The R. C. Harris Water Treatment Plant in Toronto, Canada, is both a crucial piece of infrastructure and an architecturally acclaimed historic building named after the longtime commissioner of Toronto's public works R. C. Harris, it is located in the east of the city at the eastern end of Queen Street and at the foot of Victoria Park Avenue along the shore of Lake Ontario in the Beaches neighbourhood in the former city of Scarborough. With an early 20th-century Toronto plagued with water shortages and unclean drinking water, public health advocates such as George Nasmith and Toronto's Medical Officer of Health, Charles Hastings, campaigned for a modern water purification system; the water treatment plant was constructed on the former site of Victoria Park, a waterfront amusement park that operated from 1878 until 1906. The amusement park was served by ferry from York Street until 1895 when streetcar service commenced. After the park closed in 1906, Victoria Park Forest School opened and used the site until 1932.

Construction on the plant began in 1932 and the building became operational on November 1, 1941. The building, unlike most modern engineering structures, was created to make an architectural statement. Fashioned in the Art Deco style, the cathedral-like structure remains one of Toronto's most admired buildings, it is, little known to outsiders. The interiors are just as opulent with marble entryways and vast halls filled with pools of water and filtration equipment; the plant has thus earned the nickname The Palace of Purification. Despite its age, the plant is still functional, providing 45% of the water supply for Toronto and York Region; the intakes are located over 2.6 kilometres from shore in 15 metres of water, running through two pipes under the bed of the lake. Water is chlorinated in the plant and pumped to various reservoirs throughout the City of Toronto and York Region; the facility grounds have been made available to the public. Despite some concerns of vulnerability to an attack on the water supply since the September 11 attacks, the grounds have remained open to the public, but security has been increased.

In the summer of 2007, construction began on the installation of an underground Residual Management Facility allowing processed waste to be removed before discharging into the lake. This construction has since been completed. In 1992, the R. C. Harris Water Treatment Plant was named a national historic civil engineering site by the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering, it was designated under the Ontario Heritage Act in 1998. The plant appeared on a stamp issued by Canada Post in 2011, in a series showcasing five notable Art Deco buildings in Canada; the R. C. Harris Water Treatment Plant has been used in dozens of films and television series as a prison, clinic, or headquarters; the building of the plant is vividly recounted in Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion The headquarters of "The Man" in the 2002 comedy Undercover Brother A prison in the 1998 comedy Half Baked An asylum in the 1995 horror film In the Mouth of Madness "The Centre", a nefarious think tank in the television series The Pretender Base of operations for Genomex, an antagonistic corporation in the television series Mutant X The Royal Canadian Institute for the Mentally Insane in the 1983 film Strange Brew The Henry Ford Centre for the Criminally Insane, as seen in Robocop: The Series The Langstaff Maximum Security Prison, as seen in Flashpoint in the episode Just a Man The Mellonville Maximum Security Prison, as seen in an SCTV episode.

Used as a prison in the Psi Factor: Chronicles of the Paranormal episode "Solitary Confinement". Used as "Lake District Federal Prison" in Between in the episode School's Out Used as a prison building in the Conviction episode "A Different Kind of Death". Used as a prison in the closing scenes of The Big Heist, when Donald Sutherland's character enters to serve a 20-year sentence. Used as "Ekart County Jail" in the 2015 movie Regression "Fast Facts about the City's Water Treatment Plants". City of Toronto

Distant Stars is a 1981 collection of science fiction and fantasy short stories by American writer Samuel R. Delany. Many of the stories appeared in the magazines The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and New Worlds, while the novella Empire Star was published as an Ace Double with Tree Lord of Imeten by Tom Purdom. Of Doubts and Dreams "Prismatica" "Corona" "Empire Star" "Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones" "Omegahelm" "Ruins" "We, in Some Strange Power’s Employ, Move on a Rigorous Line" "The Internet Speculative Fiction Database". Retrieved 2008-01-02. Contento, William G. "Index to Science Fiction Anthologies and Collections". Archived from the original on 2007-12-30. Retrieved 2008-01-02

The Dove Marine Laboratory is a research and teaching laboratory which forms part of the School of Marine Science and Technology within Newcastle University in the United Kingdom. The original Laboratory was established in October 1897, it comprised a small wooden hut sited next to the Saltwater Baths on Cullercoats Bay, was used by Armstrong College to study the waters of the north east UK coastline. On the 28 March 1904 the Laboratory and Baths were destroyed by fire, but it was agreed that the work of the Laboratory should continue. In 1906 the local landowner, geologist Wilfred Hudleston, FRS, offered not only to make the site of the old Baths available for newer, facilities, but offered to finance their construction, he was reluctant to publicise his generosity, asked that the building be named after one of his ancestors, Eleanor Dove, when it was opened by the Duke of Northumberland on 29 September 1908. In 2008 the laboratory celebrated its centenary, where the current Duke of Northumberland led festivities.

The Laboratory became a department of Armstrong College when the building and land were purchased by the college following Hudleston's death in 1909, soon grew in reputation, acquiring its first boat in 1911. The Laboratory operated a public aquarium and once housed the coble in which Grace Darling and her father rescued passengers from the SS Forfashire in 1838. In 1967 responsibility for the Laboratory was transferred to Newcastle University; as a research facility the Laboratory is closed to the public, but holds open days during the summer months and as part of other events such as Cullercoats Harbour Day and Heritage Open Days. A Marine Science distance learning course, Delve Deeper, run by the University includes a field course component based at the laboratory; the Evadne: 1911 – Pandalus: 1950s The Alexander Meek: 1950s – 1973 RV Bernicia: 1973 – 2011 RV The Princess Royal: 2011 – present School of Engineering Dove web site at the University of Newcastle

The Fort des Ayvelles known as the Fort Dubois-Crancé, is a fortification near the French communes of Villers-Semeuse and Les Ayvelles in the Ardennes, just to the south of Charleville-Mézières. As part of the Séré de Rivières system of fortifications, the fort was planned as part of a new ring of forts replacing the older citadel of Mézières with dispersed fortifications. With advances in the range and destructive power of artillery, the city's defensive perimeter had to be pushed away from the city center to the limits of artillery range; the Fort des Ayvelles was the only such fortification to be completed of the ensemble, as resources were diverted elsewhere. At the time of its construction the fort controlled the Meuse and the railway line linking Reims, Montmédy, Givet and Hirson; the Fort des Ayvelles was reduced in status in 1899, its masonry construction rendered obsolete by the advent of high-explosive artillery shells. However, it was re-manned for the First World War before it was captured by the Germans on 29 August 1914.

The fort was destroyed in 1918. During the Battle of France in 1940 the fort was bombarded. French resisters were executed at Ayvelles during both world wars. At present the fort is maintained by a preservation society, may be visited. Built starting in 1876 under the direction of Captain Léon Boulenger, the fort was completed in 1878; the fort's four 250-metre faces form a square perimeter, surrounded by a ditch 10 metres wide and 8 metres deep. The fort features elaborate double caponiers to protect the outer wall and ditch on opposite corners, as well as 7-metre counterscarps; the caponiers échauguettes. The fort and a subsidiary battery featured Mougin casemates, each armed with a single de Bange Model 1877 155mm gun; the fort possessed 53 artillery pieces in 1899, manned by 880 men, disposed in two-level casemates on a north-south line. The battery is about 600 metres to the east, connected to the main fort by a covered causeway; the caponiers were damaged by both world wars and by the French military in explosives tests in 1960 in preparation for demolition of the urban fortifications of Charleville Mézières.

The Mougin gun was removed at about this time. In addition to its own Mougin casemate, the pentagonal detached battery was armed with 10 artillery pieces, served by 150 men; the battery was provided with caponiers and counterscarps for defense. The battery was never modernized; the battery's Mougin casemate was demolished after World War II by the French Army. In 1914 the fort was manned by personnel of the French Fourth Army, under the overall command of General Fernand de Langle de Cary; the fort had been hastily garrisoned after the defeat of French forces in Belgium with two companies of the 45th Territorial Infantry Regiment and 300 territorial artillerymen, under the command of Commandant Georges Lévi Alvarès. These were reserve formations composed of local residents; as French forces retreated and maneuvered in the face of the German attack, the fort was the only French force holding 11 kilometres of the front between Rimogne and Flize. Under these circumstances, Georges Lévi Alvarès requested permission from the Fourth Army to evacuate the fort in the event of German attack.

However, before receiving a reply, he decided to evacuate after sabotaging the fort's arms. The garrison evacuated on August 25. Arriving at Boulzicourt, the troops were ordered back to the fort. At the same time, the Germans were preparing a bombardment of the fort; when the garrison returned to the fort on the 26th, the Germans opened fire. The French column retreated. Reaching Launois, the troops were sequestered. Georges Lévi Alvarès, who had remained at the Fort des Ayvelles, committed suicide on the 27th, his body was buried nearby, with honors. German forces had bombarded the fort on the 26th and 27th, waited until the 29th to enter the fort, they stripped the fort of its remaining metals for scrap. While they occupied the area Germans used the Fort des Ayvelles as a munitions depot and as a prison; the fort was the execution site for three French civilians, executed by the Germans between October 1915 and January 1916. The fort was reoccupied by France at the close of the war in November 1918.

In 1940 the Fort des Ayvelles was manned by the second battalion of the French 148th Fortress Infantry Regiment under the command of Commandant Marie, in turn part of the weak 102nd Fortress Infantry Division. The 102nd DIF was the successor organization to the Defensive Sector of the Ardennes, which had administered a weak section of the Maginot Line fortifications; the sector was composed principally of scattered casemates and blockhouses, as the French command regarded the Ardennes sector as unsuitable for mechanized warfare. On 14 May 1940 the fort was bombarded by German forces, while the first and third battalions of the 148th RIF faced direct German attack. During the night of 15 May the fort was abandoned by French forces; the remaining troops of the 148th RIF nonetheless found themselves surrendered. Once again, the fort was the scene of civilian executions, with thirteen members of the French Resistance executed there; the most notable victims were les quatres cheminots d'Amagne, René Arnould, Georges Boillot, Robert Stadler and Lucien Maisonneuve, executed on 26 June 1944 for sabotage at the Amagne-Lucqy depot.

Two blockhouses are near the fort, constructed in the 1930s as part of the Defensive Sector of the Ardennes: the Blockhaus du Fort des Ayvelles Sud, the Blockhaus de Villers-Semeuse. Both were armed; the fort is m

In Major League Baseball, the National League Division Series determines which two teams from the National League will advance to the National League Championship Series. The Division Series consists of two best-of-five series, featuring the three division winners and the winner of the wild-card play-off; the Division Series was implemented in 1981 – for that season only – as a result of a midseason strike with first-place teams before the strike taking on the first-place teams after. In 1994, Major League Baseball decided to implement the Division Series permanently, because it was restructuring each league into three divisions; because of a players' strike in 1981, a split-season format forced a divisional playoff series, in which the Montreal Expos won the Eastern Division series over the Philadelphia Phillies three games to two while the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Houston Astros three games to two in the Western Division. The team with the best overall record in the major leagues, the Cincinnati Reds, failed to win their division in either half of that season and were controversially excluded, as were the St. Louis Cardinals, who finished with the NL's second-best record.

The Atlanta Braves have played in the most NL division series with thirteen appearances. The St. Louis Cardinals have won the most NL division series, winning ten of the thirteen series in which they have played; the Pittsburgh Pirates were the last team to make their first appearance in the NL division series, making their debut in 2013 after winning the 2013 National League Wild Card Game. In 2008, the Milwaukee Brewers became the first team to play in division series in both leagues when they won the National League wild card, their first postseason berth since winning the American League East Division title in 1982 before switching leagues in 1998. Milwaukee had competed in an American League Division Series in the strike-shortened 1981 season; the NLDS is a five-game series where the wild-card team is assigned to play the divisional winner with the best winning percentage in the regular season. The two remaining divisional winners meet in the other series with the team with the second best winning percentage, hosting that series.

The two series winners move on to the best-of-seven NLCS. The winner of the wild card has won the first round seven out of the 11 years since the re-alignment and creation of the NLDS. According to Nate Silver, the advent of this playoff series, of the wild card, has caused teams to focus more on "getting to the playoffs" rather than "winning the pennant" as the primary goal of the regular season; the best-of-5 series played in a 2-3 format, with the first two games set at home for the lower-seed team and the last three for the higher seed. Since 1998, the series has followed a 2-2-1 format, where the higher seed team plays at home in Games 1 and 2, the lower seed plays at home in Game 3 and Game 4, if a Game 5 is needed, the teams return to the higher seed's field; when MLB added a second wild card team in 2012, the Division Series re-adopted the 2-3 format due to scheduling conflicts. It reverted to the 2-2-1 format from 2013 onwards. Team names link to the season in which each team played Team no is no longer in the National League Includes the franchise's win in 1981 as the Montreal Expos.

NOTE: With the Houston Astros move to the American League at the conclusion of the 2012 season, the Braves vs Astros series is not possible. American League Division Series MLB division winners MLB postseason List of American League pennant winners List of National League pennant winners List of World Series champions Baseball-Reference.com - annual playoffs MLB.com - MLB's Division Series historical reference - box scores, etc. 1996, 1997, & 2007 are the years in which the National League Division Series finished in sweeps in both series