Drastamat Kanayan, better known as Dro, was an Armenian military commander and politician, a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. He served as Defense Minister of Armenia during the country's brief independence. During World War II, he led the Armenian Legion. Drastamat Kanayan was born in Surmali, Russian Empire in 1884, he was the son of Martiros Kanayan, the head of the Kanayan clan in Igdir, his wife, Horom. At an early age, Martiros enrolled his son to the parish school of Igdir. Drastamat would skip school to hang out near the military barracks of Igdir because of his interest in the military exercises held there. Igdir at the time was an important military post where between 8000 and 10000 Russian troops were stationed including infantry, Cossacks and border guards. Most of the inhabitants of the village thrived by trading with the soldiers. Noticing that his son had no interest in books and learning, Martiros pulled him out of the village school and enrolled him to the Yerevan Gymnasium school.
Drastamat was no better in the Gymnasium school as the grades he achieved were enough for a promotion. Like all government schools in the provinces of Russia, there was a policy of Russification that limited education in the Armenian language to religion only. Inspired by stories of General Andranik's triumphs in the Ottoman Empire and the spread of nationalism by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, Drastamat joined a secret youth movement in his school that opposed the Czar's government and promoted Armenian nationalism. On 12 June 1903, the tsarist authorities passed an edict to bring all Armenian Church property under imperial control; this was faced by strong Armenian opposition because it perceived the Tsarist edict as a threat to the Armenian national existence. As a result, the Armenian leadership decided to defend Armenian churches by dispatching militiamen who acted as guards and holding mass demonstrations; this prompted Drastamat to join the ranks of the Dashnaktsutiun in order to defend churches from confiscation through public demonstrations and guard duty.
He served as detachment commander in the Russian Caucasus Army during World War I. He decorated by the Tsar. In November 1914, he had the second battalion of the Armenian volunteers. At the Bergmann Offensive, the second battalion of the Armenian volunteers engaged in battle for the first time, near Bayazid. In the course of a bloody combat which lasted twenty-four hours, commander of the battalion, was wounded. From that day to March of the following year, he remained in critical condition, but his battalion led into eleven battles in the neighborhood of Alashkert and Malashkert, until Dro recovered and returned to resume the command. Kanayan had become a popular military leader after the victories over the Ottoman Empire at the Caucasus Campaign. Between March 1918 and April 1918 he was appointed by the Armenian National Council military commissar to the occupation of Turkish Armenia of the Ararat region, he was the commander of the Armenian forces in the Battle of Bash Abaran. From 24 November to 2 December 1920, Kanayan was the Defence Minister of the short-lived First Republic of Armenia and commanded Armenian troops in various successful wars.
The last battles against the Ottoman Empire at the Caucasus Campaign saved the Armenian Republic from total destruction. As a Defence Minister before the end of 1918, he took responsibility at the Armenian–Azerbaijani War and Georgian–Armenian War. In 1920, Turkish–Armenian War. In 1920, after the establishment of the Soviet regime in Armenia, Drastamat Kanayan remained in the country, he was exiled with 1,200 officers of the Republican army in January 1921. In 1920, Drastamat Kanayan advanced to the vicinity of Shushi. On the night from 21–22 March 1920, when the Azerbaijanis were celebrating Novruz Bayram, the Armenians of Karabakh revolted and organized a surprise attack. During these clashes thousands of people from both the Armenian and Azerbaijani sides were killed, with more than 7,000 houses burned, with Shusha cleansed of its Armenian population. In April 1920, the Bolshevik leadership of the Red Army informed from the Drastamat Kanayan to leave Karabagh. Karabagh-Zangezur was on the break of armed confrontation between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Drastamat Kanayan knew that if he did not compy with this demand the Red Army and the armed forces of Azerbaijan would have to act jointly.
He was forced to withdraw due to the Sovietization of Azerbaijan and the assurances given by the emissaries of Sergo Ordzhonikidze regarding a just solution to the Karabagh conflict. On 26 May 1920, the 10th Congress of the Armenian National Council of Karabagh, which took place in Taghavard village, proclaimed the change of position; the "Armenian National Council of Karabagh" was replaced with The Revolutionary Committee of Nagorno Karabagh, headed by S. Hambartsumian; that same day, Kanayan along with his units was forced to leave Karabagh. During World War II, the Dashnak separatists saw a good opportunity in split from the Soviet Union and create an Armenian nation in a post-World War II world dominated by the Axis powers. On 8 February 1942, they formed a Legion of 11 battalions from those Armenians, who were prisoners in the Nazi POW camps and had opted to fight for German forces rather than face the genocidal conditions of those camps; the Legion was 18,000-strong and had been known as Armenische Legion, while the 812th Armenian Battalion of Wehrmacht as each battalion of this unit, had 1,000 men under the command of Kanayan.
The Legion was trained by Wehrmac
Brotherhood of Blades is a 2014 Chinese wuxia film directed by Lu Yang. Its sequel, Brotherhood of Blades 2 was released on August 11, 2017; the film is set in 1627, towards the end of the Ming dynasty, when a young emperor decides to end the influence of all-powerful eunuch Wei and purge his supporters. Caught in the midst of the intrigue are three lowly cash-strapped warriors from the Imperial Assassins, the secret police, who are given orders to find and kill Wei. Chang Chen as Shen Lian Cecilia Liu as Zhou Miao Tong Wang Qianyuan as Lu Jian Xing Ethan Li as Jin Yi Chuan Nie Yuan as Zhao Jingzhong Chin Shih-chieh as Wei Zhongxian Ye Qing as Zhang Yan Zhou Yiwei as Zhou Yi Wei Zhu Dan as Wei Ting Zhao Lixin as Han Kuang Ye Xiang Ming as Emperor Chongzhen The story of Brotherhood of Blades was written by director Lu Yang and Chen Shu; the script was completed by the time of Yu's debut feature My Spectacular Theatre released in 2010. The film received funding; the film was shot in 67 days. Brotherhood of Blades was released in on August 2014 in China.
Derek Elley of Film Business Asia wrote that the film was shown "with little fanfare and a poor marketing campaign that harmed its box office in a strong field". At the end of its run, the film has earned ¥90 million in China; the film will be shown at the Busan International Film Festival in October 2014. Derek Elley of Film Business Asia gave the film an eight out of ten rating, calling it a "Top-notch martial-arts drama boasts a meaty script and performances to match" and "the most satisfying Chinese wuxia movie since Reign of Assassins"Film and arts writer Philippa Hawker of Sydney Morning Herald gave the film 4.5 out of 5, praising the movie as "a gripping, entertaining martial arts drama in which the cut-and-thrust of the narrative is as important as the swordplay action. It's a film of plot twists and turns and moral ambiguities punctuated with combat scenes, an ensemble piece with strong performances and an involving storyline." Brotherhood of Blades on IMDb
Upshot–Knothole Harry was a nuclear weapons test conducted by the United States as part of Operation Upshot–Knothole. It took place at the recorded time of 04:05 hours, on the May the 19th, 1953 in Yucca Flat, in the Nevada Test Site; the sponsor of the test was the National Laboratory of the United States of America located at Los Alamos. The test device, codenamed Hamlet, was detonated atop a 300-foot tower, the device produced a yield of 32 kilotonnes; the device had a length of 66 inches. Its weight was 4 tonnes; the device was designed by Theodore Taylor at the Los Alamos National Laboratory of the United States of America, is distinguished from all others because it was the most efficient pure fission design with a yield below 100 kt tested. The design utilized a new hollow core concept; the concept was termed as "radical implosion system" aiming towards reducing the amount of fissionable materials present in the weapon's core while generating moderately high yield. The device was detonated in Area 3 of the test site.
Of the Upshot–Knothole tests, the so-called Harry test deposited the 3rd highest amount of Caesium-137, Niobium-95, Strontium-90, Zirconium-95, the fourth highest deposit for Niobium-95m, Praseodymium-144, fifth for Uranium-240, Ruthenium-106, sixth for Iodine-131, Tellurium-127m, eighth for deposition of Cobalt-60, tenth for deposition of Europium-155, thirteenth for Strontium-89, Yttrium-90, sixteenth for Beryllium-7. The deposition pattern was most similar to test name CLIMAX. Monitoring personnel including United States of America Atomic Energy Commission personnel monitored the resultant radioactive fallout in areas including St. George, Utah. Fallout from the test fell on 3046 counties of the United States. Due to a miscalculation and change in wind-direction, this Upshot–Knothole test released an unusually large amount of fallout, much of which accumulated in the vicinity of St. George, Utah; because of this, the shot would become known as "Dirty Harry" in the press when details were released publicly.
It would be among the most controversial of the U. S. nuclear weapon tests. Two years after the blast, Howard Hughes filmed the motion picture The Conqueror near St. George; the cast and crew totaled 220 people. By the end of 1980, as ascertained by People magazine, 91 of them had developed some form of cancer and 46 had died of the disease. Hicks evaluated the gamma-exposure levels of radionuclides. Within the report by Hicks he was required to omit data of U-233, U-235, U-238 & Pu-239, Pu-240 in order to make the report unclassified. In measurement of cumulative exposures rates of populations within a 300-mile radius of the test site, of the period 1951 to 1959, the Upshot–Knothole tests was found to have produced 50% of exposure rate within the population, of the 50%, 75% was due to the test-shot Harry. Downwinders video of the explosion Published on the 9th of November 2015 Quinn, V. E.. D.. C - radiological and mteorological data published by International Atomic Energy Agency
Wonder, was a town in Churchill County, Nevada 39 miles east of Fallon at an elevation of 5,853 ft. Today Wonder is a deserted ghost town. Wonder was established in May 1906 when prospectors from the town of Fairview discovered rich quartz veins in a dry wash north of Chalk Mountain; as was typical of the era of the'second' silver rush in Nevada, hundreds of people soon flocked to the site, the town of Wonder was born. A newspaper, the Wonder Mining News, began delivering issues by August, soon thereafter the town had its own post office. By the fall of 1906 Wonder was going full-bore. Several mining concerns were formed in Wonder, but the highest yield operation was the Nevada Wonder Mining Company. Backed by capital from eastern concerns, its operations produced the largest yields in silver and gold from the mines, in 1913 a large mill was built onto the hillside just to the east of the town, were the ore was soon being processed. For the better part of 11 years Wonder was an active and bustling mining town, but the veins in the mines did not go on indefinitely, by 1919 they had played out, the town began to slide into obscurity.
The post office was soon closed, many of the buildings themselves were torn down to be moved on to other mining camps. Those that did remain crumbled over the years as the harsh Nevada winters and summers took their toll. There was a brief resurgence in mining activity in the 1930s. Today the site of Wonder can be reached by taking a dirt road off the Dixie Valley road, off US 50 East heading east from Fallon; the site of Wonder is recognizable by the remains of the large mill which can still be found on the hillside east of town, some scattered wood remains in the valley where the town site was. Several depressions of foundations for buildings which once stood may be found. One should be careful while exploring the area, as open pits leading down into old mine shafts present a hazard for falling. While some pits may have fences that mark such dangerous cavities, many have fallen into disuse, leading to possible injury; the gold and silver veins of Wonder consist of quartz and brecciated volcanic rock.
The ore minerals, which are contained as fine disseminations within the veins, include acanthite and several silver halides. Wonder is classified as a low-sulfidation epithermal deposit; the veins were oxidized, there was some secondary enrichment. List of ghost towns in Nevada GhostTowns. Com: Wonder, Nevada Wonder on Google Maps
Ray Columbus & the Invaders were a rock group from Christchurch, New Zealand, active from 1964 to 1966, fronted by the lead vocalist, Ray Columbus, a musician, television host and manager. Part of the new surf music craze, they were the first New Zealand band to have a number 1 in another country, with their cover of The Senators' song "She's a Mod". Influenced by the early 1960s work of Cliff Richard and The Beatles, Ray Columbus & the Invaders had a #1 hit in Australia and New Zealand with "She's a Mod" in 1964, a cover version of a song by The Senators. Ray Columbus and the Invaders were included in a package tour "Big Beat'65" with Roy Orbison, The Rolling Stones and The Newbeats that toured New Zealand and Australia. During the tour, the Invaders performed as Orbison's backing band as well as performing as Ray Columbus and the Invaders, they had several more hits in New Zealand before disbanding in late 1965. Leader Ray Columbus moved to the US where he founded a California psychedelic band, Newcastle Five, which he renamed as The Art Collection.
As a band, Ray Columbus and The Art Collection released four singles for the Colstar label, including the psychedelic rocker "Kick It", before The Art Collection split with Columbus. During his time in California, Columbus turned it down, he turned down the chance to play with David Crosby or Gene Clark after these musicians left The Byrds. Columbus went on to become a band manager. Billy Kristian played bass guitar for the Invaders. Columbus died in November 2016 after four years of ill health; the band were inducted into the New Zealand Music Hall of Fame in 2009. Every Nite Original Numbers Till We Kissed: The Greatest Hits Anthology The Definitive Collection Now You Shake Richie Unterberger, Ray Columbus & the Invaders at Allmusic