Tromelin Island is a low, flat island in the Indian Ocean about 500 kilometres north of Réunion and about 450 kilometres east of Madagascar. Tromelin is administered as part of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands, a French overseas territory but Mauritius claims sovereignty over the island despite its absence in the listing of the 8th article of the 1814 Paris Treaty. Indeed, the treaty doesn't mention all the dependencies of Mauritius which leads to uncertainty on the sovereignty of Tromelin. During the British period of Mauritius, France administrated the island as a dependency of the region of Réunion and built infrastructure without British protest. France and Mauritius have been negotiating for years in regard to the possible establishment of a condominium over the island. Tromelin has facilities for a weather station, it is a nesting site for green sea turtles. The island is named for the chevalier Bernard Boudin de Tromelin, the captain of the French warship La Dauphine, he arrived at the island on 29 November 1776, rescued eight stranded enslaved Malagasy people, on the island for 15 years.

Tromelin is part of the Iles Eparses. It is only 7 metres high, it formed as a volcano, now eroded, developed an atoll ring of coral. Tromelin is about 1,700 metres long and 700 metres wide, with an area of 80 ha, covered in scrub dominated by octopus bush and surrounded by coral reefs. Access by sea is quite difficult as there are no harbours and the only anchorage, to the northwest of the island, is indifferent; the best, but by no means ideal, landing area is on the east side of the northern peninsula. A 1,200-metre airstrip provides a link with the outside world. Flora is poorly developed due to weather conditions and lack of fresh water. With the exception of two or three months in summer, this flat island is swept day and night by heavy winds that are sustained in winter. In summer, it can suffer the onslaught of tropical storms. There is only brush present on the island. Veloutaries and purslane, with growth shaped by a dominant east winds are present everywhere on the island; the fauna consists of hermit crabs and sea turtles for which the island is an important nesting place.

The green turtle known as the freshwater turtle, is encountered and, to a lesser extent, the tortoiseshell turtle, better known as the caret. The waters are rich with fish; the French Coral Reef Initiative has identified 26 species of corals. Allochthonous species were introduced on the island during the various shipwrecks: rats and rabbits; the latter were decimated in 1986 by cyclone Erinesta. The island has been identified as an Important Bird Area by BirdLife International because of its significance as a seabird breeding site. Both masked and red-footed boobies nesting there. Sulidae populations have declined in the western Indian Ocean with those on Tromelin among the healthiest remaining; the island's masked boobies are of the western Indian Ocean subspecies, of which Tromelin is a stronghold. The red-footed boobies constitute the only polymorphic population in the region, indicating its biogeographical isolation. Both great and lesser frigatebirds used to nest on the island; the breeding populations of both birds have since been extirpated, although they continue to use the island for roosting.

There are no resident landbirds. The island was discovered by France in 1720s, it was recorded by the French navigator Jean Marie Briand de la Feuillée and named "Île des Sables". In 1761 the French ship L'Utile, a frigate of the French East India Company, chartered by Jean-Joseph de Laborde and commanded by Captain Jean de La Fargue, transporting slaves from Madagascar to Mauritius in contravention of Mauritian law, ran onto the reefs of the island; the ship had departed Bayonne in France with 142 men. After a stopover on the Isle de France, the ship embarked 160 Malagasy men and children at Foulpointe, on the east coast of Madagascar, to bring them into slavery on Mauritius, despite the prohibition of trafficking decreed by the governor. A navigation error, due to the use of two conflicting charts, caused the vessel to wreck on the reefs of Tromelin Island; the ship was a frigate, not a slave ship, thus was not equipped with the shackles and chains found on slave ships. After the wreck, the crew and about 60 Malagasy people managed to reach the island, but the rest of the slaves, locked in the hold, drowned.

The crew retrieved various equipment and wood from the wreckage. They dug a well, providing drinking water, fed on salvaged food and seabirds. Captain Jean de Lafargue, having lost his mind as a result of the wreck, was replaced by his first lieutenant, second-in-command, Barthelemy Castellan du Vernet who lost his brother Leon in the shipwreck. Castellan built two camps, one for the crew and one for the slaves, a forge and an oven, with the materials recovered from the wreckage, began construction of a boat. On 27 September 1761, a contingent of 122 French sailors left Tromelin aboard the Providence, they left the surviving slaves—60 Malagasy men and women—on the desert island, promising to return and rescue them. The sailors reached Madagascar in just over four days and, after a stopover in Foulpointe, where men died of tropical diseases, were transferred to Bourbon Island (now Réu

"Destroy Everything You Touch" is a song by British electronic music band Ladytron. It was released on 19 September 2005 as the second single from their third studio album, Witching Hour, it reached a position of number 42 on the UK Singles Chart, the highest position a Ladytron single has reached to date. It was re-released in the UK on 22 October 2007; the song ranked at #137 on Pitchfork's "The Top 500 Tracks of the 2000s" list. The music video, directed by Adam Bartley, shows the members of Ladytron hiking through a mountain range, facing various hazards such as two-legged creatures attempting to attack them, having frosty wind blown at them by faces in the mountains. "Destroy Everything You Touch" is featured on the video game 2006 FIFA World Cup. It is one of the many EA Trax; the song appears in the 2007 film Smiley Face, in the 2008 film One Missed Call. It was used in the 2009 film Mammoth, for its trailer, it appears in the 2008 Vogue magazine documentary The September Issue, its trailer.

The song was used in Season 1 of the Québécois television program Série Noire. It plays in episode 1x06 of the show Now Apocalypse; the single has been remixed by Sasha for his mix/remix album Invol2ver. On 19 May 2009, a cover version by The Faint was released on an iTunes single titled "The Faint/Ladytron Tour – Single". "Destroy Everything You Touch" – 3:52 "Seventeen'05" – 7:18 "Destroy Everything You Touch" – 4:21 "Citadel" – 3:40 "Destroy Everything You Touch" – 3:52 "Nothing to Hide" – 3:49 "Destroy Everything You Touch" – 5:25 "Destroy Everything You Touch" – 6:50 "Destroy Everything You Touch" "Destroy Everything You Touch" "Destroy Everything You Touch" "Destroy Everything You Touch" "Soft Power" "Destroy Everything You Touch" – 3:52 "Destroy Everything You Touch" – 7:47 "Destroy Everything You Touch" – 7:12 "Destroy Everything You Touch" – 7:56 "Destroy Everything You Touch" – 3:50 "International Dateline" – 5:18 "International Dateline" – 4:16 "Destroy Everything You Touch" – 4:18 "Destroy Everything You Touch" Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics

Fort Kochi is a region in the city of Kochi in the state of Kerala, India. This is part of a handful of water-bound regions toward the south-west of the mainland Kochi, collectively known as Old Kochi or West Kochi. Adjacent to this is Mattancherry. In 1967, these three municipalities, along with a few adjoining areas, were amalgamated to form the Corporation of Cochin. In the BC period, the region, today known as Kerala was covered by mangrove woods. Turf and sand banks were created with the rise in sea-level which formed the shape of the coastal area as we see it today; the name Cochin implies "co-chin", meaning "like-China". It looked like China when the Chinese came to the region during the 14th century and installed Chinese nets. Mattancherry is the nerve town of old historic Cochin. In old Malayalam it is Maadan-cheri, from cheri meaning town. Maad or cow was the stamp of Old Royal Fort of Rajah of Cochin, who built his palace after the fall of Kodungallur or Muziris port due to a gigantic tsunami in 1341 AD.

The Perumpadappu Swaroopam or the Fort of Rajah had its palace on the banks of the Calvathy River. Due to frequent wars between King Zamorin of Kozhikode and the western colonial forces, the Rajah left the place for Tripunithura; the king had his vaishnav leanings and the cow or maadu was his symbol. Fort Kochi can be accessed from Ernakulam through roadways and water ways. Private buses and government transport buses travel from different parts of the city to Fort Kochi. Due to the high volume of tourists visiting the place dedicated low floor Volvo buses were introduced to this route by the government; such buses are in use on the popular routes such as Cochin International Airport, Vytila Mobility Hub and Kakanad Info Park. Fort Kochi was a fishing village in the Kingdom of Kochi in the pre-colonial Kerala; the territory that would be known as Fort Kochi was granted to the Portuguese in 1503 by the Rajah of Kochi, after the forces of Afonso de Albuquerque helped him fighting the forces of Saamoothiri of Kozhikode.

The Rajah gave them permission to build Fort Emmanuel near the waterfront to protect their commercial interests. The first part of the name Fort Kochi comes from this fort, which the Dutch destroyed; the Portuguese built their settlement behind the fort, including a wooden church, rebuilt in 1516 as a permanent structure, today known as the St Francis Church. Fort Kochi remained in Portuguese possession for 160 years. In 1683 the Dutch captured the territory from the Portuguese, destroyed many Portuguese institutions Catholic including convents; the Dutch held Fort Kochi in their possession for 112 years until 1795, when the British took control by defeating the Dutch. Foreign control of Fort Kochi ended in 1947 with the Indian independence. A mix of old houses built by the Portuguese and British in these colonial periods line the streets of Fort Kochi. St Francis Church was built in 1503 by the Portuguese as a Catholic church. Vasco da Gama was once buried in this church which now falls under the Church of South India and is one of the national monuments.

Santa Cruz Basilica built by the Portuguese in the 16th century, was destroyed by the British and rebuilt near the end of 19th century. The landmark that causes more public and visitor interest is a series of precolonial Chinese fishing nets on the waterfront, believed to have been introduced by Chinese traders in the early 14th century. Since the beginning of the Common Era and Chinese traders sourced spices pepper, cardamom, sandal wood, etc. from the Kochi region. Cultivation and trade of these valuable goods shaped the history of the region. Today, Kochi is an important centre of spice export; the Arabian traders were the first to know about these spices, they carried the wanted merchandise to Europe. Centuries they were followed by the Portuguese the Dutch, afterwards the British. Written documents about the Malabar Coast show that this region had Hindus, a Jewish minority; the natural harbour of Kochi was created by a flood that destroyed the harbour of the town Kodungallur. Thereafter, the town developed into one of the most important harbours on the West Coast of India.

It concentrated on the spice trade with the Middle East. During this period, Calicut was ruled by king Kochi was ruled by the Maharaja of Cochin; this was the time when the first Portuguese ships berthed at the Malabar Coast: Vasco da Gama in Calicut and Pedro Álvares Cabral in Kochi. The Maharaja of Kochi felt threatened by the Zamorin of Calicut, he hoped that the Portuguese would help him in his defense from the neighbouring king of Calicut; the Maharaja welcomed the Portuguese, they founded their first trading center in Kochi. However, the Maharaja of Cochin was deprived of his power, Kochi became the first European colony in India; the Portuguese put pressure upon the small Jewish community, the Syrian Christians as they were practising Nestorianism. The Portuguese tried to merge the Syrian Christian Church with the Latin Church; this created conflict as most of the Syrian Christians were associated with various churches of the East and rejected the authority of the Pope and the Latin Church.

Most of the Christians of pre-Portuguese period were from upper castes. Nambudhiris and Nairs did not become Latin Christians because they did not want to lose their caste privileges guaranteed in Hinduism. Like the low caste Muslim converts of Malabar who lost their original caste and became Moplahs, lower caste Christian converts lost their caste and like Moplahs those Christians formed a separate caste with Latin as their liturgy; the Portuguese called the local Christians wh

The 2013–14 Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks basketball team represented Stephen F. Austin University during the 2013–14 NCAA Division I men's basketball season; the Lumberjacks were led by new head coach Brad Underwood and played their home games at the William R. Johnson Coliseum, they were members of the Southland Conference. They finished the season 32–3, 18–0 in Southland play to claim their second consecutive Southland regular season championship, they were champions of the Southland Conference Tournament to earn an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. In the NCAA Tournament, they upset VCU in the second round before losing in the third round to UCLA; the team has been regarded in the national media as the biggest "cinderella" team in the NCAA March Madness tournament

The Byrd Organization or Byrd Machine was a political machine led by former Governor and U. S. Senator Harry F. Byrd, Sr. that dominated Virginia politics for much of the 20th century. From the 1890s until the late 1960s, the Byrd Organization controlled the politics of the state through a network of courthouse cliques of local constitutional officers in most of the state's counties. "The Organization" had its greatest strength in rural areas. It was never able to gain a significant foothold in the growing urban areas of Virginia's many independent cities, which are not located within counties, nor with the emerging suburban middle-class of Virginians after World War II. Byrd's vehement opposition to racial integration of the state's public schools, including a policy of massive resistance, which failed in 1960 after it was ruled unconstitutional by both state and federal courts, could be described as the Organization's "last stand", although the remnants of it continued to wield power for a few years longer.

When the Senator resigned in 1965, he was replaced in the Senate by his son Harry F. Byrd Jr.. However, the heyday of the Byrd Organization was in the past. With the election of a Republican governor in 1969 for the first time in the 20th century, the 80 years of domination of Virginia politics by conservative Democrats ended. After the American Civil War, Virginia's politics were chaotic. Former Confederates were not allowed to vote, factions of newly enfranchised black voters joined the electorate. In the late 1870s, a coalition of blacks and populist Democrats formed the Readjuster Party. Readjusters aspired "to break the power of wealth and established privilege" of the planter class elites who had controlled Virginia politics since the colonial era and to promote public education, it was led by Harrison H. Riddleberger of Woodstock, an attorney, William Mahone, of Petersburg, a former Confederate general, president of several railroads; the Readjuster Party's power was overturned in the late 1880s, when John S. Barbour Jr. led the first Conservative Democrat political machine in Virginia, known as the "Martin Organization", aided by a poll tax enacted in 1902 that disenfranchised blacks and poor whites.

U. S. Senator Thomas Staples Martin took over after Barbour died, but Senator Martin's political control was thin by the time he died in office in 1919. By this time, a young state senator from Winchester, Harry F. Byrd, was a rising star in state politics and the Democratic Party, he had served the Wilson Administration during World War I helping with gasoline rationing as a volunteer. In 1922, with seven years of experience in the Virginia State Senate, Byrd gained statewide prominence by confronting Virginia's powerful lobby of highway builders. Byrd had gained a lot of related experience. In the Virginia General Assembly, he led a fight against using bonded indebtedness as a method to pay for new roads, he feared the state would sacrifice future flexibility by committing too many resources to paying off construction debt. In 1923, Byrd was sued for libel by the Virginia Highway Contractors Association because he said their activities "by combination and agreements may be detrimental" to the State.

The court dismissed the suit, stating the criticism was legal, imposing all costs upon the association. The publicity figuratively paved the way for the election of Harry Byrd to statewide office; the Virginia Democratic Machine, since the 1890s, had rigidly stood for white supremacy, a restricted suffrage, balanced budgets, regressive taxation. After the Constitution of 1902 disenfranchised more than half the electorate, the Organization had had little trouble winning most Virginia elections. Harry Byrd's uncle, U. S. Congressman Hal Flood, was one of the Organization leaders until his death in 1921, Byrd's father Richard Evelyn Byrd Sr. had been speaker of the House of Delegates. But Byrd's own cleverness won him the governorship in 1925 at age 38. With intelligence and attention to detail, he soon gained control of the thirty-year-old Organization, he served until 1930 was elected to the United States Senate in 1933, serving until his retirement in 1965. Over forty years, Byrd built up relationships with the "courthouse cliques," consisting of the constitutional officers in every county.

The five constitutional officers in each county were the sheriff, Commonwealth's attorney, clerk of the court, county treasurer, commissioner of revenue. Contrary to first appearances, the low public profile "clerk of the court" position held the greatest power in most counties within the Byrd Organization; these courthouse cliques made recommendations for suitable candidates, Byrd only decided on candidates after careful consultation. Without Byrd's "nod," no candidate had a chance at statewide office in Virginia. One of Byrd's first acts upon taking office was to amend the state constitution to reduce the number of statewide elected offices to just three: governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general. Another amendment required the legislature to reapportion itself every decade – a demand made without any details of apportionment; this move not only centralized power in the governor's hands but eliminated potential bases for opposition. Several measures, in place well before Byrd's time ensured his dominance the poll tax.

This not only stripped blacks and poor whites of the vote, but made the electorate the smallest relative to population in the postbellum United States. The courthouse cliques of the Byrd machine strove to ensure that "reliable" voters' poll

An ultimate bungalow is a large and detailed Craftsman style home, based on the bungalow style. The style is associated with such California architects as Greene and Greene, Bernard Maybeck and Julia Morgan; some of the hallmarks of Greene and Greene's ultimate bungalows include the use of tropical woods such as mahogany and teak, use of inlays of wood and mother-of-pearl. As in their other major projects and Henry Greene—and to a lesser extent Bernard Maybeck and a few other Craftsman-era architects who built such homes—sometimes designed the majority of furniture, textiles and other interior details of these homes for their location both in the house and in the larger landscape; the term ultimate bungalow was popularized by its use as a chapter title in the 1977 book Greene & Greene, Architecture as a Fine Art by Randall Makinson. The houses discussed in the chapter were the Greenes' Robert Blacker, David Gamble, Charles Pratt, Freeman Ford, William Thorsen, Earle C. Anthony, Dr. Crow, Willam Spinks, William Lawless residences.

The ultimate bungalows include: Gamble House in Pasadena, California William R. Thorsen House in Berkeley, California Robert R. Blacker House in Pasadena, California Madison House in Pasadena, California Charles M. Pratt House known as "Casa Barranca", in Ojai, California John T. Greene Residence in Sacramento, California Housing portal