1.
Eiffel Tower
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The Eiffel Tower is a wrought iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed, the Eiffel Tower is the most-visited paid monument in the world,6.91 million people ascended it in 2015. The tower is 324 metres tall, about the height as an 81-storey building. Its base is square, measuring 125 metres on each side, due to the addition of a broadcasting aerial at the top of the tower in 1957, it is now taller than the Chrysler Building by 5.2 metres. Excluding transmitters, the Eiffel Tower is the second-tallest structure in France after the Millau Viaduct, the tower has three levels for visitors, with restaurants on the first and second levels. The top levels upper platform is 276 m above the ground – the highest observation deck accessible to the public in the European Union, tickets can be purchased to ascend by stairs or lift to the first and second levels. The climb from ground level to the first level is over 300 steps, although there is a staircase to the top level, it is usually only accessible by lift. Eiffel openly acknowledged that inspiration for a tower came from the Latting Observatory built in New York City in 1853, sauvestre added decorative arches to the base of the tower, a glass pavilion to the first level, and other embellishments. Little progress was made until 1886, when Jules Grévy was re-elected as president of France and Édouard Lockroy was appointed as minister for trade. On 12 May, a commission was set up to examine Eiffels scheme and its rivals, which, after some debate about the exact location of the tower, a contract was signed on 8 January 1887. Eiffel was to all income from the commercial exploitation of the tower during the exhibition. He later established a company to manage the tower, putting up half the necessary capital himself. The proposed tower had been a subject of controversy, drawing criticism from those who did not believe it was feasible and these objections were an expression of a long-standing debate in France about the relationship between architecture and engineering. And for twenty years … we shall see stretching like a blot of ink the hateful shadow of the column of bolted sheet metal. Gustave Eiffel responded to criticisms by comparing his tower to the Egyptian pyramids. Will it not also be grandiose in its way, and why would something admirable in Egypt become hideous and ridiculous in Paris. Indeed, Garnier was a member of the Tower Commission that had examined the various proposals, some of the protesters changed their minds when the tower was built, others remained unconvinced. Guy de Maupassant supposedly ate lunch in the restaurant every day because it was the one place in Paris where the tower was not visible
2.
Passy
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Passy is an area of Paris, France, located in the 16th arrondissement, on the Right Bank. It is traditionally home to many of the citys wealthiest residents, Passy was a commune on the outskirts of Paris. In 1658, hot springs were discovered around which spa facilities were developed and this attracted Parisian society and English visitors, some of whom made the area, which combined attractive countryside with both modest houses and fine residences, their winter retreat. The population was 2,400 in 1836,4,545 in 1841, in 1861 the population was 11,431. Passys population was 17,594 when it was absorbed into Paris along with other communities in 1860. 1917), American activist Passy was the home of Benjamin Franklin during the nine years that he lived in France during the American Revolutionary War, for much of this time, he was a lodger in the home of Monsieur de Chaumont. Franklin established a printing press in his lodgings to print pamphlets. He called it the Passy Press, among his printing projects, he produced comics he called Bagatelles and passports. He developed a typeface known as le Franklin and he also printed a 1782 treatise by Pierre-André Gargaz titled A Project of Universal and Perpetual Peace, which laid out a vision for maintaining a permanent peace in Europe. It proposed a central governing council composed of representatives of all the nations of Europe to arbitrate international disputes and he also worked on his scientific projects at a laboratory he shared with others, which had been installed by Louis XV in the Château de la Muette. When Franklin returned to America, the new American Ambassador to France, Thomas Jefferson, wrote, When he left Passy, it seemed as if the village had lost its patriarch. Les Artistes de Passy consisted of a grouping of avant-garde artistes. Albert Gleizes chose to Passy as the subject of this painting, there is now a rue Benjamin Franklin and a square de Yorktown near the Trocadéro. A lively street in the area is Rue de Passy, which goes from La Muette to the Place de Costa Rica just behind the Trocadéro and it has boutiques and chain stores along its length. Honoré de Balzac lived and wrote in Passy, and his house is now a museum, the apartment in which Marlon Brando trysts with Maria Schneider in Bernardo Bertoluccis 1972 film Last Tango in Paris was located in Passy. Auteuil-Neuilly-Passy Théodore Année Madame Brillon Media related to Passy, Paris at Wikimedia Commons
3.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
4.
Find a Grave
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Find a Grave is a website that allows the public to search and add to an online database of cemetery records. It is owned by Ancestry. com, the worlds largest for-profit genealogy company, the site was created in 1995 by Salt Lake City resident Jim Tipton to support his hobby of visiting the burial sites of celebrities. He later added an online forum, Find a Grave was launched as a commercial entity in 1998, first as a trade name and then incorporated in 2000. The site later expanded to include graves of non-celebrities, in order to allow visitors to pay respect to their deceased relatives or friends. In 2013, Tipton sold Find a Grave to Ancestry. com, burial information is a wonderful source for people researching their family history. In a September 30,2013, press release, Ancestry, as of March 2017, Find a Grave contained over 159 million burial records and 75 million photos. The website contains listings of cemeteries and graves from around the world, american cemeteries are organized by state and county, and many cemetery records contain Google Maps and photographs of the cemeteries and gravesites. Individual grave records may contain dates and places of birth and death, biographical information, cemetery and plot information, photographs, Interment listings are added by individuals, genealogical societies, and other institutions such as the International Wargraves Photography Project. Contributors must register as members to submit listings, called memorials, the submitter becomes the manager of the listing but may transfer management. Only the current manager of a listing may edit it, although any member may use the features to send correction requests to the listings manager. Managers may add links to other listings of deceased spouses, parents, members may post requests for photos of a specific grave, these requests will be automatically sent to other members who have registered their location as being near that grave. Find a Grave also maintains lists of memorials of famous persons by their claim to fame, such as Medal of Honor recipients, religious figures, Find a Grave exercises editorial control over these listings. Canadian Headstones Interment. net National Cemetery Administrations Nationwide Gravesite Locator Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness Tombstone tourist Colker, web site answers grave concerns about stars. Web site attracts millions of grave-seekers, Find VIPs who R. I. P. through online cemetery. Genealogy, Find a Grave tremendous on many different levels, terre Haute, Indiana, Community Newspaper Holdings Inc. Archived from the original on May 14,2011, tip, Find a Grave has info youre dying to know. Tracking Down Relatives, Visiting Graves Virtually, media related to Images from Find A Grave at Wikimedia Commons Official website
5.
French language
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French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages, French has evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues doïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to Frances past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, a French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is a language in 29 countries, most of which are members of la francophonie. As of 2015, 40% of the population is in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas. French is the fourth-most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, 1/5 of Europeans who do not have French as a mother tongue speak French as a second language. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 17th and 18th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, most second-language speakers reside in Francophone Africa, in particular Gabon, Algeria, Mauritius, Senegal and Ivory Coast. In 2015, French was estimated to have 77 to 110 million native speakers, approximately 274 million people are able to speak the language. The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie estimates 700 million by 2050, in 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese. Under the Constitution of France, French has been the language of the Republic since 1992. France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland called Romandie, of which Geneva is the largest city. French is the language of about 23% of the Swiss population. French is also a language of Luxembourg, Monaco, and Aosta Valley, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands. A plurality of the worlds French-speaking population lives in Africa and this number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as a foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050, French is the fastest growing language on the continent. French is mostly a language in Africa, but it has become a first language in some urban areas, such as the region of Abidjan, Ivory Coast and in Libreville. There is not a single African French, but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages, sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth
6.
Cemetery
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A cemetery or graveyard is a place where the remains of dead people are buried or otherwise interred. The word cemetery implies that the land is designated as a burial ground. The term graveyard is used interchangeably with cemetery, but primarily referred to a burial ground within a churchyard. The intact or cremated remains of people may be interred in a grave, commonly referred to as burial, or in a tomb, an above-ground grave, in Western cultures, funeral ceremonies are often observed in cemeteries. These ceremonies or rites of passage according to cultural practices. Modern cemeteries often include crematoria, and some previously used for both, continue as crematoria as a principal use long after the interment areas have been filled. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a cemetery as a burial-ground generally, a large public park or ground laid out expressly for the interment of the dead, and not being the ‘yard’ of any church. Prehistoric cemeteries are referred to by the term grave field. From about the 7th century, European burial was under the control of the Church, practices varied, but in continental Europe, bodies were usually buried in a mass grave until they had decomposed. The bones were exhumed and stored in ossuaries, either along the arcaded bounding walls of the cemetery, or within the church under floor slabs. In Europe this was accompanied with a depiction of their coat of arms. Most others were buried in graveyards again divided by social status, mourners who could afford the work of a stonemason had a headstone engraved with a name, dates of birth and death and sometimes other biographical data, and set up over the place of burial. Usually, the writing and symbols carved on the headstone. Some families hired a blacksmith and had large crosses made from various metals put on the place of burial, in many European states, burial in graveyards was eventually outlawed altogether through government legislation. Instead of graveyards, completely new places of burial were established away from populated areas and outside of old towns. Many new cemeteries became municipally owned or were run by their own corporations, in some cases, skeletons were exhumed from graveyards and moved into ossuaries or catacombs. A large action of this occurred in 18th century Paris when human remains were transferred from graveyards all over the city to the Catacombs of Paris. The bones of an estimated 6 million people are to be found there, an early example of a landscape-style cemetery is Père Lachaise in Paris
7.
16th arrondissement of Paris
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The 16th arrondissement of Paris is one of the 20 arrondissements of Paris, the capital city of France. It includes a concentration of museums between the Place du Trocadéro and the Place dIéna, the Bois de Boulogne, the second-largest public park in Paris, is also located in this arrondissement. The land area of this arrondissement is 16.305 km2, excluding the Bois de Boulogne, its land area is 7.846 km2. It is the largest arrondissement in Paris in terms of land area, the 16th arrondissement population peaked in 1962, when it had 227,418 inhabitants. At the last census, the population was 169,372, the 16th arrondissement contains a great deal of business activity, in 1999 it hosted 106,971 jobs. It is also the arrondissement in Paris to be divided into two separate postal codes. The southern part of the arrondissement carries a postal code of 75016, four Fortune Global 500 have their head offices in this arrondissement, PSA Peugeot Citroën, Kering, Lafarge, and Veolia. In addition Lagardère and Technip have their headquarters in this arrondissement, at one time Aérospatiale had its head office in the arrondissement. This scene was shot on Avenue dEylau in the 16th arrondissement, a notorious serial murder case, which generated an international media circus, centered in the 16th arrondissement during the Nazi occupation of France during World War II. The focal point of the case was French doctor Marcel Petiot, on 11 March 1944, Petiots neighbors complained to police of a foul stench in the area and of large amounts of smoke billowing from a chimney of the house. Fearing a chimney fire, the police summoned firemen, who entered the house, in the fire, and scattered in the basement, were human remains. Following an investigation, during which time Petiot attempted to evade capture and he was convicted of 26 counts of murder and sentenced to death. On 25 May, Petiot was beheaded, after a stay of several days due to a problem in the mechanism of the guillotine. International schools, Russian Embassy School of Paris, on the grounds of the Russian Embassy in Paris, colegio Español Fecerico García Lorca, a Spanish international primary school owned by the Spanish government The Spanish secondary school, Liceo Español Luis Buñuel, is located in Neuilly sur Seine. The two campuses of the International School of Paris Kingsworth International School The Université Paris-Dauphine is in the arrondissement, the renowned classes préparatoires establishment Intégrale, Institut denseignement supérieur privé have one of their campuses in the arrondissement. The École de langue japonaise de Paris, a supplementary Japanese education programme, is held at the École Maternelle et Primaire Saint Francois dEylau in the 16th arrondissement, the school has its offices at the Association Amicale des Ressortissants Japonais en France in the 8th arrondissement. Media related to Paris 16e arrondissement at Wikimedia Commons 16th arrondissement travel guide from Wikivoyage
8.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
9.
Napoleon
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Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led several successful campaigns during the French Revolutionary Wars. As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 until 1814, Napoleon dominated European and global affairs for more than a decade while leading France against a series of coalitions in the Napoleonic Wars. He won most of these wars and the vast majority of his battles, one of the greatest commanders in history, his wars and campaigns are studied at military schools worldwide. Napoleons political and cultural legacy has ensured his status as one of the most celebrated and he was born Napoleone di Buonaparte in Corsica to a relatively modest family from the minor nobility. When the Revolution broke out in 1789, Napoleon was serving as an officer in the French army. Seizing the new opportunities presented by the Revolution, he rose through the ranks of the military. The Directory eventually gave him command of the Army of Italy after he suppressed a revolt against the government from royalist insurgents, in 1798, he led a military expedition to Egypt that served as a springboard to political power. He engineered a coup in November 1799 and became First Consul of the Republic and his ambition and public approval inspired him to go further, and in 1804 he became the first Emperor of the French. Intractable differences with the British meant that the French were facing a Third Coalition by 1805, in 1806, the Fourth Coalition took up arms against him because Prussia became worried about growing French influence on the continent. Napoleon quickly defeated Prussia at the battles of Jena and Auerstedt, then marched the Grand Army deep into Eastern Europe, France then forced the defeated nations of the Fourth Coalition to sign the Treaties of Tilsit in July 1807, bringing an uneasy peace to the continent. Tilsit signified the high watermark of the French Empire, hoping to extend the Continental System and choke off British trade with the European mainland, Napoleon invaded Iberia and declared his brother Joseph the King of Spain in 1808. The Spanish and the Portuguese revolted with British support, the Peninsular War lasted six years, featured extensive guerrilla warfare, and ended in victory for the Allies. The Continental System caused recurring diplomatic conflicts between France and its client states, especially Russia, unwilling to bear the economic consequences of reduced trade, the Russians routinely violated the Continental System and enticed Napoleon into another war. The French launched an invasion of Russia in the summer of 1812. The resulting campaign witnessed the collapse of the Grand Army, the destruction of Russian cities, in 1813, Prussia and Austria joined Russian forces in a Sixth Coalition against France. A lengthy military campaign culminated in a large Allied army defeating Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813, the Allies then invaded France and captured Paris in the spring of 1814, forcing Napoleon to abdicate in April. He was exiled to the island of Elba near Rome and the Bourbons were restored to power, however, Napoleon escaped from Elba in February 1815 and took control of France once again. The Allies responded by forming a Seventh Coalition, which defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in June, the British exiled him to the remote island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, where he died six years later at the age of 51
10.
Montmartre Cemetery
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Montmartre Cemetery is a cemetery in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, France, that dates to the early 19th century. Officially known as the Cimitière du Nord, it is the third largest necropolis in Paris, after the Père Lachaise cemetery and the Montparnasse cemetery. In the mid-18th century, overcrowding in the cemeteries of Paris had created numerous problems, in the 1780s, the Cimetière des Innocents was officially closed and citizens were banned from burying corpses within the city limits of Paris. The Montmartre Cemetery was opened on January 1,1825 and it was initially known as la Cimetière des Grandes Carrières. The name referenced the cemeterys unique location, in a gypsum quarry. The quarry had previously used during the French Revolution as a mass grave. It was built below street level, in the hollow of a gypsum quarry located west of the Butte near the beginning of Rue Caulaincourt in Place de Clichy. As is still the case today, its entrance was constructed on Avenue Rachel under Rue Caulaincourt. A popular tourist destination even today, Montmartre Cemetery is the resting place of many famous artists who lived and worked in the Montmartre area. See the full list of notable interments below and it should be noted however, that the Zola family grave is still there, with Émiles name on it. Montmartre cemetery information In English Photos of Montmartre Documenting funerary statuary in Paris cemeteries, on pariscemeteries. com
11.
Montparnasse Cemetery
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Montparnasse Cemetery is a cemetery in the Montparnasse quarter of Paris, part of the citys 14th arrondissement. Created from three farms in 1824, the cemetery at Montparnasse was originally known as Le Cimetière du Sud, cemeteries had been banned from Paris since the closure, owing to health concerns, of the Cimetière des Innocents in 1786. At the heart of the city, and today sitting in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, is Passy Cemetery, Montparnasse Cemetery is the resting place of many of Frances intellectual and artistic elite as well as publishers and others who promoted the works of authors and artists. There are also graves of foreigners who have made France their home, as well as monuments to police. The cemetery is divided by Rue Émile Richard, the small section is usually referred to as the small cemetery and the large section as the big cemetery. Although Baudelaire is buried in this cemetery, there is also a cenotaph to him, because of the many notable people buried there, it is a highly popular tourist attraction. Divisions 5 and 30 were originally Jewish enclosures and contain many Jewish graves, the main entrance to the cemetery is on Boulevard Edgar Quinet which leads to the big cemetery. There are smaller entrances to both the big and small cemeteries on Rue Émile Richard, list of burials at Montparnasse Cemetery A list of many buried at the cemetery Montparnasse Cemetery at Find a Grave Information and help in touring Montparnasse cemetery In English
12.
Relief
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Relief is a sculptural technique where the sculpted elements remain attached to a solid background of the same material. The term relief is from the Latin verb relevo, to raise, to create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane. What is actually performed when a relief is cut in from a surface of stone or wood is a lowering of the field. The technique involves considerable chiselling away of the background, which is a time-consuming exercise. In other materials such as metal, clay, plaster stucco, ceramics or papier-mâché the form can be just added to or raised up from the background, and monumental bronze reliefs are made by casting. There are different degrees of relief depending on the degree of projection of the form from the field. There is also sunk relief, which was restricted to Ancient Egypt. However the distinction between high relief and low relief is the clearest and most important, and these two are generally the only used to discuss most work. Hyphens may or may not be used in all these terms, works in the technique are described as in relief, and, especially in monumental sculpture, the work itself is a relief. Reliefs are common throughout the world on the walls of buildings and a variety of settings. Relief is more suitable for depicting complicated subjects with figures and very active poses, such as battles. Most ancient architectural reliefs were painted, which helped to define forms in low relief. Rock reliefs are carved into solid rock in the open air. This type is found in cultures, in particular those of the Ancient Near East and Buddhist countries. A stele is a standing stone, many of these carry reliefs. The distinction between high and low relief is somewhat subjective, and the two are often combined in a single work. In particular, most later high reliefs contain sections in low relief, a low relief or bas-relief is a projecting image with a shallow overall depth, for example used on coins, on which all images are in low relief. Other versions distort depth much less and it is a technique which requires less work, and is therefore cheaper to produce, as less of the background needs to be removed in a carving, or less modelling is required
13.
World War I
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World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany
14.
Necropolis
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A necropolis is a large, designed cemetery with elaborate tomb monuments. The name stems from the Ancient Greek νεκρόπολις nekropolis, literally meaning city of the dead, the term usually implies a separate burial site at a distance from a city, as opposed to tombs within cities, which were common in various places and periods of history. They are different from fields, which did not have remains above the ground. While the word is most commonly used for ancient sites, the name was revived in the early 19th century and applied to planned city cemeteries, such as the Glasgow Necropolis. Aside from the pyramids which were reserved for the burial of Pharaohs the Egyptian necropoleis included mastabas, naqsh-e Rustam is an ancient necropolis located about 12 km northwest of Persepolis, in Fars Province, Iran. The oldest relief at Naqsh-i Rustam dates to c.1000 BC, though it is severely damaged, it depicts a faint image of a man with unusual head-gear and is thought to be Elamite in origin. The depiction is part of an image, most of which was removed at the command of Bahram II. Four tombs belonging to Achaemenid kings are carved out of the face at a considerable height above the ground. The tombs are known locally as the Persian crosses, after the shape of the facades of the tombs, later, Sassanian kings added a series of rock reliefs below the tombs. In the Mycenean Greek period pre-dating ancient Greece burials could be performed inside the city, in Mycenae for example the royal tombs were located in a precinct within the city walls. This changed during the ancient Greek period when necropoleis usually lined the roads outside a city, there existed some degree of variation within the ancient Greek world however. Sparta was notable for continuing the practice of burial within the city, the Etruscans took the concept of a city of the dead quite literally. The typical tomb at the Banditaccia necropolis at Cerveteri consists of a tumulus which covers one or more rock-cut subterranean tombs and these tombs had multiple chambers and were elaborately decorated like contemporary houses. The arrangement of the tumuli in a grid of streets gave it a similar to the cities of the living. The art historian Nigel Spivey considers the name cemetery inadequate and argues that only the term necropolis can do justice to these burial sites. Etruscan necropoleis were located on hills or slopes of hills. In ancient Rome families originally buried deceased relatives in their own homes because of the Roman practice of ancestor worship, the enactment of the Twelve Tables in 449 BC forbade this, which made the Romans adopt the practice of burial in necropoleis. List of necropoleis Funerary art Catacombs
15.
Chestnut
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The chestnut group is a genus of eight or nine species of deciduous trees and shrubs in the beech family Fagaceae, native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. The name also refers to the edible nuts they produce, Chestnuts belong to the family Fagaceae, which also includes oaks and beeches. Unrelated but externally similar species of horse chestnut are abundant around Europe, other trees commonly mistaken for chestnut trees are the chestnut oak and the American beech, both of which are also in Fagaceae. The name chestnut is derived from an earlier English term chesten nut, the name Castanea is probably derived from the old name for the sweet chestnut, either in Latin or in Ancient Greek. Another possible source of the name is the town of Kastania in Thessaly, Greece, more probable, in the Mediterranean climate zone, chestnut trees are rarer in Greece because the chalky soil is not conducive to the trees growth. Kastania is located on one of the relatively few sedimentary or siliceous outcrops and they grow so abundantly there, their presence would have determined the places name. Still others take the name as coming from the Greek name of Sardis glans – Sardis being the capital of Lydia, Asia Minor, the name is cited twice in the King James Version of the Bible. In one instance, Jacob puts peeled twigs in the troughs to promote healthy offspring of his livestock. Although it may indicate another tree, it indicates the fruit was a staple food in the early 17th century. These synonyms are or have been in use, Fagus castanea, Sardian nut, Jupiters nut, husked nut, Chestnut trees are of moderate growth rate to fast-growing for American and European species. Their mature heights vary from the smallest species of chinkapins, often shrubby, to the giant of past American forests, C. dentata that could reach 60 m. Between these extremes are found the Japanese chestnut at 10 m average, followed by the Chinese chestnut at about 15 m, when standing on their own, they spread on the sides and develop broad, rounded, dense crowns at maturity. The two latters foliage has striking yellow autumn colouring and its bark is smooth when young, of a vinous maroon or red-brown colour for the American chestnut, grey for the European chestnut. The leaves are simple, ovate or lanceolate, 10–30 cm long and 4–10 cm wide, with sharply pointed, the flowers follow the leaves, appearing in late spring or early summer or into July. They are arranged in long catkins of two kinds, with both kinds being borne on every tree, some catkins are made of only male flowers, which mature first. Each flower has eight stamens, or 10 to 12 for C. mollissima, the ripe pollen carries a heavy, sweet odour that some people find too sweet or unpleasant. Other catkins have these pollen-bearing flowers, but also carry near the twig from which these spring, two or three flowers together form a four-lobed prickly calybium, which ultimately grows completely together to make the brown hull, or husk, covering the fruits. Chestnut flowers are not self-compatible, so two trees are required for pollination, all Castanea species readily hybridize with each other
16.
Xawery Dunikowski
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Xawery Dunikowski was a Polish sculptor and artist, notable for surviving Auschwitz concentration camp, and best known for his Neo-Romantic sculptures and Auschwitz-inspired art. Dunikowski was born in Kraków, a city he had an affinity for, when he was twelve his family moved to Warsaw, and after finishing his education in a technical school he studied sculpture under Boleslaw Syrewicz and Leon Wasilkowski. At twenty one, Dunikowski moved back to Kraków to study sculpture at the School of Fine Arts under Konstanty Laszczka, admirer of Auguste Rodin and he studied painting with Jan Stanisławski and after being enrolled for three years, he graduated with honors. Dunikowski did not leave Kraków until 1940 when he was arrested by the Gestapo, Dunikowski was arrested on 15 May 1940 and deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp on 26 June 1940. In Auschwitz he was assigned the number 774, the detainment interrupted his series of sculptures entitled Heads from the Kraków Palace, based on busts found on the ceilings of Renaissance castles. Auschwitz had demoralized the artist to a point where he said that he had died there, already growing old by 1942, Dunikowski became sick and was selected to be killed until his name was crossed off a list to be gassed, by a fellow Pole. Narrowly escaping death, he once again met his fate in September 1943 when he was accused of belonging to the resistance movement within Auschwitz and was sentenced to be shot. However, due to illness he was sent back to the hospital and had his sentence reduced. By 1944, still recovering in the hospital, he began to other prisoners. Each drawing had to be smuggled out and the ones made it were sent back to Kraków. Dunikowski had still not completely recovered by 27 January 1945, when the Soviet Red Army liberated Auschwitz and he also resumed working on the Heads from the Kraków Palace after the war. Dunikowski also lived to see his works on display in his hometown of Kraków, exhibitions in Warsaw, and further exhibitions that reached all the way to Moscow and Venice by the early to mid-1950s. In 1955, Dunikowski was the subject of a documentary themed around his workshop titled Idę do słońca, featured in the documentary was another famous sculpture series by Dunikowski, Kobiety brzemienne. In the same year Dunikowski became a professor of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, leaving Kraków permanently, the former palace in Królikarnia houses a museum dedicated to Dunikowski. In the park many of his famous works can be seen, among which The Soul Escaping the Body. Media related to Xawery Dunikowski at Wikimedia Commons Xawery Dunikowski at Culture. pl
17.
Vietnam
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Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. With an estimated 92.7 million inhabitants as of 2016, it is the worlds 14th-most-populous country, and its capital city has been Hanoi since the reunification of North and South Vietnam in 1976, with Ho Chi Minh City as a historical city as well. The northern part of Vietnam was part of Imperial China for over a millennium, an independent Vietnamese state was formed in 939, following a Vietnamese victory in the Battle of Bạch Đằng River. Following a Japanese occupation in the 1940s, the Vietnamese fought French rule in the First Indochina War, thereafter, Vietnam was divided politically into two rival states, North Vietnam, and South Vietnam. Conflict between the two sides intensified in what is known as the Vietnam War, the war ended with a North Vietnamese victory in 1975. Vietnam was then unified under a communist government but remained impoverished, in 1986, the government initiated a series of economic and political reforms which began Vietnams path towards integration into the world economy. By 2000, it had established relations with all nations. Since 2000, Vietnams economic growth rate has been among the highest in the world and its successful economic reforms resulted in its joining the World Trade Organization in 2007. It is also a member of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, Vietnam remains one of the worlds four remaining one-party socialist states officially espousing communism. The name Việt Nam is a variation of Nam Việt, a name that can be traced back to the Triệu Dynasty of the 2nd century BC. The word Việt originated as a form of Bách Việt. The form Vietnam is first recorded in the 16th-century oracular poem Sấm Trạng Trình, the name has also been found on 12 steles carved in the 16th and 17th centuries, including one at Bao Lam Pagoda in Haiphong that dates to 1558. Then, as recorded, rewarded Yuenan/Vietnam as their nations name, to also show that they are below the region of Baiyue/Bach Viet. Between 1804 and 1813, the name was used officially by Emperor Gia Long and it was revived in the early 20th century by Phan Bội Châus History of the Loss of Vietnam, and later by the Vietnamese Nationalist Party. The country was usually called Annam until 1945, when both the government in Huế and the Viet Minh government in Hanoi adopted Việt Nam. Archaeological excavations have revealed the existence of humans in what is now Vietnam as early as the Paleolithic age, Homo erectus fossils dating to around 500,000 BC have been found in caves in Lạng Sơn and Nghệ An provinces in northern Vietnam. The oldest Homo sapiens fossils from mainland Southeast Asia are of Middle Pleistocene provenance, teeth attributed to Homo sapiens from the Late Pleistocene have also been found at Dong Can, and from the Early Holocene at Mai Da Dieu, Lang Gao and Lang Cuom. The Hồng Bàng dynasty of the Hùng kings is considered the first Vietnamese state, in 257 BC, the last Hùng king was defeated by Thục Phán, who consolidated the Lạc Việt and Âu Việt tribes to form the Âu Lạc, proclaiming himself An Dương Vương
18.
Jean-Louis Barrault
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Jean-Louis Barrault studied with Charles Dullin in whose troupe he acted from 1933 to 1935. At 25 years of age, he met and studied with the mime Étienne Decroux, from 1940 to 1946 Barrault was a member of the Comédie-Française, where he directed productions of Paul Claudels Le Soulier de satin and Jean Racines Phèdre, two plays that made his reputation. Over his career, he acted in nearly 50 movies including Les beaux jours, Jenny, LOr dans la Montagne, in 1940, he married the actress Madeleine Renaud. They founded a number of theatres together and toured extensively, including in South America and he was the uncle of actress Marie-Christine Barrault and sometime sponsor of Peter Brook. He died from an attack in Paris at the age of 83. Jean-Louis Barrault is buried with his wife Madeleine Renaud in the Passy Cemetery in Paris, Jean-Louis Barrault, Reflections on the Theatre, In fact it is the simplest things that are the most tricky to do well. To be able to exactly what is written without omitting anything that is written. To be able to capture the exact context of the one is reading. Barrault from Melinda Camber Porters Through Parisian Eyes, Reflections on Contemporary French Arts and Culture, when I go to sleep, I feel I have experienced a small death, so that I can wake up in the morning renewed and reborn. Jean-Louis Barrault at the Internet Movie Database Jean-Louis Barrault at Find a Grave
19.
Madeleine Renaud
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Lucie Madeleine Renaud was a French actress best remembered for her work in the theatre. She did though appear in films directed by Jean Grémillon including Remorques. Renaud had a son, Jean-Pierre Granval, by her first marriage, in 1940, Renaud married her second husband, actor-director Jean-Louis Barrault. They remained married until his death in 1994, the couple acted together and co-founded a number of theater companies, touring extensively throughout North and South America. Madeleine Renaud at the Internet Movie Database Madeleine Renaud at AllMovie Madeleine Renaud at Find a Grave
20.
Louis-Ernest Barrias
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Louis-Ernest Barrias was a French sculptor of the Beaux-Arts school. In 1865 Barrias won the Prix de Rome for study at the French Academy in Rome, Barrias was involved in the decoration of the Paris Opéra and the Hôtel de la Païva in the Champs-Élysées. His work was mostly in marble, in a Romantic realist style indebted to Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux and he was born in Paris into a family of artists. His father was a porcelain-painter, and his older brother Félix-Joseph Barrias a well-known painter, louis-Ernest also started out as a painter, studying under Léon Cogniet, but later took up sculpture with Pierre-Jules Cavelier as teacher. In 1858 he was admitted to the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, in 1865 Barrias won the Prix de Rome for study at the French Academy in Rome. Barrias was involved in the decoration of the Paris Opéra and the Hôtel de la Païva in the Champs-Élysées and his work was mostly in marble, in a Romantic realist style indebted to Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux. In 1878 he was made a knight of the Legion of Honour, an officer in 1881, Barrias replaced Dumont at the Institut de France in 1884 then succeeded Cavelier as professor at the École des Beaux-Arts. In 1900-03 he served on the Council for the National Museums, among his students were Josep Clarà, Charles Despiau, Henri Bouchard, and Victor Ségoffin. Barrias was very influenced by the Art Nouveau style, which was prominent in art during the fin-de-siècle in France, the voluptuous women figures used in many of his sculptures are a product of this time and style. Nature and the erotic was, also, used often in this style of art. This piece was made in 1899, when this style was popular, another sculpture by Barrias is Portrait of the Young Mozart. He also often used literary references in his sculptures, Barrias died in Paris on 4 February 1905. At the Musée dOrsay, Nature Unveiling Herself before Science Bust of Henri Regnault Nubian Alligator Hunters At Dreux, Funeral monument of the duchesse dAlençon
21.
Jeanne Julia Bartet
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Jeanne Julia Bartet, a French actress, was born in Paris and trained at the Conservatoire. In 1872 she began a career at the Vaudeville, and in 1879 was engaged at the Comédie-Française. For many years she played the chief parts both in tragedy and comedy and she was known for Louis XI and Rival de son Père. She had a season in London in 1908, when her consummate art was displayed in a number of parts, Jeanne Julia Bartet died in 1941 and was interred in the Passy Cemetery in Paris Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Bartet, Jeanne Julia
22.
Marie Bashkirtseff
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Marie Bashkirtseff was a Ukrainian diarist, painter, and sculptor. Bashkirtseff was born Maria Konstantinovna Bashkirtseva in Gavrontsi near Poltava to a noble family. As a result, she grew up abroad, traveling with her mother throughout most of Europe, with longer spells in Germany and on the Riviera. Educated privately and with musical talent, she lost her chance at a career as a singer when illness destroyed her voice. She then determined on becoming an artist, and she studied painting in France at the Robert-Fleury studio, the Académie, as one of the few establishments that accepted female students, attracted young women from all over Europe and the United States. Fellow students at the Académie included Anna Bilińska-Bohdanowiczowa and especially Louise Breslau, Bashkirtseff would go on to produce a remarkable, if fairly conventional, body of work in her short lifetime, exhibiting at the Paris Salon as early as 1880 and every year thereafter until her death. In 1884, she exhibited a portrait of Paris slum children entitled The Meeting, Bashkirtseffs best-known works are The Meeting and In the Studio, a portrait of her fellow artists at work. Although a large number of Bashkirtseffs works were destroyed by the Nazis during World War II, in 2000, a U. S. touring exhibition entitled Overcoming All the Obstacles, The Women of Academy Julian featured works by Bashkirtseff and her schoolmates. As a painter, Bashkirtseff took her cue from her friend Jules Bastien-Lepages admiration for realism and naturalism, by unlucky chance, both artists succumbed prematurely to chronic illness in the same year, and the later pages of Bashkirtseffs journal record her visits to the dying painter. Dying of tuberculosis at the age of 25, Bashkirtseff lived just long enough to emerge as an intellectual in Paris in the 1880s, a misandrist, she wrote several articles for Hubertine Auclerts feminist newspaper La Citoyenne in 1881 under the nom de plume Pauline Orrel. One of her most-quoted sayings is Let us love dogs, let us love only dogs, men and cats are unworthy creatures. Bashkirtseff died in Paris in 1884, and she is buried in Cimetière de Passy and her monument is a full-sized artists studio that has been declared a historic monument by the government of France. From approximately the age of 13, Bashkirtseff kept a journal and it has been called a strikingly modern psychological self-portrait of a young, gifted mind, and her urgent prose, which occasionally breaks out into dialogue, remains extremely readable. A consistent theme throughout her journal is her desire to achieve fame. Similarly, When I am dead, my life, which appears to me a remarkable one, in effect, the first half of Bashkirtseffs journal is a coming-of-age story while the second is an account of heroic suffering. Bashkirtseffs journal was first published in 1887, and was only the second diary by a woman published in France to that date, an English translation appeared two years later under the title Marie Bashkirtseff, The Journal of a Young Artist 1860-1884. Translated by Mary J. Serrano, it was abridged and bowdlerized. British Prime Minister William Gladstone referred to her journal as a book without a parallel and it remained popular, eventually spinning off both plays and movies based on her life story, including The Affairs of Maupassant, directed by Henry Koster and released in the United States in 1938
23.
James Gordon Bennett Jr.
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James Gordon Bennett Jr. was publisher of the New York Herald, founded by his father, James Gordon Bennett Sr. who emigrated from Scotland. He was generally known as Gordon Bennett to distinguish him from his father, among his many sports-related accomplishments he organized both the first polo match and the first tennis match in the United States, and he personally won the first trans-oceanic yacht race. He sponsored explorers including Henry Morton Stanleys trip to Africa to find David Livingstone, Bennett was born on May 10,1841 in New York City to James Gordon Bennett Sr. the founder, editor and publisher of the New York Herald. He was educated primarily in France, in 1866, the elder Bennett turned control of the Herald over to him. Bennett, like many of his class, indulged in the good life, yachts, opulent private railroad cars. He was the youngest Commodore ever of the New York Yacht Club, in 1861, Bennett volunteered his newly built schooner yacht, Henrietta, for the U. S. Revenue Marine Service during the Civil War, at the same time, Bennett was commissioned as a third lieutenant in the Revenue Marine Service and assigned to the U. S. Marine Revenue schooner Henrietta beginning in June 1861. She patrolled Long Island until February 1862 when she was sent to Port Royal, on March 3,1862, Bennett commanded the Henrietta as part of the fleet which captured Fernandina, Florida. Bennett and the Henrietta returned to life in New York in May 1862. In 1866, on a bet, he won the first trans-oceanic yacht race, the race was between three American yachts, the Vesta, the Fleetwing and the Henrietta. Each yachtsman put up $30,000 in the winner-take-all wager and they started off of Sandy Hook, New Jersey, on 11 December 1866 amid high westerly winds and raced to The Needles, the furthest westerly point on the Isle of Wight, famous for its lighthouse. Bennetts Henrietta won with a time of 13 days,21 hours,55 minutes and he entertained guests aboard his steam-yacht Namouna. American expatriate artist Julius LeBlanc Stewart painted several works set on the yacht, however, he often scandalized society with his flamboyant and sometimes erratic behavior. In 1877, he left New York for Europe after an incident that ended his engagement to socialite Caroline May, according to various accounts, he arrived late and drunk to a party at the May family mansion, then urinated into a fireplace in full view of his hosts. Bennetts controversial reputation has been thought to have inspired, in the United Kingdom, settling in Paris, he launched the Paris edition of the New York Herald, named The Paris Herald, the forerunner of the International Herald Tribune. He backed George W. De Longs voyage to the North Pole on the USS Jeannette via the Bering Strait, the ill-fated expedition led to the deaths from starvation of DeLong and 19 of his crew, a tragedy that only increased the papers circulation. He was a co-founder of the Commercial Cable Company, a venture to break the Transatlantic cable monopoly held by Jay Gould. Bennett returned to the United States and organized the first polo match in the United States at Dickels Riding Academy at 39th Street and he would help found the Westchester Polo Club in 1876, the first polo club in America
24.
Tristan Bernard
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Tristan Bernard was a French playwright, novelist, journalist and lawyer. Born Paul Bernard into a Jewish family in Besançon, Doubs, Franche-Comté, France and he left Besançon at the age of 14 years, relocating with his father to Paris, where he studied at the Lycée Condorcet, which was noted for its numerous literary alumni. In 1888 was born his son Jean-Jacques Bernard, also a dramatist and he studied law, but after his military service he started his career as the manager of an aluminium smelter. He reputedly introduced the bell to signify the last lap of a race, after his first publication in La Revue Blanche in 1891, he became increasingly a writer and adopted the pseudonym Tristan. His first play, Les Pieds Nickelés, was a success and was representative of the style of his later work. He became known especially for his writing for vaudeville-type performances, which were popular in France during that time. He also wrote novels and some poetry. Bernard is remembered mainly for witticisms, particularly from his play Les Jumeaux de Brighton, in 1932, he was a candidate for the Académie Française, but was not elected, receiving only 2 votes of a total of 39. He was interned during World War II at the Drancy deportation camp, when Gestapo agents were at his door he turned to his wife, who was crying, and said Don´t cry, we were living in fear, but from now on we will live in hope. Public protest of his imprisonment caused his release in 1943 and he died in Paris four years later, allegedly of the results of his internment, and was buried in Passy cemetery. A theater in Paris that he ran briefly as the Théâtre Tristan-Bernard in 1931 was later given the name permanently to honor him and his descendants have achieved some fame. His son Raymond Bernard became an influential French filmmaker while his son Jean-Jacques Bernard published a memoir of his father in 1955 titled Mon père Tristan Bernard, Tristan Bernards grandson Christian Bernard is the current Imperator of the Rosicrucian organization AMORC. One of his grand-nephews is Francis Veber, a screenwriter, director and playwright whose films have been frequently remade or adapted in Hollywood
25.
Natalia Brasova
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Natalia Brasova, Countess Brasova was a Russian noblewoman who married, as her third husband, Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich of Russia. Natalia, or Natasha to her friends, was the youngest of three daughters of a Moscow lawyer, Sergei Alexandrovich Sheremetevsky and she was born at a rented summer dacha at Perovo, on the outskirts of Moscow. Sheremetevsky employed 11 other lawyers, and was a member of the minor nobility and he was a sometime deputy in the Moscow City Duma, and a trustee of the Arbat City School. In the first year of her life, Natalia and her family lived in an apartment near the Moscow Kremlin on Ilinka. Their landlord, wealthy industrialist Aleksey Khludov, was also Natalias godfather, from 1881 to 1893, the family lived at 7 Serebriany Lane, a single-storied wooden house owned by Sheremetevsky. From 1893, the family lived in a succession of rented apartments until Natalia left home on her marriage and she was educated at a private school, and by a French governess employed by her father. In 1902, she married Sergei Mamontov, a nephew of Savva Mamontov, Sergei was a rehearsal accompanist for Savva Mamontovs Opera Company, which was renamed Association of Russian Opera after Savvas bankruptcy in 1899, and later at the Bolshoi Theatre. Through her first husbands connections, Natalia became friendly with noted musicians such as Sergei Rachmaninoff, the couple moved into 13 Mansurovsky Lane, a new apartment building near the fashionable Prechistenka street, and had a daughter, Natalia or Tata to the family, on 2 June 1903. Sergei had a stammer and was of a disposition. Finding him socially dull, she began to go out unaccompanied by her husband, Russian divorce law followed the teachings of the Orthodox Church, and in practice divorce was only possible in cases of adultery where the husband was the guilty party. In 1905, Sergei agreed to a divorce and to act in the proceedings as if he was the unfaithful partner, now free from her first husband, Natalia married her lover, cavalry officer Vladimir Vladimirovich Wulfert. Natalia and Wulfert had known each other as children, but only fell in love after re-meeting in Moscow when Wulfert was on leave. He was an officer serving in The Dowager Empresss Life Guard Cuirassier Regiment, known as the Blue Cuirassiers from the colour of their uniforms. Natalia and Wulfert set up home at 7 Baggout Street, Gatchina, in early December 1907, Natalia was introduced to one of her husbands fellow officers in the Blue Cuirassiers, Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich of Russia, the brother of Tsar Nicholas II. The following month, they met again at the Regimental Winter Ball, rumours of their affair spread through the regiment, and Wulfert grew resentful. Michael began sending her letters to a separate postal address, now writing to her in familiar terms. In July 1909, privately in a letter, she accused her husband of rape and she packed luggage, and with their daughter, an elderly female cousin, and two maids, she left Wulfert for a break abroad in Switzerland. Both Michael and Wulfert turned up at the station to see her off
26.
Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich of Russia
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Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich of Russia was the youngest son and fifth child of Emperor Alexander III of Russia and youngest brother of Nicholas II. At the time of his birth, his paternal grandfather Alexander II was still the reigning Emperor of All the Russias, Michael was fourth-in-line to the throne after his father and elder brothers Nicholas and George. After the assassination of his grandfather in 1881, he became third-in-line and, in 1894 after the death of his father, George died in 1899, leaving Michael as heir presumptive. The birth of Nicholass son Alexei in 1904 moved Michael back to second-in-line, Michael caused a commotion at the imperial court when he took Natalia Sergeyevna Wulfert, a married woman, as a lover. Nicholas sent Michael to Orel to avoid scandal but this did not deter Michael, after the couples only child, George, was born in 1910, Michael brought Natalia to St. Petersburg where she was shunned by society. In 1912, Michael shocked Nicholas by marrying Natalia in the hope that he would be removed from the line of succession, Michael and Natalia left Russia to exile abroad in France, Switzerland and England. After the outbreak of World War I, Michael returned to Russia, when Nicholas abdicated on 15 March 1917, Michael was named as his successor instead of Alexei. Michael, however, deferred acceptance of the throne until ratification by an elected assembly and he was never confirmed as Emperor and, following the Russian Revolution of 1917, he was imprisoned and murdered. Michael was born at Anichkov Palace on Nevsky Prospekt in Saint Petersburg as the youngest son and penultimate child of Tsarevitch Alexander of Russia and his wife and his maternal grandparents were King Christian IX of Denmark and Louise of Hesse-Kassel. His paternal grandmother Empress Maria Alexandrovna died before his second birthday and his paternal grandfather, Emperor Alexander II of Russia, was assassinated on 1 March 1881 and, as a result, Michaels parents became Emperor and Empress of All the Russias before his third birthday. Michael was raised in the company of his sister, Olga. Conditions in the nursery were modest, even spartan, the children slept on hard camp beds, rose at dawn, washed in cold water and ate a simple porridge for breakfast. Michael, like his siblings, was taught by tutors and was cared for by an English nanny. Michael and Olga frequently went on hikes in the forests around Gatchina with their father, physical activities such as equestrianism were also taught at an early age, as was religious observance. Though Christmas and Easter were times of celebration and extravagance, Lent was strictly observed—meat, dairy products, family holidays were taken in the summer at Peterhof Palace and with Michaels grandparents in Denmark. Michael was almost 16 when his father fell ill, the annual trip to Denmark was cancelled. On 1 November 1894, Alexander III died at the age of 49. Michaels eldest brother, Nicholas, became Tsar, and Michaels childhood was effectively over, Michaels mother, Dowager Empress Marie, moved back to Anichkov Palace with Michael and Olga
27.
George Mikhailovich, Count Brasov
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George Mikhailovich, Count Brasov was a Russian noble and a descendant of the House of Romanov through a morganatic line. George was born in his mothers Moscow apartment on Petersburg Road and his parents were Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich of Russia and his mistress, Natalia Sergeyevna Wulfert. Grand Duke Michael was the youngest son of Emperor Alexander III of Russia and Empress Marie, at the time of Georges birth, Natalia was still legally married to her second husband, army officer Vladimir Vladimirovich Wulfert. Wulfert and Grand Duke Michael had served in the regiment, The Dowager Empresss Life Guard Cuirassier Regiment, known as the Blue Cuirassiers. After the scandal that arose from Michaels affair with Wulferts wife, Wulfert was transferred to Moscow, Michael and Natalia feared that her husband would try to claim custodial rights over George, and had instituted divorce proceedings, but the divorce was only finalised after Georges birth. His godparents were Aleksei Matveev and Margaret Abakanovich, Matveev was the husband of Georges maternal aunt, Olga, and Abakanovich was a family friend who was married to Michaels adjutant. Abakanovich was absent, and Georges half-sister, Natalia Sergeyevna Mamontova, Natalias daughter from her first marriage, stood proxy. On 13 November 1910, Emperor Nicholas II decreed that the boy would be known as George Mikhailovich Brasov, with the surname taken from one of Michaels estates, Brasovo near Orel. Under Russian House Law, Michael, as a member of the family, could not marry without the consent of the ruling monarch. Nicholas would not grant permission for Michael to marry Natalia, however, because Natalia was twice divorced, in 1912, Alexei suffered a life-threatening hemorrhage in the thigh and groin while the family was at Spala, Poland. Michael feared that Alexei would not survive, which would make him heir, consequently, Michael decided to marry Natalia anyway. They married in a Serbian Orthodox Church in Vienna on 16 October 1912, a few days later George, his newly-wed parents, and Natalias daughter from her first marriage met up in Cannes. From there, Michael wrote to his mother and brother to them of the marriage. The imperial family was shocked, seeing it as a betrayal of duty, Michael and his family were exiled from Russia. They stayed in hotels in Cannes, Paris, Chexbres, Bad Kissingen. In the fall of 1914, at the start of World War I, Grand Duke Michael requested permission to return to Russia to rejoin the army, which was fighting on the Eastern Front. Nicholas II granted his request and George and his family returned to live in a villa at 24 Nikolaevskaya, Gatchina, Georges English nanny, Miss Rata, accompanied them to Russia, after marrying Michaels head groom, Mr Bennett. Michael became a general and earned a Cross of St. George, Michael wrote to Nicholas asking him to legitimise George so, he argued, that the boy would be provided for in the event of Michaels death at the front
28.
Emmanuel, comte de Las Cases
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Emmanuel-Augustin-Dieudonné-Joseph, comte de Las Cases was a French atlas-maker and author, famed for an admiring book about Napoleon, Le Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène. He was born at the castle of Las Cases near Revel in Languedoc and he was educated at the military schools of Vendôme and Paris, he entered the navy and took part in various engagements of the years 1781–1782. The outbreak of the Revolution in 1789 caused him to emigrate and he was one of the few survivors and returned to London, where he lived in poverty, until finding his vocation as a private tutor. In 1801, in London and under the pseudonym A. Lesage, he published in English the original edition of his famous atlas, which immediately proved a great success. Returning to Paris after the Peace of Amiens, and amnestied, he issued the first French edition in 1803-1804, multiple editions, translations, spinoffs, several pirated, followed down to the 1850s. The atlas made Las Cases rich and it came to Napoleons notice only when, in Las Casess company, he went into exile on St Helena. The Peace of Amiens made provision for an amnesty for émigrés, renouncing his hereditary title of marquis, Las Cases availed himself of this amnesty to repatriate himself. He returned to France during the Consulate with other royalists who rallied to the side of Napoleon, not until 1810 did he receive much notice from Napoleons government, which then made him a chamberlain and created him a count of the empire. After the first abdication of the emperor, Las Cases retired to England, the second abdication opened up for Las Cases the most noteworthy part of his career. Las Cases made the first overtures to Captain Maitland of HMS Bellerophon and received a guarded reply, the Mémorial should be read with great caution, as the compiler did not scruple to insert his own thoughts and to colour the expressions of his master. In some cases, he misstated facts and even fabricated documents and it is far less trustworthy than the record penned by Gaspard Gourgaud in his Journal. Disliked by Montholon and Gourgaud, Las Cases seems to have sought an opportunity to leave the island when he had accumulated sufficient literary material. However that may be, he infringed the British regulations in such a way as to lead to his expulsion by the governor, Sir Hudson Lowe. He was sent first to the Cape of Good Hope and thence to Europe, but was not at first allowed by the government of Louis XVIII to enter France. He resided at Brussels, but, gaining permission to come to Paris after the death of Napoleon, he took up his residence there, published the Mémorial, and soon gained an enormous sum from it. In 1840, when the expedition set sail for St Helena to bring back Napoleons body, he was too ill to go and he died in 1842 at Passy, and is buried in Passy Cemetery. Mémoires de F A. D. comte de Las Cases Memorial de Ste Hélène Suite au memorial de Ste Hélène, ou observations critiques, etc. anonymous, walter Goffart, Historical Atlases, The First Three Hundred Years, pp. 303–314. On line version of the Lesage Historical Atlas The Memorial of Saint Helena at Project Gutenberg, the main Napoleonic contest of the Americas bears the name of the famous memorialist, the international Count of Las Cases Memorial Prize
29.
Infante Jaime, Duke of Segovia
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Infante Jaime of Spain, Duke of Segovia, Duke of Anjou, RE, was the second son of King Alfonso XIII of Spain and his wife Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg. He was born in the Royal Palace of La Granja de San Ildefonso in Segovia Province, because he was deaf, as the result of a childhood operation, he renounced his rights to the Spanish throne for himself and his descendants on 21 June/23 June 1933. He was then created the title for life of Duke of Segovia by King Alfonso XIII, after his fathers death in 1941, he proclaimed himself the senior legitimate male heir of the House of Capet, heir to the French throne, and head of the House of Bourbon. He then took the title of Duke of Anjou and became, in the opinion of French legitimists and he was known to most French legitimists as Henri VI, though to a minority as Jacques II. In 1921, he became the 1, 153rd Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece and Knight with Collar of the Order of Charles III and they have two sons and three grandchildren. Gonzalo, Duke of Aquitaine he married, Carmen Harto on 18 April 1983 and he remarried Maria de las Mercedes Licer on 25 June 1984 and they were divorced on 31 January 1989. He remarried again Emanuela Protalongo on 30 June 1984 and they were separated on 7 March 1986, gonzalo and Emanuela were also married in a religious ceremony on 17 September 1992. He has a daughter and five grandsons. In the eyes of the Roman Catholic Church and of the French legitimists, the second marriage produced no children. His first wife remarried in Vienna, on 21 November 1949, to Antonio Sozzani, son of Cesare Sozzani and wife Cristina Alemani, on 6 December 1949, Don Jaime retracted his renunciation of the throne of Spain. On 3 May 1964, he took the title Duke of Madrid as head of the Carlist branch of the Spanish succession. On 19 July 1969, Don Jaime definitively renounced the Spanish succession in favour of his nephew, King Juan Carlos I of Spain, Don Jaime died in St. Gall Cantonal Hospital in Switzerland on 20 March 1975. He is buried at the Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, zavala, José M. Don Jaime, el trágico Borbón, la maldición del hijo sordomudo de Alfonso XIII. Madrid, La Esfera de los Libros,2006, Emanuela de Dampierre, memorias, esposa y madre de los Borbones que pudieron reinar en España. Madrid, Esfera de los Libros,2003, riddere af Elefantordenen 1559–2009, Odense, Syddansk Universitetsforlag,2009. ISBN8776744345 Royal House of Spain Royal House of France Princely House of Ruspoli
30.
Marcel Dassault
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Marcel Dassault born Marcel Bloch,22 January 1892 –17 April 1986, was a French aircraft industrialist. Bloch was born on 22 January 1892 in Paris, both of his parents were Jewish. He was educated at the Lycée Condorcet in Paris, after studies in Electrical Engineering he graduated from the Breguet School and Supaéro. At the latter school Bloch was classmates with a Russian student named Mikhail Gurevich who would later be instrumental in the creating of the MiG aircraft series. Bloch worked at the French Aeronautics Research Laboratory during World War I, in 1928 Bloch founded the Société des Avions Marcel Bloch aircraft company which produced its first aircraft in 1930. In 1935 Bloch and Henry Potez entered into an agreement to buy Société Aérienne Bordelaise, in 1936 the company was nationalized as the Société Nationale de Constructions Aéronautiques du Sud Ouest. Bloch agreed to become the administrator of the Minister for Air. During Nazi Germanys occupation of France, the aviation industry was virtually disbanded, other than the compulsory manufacturing, assembly. In October 1940, Bloch refused to collaborate with the Germans occupiers at Bordeaux-Aéronautique and was imprisoned by the Vichy government, in 1944 the Nazis deported Bloch to the Buchenwald concentration camp, while his wife was interned near Paris. Bloch was detained at Buchenwald until it was liberated on 11 April 1945 and he changed his name from Bloch to Bloch-Dassault and, in 1949, to simply Dassault. Dassault was the used by his brother, General Darius Paul Bloch, when he served in the French resistance. In 1971 Dassault acquired Breguet, forming Avions Marcel Dassault-Breguet Aviation, in 1919, Bloch married Madeleine Minckes, the daughter of a wealthy Jewish family of furniture dealers. They had two sons, Claude and Serge, as Dassault, he converted to Roman Catholicism in 1950. Now, the building at no.7 has been occupied from 2002 by auction house Artcurial, while no.7 has been sold, no.9 continues to be occupied by the Groupe Industriel Marcel Dassault. Marcel Dassault died in Neuilly-sur-Seine, in 1986 and was buried in the Passy Cemetery in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, Serge Dassault, Marcels son, became CEO of Avions Marcel Dassault, which was restructured as Groupe Industriel Marcel Dassault, reflecting its broader interests. In 1990, the division was renamed Dassault Aviation. In 1991, the rond-point des Champs-Elysées was renamed the rond-point des Champs-Elysées-Marcel Dassault in his honor, societé des Avions Marcel Bloch Dassault Group Dassault Aviation The Talisman, the Autobiography of Marcel Dassault, Creator of the Mirage jet, translated by Patricia High Painton. Arlington House,1971 ISBN 0-87000-149-3 Marcel Dassault - Dassault Aviation site
31.
Dassault Aviation
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Dassault Aviation SA is an international French aircraft manufacturer of military, regional, and business jets, a subsidiary of Dassault Group. It was founded in 1929 by Marcel Bloch as Société des Avions Marcel Bloch or MB, after World War II, Marcel Bloch changed his name to Marcel Dassault, and the name of the company was changed to Avions Marcel Dassault on 20 January 1947. In 1971 Dassault acquired Breguet, forming Avions Marcel Dassault-Breguet Aviation, in 1990 the company was renamed Dassault Aviation. The Dassault Aviation Group is headed by Eric Trappier since 9 January 2013, the Société des Avions Marcel Bloch was founded by Marcel Bloch in 1929. In 1935 Bloch and Henry Potez entered into an agreement to buy Société Aérienne Bordelaise, in 1936 the arms industry in France was nationalised as the Société Nationale de Constructions Aéronautiques du Sud Ouest. Marcel Bloch was asked to act as delegated administrator of the Minister for Air, during the occupation of France the countrys aviation industry was virtually disbanded. Marcel Bloch was imprisoned by the Vichy government in October 1940, in 1944 Bloch was deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp by the German occupiers where he remained until it was liberated on 11 April 1945. On 20 January 1947 Société des Avions Marcel Bloch became Société des Avions Marcel Dassault to reflect the name adopted by its owner, from the 1950s to late 1970s exports become a major part of Dassault’s business, major successes were the Dassault Mirage series and the Mystere-Falcon. In 1965 and 1966 the French government stressed to its various defense suppliers the need to specialize to maintain viable companies, Dassault was to specialise in combat and business aircraft, Nord Aviation in ballistic missiles and Sud Aviation civil and military transport aircraft and helicopters. On 27 June 1967 Dassault acquired 66% of Breguet Aviation, under the merger deal Société des Avions Marcel Dassault was dissolved on 14 December 1971, with its assets vested in Breguet, to be renamed Avions Marcel Dassault-Breguet Aviation. Dassault Systèmes was established in 1981 to develop and market Dassault’s CAD program, Dassault Systèmes was to become a market leader in this field. In 1979 the French government took a 20% share in Dassault and established the Societé de Gestion de Participations Aéronautiques to manage this, in 1998 the French government transferred its shares in Dassault Aviation to Aerospatiale. On 10 July 2000, Aérospatiale-Matra merged with other European companies to form EADS, in 2000 Serge Dassault resigned as chairman and was succeeded by Charles Edelstenne. Serge Dassault was appointed honorary chairman, the American company Atlantic Aviation based in Wilmington, Delaware, was acquired in October 2000. On 18 December 2000, Dassault Aviation was the first French company to be certified ISO 9001/2000 by BVQI, within fifteen years or so, thanks to developments in I. T. the industrial design offices went from using drawing boards to computerized 3D-modelling. Physical models were replaced by virtual digital mock-ups enabling a first version to be produced that is directly operational and this veritable industrial revolution was made possible thanks to PLM software from Dassault Systemes. Virtual plateau technology, allowing all the offices to work together simultaneously within short deadlines, was deployed for the Falcon 7X trijet program. In this way, for the first time, the primary parts, airbus sold some of its ownership back to Dassault in 2014, and further reduced its share to 27% in 2015
32.
Claude Debussy
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Achille-Claude Debussy, known since the 1890s as Claude-Achille Debussy or Claude Debussy, was a French composer. He and Maurice Ravel were the most prominent figures associated with Impressionist music and he was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1903. He was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Debussys music is noted for its sensory content and frequent usage of nontraditional tonalities. The prominent French literary style of his period was known as Symbolism, Debussy, the oldest of five children, was born Achille-Claude Debussy on 22 August 1862 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France. His father, Manuel-Achille Debussy, owned a shop there, his mother. The family moved to Paris in 1867, but in 1870 Debussys pregnant mother fled with Claude to his aunts home in Cannes to escape the Franco-Prussian War. At the age of seven, he began lessons with an Italian violinist in his early 40s named Jean Cerutti. In 1871 he drew the attention of Marie Mauté de Fleurville, Debussy always believed her, although there is no independent evidence to support her claim. His talents soon became evident, and in 1872, at age ten, Debussy entered the Paris Conservatoire and he also became a lifelong friend of fellow student and distinguished pianist Isidor Philipp. After Debussys death, many pianists sought Philipps advice on playing his works, Debussy was experimental from the outset, favouring dissonances and intervals that were not taught at the Academy. Like Georges Bizet, he was a brilliant pianist and a sight reader. However, Debussy never once won a competition, and his personal opinion on competitions are that it is rather. The rules are taught in places called Conservatories, Art Schools, the contests, preceded by strict training, take place once a year and the umpires of the game are members of the institute —Monsieur Croche. The pieces he played in public at this time included sonata movements by Beethoven, Schumann and Weber,2, a movement from the Piano Concerto No. 1, and the Allegro de concert, during the summers of 1880,1881, and 1882, he accompanied Nadezhda von Meck, the wealthy patroness of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, as she travelled with her family in Europe. Despite von Mecks closeness to Tchaikovsky, the Russian master appears to have had effect on Debussy. In September 1880 she sent his Danse bohémienne for Tchaikovskys perusal, a month later Tchaikovsky wrote back to her, It is a pretty piece. Not a single idea is expressed fully, the form is terribly shriveled, Debussy did not publish the piece, and the manuscript remained in the von Meck family, it was eventually sold to B
33.
Maxime Dethomas
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Maxime Pierre Dethomas was a painter, draughtsman, pastellist, lithographer, illustrator, and was among the best known metteurs en scene and decorators of theatres. As an artist, Dethomas was highly regarded by his contemporaries and exhibited widely, during the later part of his career, he is best remembered for his work overseeing set and costume design for the Théâtre National de lOpéra and the Théâtre des Arts, Comédie-Française. The Musée dOrsay, the Pushkin Museum and the Hermitage Museum hold works by Dethomas, a large collection of Dethomass theatrically related work is held at the Bibliothèque-Musée de lOpéra National de Paris. Dethomas died in 1929 and was buried at the Passy Cemetery in Paris, born in Garges-lès-Gonesse, Val-dOise, Maxime Dethomas came from a long line of painter-printers on one side of his family and of lawyers on the other. His father, Jean-Albert Dethomas, was an important Parisian politician and his step mother Louise Thierree belonged to the affluent middle-class of Bordeaux. Carrières influence played a significant part in the development of Dethomass art. Dethomas passed much of his time at the bookshop of the Revue Indépendante run by Edouard Dujardin, Dethomas worked primarily as an artist from the early 1890s until his appointment in 1910 as the director of design at the Théâtre des Arts. Dethomass early style owes most to the influence of Carrière and Degas, whilst later works tend more towards that of Toulouse-Lautrec, Legrand and Forain. He realised vigorous pastel and charcoal drawings, showing scenes, views of Paris and Venice, as well as portraits of his friends. He primarily worked with broad strokes in charcoal and pastel, often enhanced by the use of the splatter brush, with drizzles. Degas, a supporter of Dethomas, spoke highly of his work asserting it has weight. Described by Philippe Berthelot as le meilleur fils de Degas, Dethomas none-the-less exhibited sparingly during the 1890s, contemporary accounts suggest a supercilious modesty prevented him from over exhibiting his work though no artists merchant forbade him. Despite his early reluctance to exhibit, he participated in some of the most significant exhibitions of the 1890s and his first solo exhibition in 1900 marked a turning point in his willingness to accept notoriety, leading to both considerable accolades and public recognition. Dethomas was also a prolific lithographer, by 1895, he was producing programmes for the Théâtre de lŒuvre and exhibition and advertising posters with Edward Ancourt and Auguste Clot. Through his close connections in literary circles, many of his lithographs were published in print, with his illustrations engraved by Léon Pichon and Emile Gasperini, he illustrated works by many influential authors including Maurice Donnay and Octave Mirbeau. Dethomas marketed his art via Galerie Durand-Ruel and Galerie Druet, consequently, many of his works were acquired by influential collectors such as Olivier Sainsére and Sergei Shchukin. Dethomas is known to have had his works framed by the frame-maker and art dealer Pierre Cluzel, in 1912, Dethomas was awarded the Chevalier de la Légion dhonneur. Dethomas worked under Jacques Rouché during his tenure at the Théâtre des Arts, as director of the Services Plastiques, Dethomas embarked on a career that would last for the remainder of his life
34.
Farah Pahlavi
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Farah Pahlavi is the widow of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and the former Shahbanu of Iran. Farah Diba was born on 14 October 1938 in the Iranian capital Tehran, born as Farah Diba, she was the only child of Captain Sohrab Diba and his wife, Farideh Ghotbi. Pahlavis fathers family is of Iranian Azerbaijani origin, in her memoir, the former Shahbanu writes that her fathers family were natives of Iranian Azerbaijan while her mothers family were from Lahijan on the Iranian coast of the Caspian Sea. Through her father, Farah came from an affluent background. In the late 19th century her grandfather had been a diplomat, serving as the Iranian Ambassador to the Romanov Court in St. Petersburg. Her own father was an officer in the Imperial Iranian Armed Forces, Farah enjoyed an extremely close bond with her father and his unexpected death in 1948 deeply affected her. This situation furthermore left the family in a difficult financial state. In these reduced circumstances, they were forced to move from their family villa in northern Tehran into a shared apartment with one of Farideh Ghotbis brothers. The young Farah Diba began her education at Tehrans Italian School, then moved to the French Jeanne dArc School until to age of sixteen and she was an accomplished athlete in her youth and became captain of her schools basketball team. Upon finishing her studies at the Lycée Razi, she pursued an interest in architecture at the École Spéciale dArchitecture in Paris, many Iranian students who were studying abroad at this time were dependent on State sponsorship. Therefore, when the Shah, as head of state, made visits to foreign countries. It was during such a meeting in 1959 at the Iranian Embassy in Paris that Farah Diba was first presented to Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. After returning to Tehran in the summer of 1959, the Shah and Farah Diba began a carefully choreographed courtship, the couple announced their engagement on 23 November 1959. Farah Diba married Shah Mohammed Reza on 20 December 1959, aged 21, the young Queen of Iran was the object of much curiosity and her wedding received worldwide press attention. Her gown was by Yves Saint Laurent, then a designer at the house of Dior, after the pomp and celebrations associated with the Imperial wedding, the success of this union became contingent upon the Queen’s ability to produce a male heir. Although he had married twice before, the Shah’s previous marriages had given him only a daughter who, under agnatic primogeniture. The pressure for the young Queen was acute, the Shah himself was deeply anxious to have a male heir as were the members of his government. Furthermore, it was known that the dissolution of the Shahs previous marriage to Queen Soraya had been due to her infertility, within the Imperial Household, her public function was secondary to the far more pressing matter of assuring the succession
35.
Ghislaine Dommanget
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Ghislaine Marie Françoise Dommanget was a French comedy actress and the Princess consort of Monaco from 1946 to 1949. She was the daughter of Colonel Robert Joseph Dommanget and his wife and she married firstly Paul Diey in 1923. She later married André Brulé, an actor and she subsequently divorced her second husband and married the reigning Prince of Monaco, Louis II, on 24 July 1946 — the first bride of a member of the Grimaldi family without a dowry. Following his death on 9 May 1949, and the accession of her step-grandson Rainier III, she became Dowager Princess of Monaco, Monaco, Dame Grand Cross of the Order of Saint-Charles
36.
Monaco
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Monaco, officially the Principality of Monaco, is a sovereign city-state and microstate, located on the French Riviera in Western Europe. France borders the country on three sides while the other side borders the Mediterranean Sea, Monaco has an area of 2.02 km2 and a population of about 38,400 according to the last census of 2015. With 19,009 inhabitants per km², it is the second smallest, Monaco has a land border of 5.47 km, a coastline of 3.83 km, and a width that varies between 1,700 and 349 m. The highest point in the country is a pathway named Chemin des Révoires on the slopes of Mont Agel, in the Les Révoires Ward. Monacos most populous Quartier is Monte Carlo and the most populous Ward is Larvotto/Bas Moulins, through land reclamation, Monacos land mass has expanded by twenty percent, in 2005, it had an area of only 1.974 km2. Monaco is known as a playground for the rich and famous, in 2014, it was noted about 30% of the population was made up of millionaires, more than in Zürich or Geneva. Monaco is a principality governed under a form of constitutional monarchy, although Prince Albert II is a constitutional monarch, he wields immense political power. The House of Grimaldi have ruled Monaco, with brief interruptions, the official language is French, but Monégasque, Italian, and English are widely spoken and understood. The states sovereignty was recognized by the Franco-Monegasque Treaty of 1861. Despite Monacos independence and separate foreign policy, its defense is the responsibility of France, however, Monaco does maintain two small military units. Economic development was spurred in the late 19th century with the opening of the countrys first casino, Monte Carlo, since then, Monacos mild climate, scenery, and gambling facilities have contributed to the principalitys status as a tourist destination and recreation center for the rich. In more recent years, Monaco has become a major banking center and has sought to diversify its economy into services and small, high-value-added, the state has no income tax, low business taxes, and is well known for being a tax haven. It is also the host of the street circuit motor race Monaco Grand Prix. Monaco is not formally a part of the European Union, but it participates in certain EU policies, including customs, through its relationship with France, Monaco uses the euro as its sole currency. Monaco joined the Council of Europe in 2004 and it is a member of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie. Monacos name comes from the nearby 6th-century BC Phocaean Greek colony, according to an ancient myth, Hercules passed through the Monaco area and turned away the previous gods. As a result, a temple was constructed there, the temple of Hercules Monoikos, because the only temple of this area was the House of Hercules, the city was called Monoikos. It ended up in the hands of the Holy Roman Empire, an ousted branch of a Genoese family, the Grimaldi, contested it for a hundred years before actually gaining control
37.
Henri Farman
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Henri Farman was an Anglo-French aviator and aircraft designer and manufacturer with his brother Maurice Farman. His family was British and he took French nationality in 1937, born in Paris, France, and given the name Henry, he was the son of a well-to-do British newspaper correspondent working there and his French wife. Farman trained as a painter at the École des Beaux Arts, since his family had money, he was able to pursue this interest as an amateur sportsman. In the 1890s he became a championship cyclist, and at the turn of the century he discovered motor racing, competing for Renault in the Gordon Bennett Cup. When the Voisin brothers started their aircraft construction business in 1907 Farman was one of their first customers and he used this aircraft, the Voisin 1907 biplane to set numerous official records for both distance and duration. These include the first to fly a circuit of 1 kilometre and 2 kilometres. Some sources state that on 29 March, he became the first to take a passenger into the air, later in 1908, on 30 October, Farman went on to make the first cross-country flight in Europe, flying from Châlons to Reims. In 1909, he opened a school at Châlons-sur-Marne at which George Bertram Cockburn was the first pupil. The same year he made further record breaking flights of 180 kilometres in just over 3 hours and 232 kilometres in 4 hours 17 minutes and 53 seconds. At the end of 1909 Farman fell out with Gabriel Voisin because Voisin had sold an aircraft that had built to Farmans specifications to J. T. C. Moore-Brabazon, and started manufacturing aircraft to his own design, the first of these, the Farman III, was an immediate success and was widely imitated. In partnership with his two brothers Maurice and Richard, he built a successful and innovative aircraft manufacturing plant. Their 1914 model was used extensively for artillery observation and reconnaissance during World War I, the Farman Aircraft companys Goliath was the first long-distance passenger airliner, beginning regular Paris-London flights on 8 February 1919. He was made a chevalier of the French Légion dhonneur in 1919, Henry Farman took French nationality in 1937. He died in Paris and is buried in the Cimetière de Passy in Paris. Farman Aviation Works Farman III Farman F.60 Goliath Farman F.121 Jabiru Farman F.170 Jabiru Farman F.222 Farman F402 Léon Lemartin – Farmans support engineer for the Gnome Omega rotary engine. Notes References Media related to Henri Farman at Wikimedia Commons A more extensive telling of the Farman brothers story
38.
French Resistance
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The Résistance also planned, coordinated, and executed acts of sabotage on the electrical power grid, transport facilities, and telecommunications networks. Estimated to have a strength of 100,000 in June 1944 and this burden amounted to approximately 20 million German reichsmarks per day, a sum that, in May 1940, was approximately equivalent to four hundred million French francs. Because of this overvaluation of German currency, the occupiers were able to make fair and honest requisitions and purchases while, in effect. Prices soared, leading to food shortages and malnutrition, particularly among children, the elderly. The labour shortage was worsened by the fact that a number of the French were also held as prisoners of war in Germany. Beyond these hardships and dislocations, the occupation became increasingly unbearable, onerous regulations, strict censorship, incessant propaganda and nightly curfews all played a role in establishing an atmosphere of fear and repression. The sight of French women consorting with German soldiers infuriated many French men, as reprisals for Résistance activities, the authorities established harsh forms of collective punishment. For example, the militancy of communist resistance in August 1941 led to the taking of thousands of hostages from the general population. A typical policy statement read, After each further incident, a number, reflecting the seriousness of the crime, during the occupation, an estimated 30,000 French civilian hostages were shot to intimidate others who were involved in acts of resistance. In early 1943, the Vichy authorities established a paramilitary group and they worked alongside German forces that, by the end of 1942, were stationed throughout France. The group collaborated closely with the Nazis, and was the Vichy equivalent of the Gestapo security forces in Germany and their actions were often brutal and included torture and execution of Résistance suspects. After the liberation of France in the summer of 1944, the French executed many of the estimated 25,000 to 35,000 miliciens for their collaboration. Many of those who escaped arrest fled to Germany, where they were incorporated into the Charlemagne Division of the Waffen SS, the experience of the Occupation was a deeply psychologically disorienting one for the French as what was once familiar and safe become strange and threatening. Many Parisians could not get over the shock experienced when they first saw the huge swastika flags hanging over the Hôtel de Ville, Many résistants often spoke of some climax when they saw some intolerable act of injustice, after which they could not longer remain passive. Barthelt recalled, I recognized him only by his hat, only by his hat, I tell you and because I was waiting on the roadside to see him pass. I saw his face all right, but there was no skin on it, both his poor eyes had been closed into two purple and yellow bruises. In the beginning, resistance was limited to such as severing phone lines, vandalizing posters. Another form of resistance was underground newspapers like Musée de lHomme which circulated clandestinely, the Musée de lHomme was founded by two professors, Paul Rivet and the Russian émigré Boris Vildé in July 1940
