Idris Elba
Idrissa Akuna "Idris" Elba is an English actor, director, musician, DJ, rapper. He is best known for playing drug trafficker Stringer Bell on the HBO series The Wire, DCI John Luther on the BBC One series Luther and Nelson Mandela in the biographical film Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, he has been nominated four times for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film, winning one and was nominated five times for a Primetime Emmy Award. Elba appeared in Ridley Scott's American Prometheus. Elba portrays Heimdall in Thor and its sequels Thor: The Dark World and Thor: Ragnarok, as well as Avengers: Age of Ultron and Avengers: Infinity War, he starred in Pacific Rim, Beasts of No Nation, for which he received BAFTA, Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actor and Molly's Game. In 2016, he voiced Chief Bogo in Zootopia, Shere Khan in the live action/CGI adaptation of The Jungle Book, Fluke in Finding Dory and played the role of Krall in Star Trek Beyond, he made his directorial debut in 2018 with an adaptation of the 1992 novel Yardie by Victor Headley.
In addition to his acting work, Elba performs as a DJ under the moniker DJ Big Driis and as an R&B musician. In 2016, he was named in the Time 100 list of the Most Influential People in the World. Idrissa Akuna Elba was born on 6 September 1972 at Forestgate Hospital in Hackney, the son of Winston, a Sierra Leonean man who worked at Ford Dagenham, Eve, a Ghanaian woman. Elba's parents were married in Sierra Leone and moved to London, his paternal grandfather, was a sailor and policeman. Elba was brought up in Hackney and East Ham, shortened his first name to "Idris" at school in Canning Town, where he first became involved in acting, he credits The Stage with giving him his first big break, having seen an advertisement for a play in it. In 1986, he began helping an uncle with his wedding DJ business. Elba left school in 1988, won a place in the National Youth Music Theatre thanks to a £1,500 Prince's Trust grant. To support himself between roles in his early career, he worked in jobs such as tyre-fitting, cold-calling, night shifts at Ford Dagenham.
He was working in nightclubs under the DJ nickname "Big Driis" during his teens, but began auditioning for television roles in his early twenties. Elba's first acting role was in Crimewatch murder reconstructions and in 1994 he appeared in a BBC children's drama called The Boot Street Band. In 1995, he landed his first significant role on a series called Bramwell, a medical drama set in 1890s England, he played a central character in an episode of Season 1, an African petty thief named Charlie Carter, who lost his wife to childbirth and had to figure out how to support his newborn daughter. His first named role arrived earlier in 1995, when he was cast as a gigolo on the "Sex" episode of Absolutely Fabulous. Many supporting roles on British television followed, including series such as The Bill and The Ruth Rendell Mysteries, he joined the cast of the soap opera Family Affairs and went on to appear on the television serial Ultraviolet and on Dangerfield. He decided to move to New York City soon after.
He returned to England for a television role, such as a part in one of the Inspector Lynley Mysteries. In 2001, Elba played Achilles in a stage production of Cressida in New York City. After a supporting turn on a 2001 episode of Law & Order, Elba landed a starring role on the 2002 HBO drama series The Wire. From 2002 to 2004, Elba portrayed Russell "Stringer" Bell in the series his best-known role in the United States. In 2005, he portrayed Captain Augustin Muganza in Sometimes in April, an HBO film about the Rwandan Genocide. Elba appeared on the 2007 BET special Black Men: The Truth, he appeared as Charlie Gotso on The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, filmed in Botswana. The series premiered on 23 March 2008, Easter Sunday, on BBC One, receiving a high 6.3 million viewers and 27% of the audience share. In January 2009, it was reported by Variety that Elba would portray Charles Miner, a new rival to Dunder Mifflin regional manager Michael Scott for NBC's The Office. Elba appeared in a six-episode story arc in the 2009 season as well as the season finale.
In September 2009, he signed a deal to star as the lead role on the six-part BBC television series Luther, which aired in May 2010. He appeared on Showtime's The Big C in 2010. At the 69th Golden Globe Awards telecast on 15 January 2012, Elba won the Award for Best Actor in a Series, Mini-Series, or Motion Picture Made for Television for his role on the BBC crime thriller series Luther. In April 2018, it was announced that Elba was cast as Charlie in the Netflix comedy series, Turn Up Charlie, he created and starred in the semi-autobiographical comedy In The Long Run. In 2007, Elba signed on as the lead role of the film Daddy's Little Girls, playing Monty, a blue-collar mechanic who falls in love with an attorney helping him gain custody of his kids, finds the relationship and his custody hopes threatened by the return of his former wife, he appeared in 28 Weeks Later and This Christmas, which brought in nearly $50 million at the box office in 2007. In 2008, he starred in the criminal comedy RocknRolla.
In 2009, he starred in the horror film The Unborn and in Obsessed, a thriller that had him cast opposite Beyoncé. The latter was a box office success. Elba's next film was Legacy, in which he portrayed a black ops sold
Satan
Satan known as the Devil, is an entity in the Abrahamic religions that seduces humans into sin or falsehood. In Christianity and Islam, he is seen as either a fallen angel or a jinn, who used to possess great piety and beauty, but rebelled against God, who allows him temporary power over the fallen world and a host of demons. In Judaism, Satan is regarded as a metaphor for the yetzer hara, or "evil inclination", or as an agent subservient to God. A figure known as "the satan" first appears in the Tanakh as a heavenly prosecutor, a member of the sons of God subordinate to Yahweh, who prosecutes the nation of Judah in the heavenly court and tests the loyalty of Yahweh's followers by forcing them to suffer. During the intertestamental period due to influence from the Zoroastrian figure of Angra Mainyu, the satan developed into a malevolent entity with abhorrent qualities in dualistic opposition to God. In the apocryphal Book of Jubilees, Yahweh grants the satan authority over a group of fallen angels, or their offspring, to tempt humans to sin and punish them.
In the Synoptic Gospels, Satan tempts Jesus in the desert and is identified as the cause of illness and temptation. In the Book of Revelation, Satan appears as a Great Red Dragon, defeated by Michael the Archangel and cast down from Heaven, he is bound for one thousand years, but is set free before being defeated and cast into the Lake of Fire. In Christianity, Satan is known as the Devil and, although the Book of Genesis does not mention him, he is identified as the serpent in the Garden of Eden. In the Middle Ages, Satan played a minimal role in Christian theology and was used as a comic relief figure in mystery plays. During the early modern period, Satan's significance increased as beliefs such as demonic possession and witchcraft became more prevalent. During the Age of Enlightenment, belief in the existence of Satan became harshly criticized. Nonetheless, belief in Satan has persisted in the Americas. In the Quran, Shaitan known as Iblis, is an entity made of fire, cast out of Heaven because he refused to bow before the newly-created Adam and incites humans to sin by infecting their minds with waswās.
Although Satan is viewed as evil, some groups have different beliefs. In Theistic Satanism, Satan is considered a deity, either worshipped or revered. In LaVeyan Satanism, Satan is a symbol of virtuous characteristics and liberty. Satan's appearance is never described in the Bible, since the ninth century, he has been shown in Christian art with horns, cloven hooves, unusually hairy legs, a tail naked and holding a pitchfork; these are an amalgam of traits derived from various pagan deities, including Pan and Bes. Satan appears in Christian literature, most notably in Dante Alighieri's Inferno, variants of the Faust legend, John Milton's Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, the poems of William Blake, he continues to appear in film and music. The original Hebrew term sâtan is a generic noun meaning "accuser" or "adversary", used throughout the Hebrew Bible to refer to ordinary human adversaries, as well as a specific supernatural entity; the word is derived from a verb meaning "to obstruct, oppose".
When it is used without the definite article, the word can refer to any accuser, but when it is used with the definite article, it refers to the heavenly accuser: the satan. Ha-Satan with the definite article occurs 13 times in the Masoretic Text, in two books of the Hebrew Bible: Job ch. 1–2 and Zechariah 3:1–2. Satan without the definite article is used in 10 instances, of which two are translated diabolos in the Septuagint and "Satan" in the King James Version: 1 Chronicles 21:1, "Satan stood up against Israel" or "And there standeth up an adversary against Israel" Psalm 109:6b "and let Satan stand at his right hand" or "let an accuser stand at his right hand." The word "satan" does not occur in the Book of Genesis, which mentions only a talking serpent and does not identify the serpent with any supernatural entity. The first occurrence of the word "satan" in the Hebrew Bible in reference to a supernatural figure comes from Numbers 22:22, which describes the Angel of Yahweh confronting Balaam on his donkey: "Balaam's departure aroused the wrath of Elohim, the Angel of Yahweh stood in the road as a satan against him."
In 2 Samuel 24, Yahweh sends the "Angel of Yahweh" to inflict a plague against Israel for three days, killing 70,000 people as punishment for David having taken a census without his approval. 1 Chronicles 21:1 repeats this story, but replaces the "Angel of Yahweh" with an entity referred to as "a satan". Some passages refer to the satan, without using the word itself. 1 Samuel 2:12 describes the sons of Eli as "sons of Belial". In 1 Samuel 16:14-23 Yahweh sends a "troubling spirit" to torment King Saul as a mechanism to ingratiate David with the king. In 1 Kings 22:19-25, the prophet Micaiah describes to King Ahab a vision of Yahweh sitting on his throne surrounded by the Host of Heaven. Yahweh asks the Host. A "spirit", whose name is not specified, but, analogous to the satan, volunteers to be "a Lying Spirit in the mouth of all his Prophets"; the satan appears in the Book of Job, a poetic dialogue set within a prose framework, which may have been written around the time of the Babylonian captivity.
In the text, Job is a righteous man favored by Yahweh. Job 1:6-8 describes the "sons of God" (bənê hāʼĕ
Parallel universes in fiction
A parallel universe known as an alternate universe or alternate reality, is a hypothetical self-contained reality co-existing with one's own. A specific group of parallel universes are called a "multiverse", although this term can be used to describe the possible parallel universes that constitute reality. While the three terms are synonymous and can be used interchangeably in most cases, there is sometimes an additional connotation implied with the term "alternate universe/reality" that implies that the reality is a variant of our own, with some overlap with the similarly-named Alternate history; the term "parallel universe" is more general, without implying a relationship, or lack of relationship, with our own universe. A universe where the laws of nature are different – for example, one in which there are no Laws of Motion – would in general count as a parallel universe but not an alternative reality and a concept between both fantasy world and earth; the actual quantum-mechanical hypothesis of parallel universes is "universes that are separated from each other by a single quantum event."
Fiction has long borrowed an idea of "another world" from myth and religion. Heaven, Hell and Valhalla are all "alternative universes" different from the familiar material realm. Plato reflected on the parallel realities, resulting in Platonism, in which the upper reality is perfect while the lower earthly reality is an imperfect shadow of the heavenly; the lower reality is similar but with flaws. The concept is found in ancient Hindu mythology, in texts such as the Puranas, which expressed an infinite number of universes, each with its own gods. In Persian literature, "The Adventures of Bulukiya", a tale in the One Thousand and One Nights, describes the protagonist Bulukiya learning of alternative worlds/universes that are similar to but still distinct from his own. One of the first Science fiction examples is Murray Leinster's Sidewise in Time, in which portions of alternative universes replace corresponding geographical regions in this universe. Sidewise in Time describes it in the manner that similar to requiring both longitude and latitude coordinates in order to mark your location on Earth, so too does time: travelling along latitude is akin to time travel moving through past and future, while travelling along latitude is to travel perpendicular to time and to other realities, hence the name of the short story.
Thus, another common term for a parallel universe is "another dimension", stemming from the idea that if the 4th dimension is time, the 5th dimension - a direction at a right angle to the fourth - are alternate realities. In modern literature, a parallel universe can be divided into two categories: to allow for stories where elements that would ordinarily violate the laws of nature. Examples of the former include Terry Pratchett's Discworld and C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, while examples of the latter include Harry Turtledove's Worldwar series. A parallel universe may serve as a central plot point, or it may be mentioned and dismissed, having served its purpose of establishing a realm unconstrained by realism; the aforementioned Discworld, for example, only rarely mentions our world or any other worlds, as setting the books on a parallel universe instead of "our" reality is to allow for magic on the Disc. The Chronicles of Narnia utilises this to a lesser extent - the idea of parallel universes are brought up but only mentioned in the introduction and ending, its main purpose to bring the protagonist from "our" reality to the setting of the books.
While technically incorrect, looked down upon by hard science-fiction fans and authors, the idea of another "dimension" has become synonymous with the term "parallel universe". The usage is common in movies and comic books and much less so in modern prose science fiction; the idea of a parallel world was first introduced in comic books with the publication of The Flash #123, "Flash of Two Worlds". In written science fiction, "new dimension" more – and more – refer to additional coordinate axes, beyond the three spatial axes with which we are familiar. By proposing travel along these extra axes, which are not perceptible, the traveler can reach worlds that are otherwise unreachable and invisible. In 1884, Edwin A. Abbott wrote, it describes a world of two dimensions inhabited by living squares and circles, called Flatland, as well as Pointland and Spaceland and posits the possibilities of greater dimensions. Isaac Asimov, in his foreword to the Signet Classics 1984 edition, described Flatland as "The best introduction one can find into the manner of perceiving dimensions."
In 1895, The Time Machine by H. G. Wells used time as an additional "dimension" in this sense, taking the four-dimensional model of classical physics and interpreting time as a space-like dimension in which humans could travel with the right equipment. Wells used the concept of parallel universes as a consequence of time as the fourth dimension in stories like The Wonderful Visit and Men Like Gods, an idea proposed by the astronomer Simon Newcomb, who talked about both time and parallel universes.
New York City
The City of New York called either New York City or New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2017 population of 8,622,698 distributed over a land area of about 302.6 square miles, New York is the most densely populated major city in the United States. Located at the southern tip of the state of New York, the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass and one of the world's most populous megacities, with an estimated 20,320,876 people in its 2017 Metropolitan Statistical Area and 23,876,155 residents in its Combined Statistical Area. A global power city, New York City has been described as the cultural and media capital of the world, exerts a significant impact upon commerce, research, education, tourism, art and sports; the city's fast pace has inspired the term New York minute. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy.
Situated on one of the world's largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, each of, a separate county of the State of New York. The five boroughs – Brooklyn, Manhattan, The Bronx, Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898; the city and its metropolitan area constitute the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States. As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. New York City is home to more than 3.2 million residents born outside the United States, the largest foreign-born population of any city in the world. In 2017, the New York metropolitan area produced a gross metropolitan product of US$1.73 trillion. If greater New York City were a sovereign state, it would have the 12th highest GDP in the world. New York is home to the highest number of billionaires of any city in the world. New York City traces its origins to a trading post founded by colonists from the Dutch Republic in 1624 on Lower Manhattan.
The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, the Duke of York. New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790, it has been the country's largest city since 1790. The Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the U. S. by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is an international symbol of the U. S. and its ideals of liberty and peace. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a global node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance, environmental sustainability, as a symbol of freedom and cultural diversity. Many districts and landmarks in New York City are well known, with the city having three of the world's ten most visited tourist attractions in 2013 and receiving a record 62.8 million tourists in 2017. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world. Times Square, iconic as the world's "heart" and its "Crossroads", is the brightly illuminated hub of the Broadway Theater District, one of the world's busiest pedestrian intersections, a major center of the world's entertainment industry.
The names of many of the city's landmarks and parks are known around the world. Manhattan's real estate market is among the most expensive in the world. New York is home to the largest ethnic Chinese population outside of Asia, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is the largest single-operator rapid transit system worldwide, with 472 rail stations. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, Rockefeller University, which have been ranked among the top universities in the world. Anchored by Wall Street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York has been called both the most economically powerful city and the leading financial center of the world, the city is home to the world's two largest stock exchanges by total market capitalization, the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. In 1664, the city was named in honor of the Duke of York.
James's older brother, King Charles II, had appointed the Duke proprietor of the former territory of New Netherland, including the city of New Amsterdam, which England had seized from the Dutch. During the Wisconsinan glaciation, 75,000 to 11,000 years ago, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth; the erosive forward movement of the ice contributed to the separation of what is now Long Island and Staten Island. That action left bedrock at a shallow depth, providing a solid foundation for most of Manhattan's skyscrapers. In the precolonial era, the area of present-day New York City was inhabited by Algonquian Native Americans, including the Lenape, whose homeland, known as Lenapehoking, included Staten Island; the first documented visit into New York Harbor by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown. He named it Nouvelle Angoulême. A Spanish expedition led by captain Estêvão Gomes, a Portuguese sailing for Emperor Charles V, arrived in New York Harbor in January 1525 and charted the mouth of the Hudson River, which he named Río de San Antonio.
The Padrón Rea
.45 ACP
The.45 ACP, or.45 Auto is a handgun cartridge designed by John Browning in 1905, for use in his prototype Colt semi-automatic pistol. After successful military trials, it was adopted as the standard chambering for Colt's M1911 pistol, being named.45 ACP. During the late 1890s and early 20th century, the U. S. Cavalry began trials to replace their sidearm arsenal of issued.45 Colt Single Action Army in favor of the more modern and versatile double-action revolver in.45 Colt. After the example of the Cavalry, the Army in turn had fielded versions of double-action revolvers in.38 Long Colt. It was evaluated that the.38-caliber round was less effective in overall stopping-power than the.45 Colt against determined opponents in cases such as the Moro juramentado warriors, who were encountered in the Moro Rebellion. The then-current issue rifle, the.30-40 Krag, had failed to stop Moro warriors effectively. This experience, the Thompson–LaGarde Tests of 1904, led the Army and the Cavalry to decide a minimum of.45 caliber was required in a new handgun.
Thompson and Major Louis Anatole La Garde of the Medical Corps arranged tests on cadavers and animal remains in the Chicago stockyards, resulting in the finding that.45 was the most effective pistol cartridge. They noted, training was critical to make sure a soldier could score a hit in a vulnerable part of the body. Colt had been working with Browning on a.41 caliber cartridge in 1904, in 1905, when the Cavalry asked for a.45 caliber equivalent, Colt modified the pistol design to fire an enlarged version of the prototype.41 round. The result from Colt was the new.45 ACP cartridge. The original round that passed the testing fired a 200 grain bullet at 900 ft/s, but after a number of rounds of revisions between Winchester Repeating Arms, Frankford Arsenal, Union Metallic Cartridge, it ended up using a 230 grain bullet fired at a nominal velocity of 850 ft/s; the resulting.45-caliber cartridge, named the.45 ACP, was similar in performance to the.45 Schofield cartridge, only less powerful than the.45 Colt cartridges the Cavalry was using.
By 1906, bids from six makers were submitted, among them Browning's design, submitted by Colt. Only DWM, Colt made the first cut. DWM, which submitted two Parabellum P08s chambered in.45 ACP, withdrew from testing after the first round of tests, for unspecified reasons. In the second round of evaluations in 1910, the Colt design passed the extensive testing with no failures, while the Savage design suffered 37 stoppages or parts failures; the Colt pistol was adopted as the Model 1911. The cartridge/pistol combination was quite successful but not satisfactory for U. S. military purposes. Over time, a series of improved designs were offered, culminating in the adoption in 1911 of the "Cal..45 Automatic Pistol Ball Cartridge, Model of 1911", a 1.273 in long round with a bullet weight of 230 grains. The first production, at Frankford Arsenal, was marked "F A 8 11", for the August 1911 date. Other US military cartridges include: tracer M26, blank M1921, M12 and M15 shot shells, M9 dummy; the cartridge was designed by John Browning for Colt, but the most influential person in selecting the cartridge was Army Ordnance member Gen. John T. Thompson.
After the poor performance of the Army's.38 Long Colt pistols evidenced during the Philippine–American War, Thompson insisted on a more capable pistol cartridge. The.45 ACP has 1.62 ml cartridge case capacity..45 ACP maximum C. I. P. Cartridge dimensions. All sizes in millimeters; the common rifling twist rate for this cartridge is 406 mm, 6 grooves, Ø lands = 11.23 mm, Ø grooves = 11.43 mm, land width = 3.73 mm and the primer type is large pistol. The cartridge headspaces on the mouth of the case at the L3 datum reference. According to Commission Internationale Permanente pour l'Epreuve des Armes à Feu Portatives rulings, the.45 ACP cartridge case can handle up to 131.000 MPa Pmax piezo pressure. In CIP-regulated countries every pistol cartridge combination has to be proofed at 130% of this maximum CIP pressure to certify for sale to consumers; this means that.45 ACP chambered arms in C. I. P. Regulated countries are proof tested at 170.30 MPa PE piezo pressure. The SAAMI pressure limit for the.45 ACP is set at 21,000 psi piezo pressure, while the SAAMI pressure limit for the.45 ACP +P is set at 23,000 psi, piezo pressure.
The.45 ACP is an effective combat pistol cartridge that combines accuracy and stopping power for use against human targets. It has low muzzle blast and flash, it produces a stout, but manageable recoil in handguns, made worse in compact models; the standard issue military.45 ACP round has a 230-grain bullet that travels at 830 feet per second when fired from the government issue M1911A1 pistol and 950 feet per second from the M1A1 Thompson submachine gun. The cartridge comes in various specialty rounds of varying weights and performance levels, it operates at a low maximum chamber pressure rating of 21,000 psi, which due to a low bolt thrust helps extend service life of weapons in which it is used. Some makers of pistols chambered in.45 ACP do not certify
King Arthur
King Arthur was a legendary British leader who, according to medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the late 5th and early 6th centuries. The details of Arthur's story are composed of folklore and literary invention, his historical existence is debated and disputed by modern historians; the sparse historical background of Arthur is gleaned from various sources, including the Annales Cambriae, the Historia Brittonum, the writings of Gildas. Arthur's name occurs in early poetic sources such as Y Gododdin. Arthur is a central figure in the legends making up the Matter of Britain; the legendary Arthur developed as a figure of international interest through the popularity of Geoffrey of Monmouth's fanciful and imaginative 12th-century Historia Regum Britanniae. In some Welsh and Breton tales and poems that date from before this work, Arthur appears either as a great warrior defending Britain from human and supernatural enemies or as a magical figure of folklore, sometimes associated with the Welsh otherworld Annwn.
How much of Geoffrey's Historia was adapted from such earlier sources, rather than invented by Geoffrey himself, is unknown. Although the themes and characters of the Arthurian legend varied from text to text, there is no one canonical version, Geoffrey's version of events served as the starting point for stories. Geoffrey depicted Arthur as a king of Britain who established a vast empire. Many elements and incidents that are now an integral part of the Arthurian story appear in Geoffrey's Historia, including Arthur's father Uther Pendragon, the magician Merlin, Arthur's wife Guinevere, the sword Excalibur, Arthur's conception at Tintagel, his final battle against Mordred at Camlann, final rest in Avalon; the 12th-century French writer Chrétien de Troyes, who added Lancelot and the Holy Grail to the story, began the genre of Arthurian romance that became a significant strand of medieval literature. In these French stories, the narrative focus shifts from King Arthur himself to other characters, such as various Knights of the Round Table.
Arthurian literature thrived during the Middle Ages but waned in the centuries that followed until it experienced a major resurgence in the 19th century. In the 21st century, the legend lives on, not only in literature but in adaptations for theatre, television and other media; the historical basis for King Arthur has long been debated by scholars. One school of thought, citing entries in the Historia Brittonum and Annales Cambriae, sees Arthur as a genuine historical figure, a Romano-British leader who fought against the invading Anglo-Saxons some time in the late 5th to early 6th century; the Historia Brittonum, a 9th-century Latin historical compilation attributed in some late manuscripts to a Welsh cleric called Nennius, contains the first datable mention of King Arthur, listing twelve battles that Arthur fought. These culminate in the Battle of Badon. Recent studies, question the reliability of the Historia Brittonum; the other text that seems to support the case for Arthur's historical existence is the 10th-century Annales Cambriae, which link Arthur with the Battle of Badon.
The Annales date this battle to 516–518, mention the Battle of Camlann, in which Arthur and Medraut were both killed, dated to 537–539. These details have been used to bolster confidence in the Historia's account and to confirm that Arthur did fight at Badon. Problems have been identified, with using this source to support the Historia Brittonum's account; the latest research shows that the Annales Cambriae was based on a chronicle begun in the late 8th century in Wales. Additionally, the complex textual history of the Annales Cambriae precludes any certainty that the Arthurian annals were added to it that early, they were more added at some point in the 10th century and may never have existed in any earlier set of annals. The Badon entry derived from the Historia Brittonum; this lack of convincing early evidence is the reason many recent historians exclude Arthur from their accounts of sub-Roman Britain. In the view of historian Thomas Charles-Edwards, "at this stage of the enquiry, one can only say that there may well have been an historical Arthur the historian can as yet say nothing of value about him".
These modern admissions of ignorance are a recent trend. The historian John Morris made the putative reign of Arthur the organising principle of his history of sub-Roman Britain and Ireland, The Age of Arthur. So, he found little to say about a historical Arthur. In reaction to such theories, another school of thought emerged which argued that Arthur had no historical existence at all. Morris's Age of Arthur prompted the archaeologist Nowell Myres to observe that "no figure on the borderline of history and mythology has wasted more of the historian's time". Gildas' 6th-century polemic De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae, written within living memory of Badon, mentions the battle but does not mention Arthur. Arthur is not mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle or named in any surviving manuscript written between 400 and 820, he is absent from Bede's early-8th-century Ecclesiastical History of the English People, another major early source for post-Roman history that mentions Badon. The historian David Dumville wrote: "I think.
He owes his place in our history books to a'no smoke without fire' school of thought... The f
Crimson King
The Crimson King, known to some as Los' or Ram Abbalah, is a fictional character created by Stephen King. He is the primary antagonist of King's eight-volume Dark Tower series, as well as the novels Insomnia and Black House. Described as "Gan's crazy side", the Crimson King is the ultimate ruler of the Red, the archetypal embodiment of evil in Stephen King's fictional multiverse, his goal is to topple the Dark Tower which serves as the linchpin of time and space, destroying the multitude of universes which revolve around it so that he can rule in the primordial chaos which follows. The Crimson King is introduced in the Stephen King novel Insomnia, where he is depicted as a powerful and mysterious entity that forces others to do his bidding, he seeks to kill a child named Patrick Danville, prophesied to aid in bringing the King down. He makes his next appearance at the end of Black House, where he is revealed to be responsible for the events of that novel and is seen to have been weakened by the actions of protagonist Jack Sawyer and his allies.
In the Dark Tower novels, the King is revealed to be behind the destruction of the beams that hold up the Dark Tower which holds reality and all of the universes together. He is shown to have gone insane and his intentions are not quite clear beyond that he wishes to destroy the Tower and rule the darkness that would follow, he rules from the lands of Discordia and, as his insanity worsens, he kills nearly everyone in his employ and kills himself. He thus becomes undead and immune to Roland's guns, he is trapped on a balcony on one of its lower levels. When Roland meets the King at the climax of the final Dark Tower novel, he appears as an old man with a white beard and blood-red eyes who throws grenades from his imprisonment in the Tower; as predicted and Patrick Danville bring about the Crimson King's downfall. Patrick captures the King's image with his supernatural artistic abilities, using a mixture of Roland's blood and a rose's petals to finish the drawing. Only his red eyes remain. Writer Robin Furth wrote a new backstory for the Crimson King in the Dark Tower comics.
Here, the Crimson King was the bastard offspring of Arthur Eld, a legendary gunslinger, the Crimson Queen, a demonic creature of the Prim – the chaotic primordial void from which the Dark Tower, all universes, arose. With the aid of the wizard Maerlyn, the Crimson Queen took on human form and deceived Arthur Eld to achieve this union; the protagonist of the series, Roland Deschain, is himself a distant descendant of Eld. This is the key through which Roland can defeat the King, as stated in a prophecy laid out during the course of the series. In the one-shot comic The Dark Tower: The Sorcerer, Randall Flagg and the Pink Grapefruit refer to the Crimson King as their cousin; the Crimson King has taken many forms throughout the series. In The Dark Tower VI, Susannah tells Mia that, in her world, people see the Crimson King as a horned, red-skinned monster called Satan; as evidenced in Insomnia, the Crimson King is a shapeshifter. When he is injured by Ralph Roberts, he reverts first to a handsome, blonde man, to a creature Ralph is unable to see properly, suggesting that his true form cannot be comprehended by human beings.
When he appears near the end of the Dark Tower series, the Crimson King has the appearance of an old man with white hair and one fang, but in the comics he appears both as a monstrous entity with spiderlike characteristics much like his son Mordred, as well as a bald man with a large tusk or horn on his head. Throughout all of his appearances his one defining characteristic is his blood red eyes, which fascinate anyone who looks into them. Patrick Danville mentions that the King fades in and out of view due to his transcendent magical powers; the Crimson King prefers to work from behind the scenes. His sigul, a glaring red eye, is seen throughout each of the books, he employs other people to do his bidding, as well as numerous supernatural beings, including Atropos, Mr. Munshun, Randall Flagg, John Farson, various vampires, low men, taheen; the Crimson King is mentioned in the Stephen King novella Low Men in Yellow Coats, found within the collection Hearts in Atlantis. He is hinted at in The Stand complete and uncut by Mother Abagail.
As she describes who Randall Flagg is, she mentions that, "He ain't Satan, but he and Satan know of each other and have kept their councils together of old." Official Dark Tower web site Official site for The Dark Tower Comics Theories on the Crimson King Touched by the Crimson King
