Smyrna was a Greek city located at a strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Due to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defense and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to prominence; the modern name of the city is Izmir. Two sites of the ancient city are today within Izmir's boundaries; the first site founded by indigenous peoples, rose to prominence during the Archaic Period as one of the principal ancient Greek settlements in western Anatolia. The second, whose foundation is associated with Alexander the Great, reached metropolitan proportions during the period of the Roman Empire. Most of the present-day remains of the ancient city date from the Roman era, the majority from after a 2nd-century AD earthquake. In practical terms, a distinction is made between these. Old Smyrna was the initial settlement founded around the 11th century BC, first as an Aeolian settlement, taken over and developed during the Archaic Period by the Ionians. Smyrna proper was the new city which residents moved to as of the 4th century BC and whose foundation was inspired by Alexander the Great.

Old Smyrna was located on a small peninsula connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus at the northeastern corner of the inner Gulf of İzmir, at the edge of a fertile plain and at the foot of Mount Yamanlar. This Anatolian settlement commanded the gulf. Today, the archeological site, named Bayraklı Höyüğü, is 700 metres inland, in the Tepekule neighbourhood of Bayraklı. New Smyrna developed on the slopes of the Mount Pagos and alongside the coastal strait below where a small bay existed until the 18th century; the core of the late Hellenistic and early Roman Smyrna is preserved in the large area of İzmir Agora Open Air Museum at this site. Research is being pursued at the sites of both the new cities; this has been conducted since 1997 for Old Smyrna and since 2002 for the Classical Period city, in collaboration between the İzmir Archaeology Museum and the Metropolitan Municipality of İzmir. Several explanations have been offered for its name. A Greek myth derived the name from an eponymous Amazon named Σμύρνα, the name of a quarter of Ephesus.

This is the basis of a city of Aeolis. In inscriptions and coins, the name was written as Ζμύρνα, Ζμυρναῖος; the name Smyrna may have been taken from the ancient Greek word for myrrh, smýrna, the chief export of the city in ancient times. The region was settled at least as of the beginning of the third millennium BC, or earlier, as suggested by finds made in Yeşilova Höyük in excavations since 2005, it could have been a city of the autochthonous Leleges before the Greek colonists started to settle along the coast of Asia Minor at the turn of the second to first millennium BC. Throughout classical antiquity, Smyrna was a leading city-state of Ionia, with influence over the Aegean shores and islands. Smyrna was among the cities that claimed Homer as a resident; the early Aeolian Greek settlers of Lesbos and Cyme, expanding eastwards, occupied the valley of Smyrna. It was one of the confederacy of Aeolian city-states, marking the Aeolian frontier with the Ionian colonies. Strangers or refugees from the Ionian city of Colophon settled in the city.

During an uprising in 688 BC, they took control of the city, making it the thirteenth of the Ionian city-states. Revised mythologies said. In 688 BC, the Ionian boxer Onomastus of Smyrna won the prize at Olympia, but the coup was then a recent event; the Colophonian conquest is mentioned by Mimnermus, who counts himself of Colophon and of Smyrna. The Aeolic form of the name was retained in the Attic dialect, the epithet "Aeolian Smyrna" remained current long after the conquest. Smyrna was located at the mouth of the small river Hermus and at the head of a deep arm of the sea that reached far inland; this enabled Greek trading ships to sail into the heart of Lydia, making the city part of an essential trade route between Anatolia and the Aegean. During the 7th century BC, Smyrna rose to splendor. One of the great trade routes which cross Anatolia descends the Hermus valley past Sardis, diverging from the valley, passes south of Mount Sipylus and crosses a low pass into the little valley where Smyrna lies between the mountains and the sea.

Miletus and Ephesus were situated at the sea end of the other great trade route across Anatolia. The Meles River, which flowed by Smyrna, was worshiped in the valley. A common and consistent tradition connects Homer with the valley of Smyrna and the banks of the Meles; the epithet Melesigenes was applied to him. The steady equable flow of the Meles, alike in summer and winter, its short course and ending near the city, are celebrated by Aristides and Himerius; the stream rises from abundant springs east of the city and flows into the southeast extremity of the gulf. The archaic city contained a temple of Athena from the 7th century BC; when the Mermnad kings raised the Lydian power and aggressiveness, Smyrna was one of the first points of attack. Gyges was, defeated on the banks of the Hermus, the situation of the battlefield showin

The Nation Blue is a rock band formed in Tasmania and based in Melbourne, noted for their intense live performances and bleak subject matter. They have toured nationally in Australia and internationally in Brazil and Japan and have supported Helmet and Foo Fighters. In the third song of their first set in support of the Foo Fighters, bass player, Matt Weston, dislocated his knee, but saw out the remainder of the set while lying painfully on the stage floor. At the fourth annual AIR Awards held on 22 November 2009 The Nation Blue won the'Best Independent Hard Rock/Punk Album' award for Rising Waters. Tom Lyngcoln - vocals, guitar Matt Weston - bass Dan McKay - drums Descend ep - Fear of Children A Blueprint For Modern Noise - Trial and Error Damnation - Casadeldisco Records Protest Songs - Casadeldisco Records Rising Waters - Casadeldisco / Shock Black - Poison City Records Blue - Poison City Records Myspace page The Dwarf The Nation Blue - Get Angry

The murder of the Zhuo family occurred on October 26, 2013, when perpetrator Mingdong Chen murdered his cousin's wife and four children in their Brooklyn, New York home. Chen, an illegal immigrant to the United States and living temporarily with his cousin's family, murdered his cousin's four children, Linda Zhuo, Amy Zhuo, Kevin Zhuo, William Zhuo, their mother, Qiao Zhen Li, in their home in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, in New York City. All five died of cut wounds to the neck made with a butcher knife; the perpetrator was discovered at the scene of the crime, spattered in blood. He said, "I know I am done."Chen had lived in Chicago, in Florida, as well as in New York and had been staying with his cousin's family for about a week at the time of the killings. Chen was an illegal immigrant, he arrived in the United States in 2004. He underwent psychiatric evaluation for fitness to stand trial. According to the China Daily, Chen arrived in the United States from Fujian age 16 with $70,000 debt to the "snakehead" gang that smuggled him into the country illegally and worked in Chinese take-out restaurants to pay off his debt.

He applied for asylum in the United States in 2007 with fake testimonials that a fraudulent Chinatown immigration agency helped him forge, but lost his final appeal in June 2013. The perpetrator is said to have been disappointed with his failure to succeed in America, jealous of those who had found employment. According to Edward Chiu, head of the Lin Sing Association and fights between new immigrants and relatives who have begun to establish themselves are not uncommon, are a result of the unrealistic expectation many Chinese immigrants have of becoming rich in America, the resentment they experience when they fail where others succeed. Chen, who did not speak English, had held a series of restaurant jobs as a waiter, but had been fired after a week or two. NYPD Chief Philip Banks III stated that during his confession, made via a translator, that he killed his cousin's family because he had failed to make it in America and was envious of his cousin, more successful. Chen stated that, "Everyone here is doing better than me."Several Chinese-language newspapers reported that Chen had been the victim of a Green card marriage scam in which a woman promised to marry him in exchange for a sum of money made off with the money.

Chen's gambling buddy, Erdong Chen told a reporter that Chen had told him that he had paid his fiance $70,000 and that she had run off with the money. According to the friend, the day before the killings Chen told him that he wanted to kill his absconded fiancee. Chen punched a police officer when apprehended and made a full confession of the crime. Chen, who spoke little English, pled guilty to three counts of second-degree murder and two counts of first-degree manslaughter, speaking through an interpreter, he was sentenced to life in prison. Some commentators seized on this murder to criticize American immigration policy. A 2017 indie film, "Gold Fortune," by Shiyu “Rhyme” Lu revisits the murder in the context of the struggles of new immigrants to America. Illegal immigration to the United States and crime