Star Trek: First Contact is a 1996 American science fiction film directed by Jonathan Frakes and based on the franchise Star Trek. It is the eighth film in the Star Trek film series, as well as the second to star the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation. In the film, the crew of the USS Enterprise-E travel back in time from the 24th century to the mid 21st-century in order to stop the cybernetic Borg from conquering Earth by changing their past. After the release of Star Trek Generations in 1994, Paramount Pictures tasked writers Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore with developing the next film in the series. Braga and Moore wanted to feature the Borg in the plot, while producer Rick Berman wanted a story involving time travel; the writers combined the two ideas. After two better-known directors turned down the job, cast member Jonathan Frakes was chosen to direct to make sure the task fell to someone who understood Star Trek; the film's script required the creation of new starship designs, including a new USS Enterprise.
Production designer Herman Zimmerman and illustrator John Eaves collaborated to make a sleeker ship than its predecessor. Principal photography began with weeks of location shooting in Arizona and California, before production moved to new sets for the ship-based scenes; the Borg were redesigned to appear as though they were converted into machine beings from the inside-out. Effects company Industrial Light & Magic rushed to complete the film's special effects in less than five months. Traditional optical effects techniques were supplemented with computer-generated imagery. Jerry Goldsmith and his son Joel Goldsmith collaborated to produce the film's score. Star Trek: First Contact was released on November 22, 1996, was the highest-grossing film on its opening weekend, it made $92 million in the United States and Canada with an additional $54 million in other territories, combining a worldwide total of $146 million. Critical reception was positive; the Borg and the special effects were lauded. Scholarly analysis of the film has focused on Captain Jean-Luc Picard's parallels to Herman Melville's Ahab and the nature of the Borg.
First Contact won three Saturn Awards. In the 24th century, Captain Jean Luc Picard awakens from a nightmare in which he relived his assimilation by the cybernetic Borg six years earlier, he is contacted by Admiral Hayes. Picard's orders are for his ship, USS Enterprise, to patrol the Neutral Zone in case of Romulan aggression. Learning the fleet is losing the battle, the Enterprise crew disobeys orders and heads for Earth, where a single Borg Cube ship holds its own against a group of Starfleet vessels. Enterprise arrives in time to assist its captain, the Klingon Worf. After Admiral Hayes is killed, Picard takes control of the fleet and directs the surviving ships to concentrate their firepower on a unimportant point on the Borg ship; the Cube is destroyed after launching a smaller sphere ship towards the planet. Enterprise pursues the sphere into a temporal vortex; as the sphere disappears, Enterprise discovers Earth has been altered – it is now populated by Borg. Realizing the Borg have used time travel to change the past, Enterprise follows the sphere through the vortex.
Enterprise arrives hundreds of years in its past on April 4, 2063, the day before humanity's first encounter with alien life after Zefram Cochrane's historic warp drive flight. After destroying the Borg sphere, an away team transports down to Cochrane's ship, Phoenix, in Montana. Picard has Cochrane's assistant; the captain returns to the ship and leaves Commander William T. Riker on Earth to make sure Phoenix's flight proceeds as planned. While in the future Cochrane is seen as a hero, the real man is reluctant to assume the role the Enterprise crew describe. A group of Borg invade Enterprise's lower decks and begin to assimilate its crew and modify the ship. Picard and a team attempt to reach engineering to disable the Borg with a corrosive gas, but are forced back. A frightened Sloane corners Picard with a weapon; the two escape the Borg-infested area of the ship by creating a diversion in the holodeck. Picard and the ship's navigator, Lieutenant Hawk, travel outside the ship in space suits to stop the Borg from calling reinforcements by using the deflector dish.
As the Borg continue to assimilate more decks, Worf suggests destroying the ship, but Picard angrily calls him a coward. Sloane makes him realize he is acting irrationally. Picard orders an activation of the ship's self-destruct orders the crew to head for the escape pods while he stays behind to rescue Data; as Cochrane and engineer Geordi La Forge prepare to activate the warp drive on Phoenix, Picard discovers that the Borg Queen has grafted human skin onto Data, giving him the sensation of touch he has long
Wang Bingzhang is a political activist and founder of two Chinese pro-democracy movements. He is considered a political prisoner of China. Wang Bingzhang was born on February 6, 1948, in Shijiazhuang, China, he served as a doctor for eight years. In 1979, he was sponsored by the Chinese government to study abroad in McGill University, Canada where he obtained his Ph. D. degree in pathology in 1982. In 1982, Wang established the first pro-democracy Chinese magazine overseas; the next year, he launched the "Union of Chinese Democracy Movement", Alliance for Democratic China publicly denouncing the one-party rule in China. He traveled back to China and co-founded two opposition parties, the Chinese Freedom Democracy Party and Chinese Democracy Justice Party in 1989 and 1998, respectively; the latter led to his arrest in China. He was not sentenced. In early 2002, Wang was in Thailand where Royal Thai Police investigated him at the request of the Communist Party of China. Finding no evidence against him and fearing for his safety, Dr. Wang was urged to leave the country.
In June 2002, Wang went to Vietnam with Yue Wu and Zhang Qi where they were seized by Chinese secret agents. In December 2002, the Chinese government announced his arrest after six months in custody. In February 2003, Wang was sentenced to life on charges of espionage and terrorism, his trial was lasted for one day. He is imprisoned in the Shaoguan Prison. In March 2006, Wang was punished for misbehaving when he went hunger strike to plead for release to pay a final respect to his father at his funeral; this resulted in prolonged punishment. Visitation rights were restored in November 2006. According to Dr. Bing Wu Wang, Wang's younger brother, his physical health had deteriorated since the last visitation; this was due, according to Wang, to a new prison warden who served much lower food quality, harsher physical abuse and intense political study sessions. Wang Bingzhang is a loyal Christian. In Nov. 2017, the 1st edition of the book written by Wang Bingzhang during his time as a political prisoner was published.
The book is about decoding the Bible. The publication ceremony was at the Bible Museum in Washington DC on the 19th of November. Various international organizations, including the United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, etc. have voiced their opposition to Dr. Wang's imprisonment, saying China is arbitrarily detaining him; the United States and Canadian legislatures have both passed legislative bills in support of Wang and in denunciation of the CPC's actions. The typical Chinese narratives regard him as a dangerous Western boot licking traitor. Chinese democracy movement List of Chinese dissidents Worldrights "China's veteran dissident" Chinese Democracy Justice Party website
Temporary gentlemen is a term used to refer to officers of the British Army who held temporary commissions when such men came from outside the traditional officer class. The officers of the British Army were drawn from the gentry and upper middle-classes and were expected to be gentlemen; the expensive uniforms and social expectations placed on officers prevented those without a private income from joining. The outbreak of the First World War required a rapid expansion in the size of the army and a corresponding increase in the officer corps. During the war more than 265,000 additional officers were recruited, many on temporary commissions. Many of these were drawn from working classes, they came to be referred to as "temporary gentlemen" with the expectation being that they would revert to their former social standing after the war. At the end of the war, many were unwilling to return to their former positions on reduced salaries and there were too few managerial positions to provide full employment, resulting in considerable hardship.
Many former temporary gentlemen became leading literary figures and temporary gentlemen featured in many inter-war stories and films. The term was revived in the Second World War, which saw a similar increase in the number of officers holding temporary commissions. A staggered demobilisation at the war's end helped alleviate some of the issues faced by their forebears; the term continued to see use for officers commissioned from those conscripted for National Service, which lasted until 1963. It has been used as a translation for miliciano, a termed used to describe conscript officers in the Portuguese Army of the 1960s and 1970s; the term first came to prominence during the First World War to describe officers who received temporary commissions. It was sometimes abbreviated to "TG"; the use of the term has been described as discriminatory, a mean-spirited reminder to the temporary officers that they were expected to resume their former positions after the war. It was considered offensive by most of those.
The use of the term reduced once the new temporary officers had proved themselves capable on the battlefield, though some adopted the term in an ironic fashion. Some temporary gentlemen used the term; the war poet Wilfred Owen used this form of the term when he wrote a letter to his mother describing "temporary gentlemen... glorified NCOs... privates and sergeants in masquerade" and how he would "rather be among honest privates than these snobs". Sometimes the opposite situation occurred when men who would have no problems fulfilling the requirements to hold a commission in peacetime chose instead to serve in the ranks during the war; this included the Earl of Crawford who, at the age of 45, served as a lance corporal and Leslie Coulson, assistant editor of the Morning Post who refused a commission in order to "do the thing take place in the ranks". The pre-war British Army had long drawn its officers from the gentry and upper middle-classes young men with public school education from families with long traditions of army or navy service.
Many pre-war regular officers had served in their school and university Officers' Training Corps and so had been training for their role since the age of thirteen. Officers of the time were expected to enjoy horse riding, hunting and fine dining, the expense of which prevented those without a private means of income to supplement their salaries from considering such a career. At the outbreak of the war there were 10,800 officers in the British Army with an additional 2,500 in the Special Reserve and 10,700 in the Territorial Force, a shortfall of 2,000 compared to theoretical full strength. During the next four years some 265,397 men became officers on temporary commissions - with the intention being that they would return to civilian life after the war was over; some men were commissioned directly from the ranks in the early stages of the war senior non-commissioned officers and warrant officers from the regular army. These included VC winners Sergeant-Major George Thomas Dorrell and Sergeant David Nelson of the Royal Artillery who distinguished themselves at the Action at Néry on 1 September 1914.
Men who took up this offer were discharged from the regular army and appointed to temporary commissions, a process that caused problems upon demobilisation when many wished to continue their service in the army. Some found themselves in financial difficulty as officers did not receive a separation entitlement, granted to other ranks to provide for their families whilst away on service; as such many NCOs refused advancement on financial grounds and others had to be "forced to take commissions to their financial detriment". The issue was remedied in the war with the introduction of grants to all officers below the rank of major and allowances paid for officer's children. By 1916 all subalterns received 7s 6d a day in pay, an initial £50 kit allowance, a 2s daily lodging allowance, 2s 6d daily field service allowance and free mess rations and travel; some patriotic civilian employers continued to pay half wages whilst on active service such that some temporary gentlemen found themselves quite well off.
Former NCOs sometimes found the transition from holding authority over up to 1,000 men to the more humble commands of a second lieutenant rather hard to stoma
The MV Tillikum is the sole remaining Evergreen State-class ferry operated by Washington State Ferries. The Tillikum was built in 1959 for service between Bainbridge Island. Upon the delivery of the Super-class ferries in 1968, the Tillikum was moved to the Edmonds-Kingston run where it remained until 1980. After being displaced by the Issaquah-class ferry Chelan in the early 1980s, the Tillikum spent a decade as a relief boat before settling on the Fauntleroy-Vashon-Southworth run in the early 1990s; the Tillikum became been a reserve vessel since the delivery of the Samish in 2015. Since the retirement of her sister Klahowya in 2017, she has been serving as the San Juan Inter-island vessel
Louis Alexander Novikoff, nicknamed "The Mad Russian," was an American professional baseball player. Born in Glendale, his professional career extended from 1937 to 1950, with all or parts of five seasons in Major League Baseball for the Chicago Cubs and Philadelphia Phillies; the outfielder batted right-handed, stood 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighed 185 pounds. An outstanding minor league hitter, Novikoff batted over.350 in each of his first five minor league seasons. In 1940, playing for the top-level Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League, he batted.363 with 259 hits, including 41 home runs. He is a 2015 inductee in the Pacific Coast League Hall of Fame, his best year in the major leagues was 1942, when he played nearly a full season and batted.300 as a Cubs outfielder during the first of the World War II years, when the player ranks were thinned by the draft. Altogether, as a big-leaguer he batted.282 with 305 hits, with 45 doubles, ten triples and 15 home runs. Because of his eccentric personality, the media dubbed him "The Mad Russian," after a popular radio character of the same name played by Bert Gordon.
According to Warren Brown's history of the Cubs, Novikoff was afraid to approach the ivy on the Wrigley Field walls, fearing that it was poison ivy, thus diminishing his usefulness as an outfielder at the time, however Cubs trainer Bob Lewis took Novikoff to the vines one day and rubbed them all over his body and chewed some up proving they were safe. Novikoff asked if they were ok for smoking. Career statistics and player information from MLB, or Baseball-Reference Lou Novikoff at Find a Grave
Harle Syke is a small village within the parish of Briercliffe, situated three miles north of Burnley, England. It was the home to eleven weaving firms. Queen Street Mill closed in 1982, was converted to a textile museum, preserving it as a working mill, it is the world's last 19th-century steam powered weaving mill. Harle Syke lies at the edge of the Burnley urban area connecting it to the village of Haggate; the main road climbs from the Burnley border to the small crossroads in Haggate, with a road between Nelson and Todmorden. The village dates from the late 19th century; the origins of the name Harle Syke, first used for a farm nearby, are descriptive. The village itself is flat rising to 800 feet above sea level. To the south is the valley of the River Don or Thursden Brook and to the north is hill of Marsden Height, in Brierfield; the buildings in the village are predominantly stone-built. All the public houses are open as of 2015, it has a social club. There is a Church of England church. Harle Syke has direct road links with Burnley and Nelson, is served by local bus services operated by Burnley Bus Company.
Briercliffe was named in the Charter of Freewarren granted to Edmund de Lacy the Lord of Blackburnshire in 1251, allowing him to use the area for hunting hares and foxes. In the 18th century, the people of the area worked as farmers and were major producers of wool. There was a coal mine, that supplied coal to the growing cotton mills in Burnley. In 1850, a group of men from Haggate founded the first cotton mill in Harle Syke Mill, they chose a site on farmland next to the road to Burnley, near a natural spring and constructed workers housing close by. The success of Harle Syke Mill, which operated as a'room and power mill', renting out the space and power from line shafts to manufacturing companies, led to further construction; the new village of Harle Syke expanded until World War I. Harle Syke became the base of many Burnley cotton firms during the time when Lancashire was the cotton capital of the world. Harle Syke children went to Haggate School a Sunday school for the Baptist Church, built on the site of the Haggate cricket pitch in 1882.
Most at 12 would become part-timers at one of the mills, or stay on until 13. The school became the village primary school, was more used by Burnley College. In a sense the village was built up around the cotton weaving sheds, or mills as they were known; the word'mill' can refer to the building, or to one of the manufacturing companies that rents space in such a mill. For example, Haggate Weaving Company shared the other half of a mill with Altham's of Heasandford Mill, Burnley. There, the buildings and engine were owned by a room and power company called Briercliffe Mill; because of the availability of room and power, the Harle Syke sheds gave birth to many small companies who grew to build their own reputations and mills in the village, or Burnley and beyond. The first steam driven power loom shed in Briercliffe was a 400 loom shed at Lane Bottom set up by William Smith of Hill End in 1848, near his existing hand loom factory, the 1777 Hill Factory; the Extwistle Mill at Extwistle was a small water powered mill with 100 looms, that converted to steam.
In spite of the 1826–1848 crisis, handloom weavers were still having work put out to them from outside the district, but the community was suffering extreme poverty. Smith's Mill, or Lane End Mill, took on both young women and young men, their parents sticking to hand loom weaving; the 200 paid jobs it provided set new expectations of income for teenagers in the district.'Harle Syke Shed, the next mill to open in 1858, has an interesting history, not so much for the architecture but the means by which it was financed over the 150 years of its existence. The Haggate Joint Stock Commercial Company was a collaborative venture set up under Sir Robert Peel's Joint Stock Companies Act of 1844. 64 wage-earning men and women signed the deed of settlement and agreed to take up one £10 share paying a one shilling deposit. Two thirds of them were weavers. Though co-operative in name, the company structure was structured to make profit, the companies like this that did make it through the downturn of 1857, the severe recession caused by the Cotton Famine of 1862–63, were more severe employers than the private family businesses.
Shares were traded, dividend paid, the shareholders contributed unpaid work to keep the business as well as having unlimited liability for the companies debts. In effect they were running two businesses, protecting the capital assets that were the buildings and engine, manufacturing and trading in cotton cloth; the five elected directors had a great deal of discretion on how and how long the business should operate. In 1865, the company was reorganised; the Haggate Joint Stock Commercial Company became a room and power company. The looms were disposed of to the shareholders, each receiving a pro-rata allocation. In 1865, the property company appears to have achieved steady growth and was expanded in the 1860s and 1880s; the producer partnerships that were formed when the looms were allocated consolidated, shares in the room and power'walls' company were traded resulting in a smaller number of shareholders with larger investments. There were seven'producer partnerships' in 1865. Briercliffe Mill was a direct imitation of the reconstituted Harle Syke Mill.
It was a pure room and power mill buil