their series Oumpah-pah, published in Tintin magazine. Astérix was serialised in Pilote magazine, debuting in the first issue on 29 October 1959. In 1961 the first book was put together, titled Asterix the Gaul.
From on, books were released on a yearly basis. Their success was exponential. In 1963, the third sold 40,000. A year the fifth sold 300,000; the ninth Asterix volume, when first released in 1967, sold 1.2 million copies in two days. Uderzo's first sketches portrayed Asterix as a strong traditional Gaulish warrior, but Goscinny had a different picture in his mind. He visualized Asterix as a shrewd small sized warrior. However, Uderzo felt that the small sized hero needed a strong but dim companion to which Goscinny agreed. Hence, Obelix was born. Despite the growing popularity of Asterix with the readers, the financial backing for Pilote ceased. Pilote was taken over by Georges Dargaud; when Goscinny died in 1977, Uderzo continued the series alone on the demand of the readers who implored him to continue. He continued the series but on a less frequent basis. Most critics and fans of the series prefer Goscinny's albums. Uderzo created his own publishing company, Les Editions Albert-René, which published every album drawn and written by Uderzo alone since then.
However, the initial publisher of the series, kept the publishing rights on the 24 first albums made by both Uderzo and Goscinny. In 1990, the Uderzo and Goscinny families decided to sue Dargaud to take over the rights. In 1998, after a long trial, Dargaud lost the rights to sell the albums. Uderzo decided to sell these rights to Hachette instead of Albert-René, but the publishing rights on new albums were still owned by Albert Uderzo, Sylvie Uderzo and Anne Goscinny. In December 2008, Uderzo sold his stake to Hachette. In a letter published in the French newspaper Le Monde in 2009, Uderzo's daughter, attacked her father's decision to sell the family publishing firm and the rights to produce new Astérix adventures after his death, she said:... the co-creator of Astérix, France's comic strip hero, has betrayed the Gaulish warrior to the modern-day Romans – the men of industry and finance. However, René Goscinny's daughter, Anne gave her agreement to the continuation of the series and sold her rights at the same time.
She is reported to have said that "Asterix has had two lives: one during my father's lifetime and one after it. Why not a third?". A few months Uderzo appointed three illustrators, his assistants for many years, to continue the series. In 2011, Uderzo announced that a new Asterix album was due out in 2013, with Jean-Yves Ferri writing the story and Frédéric Mébarki drawing it. A year in 2012, the publisher Albert-René announced that Frédéric Mébarki had withdrawn from drawing the new album, due to the pressure he felt in following in the steps of Uderzo. Comic artist Didier Conrad was announced to take over drawing duties from Mébarki, with the due date of the new album in 2013 unchanged. In January 2015, after the murders of seven cartoonists at the satirical Paris weekly Charlie Hebdo, Astérix creator Albert Uderzo came out of retirement to draw two Astérix pictures honouring the memories of the victims. Numbers 1–24, 32
Exposition internationale et coloniale (1894)
The Exposition universelle, internationale et coloniale was a world's fair including a colonial exhibition in the French City of Lyon in 1894. The site was the parc de la Tête d'or in the north of the city; the exposition drew unwanted attention with the assassination of French President Sadi Carnot during his visit on 24 July 1894. The exposition was initiated as a national exposition to be held in 1892, but the short interval since the Paris 1889 Universal Exposition led to a postponement of two years and the wish for international participation. Several names were given to the project: "l’Exposition internationale et coloniale de Lyon, en 1894", "Exposition nationale de Lyon en 1894" and "l’Exposition universelle de 1894" before the eventual name "Exposition internationale et coloniale". At the same time San Francisco and the Belgian city of Antwerp organised world's fairs as well; the main building of the exposition was a 55-metre high metal dome with a diameter of 242 metres. Several themes got dedicated pavilions: Education City of Paris City of Lyon and the surroundings Faith Economy Art Agriculture Labour Railways Civil engineering Forestry servicesFrench colonies were represented as well in four pavilions: Algeria Tunisia French Indochina French West Africa.3.8 million people visited the exposition, the success of the exposition led to renaming the neighbourhood next to the exposition from Tête d'Or to Tonkin de villeurbanne, thus referring to North Vietnam, at that time part of French Indochina, in order to satisfy the inhabitants attracted to the exotic colonial atmosphere.
Hanoi exhibition another colonial exhibition, 8 years in French Indochina
O'Galop
O'Galop, pseudonym of Marius Rossillon was a French artist and cartoonist, best known for creating Bibendum, the Michelin Man. O'Galop began his career around 1893, drawing cartoons for magazines.. He created his first advertisement Michelin in 1898 and would continue creating posters for the company featuring the character until 1911, he was is a pioneer in animation and created about 40 animated films between 1910 and 1927. O'Galop was born in Lyon in 1867 and died in Carsac-Aillac in 1946. Marius O'Galop on IMDb Public Health Designed by O'Galop at Europa Film Treasures You Have to Say It at Europa Film Treasures
