Obi-Wan Kenobi known as Ben Kenobi, is a character in the Star Wars franchise. Within the original trilogy, Obi-Wan serves as a supporting character and is portrayed by English actor Alec Guinness. In in the later-released prequel trilogy, a younger version of the character serves as one of the main protagonists alongside Anakin Skywalker and is portrayed by Scottish actor Ewan McGregor. In the original trilogy, he is a mentor to Luke Skywalker, to whom he introduces the ways of the Jedi, until he becomes one with the Force after sacrificing himself to Darth Vader in their fight and guides him alongside Yoda in the fight against the Empire with the Rebel Alliance while being instrumental in Luke's completion of his Jedi training. In the prequel trilogy, set decades earlier, he is a Padawan to a Jedi Master named Qui-Gon Jinn and the mentor and friend to Luke’s father Anakin, who falls to the dark side of the Force and becomes Vader, he is featured as a main character in various other Star Wars media.
Guinness' performance as Obi-Wan in the original Star Wars earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, the only acting nomination for a Star Wars film. McGregor's performance as the character in the prequels received praise as well, considered to be among the highlights of the criticized trilogy. McGregor is set to return as Kenobi in an untitled web series on Disney+ centered on the character that takes place some years after Revenge of the Sith and prior to A New Hope. Obi-Wan Kenobi is first introduced in the original Star Wars living as a hermit by the name of Ben Kenobi on the planet Tatooine; when Luke Skywalker and the droid C-3PO travel the desert in search of the lost droid R2-D2, Obi-Wan rescues them from a band of Tusken Raiders. At Obi-Wan's home, the now-found R2-D2 plays a recording of Princess Leia saying that R2-D2 contains the plans for the Galactic Empire's superweapon: the Death Star. Leia asks him to deliver R2-D2 and the plans safely to the planet Alderaan in order to help the Rebel Alliance.
Obi-Wan reveals to Luke his true identity and explains that he is a Jedi, a member of an ancient group of Force-sensitive warriors. He explains that the Jedi were hunted down and exterminated by the Empire with help from his former apprentice, Darth Vader, the apparent killer of Luke's father, he gives Luke his father's lightsaber and asks him to accompany him to Alderaan and take up Jedi training. Luke, at first, declines. At the settlement of Mos Eisley, Obi-Wan uses the Force to trick Imperial troops into letting them through a military checkpoint, they meet smuggler Han Solo alongside the Wookiee Chewbacca. Obi-Wan and Luke make a deal to travel to Alderaan aboard the Millennium Falcon. During the mission, Obi-Wan begins instructing Luke in lightsaber combat, he becomes worried and tells Luke of "a great disturbance in the Force". Emerging from hyperspace, the group discovers that the planet Alderaan has been destroyed by the Empire; the Falcon encounters an Imperial TIE Fighter. They chase the TIE fighter to the Death Star, subsequently get caught in the space station's tractor beam.
On board the Death Star, Obi-Wan ventures through and disables tractor beam, but not before long, Darth Vader confronts him, they engage in a lightsaber duel. Obi-Wan uses the duel to distract Vader as Luke, Leia and Chewbacca escape to the Falcon. Although Vader strikes Obi-Wan down, his body mysteriously vanishes the moment. At the climax of the film, during the Rebel attack on the Death Star, Obi-Wan speaks to Luke through the Force to help him destroy the Imperial station. In The Empire Strikes Back, Obi-Wan Kenobi appears several times as a spirit through the Force. On the ice planet Hoth, he appears to instruct Luke to go to the planet Dagobah to find the exiled Jedi Master Yoda. Despite Yoda's skepticism, Obi-Wan convinces his old master to continue Luke's training. Obi-Wan appears to beseech Luke not to leave Dagobah to try to rescue his friends on Cloud City, although Luke ignores this advice. In Return of the Jedi, Obi-Wan again appears to Luke after Yoda's death on Dagobah. Obi-Wan acknowledges that Darth Vader is indeed Luke's father, revealed by Vader himself in the previous film and confirmed by Yoda on his deathbed, reveals that Leia is Luke's twin sister.
He urges Luke to defeat Vader. After the Rebels destroy the second Death Star and defeat the Empire, Obi-Wan appears at the celebration on Endor, alongside the spirits of Yoda and the redeemed Anakin Skywalker. In Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, set 32 years before the original 1977 film, a 25-year-old Obi-Wan Kenobi appears as a Padawan of Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn, he accompanies his master in negotiations with the corrupt Trade Federation, blockading the planet Naboo with a fleet of spaceships. They stow away on C-9979 landing crafts en route to Naboo. Once on Naboo, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon rescue Naboo's Queen Padmé Amidala, with help from native Gungan Jar Jar Binks, escape in a spaceship toward the Republic capital of Coruscant, their ship is damaged in the escape, causing the hyperdrive generator to malfunction, they land on Tatooine, where they discover the nine-year-old slave Anakin Skywalker. Qui-Gon bel
The Rose and Crown Club was a club for artists and connoisseurs of art in early 18th-century London, England. The Rose and Crown Club "for Eminent Artificers of this Nation" was formed by 1704, when the engraver George Vertue was admitted; the club was "a bawdy assembly of younger artists and cognoscenti, which met weekly" and held its meetings at the Rose and Crown public house. In addition to Vertue, members included Bernard Lens III, Christian Friedrich Zincke, William Hogarth, Peter Tillemans, Marcellus Laroon the Younger and Michael Dahl; the members of the club were known as the'Rosacoronians'. An unfinished Hogarthian conversation piece painting in the Ashmolean Museum attributed to the Scottish painter Gawen Hamilton, An Assembly of Virtuosi, shows a group of fifteen men, including eight who are identified in an etching of the painting by R. Cooper, published by W. B. Tiffin, it has been suggested that this is a group portrait of the Rosacoronians; the group includes Hamilton himself, Michael Dahl, John Vanderbank, the architect William Kent, John Michael Rysbrack the sculptor.
Vertue listed the painter and engraver Gerhard Bockman as a member in 1724. The club was well connected with the older-established Virtuosi of St Luke, with which it is sometimes confused, although it was less prestigious; the Rose and Crown Club remained in existence until 1745 and held its last meeting at the Half-Moon Tavern. Bignamini notes in his George Vertue that The meetings and annual feasts of the Virtuosi of St Luke and of the Rose and Crown Club had come to a definitive end in 1745
John William Buxton Knight RBA, English landscape painter, was born in Sevenoaks, Kent. He started as a schoolmaster, but painting was his hobby, he subsequently devoted himself to it. In 1861 he had his first picture hung at the Royal Academy, he was an open-air painter going on sketching tours in the most picturesque spots of England, all his pictures were painted out of doors. He died at Dover on 2 January 1908; the Chantrey trustees bought Knight's "December's Bareness Everywhere" for the nation in February 1908. Most of his best pictures had passed into the collection of Mr Iceton of Putney, Mr Walter Briggs of Burley in Wharfedale, Mr SM Phillips of Wrotham. John William Buxton Knight was an English landscape painter, true to nature and never weakened his conviction to become fashionable. “To speak of him as the successor of Constable would not be without justification, not because he consciously or purposefully based himself upon that master, but because he had much of his predecessor’s spirit and unconventionality of method, and, as well, a full share of his artistic intelligence.”Born in Sevenoaks, Kent to William Knight, ‘Buxton Knight’ began his art studies at an early age, although not in any formal and systematic manner, but by working in the open air and observing nature.
Knole Park in Sevenoaks was popular with many notable artists, who Buxton Knight made acquaintance with, helping inform his future path that included: “a high position amongst the great exponents of English landscape…. Which Constable and Crome would have been the first to recognise.”At the age of 22 Buxton Knight went as a student into the Academy schools on the advice of Sir Edwin Henry Landseer, was there for just two years. Prior to these formal studies he was an exhibiting painter, having contributed his first canvas to the Academy at the age of 18 in 1861, he continued to exhibit at the Academy throughout his career and until the end of his life, with a total of 72 paintings. His last exhibition was in 1907 and subsequent to his death the following year, one of his two paintings exhibited in 1907, Old December Bareness Everywhere, was acquired by the Chantrey Bequest and bequeathed to the Tate for the benefit of the Nation. Despite exhibiting such a large number of paintings at the Royal Academy throughout his lifetime, Buxton Knight was never admitted as an Associate or an Academician, despite having been put forward numerous times.
A year after his death, E Barrington Nash wrote: “I am informed that Mr Knight’s name has been placed upon the list of candidates for the Royal Academy Associateship, but with such great masterly works as ‘Dover’, ‘White Walls’, ‘Littlehampton’, ‘Hop-picking’, ‘Poole’, ‘Richmond Park’, many others en evidence before us, it is a matter of national disgrace that he has not been admitted a full-fledged R. A. long ago.”“There are few types of landscape that he has not painted: coast subjects, river scenery, mountains and quiet stretches of pastoral meadow-land. As he wishes to associate only with her, he has to be out and about, and for the greater part of the year he lived in the open, painting industriously through spring and autumn, returning only when the winter winds make the nomad existence impossible to the greatest art enthusiast…. Few modern landscape painters can affirm the same absolute self-sacrifice, or can plead that they have to such an extent subordinated the not unnatural inclination to assert individuality at the expense of fidelity to nature.
That he should have done so all his life speaks well for his consistency, implies a rare quality of belief in the soundest principals of art.”“While we have painters like John Buxton Knight to keep alive the best traditions of the English landscape school, there is no fear that we shall lose our pre-eminent position among the nations which have produced the greater masters in this form of pictorial practice…. It is because Mr Buxton Knight has attacked and mastered the intricacies of British landscape and has made himself a typical exponent of all, most characteristic in our insular atmosphere that it is possible to claim for him a place among the chief living leaders of our native art. For he represents more adequately than most of our present-day landscape painters what may be called legitimate school, he follows the old-established tradition, the sound and logical tradition, adopted by such masters as Constable, De Wint, David Cox, which imposes upon all students of nature the obligation to observe shrewdly and to set down what they have observed with unhesitating individuality.
He does not imitate his predecessors or formulate his practice in any unwise effort to reproduce their personal mannerisms and tricks of style. The ordinary confinement of a studio would become impossible to a man so devotedly attached to his mistress – Nature. Whatever he does is on the spot and there only, he lives and paints in the open nine months out of the twelve, in all weathers, sunshine or storm and studying Nature in every visible mood.”Within Sir Alfred Munnings’ autobiography there is a story of a bet that he had with the Director of Leeds City Art Gallery, whether Buxton Knight had painted ‘Ingleborough Hall, Yorkshire’ in the open
The Matra-Simca MS650 is a Group 6 prototype race car introduced in 1969 for the International Championship for Makes. The MS650 replaced the previous Matra-Simca MS630; the car made its debut at the 1969 24 Hours of Le Mans with a four car entry. Jean-Pierre Beltoise/Piers Courage in the MS650, Jean Guichet/Nino Vaccarella in the MS630, Nanni Galli/Robin Widdows and Johnny Servoz-Gavin/Herbert Müller were both in the MS630/650. Beltoise/Courage finished fourth followed by Guichet/Vaccarella in fifth, Galli/Widdows seventh but Servoz-Gavin/Müller retired when an electrical circuit failed. For the 1969 6 Hours of Watkins Glen, Matra entered two cars for Servoz-Gavin/Pedro Rodriguez in the MS650 and Guichet/Widdows in the MS630/650. Servoz-Gavin/Rodriguez finished fourth and Guichet/Widdows retired with a broken clutch. For the final race of the 1969 season, the 1000km of Zeltweg, Matra only entered Servoz-Gavin/Rodriguez but the car retired through accident. In the International Championship for Makes, Matra had scored six points, earning it fifth place in the championship.
The first race of the season was the 1970 24 Hours of Daytona, Matra had two cars for Jack Brabham/François Cevert and Jean-Pierre Beltoise/Henri Pescarolo. Brabham/Cevert finished Beltoise/Pescarolo finished 18th. Matra made changes to the driver line ups for the 12 Hours of Sebring, Pescarolo/Servoz-Gavin and Cevert/Dan Gurney. Pescarolo/Servoz-Gavin finished fifth and Cevert/Gurney finish 12th. Matra again made changes to the driver line ups for the 1000km of Brands Hatch, The team put Brabham/Beltoise together but kept Pescarolo/Servoz-Gavin. Brabham/Beltoise finish Pescarolo/Servoz-Gavin retired with engine failure; the MNZ saw. The team skipped the next three races, the Targa Florio, 1000km of Spa-Francorchamps and 1000km of Nürburgring; the team entered three cars for the 24 Hours of Le Mans Beltoise/Pescarolo in the new Matra-Simca MS660, Brabham/Cevert and Patrick Depailler/Jean-Pierre Jabouille/Tim Schenken were both in the MS650 but all three cars retired with engine failure. The team skipped the final two race of the 1970 season, the Watkins Glen 6 Hours and Austrian 1000km.
In the International Championship for Makes, Matra had scored four points, earning it fourth place in the championship
Ronald Joseph Cicenia, known as Ron Carey, was an American film and television actor. The 5-foot-4-inch actor was best known for playing ambitious NYPD Police Officer Carl Levitt on TV's Barney Miller, in which he was always surrounded by male actors who stood at least 4 inches taller; the series' stars all stood 6 feet or more. Carey appeared in the recurring role for the last six of the eight seasons of Barney Miller's run, he first appeared on the show as a criminal, Angelo Molinari, in Season 2, Episode 22. Carey was among the slate of actors who were members of Mel Brooks unofficial repertory company, appearing in several of the director's films, he appeared in Fatso, directed by Brooks' wife Anne Bancroft and featuring several Brooks regulars. Carey was born in Newark, New Jersey, the son of Fanny and John Cicenia, was raised in an Italian American Catholic family. Carey did stand-up comedy in the 1960s, after earning a bachelor's degree in communications from Seton Hall University in 1956.
His comedy centered on Catholicism and his childhood of being the undersized but quick-witted kid on the block. His break came in 1966 when he appeared on The Merv Griffin Show and in 1967 he released a comedy album entitled The Slightly Irreverent Comedy of Ron Carey. From the mid-1970s on, Carey was a member of Mel Brooks' comedy troupe, appearing in featured roles in films such as High Anxiety, Silent Movie, History of the World, Part I, he appeared in supporting roles in other films and on television, was seen in scores of commercials, including some T-shirt ads for Hanes, an ad for Nabisco's snack cracker Better Cheddars where he sang. He is most remembered for his role as the diligent but somewhat obsequious and passive-aggressive Officer Carl Levitt, which he played from 1976 to 1982 on the TV series Barney Miller. Carey died of a stroke at a Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, in January 2007, he is survived by his wife of 38 years and his brother, James Cicenia. Ron Carey on IMDb New York Times obituary Playbill.com obituary The Final Taxi podcast on Ron Carey's life
Czech rail records, dates in brackets indicate when the record was reached or when the railway infrastructure was put into operation. First horse-drawn railway Railway České Budějovice - Linz, first public railway in continental Europe, with length 120 km and rail gauge 1,106 mm, section České Budějovice - Kerschbaum put into operation on September 30, 1828, the rest opened on August 1, 1832. First railway First section of the North railway from Vienna to Břeclav and its branch from Břeclav to Brno Maximum gradient of a rail line Gradient 57 ‰ on cog railway Tanvald-Kořenov The lowest railway station Station Dolní Žleb, 127 m above sea level, on cross-border line Děčín-Bad Schandau in valley of the Elbe River The highest railway station Station Kubova Huť, 990 m above sea level, on line Strakonice-Volary The longest tunnel Březno tunnel, 1758 m long, on line Prague-Chomutov which surpassed Špičák tunnel, 1747.25 m long, on line Plzeň-Železná Ruda. The longest bridge/viaductNegrelli viaduct, 1111 m long, on rail section Prague Masaryk station-Prague Bubny Bridge with the highest span Most míru, span 110 m, line Břeclav-Havlíčkův Brod The highest bridge/viaduct Viaduct Červená nad Vltavou, 68 m high, line Tábor-Ražice The highest operating line speed Speed 160 km/h in sections of transit corridors I. and II.
The fastest electric rail vehicle Unit ČD 680.001 Pendolino reached top speed 237 km/h between Brno and Břeclav The fastest electric locomotive Locomotive 469.4 ČSD, reached top speed 219 km/h on railway test circuit Velim. Czech built; the fastest diesel rail vehicle Locomotive T 499.0002, nicknamed Cyclop, reached top speed 178 km/h on railway test circuit Velim The fastest steam locomotive Locomotive 498.106 ČSD, nicknamed Albatross, reached top speed 162 km/h on railway test circuit Velim Railway records in the Czech Republic A brief history of the Budweiser-Railway/E. Oberegger