Taito Corporation is a Japanese company that specializes in video games, arcade cabinets and game centers, based out of Shinjuku, Tokyo. The company was founded by Michael Kogan in 1953 as the Taito Trading Company, importing vodka, vending machines and jukeboxes into Japan, it would begin production of video games in 1973. In 2005, Taito was purchased by Square Enix, becoming a wholly owned subsidiary by 2006. Taito is recognized as an important player in the early days of video games, producing several hit games such as Space Invaders, Bubble Bobble and Darius. Alongside Konami and Sega, it is one of the most prominent video game companies from Japan and the first that exported its games into other countries. Several of its games have since been recognized as important and revolutionary for the industry - Space Invaders in particular was a major contributor to the growth of video games in the mid-1970s, the aliens featured in the games are seen as iconic emblems within the video game industry.

The company maintains a chain of arcade centers, known as "Game Taito Stations", across Japan, alongside being a manufacturer of toys, plush dolls and UFO-catcher prizes. It is housed in Shinjuku Bunka Quint Building in Yoyogi, the same building as parent company Square Enix; the company was founded in 1953 by a Ukrainian Jewish businessman named Michael Kogan as Taito Trading Co. Ltd.. Taito started out distributing vending machines, it was the first company to sell vodka in Japan. It began leasing jukeboxes and started to manufacture its own. Taito began producing electro-mechanical arcade games in the 1960s. Taito changed its name from Taito Trading Company to Taito Corporation in August 1972 and introduced its first video arcade game in 1973. Several of its early arcade games saw release in North America by Midway, a Chicago area-based arcade manufacturer with strong ties to Taito. In 1978 Toshihiro Nishikado, a designer at Taito, created Space Invaders which became the company's most popular title and one of the most memorable games in arcade history, responsible for beginning the golden age of arcade video games.

Taito established its American division, Taito America, in 1973. In its first years, Taito America's sole purpose was to handle the licensing of Taito's video games to American third party publishers, it was not until the late 1970s that Taito America began to self-publish Taito's video games in North America. Based in Elk Grove Village, Taito America relocated to nearby Wheeling in 1985. While the majority of Taito America's catalog were titles that were released in Japan by its parent company, it did publish video games licensed from third-party companies, as well as games that were developed in the United States for Taito. In April 1986 and a month after becoming part of the Kyocera group, Taito merged with two of its subsidiaries, Pacific Industrial Co. Ltd. and the Japan Vending Machine Co. Ltd, absorbed them both. Japan Vending Machine was once an independent company but was purchased by Taito in July 1971 to strengthen its presence in the operation of amusement facilities. Pacific Industrial was created by Taito itself in 1963 to develop products for the company.

In August 1988, on the occasion of its 35th anniversary, the company changed its logo to the current one. In April 1988, Taito Software, the subsidiary of Taito America responsible for non-arcade operations, opened its own office in North Vancouver, British Columbia. While manufacturing and distribution of Taito arcade video games in North America continued to be handled in Wheeling, the North Vancouver unit became in charge of releasing video games for Nintendo's products and the computer market. In addition to its corporate offices in North Vancouver, Taito Software operated a distribution center in Bothell, Washington. By early 1991 Taito Software had shut down, publishing of home video games returned in Wheeling. Taito America ceased operations in July 1996 after more than 20 years of existence. Taito had sold exclusive rights for publishing its games in America to Acclaim Entertainment the previous year. A division existed in London, United Kingdom to distribute Taito games in Europe. Taito Corporation Limited was created in 1988 and liquidated in February 1998.

Taito has developed many arcade video games. Space Invaders is most notable. Q. Puzznic, Kick Master, Gun Buster and Puzzle Bobble. Taito had a license from Hanna-Barbera to produce games based on The Flintstones and The Jetsons. Several of Taito's video games that were released for the Famicom and the Super Famicom in Japan were a joint venture with Disco Corporation. Disco Corporation was established in July 1972 by Taito as a subsidiary to import and sale home electronic products; as of 2003, Disco's main activities were the development and handling of licenses of computers, peripheral devices and software. In 1992, Taito announced a CD-ROM-based video game console named WOWOW, that would have allowed people to play near-exact ports of Taito's arcades, as well as download games from a satellite transmission, it was named after the Japanese television station WOWOW and would have utilized its stations to download games. The WOWOW was never released; when Taito was owned by Kyocera, its headquarters were in Chiyoda.

Taito entered the Tokyo Stock Exchange in January 1993, l

Adam Thirlwell is a British novelist. His work has been translated into thirty languages, he has twice been named as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists. In 2015 he received the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Letters, he is the London editor of The Paris Review. Thirlwell was educated at the independent Haberdashers' Elstree, he read English at New College, where he got the top first. He was a Prize Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford between 2000 and 2007, worked as assistant editor at the literary magazine Areté, he now lives in London. In 2011 he was the S Fischer Guest Professor of Comparative Literature at the Freie Universität Berlin. In 2015 he was announced as an Honorary Fellow of the Metaphysical Club at the Domus Academy in Milan. Thirlwell is the author of three novels: Politics, The Escape described by Milan Kundera as "a novel where the humour is melancholic, the melancholy mischievous, the talent startling", Lurid & Cute, he is the author of a project on the novel and translation, which includes a book first published in 2007, chosen as a book of the year by Tom Stoppard in The Guardian and A. S. Byatt in the Times Literary Supplement.

In 2019 he created Studio Créole, a group show with novelists and interpreters, co-curated with Hans Ulrich Obrist, which premiered at Manchester International Festival in July. An experimental book with unfolding pages called Kapow!, designed by Studio Frith, was published by Visual Editions in 2012. It was nominated for the Design Museum's 2013 Designs of the Year awards and has been included in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. A book with the artist Philippe Parreno, was published by Serralves Museum in 2017. Thirlwell wrote a short film, Everyday Performance Artists, for Channel 4's Random Acts, directed by Polly Stenham and starring the voice of Shia LaBeouf, with Gemma Chan, James Norton, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, in 2016. In 2018, he wrote and directed Utopia, starring Lily Cole, Lily McMenamy and Babirye Bukilwa His writing is published in The New York Times, Le Monde, La Repubblica, as well as the New York Review of Books, The New Republic, The Believer, he has written columns for The Esquire.

In May 2015, he was named London editor of the Paris Review. In June 2018 Thirlwell was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in its "40 Under 40" initiative. 2003: Granta "Best of Young British Novelists" 2003: Betty Trask Award, winner, "Politics" 2005: Lire "50 écrivains pour demain" 2008: Somerset Maugham Award, winner, "Miss Herbert" 2009: Encore Award, shortlist, "The Escape" 2013: Granta "Best of Young British Novelists" 2015: E. M. Forster Award, winner Politics Miss Herbert The Escape Kapow! Lurid & Cute Thirlwell, Adam. "Amerikas". The Believer. 6: 3–17. Multiples: 12 Stories in 18 Languages by 61 Authors, edited by Adam Thirlwell List of British Jewish writers "Lists, lists...", article for Granta on literary "Best of" lists

Lisa Carol Bielawa is a composer and vocalist. She is a 2009 Rome Prize winner in Musical Composition and spent a year composing as a Fellow at the American Academy in Rome. Bielawa was born in San Francisco, her father is retired San Francisco State University music professor Herbert Bielawa. Having been raised in a musical environment, she has been musically active since early childhood, learning piano and violin in addition to writing music. Bielawa's beginnings as a composer were unintentional, "I'd write cabaret songs and pieces for the San Francisco Girls Chorus, but it never felt serious." She continued to perform and write music, but studied English at Yale for her undergraduate degree, after receiving which, resumed her career in music. She moved to New York two weeks after receiving her B. A. in Literature in 1990 from Yale University, became an active participant in New York musical life. She began touring with the Philip Glass Ensemble in 1992, she counts Glass among her compositional influences.

In 1997 she co-founded the MATA Festival. Bielawa is the Artistic Director of the San Francisco Girls Chorus. Bielawa’s chamber music has been performed in New York at Judson Memorial Church, the Brooklyn Museum, Symphony Space, she curated the Boston Modern Orchestra Project’s Club Concerts. Other performances include Chance Encounter, a piece comprising songs and arias constructed of speech overheard in transient public spaces, by soprano Susan Narucki and The Knights at the Whitney Museum of American Art. World premieres in 2009 included Portrait-Elegy. Bielawa's latest project is a new opera called Vireo: The Spiritual Biography of a Witch’s Accuser, composed by Lisa Bielawa on a libretto by Erik Ehn and directed by Charles Otte; the opera is unprecedented in that it is being created expressly for episodic release via broadcast and online media. Writing for The Boston Globe, David Weininger notes that her "Hypermelodia" is structured like a hypertext novel: during the piece two of the performers choose which section to play next.

It was commissioned for and premiered at the 37th Annual Seminar on Contemporary Music for the Young on April 12, 2015 at the Rivers School Conservatory. Bielawa's Chance Encounter is a 35-minute piece in, about, transient public space with texts overheard in transient public space. Chance Encounter has been recorded by The Knights and Susan Narucki for Orange Mountain Music, has been performed in Venice with Lisa Bielawa as the soprano soloist as part of the 12th International Venice Biennale of Architecture, in partnership with urban placemaker Robert Hammond, known for championing New York's High Line. Bielawa's Airfield Broadcasts is a massive 60-minute work for hundreds of musicians that premiered on the tarmac of the former Tempelhof Airport in Berlin and at Crissy Field in San Francisco; the piece turns former airfields into vast musical canvases, calling on professional and student musicians to execute a spatial symphony. Bielawa is at work on Vireo: The Spiritual Biography of a Witch's Accuser, a new opera composed on a libretto by Erik Ehn and directed by Charles Otte, unprecedented in that it is being created expressly for episodic release via broadcast and online media.

Vireo won ASCAP's 47th Annual Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Multimedia Award in 2015. A complete list of compositions is available on her official web site. Recordings include "Hildegurls: Electric Ordo Virtutum". 1995 BRIO award 2009 Rome Prize winner in Musical Composition 2015 ASCAP 47th Annual Deems Taylor/Virgil Thomson Multimedia Award for Vireo: The Spiritual Biography of a Witch’s Accuser Official web site

James Caudy was an American frontiersman and landowner in the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians of the Colony of Virginia—present-day West Virginia. Caudy was born in the Netherlands, immigrated to the Thirteen Colonies in the 1730s, settled within the Cacapon River valley near present-day Capon Bridge in Hampshire County; as early as 1741, Caudy was associated with the arrangement and development of transportation routes throughout present-day Hampshire County. Caudy twice hosted George Washington. Caudy participated in the French and Indian War and is best known for having purportedly defended himself from a band of Native American fighters on Caudy's Castle—a sandstone outcrop that now bears his name. According to tradition, Caudy used his long rifle barrel to push his Native American attackers off the rock into the Cacapon River below. In his life, Caudy became involved in a land dispute with John Capper, resolved by Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron in November 1762. Caudy was interred on his property south of present-day Capon Bridge.

According to local tradition, Caudy was buried with a Native American on either side of him, while another tradition says Caudy was buried with his horse. James Caudy was born in 1707 in the Netherlands, he arrived in the Thirteen Colonies through Prince George's County in the Province of Maryland in the 1730s. While in Prince George's County, Caudy married Mary Hutchinson. Around 1738, Caudy and fellow frontiersman Joseph Edwards purchased tracts of land along the Cacapon River, he and Edwards were accompanied by the first two families of European descent to settle in the Cacapon River valley. Caudy and his family settled on 358 acres in the Cacapon River valley near present-day Capon Bridge in what was Orange County. Caudy's land parcel was located to the south of Edwards's 400 acres. S. Route 50 corresponds to the boundary between Caudy's and Edwards's land parcels; as early as 1741, Caudy was associated with the arrangement and development of transportation routes throughout present-day Hampshire County.

On March 25, 1742, an Orange County court order mandated that Jeremiah Smith and James Eaton "view and lay" a road from Caudy's land to Isaac Perkins's mill near Winchester. That year, a wagon road was constructed between Caudy's land tract. By 1744, this route was extended from Caudy's property to the North River at present-day North River Mills; this route terminated at the mouth of Patterson Creek on the North Branch Potomac River and connected Winchester with Cumberland, Maryland. In December 1742, the County Court of Orange County ordered the construction of another wagon road from Caudy's land to the South Branch Potomac River. In 1743, a wagon road connecting Winchester and Moorefield traversed Caudy's land using a ford in the Cacapon River; this road led to a watermill near Old Fields on the South Branch Potomac River. Due to the location of Caudy's settlement along the Winchester–Moorefield route, his residence served as an overnight stopping point for George Washington and George William Fairfax in April 1748.

Washington and Fairfax were returning to Winchester en route to Belvoir following their surveying expedition in the South Branch Potomac River valley in present-day Hardy County. Washington and his surveying party stayed overnight in Caudy's log cabin. On April 12, 1750, George Washington surveyed a plot of "waste land" for Caudy, using white oak trees as boundary markers. Caudy and John Stewart of Frederick County coordinated the layout and construction of further transportation routes through the region, were respected for their efforts. Following Stewart's death in 1750, Stewart left his eldest son in the charge of Caudy and Captain Jeremiah Smith, who both procured land along the Cacapon River for him. According to local tradition and folklore, Caudy is known as an "Indian fighter". Upon detecting a Native American stalker in pursuit of him, Caudy pretended to flee along a pathway leading up the mountain toward the craggy bluffs spanning between 450 and 600 feet above the Cacapon River, south of present-day Forks of Cacapon.

This pathway edged around the face of a rock formation overlooking the Cacapon River, narrowed into a rocky ledge. Another legend says Caudy was leading a group of pioneer settlers in defense against Native American attacks. In both versions of the story, Caudy awaited his pursuers within the craggy recesses of the rock formation; the narrow recesses within the pinnacle's sandstone ledges allowed only single file passage through the rock outcrop toward the formation's face. As Caudy's followers traversed the outcrop's narrow passes and ledges, Caudy is said to have used his long rifle barrel to push them one-by-one off the rock formation into the Cacapon River 450 to 600 feet below. Other legends say; the outcrop was named "Caudy's Castle,". With the exception of this event, there exist no other accounts of encounters or conflicts between Caudy and Native Americans. During the French and Indian War, Caudy remained on his property on the Cacapon River. Caudy's residence may have been fortified; this fortification was not part of the "chain of forts" organized by George Washington for the defense of settlers against Native American raids in the South Branch Potomac and Cacapon River valleys.

Caudy served as a drummer in Maryland

Kuruktopa is a village in the Puncha CD block in the Manbazar subdivision of the Purulia district in the state of West Bengal, India. Kuruktopa is located at 23.1715°N 86.5242°E / 23.1715. Purulia district forms the lowest step of the Chota Nagpur Plateau; the general scenario is undulating land with scattered hills. Manbazar subdivision, shown in the map alongside, is located in the eastern part of the district, it is an overwhelmingly rural subdivision with 96.32% of the population living in the rural areas and 3.68% living in the urban areas. There are 3 census towns in the subdivision; the map shows the Kangsabati Project Reservoir. The Mukutmanipur Dam is in Bankura district but the upper portion of the reservoir is in Manbazar subdivision; the remnants of old temples and deities are found in the subdivision as in other parts of the district. The subdivision has a high proportion of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Bandwan CD block has 51.86% ST population, Manbazar II CD block has 48.97% ST population.

Manbazar I CD block has 22.03% ST and 22.44% SC. Puncha CD block has 24.74% ST and 14.54 SC. Writing in 1911, H. Coupland, ICS, speaks of the aboriginal races predominating in the old Manbhum district, he mentions the Kurmis, Santhals and Bauri. Note: The map alongside presents some of the notable locations in the subdivision. All places marked in the map are linked in the larger full screen map. According to the 2011 Census of India, Kuruktopa had a total population of 2,964, of which 1,500 were males and 1,464 were females. There were 394 persons in the age range of 0-6 years; the total number of literate persons in Kuruktopa was 1,480. Sitaram Mahato Memorial College at Anandadweep, Kuruktopa was established in 2015. Affiliated with the Sidho Kanho Birsha University, it offers honours courses in Bengali, English, philosophy, political science, geography, a general course in arts. Kuruktopa High School is a Bengali-medium, coeducational institution established in 1946, it has facilities for teaching from class V to class XII.

It has a library with 700 books. There is a primary health centre with 2 beds at Anandadweep, Kuruktopa

Bishop Boniface Enos Adoyo is a Kenyan retired bishop and former head of the Evangelical Alliance of Kenya. Adoyo reports that he holds a Master of Divinity degree and studied economics at the London School of Economics, he is a former overseer in Christ in the Answer Ministries, a congregation in Nairobi, a former Chancellor of Pan African Christian University. His oversight saw the Church grow and expand to the current CITAM Ministries that comprises Assemblies, Hope Fm Radio Station, Hope TV, a Children's Centre, Kindergarten and Secondary Schools and a Catering Unit. Adoyo served in various leadership capacities including as Ombudsman – Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Council Member of Daystar University, Chairperson Pentecostal Assemblies of Africa, he chaired the Finish The Task Missions Training Agency, was the Executive Committee Member of Globworks and Globserve Adoyo has caused controversy through his crusade against evolution. He has argued that macroevolution is an unproven theory which should not be taught to children as fact, despite scientific consensus.

The Associated Press reported that Adoyo was mobilizing Kenyan Christians to boycott the Nairobi Museum which houses the Turkana boy fossils. In a campaign christened "hide the bones", Kenyan evangelicals demanded the removal of Turkana boy from display, he has since held media debates with Kenya's renowned palaeontologist Richard Leakey over the subject. Adoyo was criticized in 2007 for repeating the false story that on his death bed, Charles Darwin "expressed surprise that people believed his theory." This claim, first made by Elizabeth Hope, is regarded as false by Darwin's family, modern historians, the creationist group Answers in Genesis. After his retirement, Adoyo joined politics and vied for Nairobi Senatorial seat in the 2013 general elections, he was sponsored by the LPK Party and came a distant fourth behind winner Mike Sonko, Margaret Wanjiru of ODM and businessman Stanley Livondo. He is married to Adah Adoyo and they have two daughters and Elizabeth