Silly Symphony is a series of 75 animated musical short films produced by Walt Disney Productions from 1929 to 1939. As their name implies, the Silly Symphonies were intended as whimsical accompaniments to pieces of music; as such, the films had independent continuity and did not feature continuing characters, unlike the Mickey Mouse shorts produced by Disney at the same time. The series is notable for its innovation with Technicolor and the multiplane motion picture camera, as well as its introduction of the character Donald Duck making his first appearance in the Silly Symphony cartoon The Wise Little Hen in 1934. Seven shorts won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film; the series spawned a Disney media franchise that included the Silly Symphony newspaper comic strip distributed by King Features Syndicate, the Dell comic book series Silly Symphonies, as well as several children's books, many of which were based on Silly Symphony cartoons. The Silly Symphonies returned to theatres with its re-issues and re-releases, tied with Joseph Barbera and William Hanna's Tom and Jerry's record for most Oscar wins for a cartoon series in the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film category.

Within the animation industry, the series is most noted for its use by Walt Disney as a platform for experimenting with processes, techniques and stories in order to further the art of animation. It provided a venue to try out techniques and technologies, such as Technicolor, special effects animation, dramatic storytelling in animation, that would be crucial to Disney's plans to begin making feature-length animated films. Shortly after the switch to United Artists, the series became more popular. Walt Disney had seen some of Dr. Herbert Kalmus' tests for a new three-strip, full-color Technicolor process, which would replace the previous two-tone Technicolor process. Disney signed a contract with Technicolor which gave the Disney studio exclusive rights to the new three-strip process through the end of 1935, had a 60% complete Symphony and Trees, scrapped and redone in full color. Flowers and Trees was the first animated film to use the three-strip Technicolor process, was a phenomenal success.

Within a year, the now-in-Technicolor Silly Symphonies series had popularity and success that matched that of the Mickey Mouse cartoons. The contract Disney had with Technicolor would later be extended another five years as well; the success of Silly Symphonies would be tremendously boosted after Three Little Pigs was released in 1933 and became a box office sensation. Several Silly Symphonies entries, including Three Little Pigs, The Grasshopper and the Ants, The Tortoise and the Hare, The Country Cousin, The Old Mill, Wynken and Nod, The Ugly Duckling, are among the most notable films produced by Walt Disney. Due to problems related to Disney's scheduled productions of cartoons, a deal was made with Harman and Ising to produce three Silly Symphonies: Merbabies, Pipe Dreams, The Little Bantamweight. Only one of these cartoons, ended up being bought by Disney, the remaining two Harman-Ising Silly Symphonies were sold to MGM who released them as Happy Harmonies cartoons. Disney ceased production of Silly Symphonies in 1939.

The series was first distributed by Pat Powers from 1929 to 1930 and released by Celebrity Productions indirectly through Columbia Pictures. The original basis of the cartoons was musical novelty, the musical scores of the first cartoons were composed by Carl Stalling. After viewing "The Skeleton Dance", the manager at Columbia Pictures became interested in distributing the series, gained the perfect opportunity to acquire Silly Symphonies after Disney broke with Celebrity Productions head Pat Powers after Powers signed Disney's colleague Ub Iwerks to a studio contract. Columbia Pictures agreed to pick up the direct distribution of the Mickey Mouse series on the condition that they would have exclusive rights to distribute the Silly Symphonies series; the original title cards to the shorts released by Celebrity Productions and Columbia Pictures were all redrawn after Walt Disney stopped distributing his cartoons through them. Meanwhile, more competition spread for Disney after Max Fleischer's flapper cartoon character Betty Boop began to gain more and more popularity after starring in the cartoon Minnie the Moocher.

In 1932, after falling out with Columbia Pictures, Disney began distributing his products through United Artists. UA refused to distribute the Silly Symphonies unless Disney associated Mickey Mouse with them somehow, resulting in the "Mickey Mouse presents a Silly Symphony" title cards and posters that introduced and promoted the series during its five-year run for UA. United Artists agreed to double the budget for each cartoon from 7,500 dollars to 15,000 dollars. In 1937, Disney signed an important distribution deal with RKO Radio Pictures to distribute the Silly Symphony cartoons, along with the Mickey Mouse series. RKO would continue to distribute until the end of the series in 1939. Several Symphonies have been released in home media. For instance, the original Dumbo VHS included Father Noah's A

Yang Huang is an American novelist and short story writer. Her debut novel, Living Treasures, was a finalist for the 2008 Bellwether Prize and the 2014 INDIEFAB Book of the Year Awards, her short story collection, My Old Faithful, won 2017 Juniper Prize for Fiction. Yang Huang studied applied physics at Tongji University from 1988 to 1990, received a B. S in computer science in 1993 and B. A. in English literature in 1996 from Florida Atlantic University, an M. A in English literature from Boston College in 1998, an MFA in creative writing from University of Arizona in 2000, her stories have been featured in The Asian Pacific American Journal, Stories for Film, FUTURES, Porcupine Literary Arts Magazine, Nuvein Magazine, The Evansville Review. Her short story "A Spell of Spring Dream" was nominated for the Pushcart prize. Living Treasures, she lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, USA. She is married with two children. Harvard Square Edition Book Page for Living Treasures Yang Huang's personal web site

Mellis railway station was a station in Mellis, England. It was opened in 1849 by the Eastern Union Railway on the Great Eastern Main Line from London to Norwich. In 1867 the Eye Branch was opened and Mellis became a railway junction; the branch line to Eye closed to passengers on 2 February 1931, but the line continued to serve goods traffic until the 1960s. Mellis was closed as part of the large-scale Beeching cuts on 7 November 1966, when local services between Ipswich and Norwich were withdrawn; the line through Mellis was electrified in 1986, carries regular passenger traffic between London's Liverpool Street station and Norwich. The station at Mellis was proposed by the Ipswich and Bury Railway as part of their route to Norwich; such were the changes in the railway industry that in 1847 the Ipswich and Bury Railway became part of the Eastern Union Railway, which started operating service between Haughley and Burston on 2 July 1849. The Eastern Union Railway became part of the Eastern Counties Railway in 1854, was superseded itself by the Great Eastern Railway, which took over operation of the station in 1862.

Mellis acted as a railhead for the only sizeable town in the area. By the 1860s the economic impact of not being on the railway network was being felt in Eye, proposals for a branch line were realised with the Eye Branch opening in 1867; the branch was served by a single platform. There were a number of goods sidings on this side of the station connected with the operation of the branch. A goods shed was built on the western side of the line, where a corn mill and maltings were served by rail, in 1867. There were livestock pens for cattle. Incoming traffic was domestic coal. Four main line trains called at Mellis per day, but by 1863 this had increased to five. Three of these started from Bishopsgate railway station in London, the predecessor of Liverpool Street station, the other two from Ipswich. Before the First World War there were six trains per day; the Eye branch had four return services a day connecting with main line trains. In 1923 the London and North Eastern Railway took over operation of the station.

At this time a shunting horse was based at the station to shunt the goods yard and prepare goods trains for the Eye branch. Passenger services on the Eye branch ceased on 2 February 1931. In 1948, following nationalisation, the station and its services became part of the Eastern Region of British Railways. In July 1964 the Eye Branch was closed, the station goods yard followed in December. During 1965 most of the track on the Eye Branch was lifted. Passenger services were withdrawn on 7 November 1966, although the station building itself was not demolished until 1975. During the mid-1980s the line was electrified and re-signalled with electric services to Norwich operating from June 1986; the signal box, built in 1883 to replace an earlier structure, the remains of the platforms were demolished soon after. Some of the old goods yard buildings remained, as of 2013 continued in use as apartments or commercial premises. Mellis station on 1946 O. S. map

Shelley Haley is the Edward North Chair of Classics and Professor of Africana Studies at Hamilton College, New York. She is an expert in applying Black feminist and critical race approaches to the study and teaching of Classics. Haley graduated with a BA from Syracuse University in 1972, completed her MA and PhD at the University of Michigan. After graduating, she taught at Luther College and Howard University before being appointed to the faculty at Hamilton College in 1989, she has held appointments at Washington University-St Louis. She has described the difficulties of her early career and the process by which she became interested in race in the classical world through teaching students about Cleopatra and researching 19th-century African-American classicists. Haley employs Black feminist and critical race approaches to Classics. and has worked on a wide range of topics including gender in the ancient world. Haley participated in the Oxford Round Table in 2003. Haley was a founding member of The Kirkland Project for the Study of Gender and Society.

In September 2019 Haley was elected President of the Society for Classical Studies. Haley has been awarded several distinctions for her excellence in research; these include: Excellence in Teaching of the Classics at College Level Award, Society for Classical Studies, 2017. The Samuel and Helen Long Prize for Excellence in Teaching, Hamilton College, 2015. Merit Award, American Classical League, 2007. Certificate of Recognition, The College Board, 2007. Outstanding Woman of the Year Award in the Field of Education, YWCA of the Mohawk Valley, 1999; the Pentagon Outstanding Service Award, Hamilton College, 1997. Haley was interviewed in 1999 for The Learning Channel series Rome: Glory, she was interviewed by BBC World Radio in April 2000, regarding the reopening of the Library of Alexandria. Haley has published and presented on Cleopatra, Black Feminist Pedagogy, the impact of a classical education on African-American women. Recent examples of her work include: “When I Enter’: Disrupting the White, Heteronormative Narrative of Librarianship” in Pushing the Margins: Women of Color and Intersectionality in LIS, eds.

Rose L. Chou & Anna Pho. Sacramento: Litwin Books and Library Juice Press, 2018.“Re-presenting Reality: Provincial Women As Tools of Roman Social Reproduction.” Women's Classical Caucus Panel, “Provincial Women in the Roman Imagination.” American Philological Association, Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL. January 2–5, 2014. “Performing Race: A Critical Race Feminist Looks at Seneca 47.” The Classical Association of the Atlantic States, Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA. October 10–12, 2013. “Scientific Racism.” Co-authored with Dr. Michele Paludi. Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology, England: Springer Reference, December 2012. “Be Not Afraid of the Dark: Critical Race Theory and Classical Studies,” in Laura Nasrallah and Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza and Christian Beginnings: Investigating Race and Ethnicity in Early Christian Studies, 4 Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 2009: 27-50. “Lucian’s ‘Leaena and Clonarium’: Voyeurism or a Challenge to Assumptions?” in Among Women: From the Homosocial to the Homoerotic in the Ancient World, edited by Nancy S. Rabinowitz and Lisa Auanger, Texas: The University of Texas Press, 2002: 286-303.

Fanny Jackson Coppin’s, Reminiscences of School Life, Hints On Teaching, Volume 8 of the African American Women Writers Series, 1910-1940 New York: G. K. Hall/ Macmillan 1995. "Self-definition and resistance: Euripides' Medea and Toni Morrison's Beloved." Thamyris: mythmaking from past to present, Vol. 2, No. 2: 177-206. "Black Feminist Thought and Classics: Re-membering, Re-claiming, Re-empowering" in Feminist Theory and the Classics, eds. Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz & Amy Richlin, New York & Oxford: Routledge, 1993. "Archias and Cicero: The Politics of the Pro Archia." The Classical Bulletin 59, 1983: 1-4. Shelley Haley's faculty page, Hamilton College Society for Classical Studies interviews with Shelley Haley: Part 1 and Part 2

The painted bunting is a species of bird in the cardinal family, native to North America. The bright plumage of the male only comes in the second year of life; the painted bunting was described by Carl Linnaeus in his eighteenth-century work Systema Naturae. There are two recognized subspecies of the painted bunting. P. c. ciris –: nominate, breeds in the southeastern United States P. c. pallidior – Mearns, 1911: breeds in south central US and northern Mexico The male painted bunting is described as the most beautiful bird in North America and as such has been nicknamed nonpareil, or "without equal". Its colors, dark blue head, green back, red rump, underparts, make it easy to identify, but it can still be difficult to spot since it skulks in foliage when it is singing; the plumage of female and juvenile painted buntings is green and yellow-green, serving as camouflage. Once seen, the adult female is still distinctive, since it is a brighter, truer green than other similar songbirds. Adult painted buntings can measure 12–14 cm in length, span 21–23 cm across the wings and weigh 13–19 g.

The juveniles have two inserted molts in their first autumn, each yielding plumage like an adult female. The first starts a few days after fledging, replacing the juvenile plumage with an auxiliary formative plumage; the painted bunting occupies typical habitat for a member of its family. It is found in thickets, woodland edges with riparian thickets and brushy areas. In the east, the species breeds in maritime hammocks and scrub communities. Today, it is found along roadsides and in suburban areas, in gardens with dense, shrubby vegetation; the wintering habitat is the shrubby edges along the border of tropical forests or densely vegetated savanna. The breeding range is divided into two geographically separate areas; these include southern Arizona, southern New Mexico and eastern Texas, Arkansas, northern Florida, coastal Georgia, the southern coast and inland waterways such as the Santee River of South Carolina and northern Mexico. They winter in South Florida, the Bahamas, along both coasts of Mexico and through much of Central America.

They may be vagrants further north, including to New York and New Jersey. The bird is found every few years as far north as New Brunswick, Canada. Genetic analyses showed that the species can be divided into three main groups on their breeding grounds: a western and eastern group. Painted buntings are shy and difficult to observe for the human eye, though can be approachable where habituated to bird feeders. Males sing in spring from exposed perches to advertise their territories, they engage in visual displays including flying bouncingly like a butterfly or in an upright display, body-fluff display, bow display and wing-quiver display. These displays are used in agonistic conflicts with other males or in breeding displays for females, with females engaging in displays. Males may physically clash with each other and may kill each other in such conflicts; when their breeding season has concluded, buntings migrate by night over short to medium distances. Western birds molt in mid-migration. Painted buntings feed by hopping along the ground, cautiously stopping every few moments to look around.

The painted bunting eats a large quantity of grass seeds, including. Seeds are eaten exclusively during winter. While breeding, painted bunting and nestlings eat small invertebrates, including, they have been known to visit spider webs to pick off small insects caught in them. Painted buntings are monogamous and are solitary or in pairs during the breeding season, but sometimes exhibit polygyny; the breeding season begins in late April and lasts through to early August, with activity peaking mid-May through to mid-July. The male starts to establish a small territory; the nest is hidden in low, dense vegetation and is built by the females and woven into the surrounding vegetation for strength. Each brood contains three or four gray-white eggs spotted with brown, which are incubated for around 10 days until the altricial young are hatched; the female alone cares for the young. The hatchlings are brooded for 12 to 14 days and fledge at that time. About 30 days after the first eggs hatch, the female painted bunting lays a second brood.

Nests are parasitized by cowbirds. Common predators at the nest of eggs and brooding females are large snakes, including coachwhip snakes, eastern kingsnakes, eastern racers and black rat snakes. Bird-hunting raptors, including short-tailed hawks, Accipiter hawks, the small passerine loggerhead shrike, may hunt painted buntings, including the conspicuous breeding-plumaged male; the painted bunting can live to over 10 years of age, though most wild buntings live half that long. The male painted bunting was once a popular caged bird, but its capture and holding is illegal. Trapping for overseas sale may still occur in Central America. Populations are declining due to habitat being lost to development in coastal swamp thickets and woodland edges in the east and riparian habitats in migration and winter in

The Evangelical Congregational Church in Angola is a Reformed Christian denomination in Angola. On November 11, 1880, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and the Congregational Church in Canada sent missionaries and began to evangelize in the highlands of Angola; the leaders of this mission were the Rev. William W. Bagster, the Rev. William Henry Sanders and the Rev. Samuel Taylor Miller. In 1940, a theological school was established to train ministers; this resulted in significant development in the church. In 1957, the work of the North American Congregational Churches was united and the Council of Evangelical Churches in Angola was founded. In 1975, after the country had gained independence, The Angolan Civil War broke out; the war devastated Angola's infrastructure and damaged the nation's public administration, economic enterprises and religious institutions. The war forced foreign missionaries to leave the country; the church was divided into two parts. During and after the war, the church remained divided into the Evangelical Congregational Church in Angola and the Evangelical Reformed Church in Angola.

The headquarters of the church is in Huambo. The fast-growing denomination is present in 16 of the 18 Angolan Provinces, it has a medical program. The Evangelical Congregational Church in Angola is the second oldest Protestant denomination in Angola, it trains ministers in the Interdenominational Seminary in Huambo. The church has 1,000,000 members in 2,800 congregations across the country. Apostles' Creed Heidelberg Catechism Nicene Creed Member of the World Communion of Reformed Churches and the World Council of Churches and partner church relationship with the United Church of Canada was established. Official webpage of the Evangelical Congregational Church in Angola Site oficial da Igreja Evangelica Congregacional em Angola Unofficial webpage of the Evangelical Congregational Church in Angola Official website of the World Communion of Reformed Churches