Naming and manuscripts.

Named in Irish as "Oidheadh Chlainne Lir", the tale is today often known simply as "The Children of Lir" but the title has also been rendered as "The Tragic Story of the Children of Lir" or "The Fate of the Children of Lir", or, from the earlier title "Aided Chlainne Lir", as "The Violent Death of the Children of Lir".  In post 18th-century scholarship, the tale has often been grouped with the "Oidheadh chloinne Uisnigh" ("The Fate of the Children of Uisnigh") and "Oidheadh chloinne Tuireann" ("The Fate of the Children of Tuireann") as the "Trí truagha na sgéalaigheachta", i.e. "The three sorrows of storytelling," also known as "The Three Sorrowful Tales of Erin." Scholar and folklorist Robin Flower has suggested that all three tales may have had a common author sometime in the 14th century, by someone in the circle of the Mac Fhirbhisighs in north-west Connacht.  Manuscripts containing early versions of the tales include MS 72.1.38 and MS 72.2.6 at the National Library of Scotland, MS Egerton 164 at the British Library, and MS 24 A 13, and MS E vi 4 at the library of the Royal Irish Academy.

Summary.

The legendary historical setting of the story is the end of the dominion of the Tuatha Dé Danann in Ireland, and the corresponding rise of the Milesians.  [2-9] Bodb Derg was elected king of the Tuatha Dé Danann, to the annoyance of Lir, who felt himself should have been chosen; Lir did not swear obedience to the new King, to the annoyance of those that elected him, causing strife, though Bodb sought to appease them. After some time Lir's wife died — to appease Lir, Bodb gave one of his daughters, Aoibh, to him in marriage — Lir agreed that he would yield the lordship, and form an alliance — ending the strike.  [10-13] Aoibh bore Lir four children: one girl, Fionnghuala, and three sons, Aodh and twins, Fiachra and Conn. After the birth of the twins, Aoibh died, causing great grief to Lir, though he was bolstered by his love for the four children. Bodb then sent another of his daughters, Aoife, to marry Lir, which he accepted happily. The children were a joy both to Lir and to Bodb.  [14-18] After a short while, Aoife became jealous of the affection given to the four stepchildren, and she feigned illness for around a year. One day, she set out in her chariot with the four children, with design to kill them, and called her entourage to slay them, stating that because of them she had lost Lir's love, and promising them rich rewards. However, they would not help, so she drew a sword, but was not able to follow through with the act. Next she took them to Loch Dairbhreach and made them bathe, but once in the water, she cast a spell of metamorphosis to transform them into four white swans.  [19-23] Fionnghuala rebuked her, stating that her magic power was not as great as that of their friends to undo the spell, and warned her of the revenge she would face — she asked her to set a limit on the time of the spell. She set a period of three hundred years as a swan on "Loch Dairbhreach"; three hundred more on "Sruth na Maoilé"; and three hundred at "Iorrus Domnann" and "Inis Gluairé". She also foretold that by expiration of the period of the spell, Lairgenn (the great-grandson of the King of Connacht), and Deoch (the great-granddaughter of the King of Munster) would be wed. Aoife relented a little and allowed the children to retain the power of speech, stating they would sing plaintive songs without equal, and that they would not be distressed by being in the forms of birds. Aoife then returned to Bodb's court — when he asked why the children were not with her, she claimed Lir did not trust him with them, but Bodb was suspicious and sent messengers to Lir.  [24-32] On receiving the messenger, Lir became sad, realising Aoifé had done some harmful act. He then set out, and at the shores of "Loch Dairbhreach", he encountered the swans singing with human voices. They told him of Aoife's evil act, and Lir and his people lamented, though that night they stayed and listened to the swan's song. Lir reached Bodb, and told him of Aoifé's treachery. Bodb cursed her, saying her suffering would be greater than the children's, and asked what the worst form of being was that she could imagine — Aoifé stated a Demon of the air was the worst, and on this Bodh struck her with a druid's wand, metamorphosing her into such a demon — she flew off and remained that way.  [33-45] Bodb and the people of the De Danann went to Loch Dairbhreach and listened to the swan's singing. Milesians came too, and the music calmed and delighted all who heard it. After three hundred years the time came for the swans to go north to the cold Sruth na Maoilé. At this time it was proclaimed that no swan should be killed in Erin. At the Maoilé a cruel storm separated them, and though they eventually reunited their time there was wretched, with extremes of cold and weather to contend with, but they could not leave, as it was their lot to stay in the waters there.  [46-52] Eventually the swans came across a company of the De Danann and of the Milesians who had been seeking them, led by Aodh and Fergus sons of Bodb - near the mouth of the Banna. The swans enquired and received good news about the De Danann, Lir, and Bodb. After the allotted time the swans then left for Iorrus Domhnann. There they encountered a young man who took an account of their adventures.  [53-55] One night at Iorrus, the cold and weather became so intense that the waters froze, and their feet froze to the ice. Because of their suffering they pleaded to the "King of Heaven" to ease the plight of birds, and having and professing faith in a "true God, perfect, truly intelligent" their pleading was heard, and from then they were protected from storms and bad weather. Eventually the time allotted to Iorrus Domhnann passed and they decided to go to "Sioth Fionnachaidh", where Lir lived.  [56-61] However once there, they found it deserted, derelict, and overgrown. The next day they set off for "Inis Gluairé" — there many birds congregated around them at the lake. Eventually Saint Patrick and Christianity came to Ireland, and one day the holy man "Mochaomhóg" arrive at "Inis Gluairé" — the swans heard him ringing a bell calling matins, and became frightened at the sound. However Fionnghuala declared the sound of the bell would liberate them from the curse of the spell, and so they listened to it. When it finished they sang a song. The holy man heard their song, and discovered that it was swans that sang it. Speaking to them he asked if they were the Children of Lir, stating that he had travelled to that place for their sake.  [62-66] The swans put their trust in the holy man, and allowed him to bind them with silver chains. The birds felt no fatigue or distress in their situation in the company of the monk. Eventually the account of the swans reached Deoch, the wife of Lairgnen, the King of Connacht — she asked him to get the swans for her. He sent messengers immediately but the monk Mochaomhóg refused, making Lairgnen angry. He went to Mochaimhóg himself, and attempted to grasp the swans, but on his touch the swans' feathers fell off revealing three very old men, and an old woman, all lean, and very bony. On this Lairgnen left.  [67-70] Fionnghuala asked the monk to baptise them and to bury each, stating she sensed they were close to death. They were baptised, then died, and were buried. Mochaomhóg was sad for them. That was the fate of the children of Lir.

The Children of Lir () is a legend from Irish mythology. It is a tale from the post-Christianisation period that mixes magical elements such as druidic wands and spells with a Christian message of faith bringing freedom from suffering.

Oidheadh Chlainne Lir () ist eine irische Legende, die in Irland zum Allgemeingut zählt. Sie gehört mit Aided Chlainne Tuirenn () und "Longas mac nUislenn" () zu den tragischen irischen Geschichten.


Plot.

A second-rate boarding school in Saint-Cloud, Hauts-de-Seine, in the Paris metropolitan area, is run by the tyrannical and cruel Michel Delassalle. The school is owned, though, by Delassalle's teacher wife, the frail Christina, an emigrée from Venezuela. Delassalle also has a relationship with Nicole Horner, another teacher at the school. Rather than antagonism, the two women are shown to have a somewhat close relationship, primarily based on their apparent mutual hatred of Michel, who is physically and emotionally abusive to both, as well as unkind to the children.  Unable to stand his mistreatment any longer, Nicole devises a plan to get rid of Michel forever. Though hesitant at first, Christina ultimately consents to help Nicole. Using a threatened divorce to lure Michel to Nicole's apartment building in Niort, a town several hundred kilometers away, Christina sedates him. The two women then drown him in a bathtub and, driving back to the school, dump his body in the neglected swimming pool. When his corpse floats to the surface, they think it will appear to have been an accident. Almost everything goes according to their plans until the body fails to surface. Michel's corpse is nowhere to be found when the pool is drained.  Nicole sees in the paper that the police have found the corpse. However, when Christina goes to the morgue, she finds it is not actually Michel's body. There, she meets Alfred Fichet, a retired senior policeman now working as a private detective. He becomes involved in the case, much to Nicole's chagrin.  When Christina and Alfred return, a boy is punished for breaking a window. Strangely, the boy says it was Michel who punished him. After hearing this, Christina becomes very upset and is unable to join in the school photograph. When it is printed, somebody looking like Michel is seen at a window behind the group. Nicole becomes worried and leaves the school.  Christina, overcome by fear, tells Alfred everything. He does not believe her, but he investigates the pool. That night, Christina hears noises and wanders round the school. When she realizes that someone is following her, she runs back to her room. There she finds Michel's corpse submerged in the bathtub, which is full of water. Michel rises from the tub, and Christina, who was said to have a weak heart, has a heart attack and dies. It is then revealed that Michel and Nicole have set up Christina from the beginning, with Michel acting as dead to scare Christina to death. However, Alfred hears their celebration and figures out everything, telling them they will get 15 to 20 years, depending on their lawyer.  Some time later, the same boy who had earlier broken a window breaks another. When asked how he got his slingshot back, the boy says that Christina gave it to him. A final title screen tells the audience not to reveal the ending to others.

Cast.

Johnny Hallyday appears uncredited as one of the pupils.

Production.

Writing.

It was Clouzot's wife Vera who drew his attention to the Boileau-Narcejac novel. Clouzot read it through the night and optioned the rights in the morning. He and his brother Jean (who took the pseudonym Jérôme Géronimi) spent 18 months adapting the novel. In the book, the action takes place between Enghien-les-Bains and Nantes but Clouzot transposed it to Saint-Cloud and Niort, his own birthplace. He wasn’t particularly interested in the insurance scam that was the crime motive in the book. He switched the gender of the murderers and invented the private-school setting. Susan Hayward suggests that the gender switch made by Clouzot was caused not so much by censorship considerations (in the source novel, Lucienne and Mireille turn out to be a pair of lesbian lovers) but by his desire to create a sizeable role for his wife. The book has only one principal female character, Lucienne, since the supposed victim, Mireille disappears early on. Vera with her distinctly feminine demeanor was ill-suited for the role of Lucienne (called Nicole in the film.) So in Clouzot’s script, Mireille (now named Christina) is the one who has a weak heart, and is the object of manipulation of her husband Michel and his mistress Nicole. Clouzot also followed the convention that the culprits should be exposed by the detective in the end (another departure from the novel where the authors let them get away.)

Casting.

Clouzot cast Simone Signoret in the role of Nicole. He previously filmed her husband Yves Montand in "The Wages of Fear", and the two couples became friends. The director was also aware of Vera’s limitations as an actress and needed someone to lend her support in such a demanding role. Signoret signed an eight-week contract but the shooting actually took 16 weeks. She ended up being paid for only eight weeks of work despite staying until the end of the filming because she neglected to read the small print. Signoret’s co-star Paul Meurisse also recalls in his memoirs that the actress was further bemused by Clouzot’s constant attempts to find clever ways of lighting Vera's face while muting the light on Signoret so she wouldn't upstage his wife.  Clouzot knew Paul Meurisse back from 1939 when the latter was trying to pursue a singing career. Clouzot then was trying to sell his song lyrics to Edith Piaf, Meurisse's lover at the time. By the late 1940s Meurisse had become an established stage and screen actor, known for the roles of icy and sophisticated villains, and he seemed a natural choice for the role of Michel.  The film featured two Clouzot regulars: Pierre Larquey as M. Drain and Noël Roquevert as M. Herboux. Michel Serrault made his screen debut as M. Raymond, one of the schoolteachers. Charles Vanel--who previously co-starred in Clouzot's "The Wages of Fear"--was cast as the seemingly inept Inspector Fichet.  Clouzot also auditioned 300 children and selected 35. Among them were Jean-Philippe Smet (the future Johnny Hallyday), Patrick Dewaere's brother Yves-Marie Maurin, and Georges Poujouly, who previously received acclaim in René Clément's "Forbidden Games".

Filming.

The filming began on August 18, 1954 and finished on November 30 the same year. Clouzot asked his assistant Michel Romanoff to find a suitable filming location for the boarding school. The latter discovered a decrepit chateau in L'Etang-la-Ville between Saint-Cloud and the Bois-du-Boulogne. The building and its surroundings matched the director’s vision perfectly since they projected the desired mood of decay and neglect. The adjacent swimming pool was dirty and full of slime. Clouzot spent five weeks shooting at this location.  The screenplay placed Nicole’s house in Niort, but the actual house used for the filming was in Montfort-l'Amaury, just opposite the building that previously appeared in Clouzot's "Le Corbeau". The morgue scenes were shot in the Institut Médico-légal in Paris. The rest was filmed at Saint-Maurice Studios southeast of Paris which took additional nine weeks.  The cinematographer Armand Thirard used two camera crews to speed up the shooting that was falling behind the schedule. Despite his efforts, the filming took twice longer than the projected 48 days.  Originally the film was to be called "Les Veuves" (‘The widows’) but this was deemed unmarketable. Eleven weeks into filming it was changed to "Les Démoniaques". Eventually it was renamed "Les Diaboliques" but this title was already used for a collection of short stories by the 19th century writer Barbey d'Aurevilly. Clouzot was permitted to use this title but only on the condition if he gave the author a proper mention. He did it by opening the film with a quote from the preface to d’Aurevilly's work: "A portrait is always moral when it is tragic and shows the horror of the things it represents."

Release.

The film created a sensation upon its original release, and was a success at the box office with 3,674,380 admissions in France alone. It has often been likened to the films of Alfred Hitchcock; some sources say that Alfred Hitchcock missed out on purchasing the rights to the Boileau and Narcejac novel by just a few hours, Clouzot getting to the authors first. The end credit contains an early example of an "anti-spoiler message."

Critical reception.

The film received mixed reviews upon its original release in the US and the UK. Bosley Crowther gave the film an enthusiastic review in "The New York Times", calling it "one of the dandiest mystery dramas that has shown here" and "a pip of a murder thriller, ghost story and character play rolled into one," and adding that "the writing and the visual construction are superb, and the performance by top-notch French actors on the highest level of sureness and finesse." "Variety" was more critical: “Although this has a few hallucinating bits of terror, the film is primarily a creaky-door type of melodrama. Its macabre aspects and lack of sympathy for the characters make this a hybrid which flounders between a blasting look at human infamy and an out-and-out contrived whodunit." The National Board of Review named it among the best foreign films of 1955, and called it "a genuine thriller—a shocking, satisfying chunk of "Grand Guignol" psychological suspense."  Milton Shulman in "The Sunday Express" accused the film of "calculated malevolence," and commented that "it is no trick to sicken an audience by such blunt methods as these." C.A. Lejeune in "The Observer" called it "extremely clever and very horrid," and complained about "a vogue at the moment for the horrid in entertainment." Reg Whiteley in "The Daily Mirror" described it as "a suspenseful but sordid slice of French life," and exclaimed: "Just how horrible can films get?"  Roger Ebert, reviewing the 1995 re-release, wrote: "The famous plot of the movie usually deceives first-time viewers, at least up to a point. The final revelations are somewhat disappointing, but Clouzot doesn't linger over them. The most disturbing elements of the movie are implied, not seen." "Time Out" commented that the film "makes for a great piece of Guignol misanthropy" where "everyone is in the end a victim, and their actions operate like snares setting traps that leave them grasping for survival."  On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, "Les Diaboliques" holds an approval rating of 95%, based on 42 reviews, and an average rating of 8.57/10. Its consensus reads, "Cruel, dark, but undeniably effective, "Diaboliqu"e is a suspense thriller as effective as Hitchcock's best work and with a brilliant twist ending."

Legacy and remakes.

The film gained additional press when, only five years after its release, Véra Clouzot died of a heart attack, aged 46, somewhat mirroring her character in the film, who also had heart problems.  "Les Diaboliques" is now considered a classic of the horror genre and film in general. Kim Newman wrote in "Empire": "The horrific mystery has lost only a fraction of its power over the years, though literally dozens of films (see: "Deathtrap", "Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte", "Games" etc.) have borrowed part or all of its tricky storyline. This was one of the first movies to depend on an M. Night Shyamalan-style twist ending which forces you to reassess everything you thought you had been told earlier in the film." The British Film Institute included it in their list of the 100 Best Thrillers of All Time, calling it "a compelling, grisly thriller... capped by an unforgettable twist ending." "The Guardian" listed is as No 19 among the 25 best horror films of all time.  The scene in which Christina's husband emerges from the bathtub ranked #49 on Bravo's "100 Scariest Movie Moments".  The 1967 film "Games", written by Gene R. Kearney and directed by Curtis Harrington, and starring James Caan and Katharine Ross, has a different basic situation, but similar twists at the end, and again features Simone Signoret as the corrupt woman of mystery. British filmmaker Jimmy Sangster cited it as a major influence on his writing and directing, stating: "most of my 'psycho' type movies... were derivative of each other and they all went back to my original inspiration: "Les Diaboliques". I'm not the only one to follow that path. I guess I just did it more than most."  An American version of "Les Diaboliques", titled "Reflections of Murder", was made by ABC-TV in 1974 with Tuesday Weld, Joan Hackett, and Sam Waterston. In 1993, another made-for-television movie remake was made; this one was titled "House of Secrets", and it starred Melissa Gilbert. In 1996, the film was remade again as "Diabolique", adapted by Don Roos, directed by Jeremiah S. Chechik, and starring Sharon Stone and Isabelle Adjani in the leading female roles, with Chazz Palminteri as the husband and Kathy Bates as the detective.

Home media.

The film was released on DVD by The Criterion Collection in July 1999 and was then re-released on DVD and Blu-ray in May 2011. The latter release features selected-scene commentary by French-film scholar Kelley Conway, a new video introduction by Serge Bromberg, and a new video interview with novelist and film critic Kim Newman.

Les diaboliques (, released as Diabolique in the United States and variously translated as The Devils or The Fiends) is a 1955 French psychological horror thriller film directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot, starring Simone Signoret, Véra Clouzot, Paul Meurisse and Charles Vanel. It is based on the novel "She Who Was No More" ("Celle qui n'était plus") by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac.

Die Teuflischen ist ein französischer Spielfilm von Henri-Georges Clouzot aus dem Jahr 1955. Als Vorlage diente der Roman "Die Teuflischen (Celle qui n'était plus, 1952)" von Pierre Boileau und Thomas Narcejac. Eine US-amerikanische Neuverfilmung kam 1996 unter dem Titel "Diabolisch" heraus.


Early life.

López's mother was a prostitute named Benilda López De Casteneda. According to López, witnessing acts of prostitution while growing up had disturbing effects on his psyche. Subsequently, his mother caught him fondling his younger sister in 1957, when he was eight years old, and evicted him from the family home. Following this, López fled to Bogotá, Colombia's capital city. He says he was picked up by a man, taken to a deserted house and repeatedly sodomized. At age twelve, he was taken in by an American family and enrolled in a school for orphans. He ran away after two years because he was allegedly molested by a male teacher. An alternative account says he ran away with a teacher. At 18, he stole cars for a living and sold the cars to local chop shops.

Murders.

During his incarceration for car theft, López claimed he was brutally gang-raped and that he hunted down his rapists and killed the most brutal while still in prison. He said that after his jail term, he started murdering young girls in Peru. He claimed that, by 1978, he had killed over 100 of them and that he had been caught by a native tribe, who were preparing to execute him, when an American Christian missionary intervened and persuaded them to hand him over to the state police. The police soon released him. He said he moved to Colombia and later Ecuador, killing about three girls a week. López said: "I like the girls in Ecuador; they are more gentle and trusting. More innocent."

Arrest.

López was arrested when an attempted abduction failed and he was trapped by market traders. The Associated Press (AP) reported that he was arrested in March 1980, and that he confessed to killing 103 girls, including 53 whose bodies had been found. In January 1981, he was convicted of three murders, and had confessed to three hundred sexual assaults and stranglings. The police only believed his confessions when a flash flood uncovered a mass grave containing many of his victims.

Release.

According to the BBC, López "was arrested in 1980, but was freed by the government in Ecuador at the end of [1998]." In an interview from his prison cell, López described himself as "the man of the century" and said he was being released for "good behavior." An A&E "Biography" documentary reported that he was released from an Ecuadorian prison on 31 August 1994, then rearrested as an illegal immigrant and handed over to Colombian authorities, who charged him with a 20-year-old murder. He was declared insane and held in the psychiatric wing of a Bogotá hospital. In 1998, he was declared sane and released on $50 bail, subject to certain conditions. He later absconded. The same documentary says that Interpol released an advisory for his rearrest by Colombian authorities over a fresh murder in 2002, and he is currently wanted by the police.  There is currently a shortage of information regarding López. His whereabouts are unknown as of 2020.

Coverage.

The 2006 edition of the "Guinness World Records" credited Lopez as being the "most prolific serial killer". The listing was removed after complaints that it made a competition out of murder, as well as comments that it overlooked killers such as Thug Behram, who reportedly murdered around 900 people in India.

Pedro Alonso López (born 8 October 1948) is a Colombian serial killer, who was sentenced for killing 110 girls, but who claimed to have raped and killed more than 300 girls across Colombia, Peru and Ecuador. Aside from uncited local accounts, López's crimes first received international attention from an interview conducted by Ron Laytner, a longtime freelance photojournalist who reported interviewing López in his Ambato prison cell in 1980.

Pedro Alonso López (* 8. Oktober 1948 in Santa Isabel, Tolima) alias "Das „Monster der Anden“" ist ein kolumbianischer Serienmörder, der zugab, über 300 Menschen in Kolumbien, Ecuador und Peru ermordet zu haben.


Etymology.

The name "Korea" derives from the name "Goryeo" (also spelled "Koryŏ"). The name "Goryeo" itself was first used by the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo (Koguryŏ) which was one of the great powers in East Asia during its time, ruling most of the Korean Peninsula, Manchuria, parts of the Russian Far East and parts of Inner Mongolia, under Gwanggaeto the Great. The 10th-century kingdom of Goryeo succeeded Goguryeo, and thus inherited its name, which was pronounced by visiting Persian merchants as "Korea". The modern spelling of Korea first appeared in the late 17th century in the travel writings of the

History.

Founding.

After the First Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War, Korea was occupied by Japan from 1910 to 1945. Korean resistance groups known as Dongnipgun (Liberation Army) operated along the Sino-Korean border, fighting guerrilla warfare against Japanese forces. Some of them took part in allied action in China and parts of South East Asia. One of the guerrilla leaders was the communist Kim Il-sung, who later became the first leader of North Korea.  After the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II in 1945, the Korean Peninsula was divided into two zones along the 38th parallel, with the northern half of the peninsula occupied by the Soviet Union and the southern half by the

Korean War.

The military of North Korea invaded the South on 25 June 1950, and swiftly overran most of the country. A United Nations force, led by the United States, intervened to defend the South, and rapidly advanced into North Korea. As they neared the border with China, Chinese forces intervened on behalf of North Korea, shifting the balance of the war again. Fighting ended on 27 July 1953, with an armistice that approximately restored the original boundaries between North and South Korea, but no peace treaty was signed. Approximately 3 million people died in the Korean War, with a higher proportional civilian death toll than World War II or

Post-war developments.

The relative peace between the South and the North following the armistice was interrupted by border skirmishes, celebrity abductions, and assassination attempts. The North failed in several assassination attempts on South Korean leaders, such as in 1968, 1974, and the Rangoon bombing in 1983; tunnels were found under the DMZ and tensions flared over the axe murder incident at Panmunjom in 1976. For almost two decades after the war, the two states did not seek to negotiate with one another. In 1971, secret, high-level contacts began to be conducted culminating in the 1972 July 4th North–South Joint Statement that established principles of working toward peaceful reunification. The talks ultimately failed because in 1973, South Korea declared its preference that the two Koreas should seek separate memberships in international organizations.  During the 1956 August Faction Incident, Kim Il-sung successfully resisted efforts by the Soviet Union and China to depose him

Post Cold War.

In 1992, as Kim Il-sung's health began deteriorating, Kim Jong-il slowly began taking over various state tasks. Kim Il-sung died of a heart attack in 1994, with Kim Jong-il declaring a three-year period of national mourning before officially announcing his position as the new leader afterwards.  North Korea promised to halt its development of nuclear weapons under the Agreed Framework, negotiated with U.S. president

21st century.

The international environment changed with the election of U.S. president George W. Bush in 2001. His administration rejected South Korea's Sunshine Policy and the Agreed Framework. The U.S. government treated North Korea as a rogue state, while North Korea redoubled its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons to avoid the fate of Iraq. On 9 October 2006, North Korea announced it had conducted its first nuclear weapons test.  U.S. President Barack Obama adopted a policy of "strategic patience", resisting making deals with North Korea. Tensions with South Korea and the United States increased in 2010

Geography.

North Korea occupies the northern portion of the Korean Peninsula, lying between latitudes 37° and 43°N, and longitudes 124° and 131°E. It covers an area of. North Korea is bordered by China and by Russia along the Amnok (known as the Yalu in Chinese) and Tumen rivers and borders South Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone. To its west are the Yellow Sea and Korea Bay, and to its east lies Japan across the Sea of Japan (East Sea of Korea). Early European visitors to Korea remarked that the country resembled "a sea in a heavy gale" because of the many successive mountain ranges that crisscross the peninsula. Some 80 percent of North Korea is composed of mountains and uplands, separated by deep and narrow valleys. All of the Korean Peninsula's mountains with elevations of or more are located in North Korea. The highest point in North Korea is Paektu Mountain, a volcanic mountain with an elevation of above sea level. Considered a sacred place by North Koreans, Mount Paektu holds significance in Korean culture and has been incorporated in the elaborate folklore and cult personality around the Kim dynasty. For example, the song, "We Will Go To Mount Paektu" sings in praise of Kim Jong-un and describes a symbolic trek to the mountain. Other prominent ranges are the Hamgyong Range in the extreme northeast and the Rangrim Mountains, which are located in the north-central part of North Korea. Mount Kumgang in the Taebaek Range, which extends into South Korea, is famous for its scenic beauty.  The coastal plains are wide in the west and discontinuous in the east. A great majority of the population lives in the plains and lowlands. According to a United Nations Environmental Programme report in 2003, forest covers over 70 percent of the country, mostly on steep slopes. The longest river is the Amnok (Yalu) River which flows for.

Climate.

North Korea experiences a combination of continental climate and an oceanic climate, but most of the country experiences a humid continental climate within the Köppen climate classification scheme. Winters bring clear weather interspersed with snow storms as a result of northern and northwestern winds that blow

Government and politics.

North Korea functions as a highly centralized, one-party state. According to its 2016 constitution, it is a self-described revolutionary and socialist state "guided in its activities by the Juche idea and the Songun idea". In addition to the constitution, North Korea is governed by the Ten Principles for the Establishment of a Monolithic Ideological System (also known as the "Ten Principles of the One-Ideology System") which establishes standards for governance and a guide for the behaviors of North Koreans. The Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), led by a member of the Kim dynasty, has an estimated 3,000,000 members and dominates every aspect of North Korean politics. It has two satellite organizations, the Korean Social Democratic Party and the Chondoist Chongu Party which participate in the WPK-led Democratic Front for the Reunification of the Fatherland of which all political officers are required to be members.  Kim Jong-un of the Kim dynasty is the current Supreme Leader or "Suryeong" of North Korea. He heads all major governing structures: he is Chairman of the Workers' Party of Korea, Chairman of the State Affairs Commission of North Korea, and Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army. His grandfather Kim Il-sung, the founder and leader of North Korea until his death in 1994, is the country's "eternal President", while his father Kim Jong-il who succeeded Kim Il-sung as the leader was announced "Eternal General Secretary" and "Eternal Chairman of the National Defence Commission" after his death in 2011.  According to the Constitution of North Korea, there are officially three main branches of government. The first of these is the State Affairs Commission of North Korea, which acts as "the supreme national guidance organ of state sovereignty". Its role is to deliberate and decide the work on defense building of the State, including major policies of the State; and to carry out the directions of the Chairman of the commission, Kim Jong-Un.  Legislative power is held by the unicameral Supreme People's Assembly (SPA). Its 687 members are elected every five years by universal suffrage, though they have been described by outside observers as sham elections. Supreme People's Assembly sessions are convened by the SPA Presidium, whose president (Choe Ryong-hae since 2019) represents the state in relations with foreign countries. Deputies formally elect the President, the vice-presidents and members of the Presidium and take part in the constitutionally appointed activities of the legislature: pass laws, establish domestic and foreign policies, appoint members of the cabinet, review and approve the state economic plan, among others. The SPA itself cannot initiate any legislation independently of party or state organs. It is unknown whether it has ever criticized or amended bills placed before it, and the elections are based around a single list of WPK-approved candidates who stand without opposition.  Executive power is vested in the Cabinet of North Korea, which has been headed by Premier Kim Jae-Ryong since 11 April 2019. The Premier represents the government and functions independently. His authority extends over two vice-premiers, 30 ministers, two cabinet commission chairmen, the cabinet chief secretary, the president of the Central Bank, the director of the Central Bureau of Statistics and the president of the Academy of Sciences. A 31st ministry, the Ministry of People's Armed Forces, is under the jurisdiction of the State Affairs Commission.  North Korea, like its southern counterpart, claims to be the legitimate government of the entire Korean peninsula and adjacent islands. Despite its official title as the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea", some observers have described North Korea's political system as an absolute monarchy or a "hereditary dictatorship". It has also been described as a Stalinist dictatorship.

Military.

The Korean People's Army (KPA) has 1,106,000 active and 8,389,000 reserve and paramilitary troops, making it the largest military institution in the world. With an active duty army of 1.21 million, consisting of of its population, the KPA is the fourth largest military force in the world after China, the United States and India. About 20 percent of men aged 17–54 serve in the regular armed forces, and approximately one in every 25 citizens is an enlisted soldier. The KPA has five branches: Ground Force, Navy, Air Force, Special Operations Force, and Rocket Force. Command of the Korean People's Army lies in both the Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party of Korea and the independent State Affairs Commission. The Ministry of People's Armed Forces is subordinated to the latter.  Of all KPA branches, the Ground Force is the largest. It has approximately one million personnel divided into 80 infantry divisions, 30 artillery brigades, 25 special warfare brigades, 20 mechanized brigades, 10 tank brigades and seven tank regiments. They are equipped with 3,700 tanks, 2,100 armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles, 17,900 artillery pieces, 11,000 anti-aircraft guns and some 10,000 MANPADS and anti-tank guided missiles. Other equipment includes 1,600 aircraft in the Air Force and 1,000 vessels in the Navy. North Korea has the largest special forces and the largest submarine fleet in the world. North Korea possesses

Society.

Demographics.

With the exception of a small Chinese community and a few ethnic Japanese, North Korea's people are ethnically homogeneous. Demographic experts in the 20th century estimated that the population would grow to 25.5 million by 2000 and 28 million by 2010, but this increase never occurred due to the North Korean famine. It began in 1995, lasted for three years and resulted in the deaths of between 240,000 and 420,000 North Koreans.  International donors led by the United States initiated shipments of food through the World Food Program in 1997 to combat the famine. Despite a drastic

Health.

North Korea had a life expectancy of 69.8 years in 2013. While North Korea is classified as a low-income country, the structure of North Korea's causes of death (2013) is unlike that of other low-income countries. Instead, it is closer to worldwide averages, with non-communicable diseases—such as cardiovascular disease and cancers—accounting for two-thirds of the total deaths.  A 2013 study reported that communicable diseases and malnutrition are responsible for 29% of the total deaths in North Korea. This figure is higher than those of high-income countries and South Korea, but half of the average 57% of all deaths in other low-income countries. In 2003, infectious diseases like tuberculosis, malaria, and hepatitis B were described as endemic to the country as a result of the famine. However,

Education.

The 2008 census listed the entire population as literate. An 11-year free, compulsory cycle of primary and secondary education is provided in more than 27,000 nursery schools, 14,000 kindergartens, 4,800 four-year primary and 4,700 six-year secondary schools. 77% of males and 79% of females aged 30–34 have finished secondary school. An additional 300 universities and colleges offer higher education.  Most graduates from

Language.

North Korea shares the Korean language with South Korea, although some dialectal differences exist within both Koreas. North Koreans refer to their Pyongyang dialect as "munhwaŏ" ("cultured language") as opposed to the dialects of South Korea, especially the Seoul

Religion.

Officially, North Korea is an atheist state. There are no known official statistics of religions in North Korea. According to Religious Intelligence, 64% of the population are irreligious, 16% practice Korean shamanism, 14% practice Chondoism, 4% are Buddhist, and 2% are Christian. Freedom of religion and the right to religious ceremonies are constitutionally guaranteed, but religions are restricted by the government. Amnesty International

Formal ranking of citizens' loyalty.

According to North Korean documents and refugee testimonies, all North Koreans are sorted into groups according to their Songbun, an ascribed status system based on a citizen's assessed loyalty to the government. Based on their own behavior and the political, social, and economic background of their family for three generations as well as behavior by relatives within that range, Songbun is allegedly used to determine whether an individual is trusted with responsibility, given opportunities, or even receives adequate food.  Songbun allegedly affects access to educational and employment opportunities and

Economy.

North Korea has maintained one of the most closed and centralized economies in the world since the 1940s. For several decades, it followed the Soviet pattern of five-year plans with the ultimate goal of achieving self-sufficiency. Extensive Soviet and Chinese support allowed North Korea to rapidly recover from the Korean War and register very high growth rates. Systematic inefficiency began to arise around 1960, when the economy shifted from the extensive to the intensive development stage. The shortage of skilled labor, energy, arable land and transportation significantly impeded long-term growth and resulted in consistent failure to meet planning objectives. The major slowdown of the economy contrasted with South Korea, which surpassed the North in terms of absolute GDP and per capita income by the 1980s. North Korea declared the last seven-year plan unsuccessful in December 1993 and thereafter stopped announcing plans.  The loss of Eastern Bloc trading partners and a series of natural disasters throughout the 1990s caused severe hardships, including widespread famine. By 2000, the situation improved owing to a massive international food assistance effort, but the economy continues to suffer from food shortages, dilapidated infrastructure and a critically low energy supply. In an attempt to recover from the collapse, the government began structural reforms in 1998 that formally legalized private ownership of assets and decentralized control over production. A second round of reforms in 2002 led to an expansion of market activities, partial monetization, flexible prices and salaries, and the introduction of incentives and accountability techniques. Despite these changes, North Korea remains a command economy where the state owns almost all means of production and development priorities are defined by the government.  North Korea has the structural profile of a relatively industrialized country where nearly half of the Gross Domestic Product is generated by industry and human development is at medium levels. Purchasing power parity (PPP) GDP is estimated at $40 billion, with a very low per capita value of $1,800. In 2012, Gross national income per capita was $1,523, compared to $28,430 in South Korea. The North Korean won is the national currency, issued by the Central Bank of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.  The economy is heavily nationalized. Food and housing are extensively subsidized by the state; education and healthcare are free; and the payment of taxes was officially abolished in 1974. A variety of goods are available in department stores and supermarkets in Pyongyang, though most of the population relies on small-scale "jangmadang" markets. In 2009, the government attempted to stem the expanding free market by banning jangmadang and the use of foreign currency, heavily devaluing the won and restricting the convertibility of savings in the old currency, but the resulting inflation spike and rare public protests caused a reversal of these policies. Private trade is dominated by women because most men are required to be present at their workplace, even though many state-owned enterprises are non-operational.  Industry and services employ 65% of North Korea's 12.6 million labor force. Major industries include machine building, military equipment, chemicals, mining, metallurgy, textiles, food processing and tourism. Iron ore and coal production are among the few sectors where North Korea performs significantly better than its southern neighbor—it produces about 10 times larger amounts of each resource. Using ex-Romanian drilling rigs, several oil exploration companies have confirmed significant oil reserves in the North Korean shelf of the Sea of Japan, and in areas south of Pyongyang. The agricultural sector was shattered by the natural disasters of the 1990s. Its 3,500 cooperatives and state farms were among the most productive and successful in the world around 1980 but now experience chronic fertilizer and equipment shortages. Rice, corn, soybeans and potatoes are some of the primary crops. A significant contribution to the food supply comes from commercial fishing and aquaculture. Tourism has been a growing sector for the past decade. North Korea has been aiming to increase the number of foreign visitors through projects like the Masikryong Ski Resort.  Foreign trade surpassed pre-crisis levels in 2005 and continues to expand. North Korea has a number of special economic zones (SEZs) and Special Administrative Regions where foreign companies can operate with tax and tariff incentives while North Korean establishments gain access to improved technology. Initially four such zones existed, but they yielded little overall success. The SEZ system was overhauled in 2013 when 14 new zones were opened and the Rason Special Economic Zone was reformed as a joint Chinese-North Korean project. The Kaesong Industrial Region is a special economic zone where more than 100 South Korean companies employ some 52,000 North Korean workers., China is the biggest trading partner of North Korea outside inter-Korean trade, accounting for more than 84% of the total external trade ($5.3 billion) followed by India at 3.3% share ($205 million). In 2014, Russia wrote off 90% of North Korea's debt and the two countries agreed to conduct all transactions in rubles. Overall, external trade in 2013 reached a total of $7.3 billion (the highest amount since 1990), while inter-Korean trade dropped to an eight-year low of $1.1 billion.

Culture.

Despite a historically strong Chinese influence, Korean culture has shaped its own unique identity. It came under attack during the Japanese rule from 1910 to 1945, when Japan enforced a cultural assimilation policy. Koreans were forced to learn and speak Japanese, adopt the Japanese family name system and Shinto religion, and were forbidden to write or speak the Korean language in schools, businesses, or public places.  After the peninsula was divided in 1945, two distinct cultures formed out of the common Korean heritage. North Koreans have little exposure to foreign influence. The revolutionary struggle and the brilliance of the leadership are some of the main themes in art. "Reactionary" elements from traditional culture have been discarded and cultural forms with a "folk" spirit have been reintroduced.  Korean heritage is protected and maintained by the state. Over 190 historical sites and objects of national significance are cataloged as National Treasures of North Korea, while some 1,800 less valuable artifacts are included in a list of Cultural Assets. The Historic Sites and Monuments in Kaesong and the Complex of Goguryeo Tombs are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Art.

Visual arts are generally produced in the esthetics of Socialist realism. North Korean painting combines the influence of Soviet and Japanese visual expression to instill a sentimental loyalty to the system. All artists in North Korea are required to join the Artists' Union, and the best among them can receive an official license to portray the leaders. Portraits and sculptures depicting Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un are classed as "Number

World Heritage.

In the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the Goguryeo tumulus is registered on the World Heritage list of UNESCO. These remains were registered as the first World Heritage

Music.

The government emphasized optimistic folk-based tunes and revolutionary music throughout most of the 20th century. Ideological messages are conveyed through massive orchestral pieces like the "Five Great Revolutionary Operas" based on traditional Korean "ch'angguk". Revolutionary operas differ from their Western counterparts by adding traditional instruments to the orchestra and avoiding recitative segments. "Sea of Blood" is the most widely performed of the Five Great Operas: since its premiere in 1971, it has been played

Literature.

All publishing houses are owned by the government or the WPK because they are considered an important tool for propaganda and agitation. The Workers' Party of Korea Publishing House is the most authoritative among them and publishes all works of Kim Il-sung, ideological education materials and party policy documents. The availability of foreign literature is limited, examples being North Korean editions of Indian, German, Chinese and Russian fairy tales, "Tales from Shakespeare" and some works of Bertolt Brecht and Erich Kästner.  Kim Il-sung's personal works are considered "classical masterpieces" while the ones

Media.

Government policies towards film are no different than those applied to other arts—motion pictures serve to fulfill the targets of "social education". Some of the most influential films are based on historic events ("An Jung-geun shoots Itō Hirobumi") or folk tales ("Hong Gildong"). Most movies have predictable propaganda story lines which make cinema an unpopular entertainment; viewers only see films that feature their favorite actors. Western productions are only available at private showings to high-ranking Party members, although the 1997 film "Titanic" is frequently shown to university students as an example of Western culture. Access to foreign media products is available through smuggled DVDs and television or radio broadcasts in border areas. Western films like "The Interview", "Titanic", and "Charlie's Angels" are just a few films that have been smuggled across the borders of North Korea, allowing for access to the North Korean citizens.  North Korean media are under some of the strictest government control in the world. The censorship in North Korea encompasses all the information produced by the media. Monitored heavily by government officials, the media is

Cuisine.

Korean cuisine has evolved through centuries of social and political change. Originating from ancient agricultural and nomadic traditions in southern Manchuria and the Korean Peninsula, it has gone through a complex interaction of the natural environment and different cultural trends. Rice dishes and kimchi are staple Korean food. In a traditional meal, they accompany both side dishes ("panch'an") and

Sports.

Most schools have daily practice in association football, basketball, table tennis, gymnastics, boxing and others. The DPR Korea League is popular inside the country and its games are often televised. The national football team, "Chollima", competed in the FIFA World Cup in 2010, when it lost all three matches against Brazil, Portugal and Ivory Coast. Its 1966 appearance was much more successful, seeing a surprise 1–0 victory over Italy and a quarter final loss to Portugal by 3–5. A national team represents the nation in international basketball competitions as well. In December 2013, former American basketball professional Dennis Rodman visited North Korea to help train the national team after he developed a friendship with Kim Jong-un.  North Korea's first appearance in the Olympics came in 1964.

North Korea (Korean:, MR: "Chosŏn" or literally, MR: "Pukchosŏn"), officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK or DPR Korea; Korean:, "Chosŏn Minjujuŭi Inmin Konghwaguk"), is a country in East Asia constituting the northern part of the Korean Peninsula. The country is bordered to the north by China and by Russia along the Amnok (known as the Yalu in Chinese) and Tumen rivers, and to the south by South Korea, with the heavily fortified Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two. North Korea, like its southern counterpart, claims to be the legitimate government of the entire peninsula and adjacent islands. Pyongyang is the country's capital and largest city.

Die Demokratische Volksrepublik Korea (koreanisch,, [], "Chosŏn Minjujuŭi Inmin Konghwaguk"), bekannt als Nordkorea, ist ein Staat in Ostasien. Er wurde am 9. September 1948 proklamiert und umfasst den nördlichen Teil der Koreanischen Halbinsel. Nordkorea, obwohl offiziell als „Demokratische Volksrepublik“ bezeichnet, wird diktatorisch regiert und gilt als das weltweit restriktivste politische System der Gegenwart.


Prehistory and cultures.

Archaeological evidence shows that the Pacific Northwest was one of the first populated areas in North America. Both animal and human bones dating back to 13,000 years old have been found across Washington and evidence of human habitation in the Olympic Peninsula dates back to approximately 9,000 BCE, 3,000 to 5,000 years after massive flooding of the Columbia River which carved the Columbia Gorge.  Anthropologists estimate there were 125 distinct Northwest tribes and 50 languages and dialects in existence before the arrival of Euro-Americans in this region. Throughout the Puget Sound region, coastal tribes made use of the region's abundant natural resources, subsisting primarily on salmon, halibut, shellfish, and whale. Cedar was an important building material and was used by tribes to build both longhouses and large canoes. Clothing was also made from the bark of cedar trees. The Columbia River tribes became the richest of the Washington tribes through their control of Celilo Falls, historically the richest salmon fishing location in the Northwest. These falls on the Columbia River, east of present-day The Dalles, Oregon, were part of the path millions of salmon took to spawn. The presence of private wealth among the more aggressive coastal tribes encouraged gender divisions as women took on prominent roles as traders and men participated in warring and captive-taking with other tribes. The eastern tribes, called the Plateau tribes, survived through seasonal hunting, fishing, and gathering. Tribal work among the Plateau Indians was also gender-divided with both men and women responsible for equal parts of the food supply.  The principal tribes of the coastal areas include the Chinook, Lummi, Quinault, Makah, Quileute, and Snohomish. The Plateau tribes include the Klickitat, Cayuse, Nez Percé, Okanogan, Palouse, Spokane, Wenatchee, and Yakama. Today, Washington contains more than 20 Indian reservations, the largest of which is for the Yakama.  At Ozette, in the northwest corner of the state, an ancient village was covered by a mud slide, perhaps triggered by an earthquake about 500 years ago. More than 50,000 well-preserved artifacts have been found and cataloged, many of which are now on display at the Makah Cultural and Research Center in Neah Bay. Other sites have also revealed how long people have been there. Thumbnail-sized quartz knife blades found at the Hoko River site near Clallam Bay are believed to be 2,500 years old.

Colony.

Early European and American exploration.

The first European record of a landing on the Washington coast was in 1774 by Spaniard Juan Pérez. One year later, Spanish Captain Don Bruna de Heceta on board the "Santiago", part of a two-ship flotilla with the "Sonora", landed near the mouth of the Quinault River and claimed the coastal lands up to the Russian possessions in the north.  In 1778, the British explorer Captain James Cook sighted Cape Flattery, at the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. But the strait itself was not found until Charles William Barkley, captain of the "Imperial Eagle", sighted it in 1787. Barkley named it for Juan de Fuca. The Spanish-British Nootka Conventions of the 1790s ended Spanish exclusivity and opened the Northwest Coast to explorers and traders from other nations, most important being Britain, Russia, and the United States. Further explorations of the straits were performed by Spanish explorers Manuel Quimper in 1790 and Francisco de Eliza in 1791 and then by British Captain George Vancouver in 1792. Captain Vancouver claimed the sound for Britain and named the waters south of the Tacoma Narrows Puget's Sound, in honor of Peter Puget, then a lieutenant accompanying him on the Vancouver Expedition. The name later came to be used for the waters north of Tacoma Narrows as well. Vancouver and his expedition mapped the coast of Washington from 1792 to 1794.  Captain Robert Gray (for whom Grays Harbor County is named) discovered the mouth of the Columbia River in 1792, naming the river after his ship "Columbia" and later establishing a trade in sea otter pelts. The Lewis and Clark expedition, under the direction of President Thomas Jefferson, entered the state from the east on October 10, 1805. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were surprised by the differences in Indian tribes in the Pacific Northwest from those they had encountered earlier in the expedition, noting, in particular, the increased status of women among both coastal and plateau tribes. Lewis hypothesized that the equality of women and the elderly with men was linked to more evenly distributed economic roles.  Canadian explorer David Thompson extensively explored the Columbia River commencing in 1807. In 1811, he became the first European to navigate the entire length of the river to the Pacific. Along the way he posted a notice where it joins the Snake River claiming the land for Britain and stating the intention of the North West Company to build a fort there. Subsequently, Fort Nez Perces trading post, was established near present-day Walla Walla, Washington. Thompson's notice was found by Astorians looking to establish an inland fur post. It contributed to David Stuart's choice, on behalf of the American Pacific Fur Company, of a more northerly site for their operations at Fort Okanogan.  Before settlement in the 1830s, when white women began moving to the territory, Métis women were sought after as wives for the traders. A population of Métis (mixed race) people grew as a result of centuries of sexual encounters between early European fur-traders and Indian women.

American–British occupation disputes.

American interests in the region grew as part of the concept of manifest destiny. Spain ceded their rights north of the 42nd Parallel to the United States by the 1819 Adams-Onís Treaty, (but not possession, which was disallowed by the terms of the Nootka Conventions).  Britain had long-standing commercial interests through the Hudson's Bay Company and a well-established network of fur trading forts along the Columbia River in what it called Columbia District. These were headquartered from Fort Vancouver in present-day Vancouver, Washington.  By the Treaty of 1818, following from the War of 1812, Great Britain and the United States established the 49th parallel as the border west to the Continental Divide of the Rocky mountains; but agreed to joint control and occupancy of Oregon Country. In 1824, Russia signed an agreement with the U.S. acknowledging it had no claims south of 54-40 latitude north and Russia signed a similar treaty with Britain in 1825.  Joint occupancy was renewed, but on a year-to-year basis in 1827. Eventually, increased tension between U.S. settlers arriving by the Oregon trail and fur traders led to the Oregon boundary dispute. On June 15, 1846, Britain ceded its claims to the lands south of the 49th parallel, and the U.S. ceded its claims to the north of the same line, in the present day Canada–US border, in the Oregon Treaty.  In 1848, the Oregon Territory, composed of present-day Washington, Oregon, and Idaho as well as parts of Montana and Wyoming, was established. Washington Territory, which included Washington and pieces of Idaho and Montana, was formed from Oregon Territory in 1853. In 1872, An arbitration process settled the boundary dispute from the Pig War and established the US–Canada border through the San Juan Islands and Gulf Islands.

Early American Settlements.

Eastern Washington.

Settlements in the eastern part of the state were largely agricultural and focused around missionary establishments in the Walla Walla Valley. Missionaries attempted to 'civilize' the Indians, often in ways that disregarded or misunderstood native practices. When missionaries Dr. Marcus Whitman and Narcissa Whitman refused to leave their mission as racial tensions mounted in 1847, 13 American missionaries were killed by Cayuse and Umatilla Indians. Explanations of the 1847 Whitman massacre in Walla Walla include outbreaks of disease, resentment over harsh attempts at conversion of both religion and way of life, and contempt of the native Indians shown by the missionaries, particularly by Narcissa Whitman, the first white American woman in the Oregon Territory.  This event triggered the Cayuse War against the Indians, followed by the Yakima War, together with continuing until 1858. The Provisional Legislature of Oregon in 1847 immediately raised companies of volunteers to go to war, if necessary, against the Cayuse, and, to the discontent of some of the militia leaders, also sent a peace commission. The United States Army later came to support the militia forces. These militia forces, eager for action, provoked both friendly and hostile Indians. In 1850, five Cayuse were convicted for murdering the Whitmans in 1847 and hanged. Sporadic bloodshed continued until 1855, when the Cayuse were decimated, defeated, bereft of their tribal lands, and placed on the Umatilla Indian Reservation in northeastern Oregon.  The conflicts over the possession of land between the Indians and the 'American' settlers led the Americans in 1855, by the 'treaties' at the Walla Walla Council, to coerce not only the Cayuse, but also the Walla Walla and the Umatilla tribes, to the Umatilla Indian Reservation in northeastern Oregon; fourteen other tribal groups to the Yakama Indian Reservation in southern Washington State; and the Nez Perce to a reservation in the border region of Washington, Oregon and Idaho. That same year, gold was discovered in the newly established Yakama reservation and white miners encroached upon these lands. The tribes - first the Yakama, eventually joined by the Walla Walla and the Cayuse - united together to fight the Americans in what is called the Yakima War. The U.S. Army sent troops and a number of raids and battles took place. In 1858, the Americans, at the Battle of Four Lakes, defeated the Indians decisively. In a newly imposed 'treaty,' tribes were, again, confined to reservations.

Puget Sound.

As American settlers moved west along the Oregon Trail, some traveled through the northern part of the Oregon Territory and settled in the Puget Sound area. The first settlement in the Puget Sound area in the west of what is now Washington State was Fort Nisqually, a farm and fur-trading post owned by the Puget's Sound Agricultural Company, a subsidiary of the Hudson's Bay Company. Washington's pioneer founder, Michael Simmons, along with the black pioneer George Washington Bush and his Caucasian wife, Isabella James Bush, from Missouri and Tennessee, respectively, led four white families into the territory and settled New Market, now known as Tumwater, in 1846. They settled in Washington to avoid Oregon's racist settlement laws. After them, many more settlers, migrating overland along the Oregon trail, wandered north to settle in the Puget Sound area. Contrasted with other American occupations of the West, there was comparatively little violence between settlers and Native Americans, though several exceptions, such as Territorial Governor Isaac Ingalls Stevens' extensive campaigns in 1853 to force Indians into ceding lands and rights, are notable: the Puget Sound War, Cayuse War, Yakima War, and Spokane War being the largest conflicts between the new American authorities and indigenous governments. Raids by Haida, Tlingit and other northern tribes from British and Russian territory terrorized Native Americans and settlers alike in Puget Sound in the 1850s (see Port Gamble). Miners bound for the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush in British Columbia in 1858 using the Okanagan Trail traveled underarms and there were many instances of violence along the route.  Lumber industries drew settlers to the territory. Coastal cities, like Seattle (founded in 1851 and originally called "Duwamps"), were established. Unlike the wagon trains that had carried entire families to the Oregon Territory, these early trading settlements were populated primarily with single young men. Liquor, gambling, and prostitution were ubiquitous, supported in Seattle by one of the city's founders, David Swinson "Doc" Maynard, who believed that well-run prostitution could be a functional part of the economy. The Fraser Gold Rush in what would, as a result, become the Colony of British Columbia saw a flurry of settlement and merchant activity in northern Puget Sound which gave birth to Port Townsend and Whatcom (which became Bellingham) as commercial centres, at first attempting to rival Victoria as a disembarkation point of the goldfields until the colony's governor ordered that all access to the Fraser River go via Victoria. Despite the limitation on goldfield-related commerce, many men who left the "Fraser River Humbug", as the rush was for a while misunderstood to be, settled in Whatcom and Island counties. Some of these were settlers on San Juan Island during the Pig War of 1859.  Upon the admission of the State of Oregon to the union in 1859, the eastern portions of the Oregon Territory, including southern Idaho, portions of Wyoming west of the continental divide (then Nebraska Territory), and a small portion of present-day Ravalli County, Montana were annexed to the Washington Territory. In 1863, the area of Washington Territory east of the Snake River and the 117th meridian west was reorganized as part of the newly created Idaho Territory, leaving that territory with only the lands within the current boundaries of the State of Washington.

Statehood.

After the passage of the Enabling Act of 1889, Washington became the 42nd state in the United States on November 11, 1889. The proposed state constitution, passed by a four-to-one ratio, originally included women's suffrage and prohibition, but both of these issues were defeated and removed from the accepted constitution. Women had previously been given the vote in 1883 by the Washington Territorial Legislature, but the right was rescinded in 1887 by the Washington Territorial Supreme Court as a response to female support of prohibition. Despite these initial defeats, women in the Pacific Northwest received the right to vote earlier than the rest of the country with Washington passing a suffrage amendment in 1910. Prohibition followed in 1916, two years before the rest of the nation.  Early prominent industries in the state included agriculture, lumber, and mining. In eastern Washington, Spokane was a major hub of mining activity and the Yakima Valley was known for its apple orchards and wheat fields. The heavy rainfall to the west of the Cascade Range produced dense forests and the ports along Puget Sound prospered from the manufacturing and shipping of lumber products, particularly the Douglas fir. In 1905, Washington State became the largest producer of lumber in the nation. Seattle was the primary port for trade with Alaska and for a time possessed a large shipbuilding industry. Other industries that developed in Washington include fishing, salmon canning, and mining. For an extended period of time, Tacoma was known for its large smelters where gold, silver, copper and lead ores were treated. The region around eastern Puget Sound developed heavy industry during the period including World War I and World War II and the Boeing Company became an established icon in the area.

Progressive Era.

The progressive force of the early 20th century in Washington stemmed partially from the women's club movement which offered opportunities for leadership and political power to tens of thousands of women in the Pacific Northwest region.

1920s.

Bertha Knight Landes was elected mayor of Seattle in 1926, the first woman mayor of a major city in the United States.  In 1924, Seattle's Sand Point Airfield was the endpoint of the first aerial circumnavigation of the world.

Great Depression.

Vancouver became the endpoint for two ultra-long flights from Moscow, USSR over the North Pole. The first of these flights were performed by Valery Chkalov in 1937 on a Tupolev ANT-25RD airplane. Chkalov was originally scheduled to land at an airstrip in nearby Portland, Oregon but redirected at the last minute to Vancouver's Pearson Airfield.  During the depression era, a series of hydroelectric dams were constructed along the Columbia River as part of a project to increase the production of electricity. This culminated in 1941 with the completion of the Grand Coulee Dam, the largest in the United States.

World War II.

During World War II, the Puget Sound area became a focus for war industries with the Boeing Company producing many of the nation's heavy bombers and ports in Seattle, Bremerton, Vancouver, and Tacoma available for the manufacturing of ships for the war effort. As the demand for labor and the number of young men drafted increased simultaneously, women entered the workforce in great numbers, recruited by local media. One-fourth of the laborers in shipyards were women, resulting in the installation of one of the first government-funded child-care centers in the workplace.  In eastern Washington, the Hanford Works nuclear power plant was opened in 1943 and played a major role in the construction of the nation's atomic bombs. One of the atomic bombs (nicknamed 'Fat Man' and dropped on Nagasaki, Japan on August 9, 1945) was fueled by Hanford plutonium and was transported in Boeing B-29s, also designed in Washington State.

Contemporary Washington.

Eruption of Mount St Helens.

On May 18, 1980, following a period of heavy tremors and eruptions, the northeast face of Mount St. Helens exploded outward, destroying a large part of the top of the volcano. This eruption flattened the forests for many miles, killed 57 people, flooded the Columbia River and its tributaries with ash and mud and blanketed large parts of Washington in ash, making day look like night.

Economy.

Washington is well known for several prominent companies, the most notable of which are Microsoft, Amazon.com, Boeing, Nordstrom, The Bon Marché, Costco, and Starbucks. Monopolies have a long history in the state. Bill Boeing's namesake company grew from a small airplane company in 1916 to the national aircraft and airline conglomerate of Boeing and United Airlines, which was subsequently broken up by anti-trust regulators in 1934.

Politics.

Politics in Washington have been generally Democratic since the 1950s and 60s and President John F. Kennedy's election. The state's system of blanket primaries, in which voters may vote for any candidate on the ballot and are not required to be affiliated with a particular political party, was ruled unconstitutional in 2003. The party-line primary system was instituted for the 2004 presidential and gubernatorial elections. In 2004, voters elected Governor Christine Gregoire into office, making Washington the first state to have a female governor and two female senators, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell.  Protests against the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Seattle, sometimes referred to as the "Battle of Seattle", took place in 1999 when the WTO convened to discuss trade negotiations. Massive protests of at least 40,000 people included organizations such as NGOs involved in environment issues, labor unions, student groups, religious groups, and anarchists.  On January 30, 2006, Governor Christine Gregoire signed into law legislation making Washington the 17th state in the nation to protect gay and lesbian people from discrimination in housing, lending, and employment, and the 7th state in the nation to offer these protections to transgender people. Initiative activist Tim Eyman filed a referendum that same day, seeking to put the issue before the state's voters. In order to qualify for the November election, the measure required a minimum of 112,440 voter signatures by 5:00 p.m. June 6, 2006. Despite a push from conservative churches across the state to gather signatures on what were dubbed "Referendum Sundays," Eyman was only able to gather 105,103 signatures, more than 7,000 signatures short of the minimum. As a result, the law went into effect on June 7, 2006. The Washington legislature introduced more advanced converge of domestic partnerships in 2008.

The history of Washington includes thousands of years of Native American history before Europeans arrived and began to establish territorial claims. The region was part of Oregon Territory from 1848 to 1853, after which it was separated from Oregon and established as Washington Territory following the efforts at the Monticello Convention. In 1889, Washington became the 42nd state of the United States.

Die Geschichte des Bundesstaates Washington reicht mit Blick auf die menschliche Besiedlung knapp 14.000 Jahre zurück. Die Nachkommen der ersten fassbaren Bewohner, auch wenn dies bei einigen der frühesten Funde umstritten ist, gehören heute zu den Küsten-Salish im Nordwesten, dazu kommen Binnen-Salish, wie die Spokane, und andere Gruppen des Hinterlands. Insgesamt erkennt die zuständige Behörde des Innenministeriums heute 29 Stämme und Reservatsgruppen innerhalb des Staates an.


History of the Jewish refuseniks.

A large number of Soviet Jews applied for exit visas to leave the Soviet Union, especially in the period following the 1967 Six-Day War. While some were allowed to leave, many were refused permission to emigrate, either immediately or after their cases would languish for years in the "OVIR" (ОВиР, "Отдел Виз и Регистрации", "Otdel Viz i Registratsii", English: Office of Visas and Registration), the MVD (Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs) department responsible for exit visas. In many instances, the reason given for denial was that these persons had been given access, at some point in their careers, to information vital to Soviet national security and could not now be allowed to leave.  During the Cold War, Soviet Jews were thought to be a security liability or possible traitors. To apply for an exit visa, the applicants (and often their entire families) would have to quit their jobs, which in turn would make them vulnerable to charges of social parasitism, a criminal offense.  Many Jews encountered systematic, institutional antisemitism which blocked their opportunities for advancement. Some government sectors were almost entirely off-limits to Jews. In addition, Soviet restrictions on religious education and expression prevented Jews from engaging in Jewish cultural and religious life. While these restrictions led many Jews to seek emigration, requesting an exit visa was itself seen as an act of betrayal by Soviet authorities. Thus, prospective emigrants requested permission to emigrate at great personal risk, knowing that an official refusal would often be accompanied by dismissal from work and other forms of social ostracism and economic pressure. At the same time, strong international condemnations caused the Soviet authorities to significantly increase the emigration quota. In the years 1960 through 1970, only 4,000 people (legally) emigrated from the USSR. In the following decade, the number rose to 250,000, to fall again by 1980.

Hijacking incident.

In 1970, a group of sixteen refuseniks (two of whom were non-Jewish), organized by dissident Eduard Kuznetsov (who already served a seven-year term in Soviet prisons), plotted to buy all the seats for the local flight Leningrad-Priozersk, under the guise of a trip to a wedding, on a small 12-seater aircraft Antonov An-2 (colloquially known as "кукурузник", "kukuruznik"), throw out the pilots before takeoff from an intermediate stop and fly it to Sweden, knowing they faced a huge risk of being captured or shot down. One of the participants, Mark Dymshits, was a former military pilot.  On 15 June 1970, after arriving at Smolnoye (later Rzhevka) Airport near Leningrad, the entire group of the "wedding guests" was arrested by the MVD.  The accused were charged for high treason, punishable by the death sentence under Article 64 of the Penal code of the RSFSR. Mark Dymshits and Eduard Kuznetsov were sentenced to capital punishment but after international protests, it was appealed and replaced with 15 years of incarceration; Yosef Mendelevitch and Yuri Fedorov: 15 years; Aleksey Murzhenko: 14 years; Sylva Zalmanson (Kuznetsov's wife and the only woman on trial): 10 years; Arie (Leib) Knokh: 13 years; Anatoli Altmann: 12 years; Boris Penson: 10 years; Israel Zalmanson: 8 years; Wolf Zalmanson (brother of Sylva and Israel): 10 years; Mendel Bodnya: 4 years.

Crackdown on the refusenik activism and its growth.

The affair was followed by a crackdown on the Jewish and dissident movement throughout the USSR. Activists were arrested, makeshift centers for studying the Hebrew language and Torah were closed, and more trials followed. At the same time, strong international condemnations caused the Soviet authorities to significantly increase the emigration quota. In the years 1960 through 1970, only about 3,000 Soviet Jews had (legally) emigrated from the USSR; after the trial, in the period from 1971 to 1980 347,100 people received a visa to leave the USSR, 245,951 of them were Jews.  Refuseniks included Jews who desired to emigrate on religious grounds, Jews seeking to immigrate to Israel for Zionist aspirations, and relatively secular Jews desiring to escape continuous state-sponsored antisemitism.  A leading proponent and spokesman for the refusenik rights during the mid-1970s was Natan Sharansky. Sharansky's involvement with the Moscow Helsinki Group helped to establish the struggle for emigration rights within the greater context of the human rights movement in the USSR. His arrest on charges of espionage and treason and subsequent trial contributed to international support for the refusenik cause.

International pressure.

On 18 October 1976, 13 Jewish refuseniks came to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet to petition for explanations of denials of their right to emigrate from the USSR, as affirmed under the Helsinki Final Act. Failing to receive any answer, they assembled in the reception room of the Presidium on the following day. After a few hours of waiting, they were seized by the police, taken outside of the city limits and beaten. Two of them were kept in police custody.  In the next week, following an unsuccessful meeting between the activists' leaders and the Soviet Minister of Internal Affairs, General Nikolay Shchelokov, these abuses of law inspired several demonstrations in the Soviet capital. On Monday, 25 October 1976, 22 activists, including Mark Azbel, Felix Kandel, Alexander Lerner, Ida Nudel, Anatoly Shcharansky, Vladimir Slepak, and Michael Zeleny, were arrested in Moscow on their way to the next demonstration. They were convicted of hooliganism and incarcerated in the detention center Beryozka and other penitentiaries in and around Moscow. An unrelated party, artist Victor Motko, arrested in Dzerzhinsky Square, was detained along with the protesters in recognition of his prior attempts to emigrate from the USSR. These events were covered by several British and American journalists including David K. Shipler, Craig R. Whitney, and Christopher S. Wren. The October demonstrations and arrests coincided with the end of the 1976 United States presidential election. On October 25, U.S. Presidential candidate Jimmy Carter expressed his support of the protesters in a telegram sent to Scharansky, and urged the Soviet authorities to release them. (See Léopold Unger, Christian Jelen, "Le grand retour", A. Michel 1977; Феликс Кандель, "Зона отдыха, или Пятнадцать суток на размышление", Типография Ольшанский Лтд, Иерусалим, 1979; Феликс Кандель, "Врата исхода нашего: Девять страниц истории", Effect Publications, Tel-Aviv, 1980.) On 9 November 1976, a week after Carter won the Presidential election, the Soviet authorities released all but two of the previously arrested protesters. Several more were subsequently rearrested and incarcerated or exiled to Siberia.  On 1 June 1978, "refuseniks" Vladimir and Maria Slepak stood on the eighth story balcony of their apartment building. By then they had been denied permission to emigrate for over 8 years. Vladimir displayed a banner that read "Let us go to our son in Israel". His wife Maria held a banner that read "Visa for my son". Fellow "refusenik" and Helsinki activist Ida Nudel held a similar display on the balcony of her own apartment. They were all arrested and charged with malicious hooliganism in violation of Article 206.2 of the Penal Code of the Soviet Union. The Moscow Helsinki Group protested their arrests in circulars dated 5 and 15 June of that year. Vladimir Slepak and Ida Nudel were convicted of all charges. They served 5 and 4 years in Siberian exile.

Refusenik (, otkaznik, from "отказ", "otkaz" "refusal") was an unofficial term for individuals—typically, but not exclusively, Soviet Jews—who were denied permission to emigrate, primarily to Israel, by the authorities of the Soviet Union and other countries of the Eastern bloc. The term "refusenik" is derived from the "refusal" handed down to a prospective emigrant from the Soviet authorities.

Refusenik (von, „ablehnen“) oder Otkasnik (, von "отказывать", d. h. „ablehnen“, ) war ein inoffizieller sowjetischer Ausdruck für Personen, typischerweise sowjetische Juden, denen die Möglichkeit einer Emigration verweigert wurde.


Early life.

Arthur Ryan Smith was born in Calgary, Alberta on May 16, 1919 to Arthur LeRoy Smith, Member of Parliament for Calgary West from 1945 to 1951, and Sara Isobel Ryan. He grew up in Calgary and in British Columbia. He got his first job as an oil field worker at the age of 16 in Turner Valley, Alberta and spent four years working in the oil patch.  At the outbreak of World War II Smith enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force and became a pilot. He flew 34 combat missions on Lancaster bombers and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. When Smith returned home from the war he went back to work in the oil patch. He worked his way up from roughneck to Assistant of the President at the Anglo-American Oil Company. In 1952 he became editor for the publication "Petroleum Exploration Digest".

Municipal politics.

Smith was elected to Calgary city council in 1953 and served there until 1955 when he decided to run for a seat in the provincial legislature.  Smith returned to city council after retiring from federal politics in 1963. He was elected in 1965 and remained in office until 1967.

Provincial politics.

Smith ran as a candidate in the Calgary provincial electoral district in the 1955 Alberta general election. He finished first in the vote counts on the first ballot. He resigned in 1957 to run for Parliament.

Federal politics.

Smith ran in the district of Calgary South in the 1957 federal election. He won by 10,000 votes over Donald McKay. In the election the following year, he won by 23,000 votes over the nearest candidate. In the 1962 federal election. His margin of victory was significantly reduced, but he still won in a landslide. Smith retired from federal politics in 1963 at the dissolution of the house. During his time as a Member of Parliament, he served as a delegate to the United Nations.

Late life.

Smith became an influential business man after his career in public office. In 1961 he and Milt Harradence used their political influence with Prime John Diefenbaker to make Lynn Garrison's Lancaster Memorial Fund a success. This saw Lancaster FM-136, purchased from Crown Assets Disposal Corporation by Lynn Garrison, displayed at McCall Field, Calgary as a memorial to those who had trained under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. Smith had won his Distinguished Flying Cross while flying Lancasters during World War II. He served as an executive on numerous companies, sat on public boards, and volunteered in youth sports programs. In 1988 he was appointed Chief of Protocol for the 1988 Winter Olympic Games in Calgary. In 1998, Smith founded the Calgary Homeless Foundation, a registered charity committed to end homelessness in Calgary.  In 2006 he endorsed Mark Norris for the leadership of the Alberta Progressive Conservative Party.

Awards.

Smith became a member of the Order of Canada in 1988 and an officer in 2003. That same year he was also given an honorary doctor of laws degree from the University of Calgary. He was awarded the Alberta Order of Excellence and in 1997 he became Honorary Colonel of the 416 Tactical Fighter Squadron.

Captain Arthur "Art" Ryan Smith Jr. OC AOE DFC (May 16, 1919 – June 30, 2008) was a Canadian oilfield worker, fighter pilot, executive business man, philanthropist, magazine editor, advertising executive and politician on the municipal, provincial and federal levels of government.

Captain Arthur „Art“ Ryan Smith Jr., OC, AOE, DFC (* 16. Mai 1919 in Calgary, Alberta; † 30. Juni 2008 in Calgary, Alberta) war ein kanadischer Journalist und Politiker der Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta.


Early life and stage career.

Born Laura Constance Hardie in Windsor, Berkshire to Cheetham Agaste Hardie and Eliza Collier, Constance Collier made her stage debut at the age of three, when she played Fairy Peasblossom in "A Midsummer Night's Dream". In 1893, at the age of 15, she joined the Gaiety Girls, the famous dance troupe based at the Gaiety Theatre in London. She was a very beautiful woman and soon became so tall that she towered over all the other dancers. In addition, she had an enormous personality and considerable determination. On 27 December 1906, Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree's extravagant revival of "Antony and Cleopatra" opened at His Majesty's Theatre, with Tree as Mark Antony and Collier as Cleopatra, a performance for which she received much critical praise.  Famed for his realistic productions, Tree and his designer, Percy Macquoid, dressed Collier in a range of spectacular costumes. Later, Collier commented: "There is only a mention in the play of Cleopatra appearing as the goddess Isis. Tree elaborated this into a great tableau... Cleopatra, robed in silver, crowned in silver, carrying a golden scepter and the symbol of the sacred golden calf in her hand, went in procession through the streets of Alexandria, the ragged, screaming populace acclaiming the Queen, half in hate, half in superstitious fear and joy as she made her sacrilegious ascent to her high throne in the market-place."  Collier was now established as a popular and distinguished actress. In January 1908, she starred with Beerbohm Tree at His Majesty's Theatre in J. Comyn's new play "The Mystery of Edwin Drood", based on Charles Dickens's unfinished novel of the same name. Later that year, she made the first of several tours of the United States. During the second, made with Beerbohm Tree in 1916, she made four silent films, including an uncredited appearance in D. W. Griffith's "Intolerance" (she can be seen being carried through the entrance to the city in the Babylonian part of the film) and as Lady Macbeth in Tree's disastrous first film interpretation of Shakespeare's "Macbeth".  In 1905, Collier married English actor Julian Boyle (stage name Julian L'Estrange), a forerunner of Clark Gable in looks and style. They performed together for many years until his death in 1918 in New York from influenza. No children were born from the marriage.  In the early 1920s, she established a close friendship with Ivor Novello, who was then a young, handsome actor. Around the same time, Collier became seriously ill from diabetes. First sent to Switzerland for treatment in 1923 then taken to a doctor in Strasbourg, she was the first patient in Europe ever to be treated with the drug insulin following its recent discovery by Frederick Banting and others in Toronto. Fully recovered, she played the Duchesse de Surennes in Somerset Maugham's comedy "Our Betters", and in the following year, collaborated with Ivor Novello on a play called "The Rat". She also appeared in several plays with him, including the British version of the American success, "The Firebrand" by Edwin Justus Mayer. In 1924 Collier introduced Novello to the poet Siegfried Sassoon, with whom he had a six-month affair. While Sassoon destroyed his diary for this period, his unhappiness over their relationship became well-known, and according to his biographer Jean Moorcroft Wilson, 'pitched him into [what he referred to as] an "unblinking hell"'.  Collier's writing career is notable for her collaboration with Deems Taylor on the libretto of the opera "Peter Ibbetson", which was premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in February 1931 and which received mixed reviews. In 1935, upon her arrival in Hollywood, Luise Rainer hired Collier to improve Rainer's theatre acting and English, and to learn the basics of film acting.

Hollywood.

In the late 1920s Collier relocated to Hollywood where she became a voice coach and teacher in diction. This was during the tumultuous changeover from silent films to sound and many silent actors with no theatre training were scrambling for lessons.  Her most famous pupil was arguably Colleen Moore. Film historian Kevin Brownlow interviewed Moore for the series "Hollywood" (1980) about the silent film era. Moore recounted that upon taking voice lessons from a "very famous lady" the teacher asked "is it true that you make 10,000 dollars a week?" Moore replied, "no ma'am, I make 12,500 a week". The teacher Moore was referring to was Constance Collier. Collier nevertheless maintained ties to Broadway and would appear in several plays in the 1930s. In 1932 Collier starred as Carlotta Vance in the original production of George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber's comedy "Dinner at Eight". The role was played in the 1933 film version by Marie Dressler.  She appeared in the films "Stage Door" (1937), Mitchell Leisen's "Kitty" (1945, a comedic performance as Lady Susan, the drunken aunt of Ray Milland), "Perils of Pauline" with Betty Hutton, Alfred Hitchcock's "Rope" (1948) and Otto Preminger's "Whirlpool" (1949).  During the making of the film version of "Stage Door", she became great friends with Katharine Hepburn, a friendship that lasted the rest of Collier's life.  Collier was presented with the American Shakespeare Festival Theatre Award for distinguished service in training and guiding actors in Shakespearean roles. Collier was a drama coach for many famous actors, including Audrey Hepburn, Vivien Leigh and Marilyn Monroe. She also coached Katharine Hepburn during Hepburn's world tour performing Shakespeare in the '50s. Upon Collier's death in 1955, Hepburn "inherited" Collier's secretary Phyllis Wilbourn, who remained with Hepburn as her secretary for 40 years. Collier has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Collier died of a heart attack in Manhattan on 25 April 1955 at the age of 77.

Filmography.

Silent  Sound

References.

Met Opera archives with quotes from various music critics on the premier of Peter Ibettson

Constance Collier (born Laura Constance Hardie, 22 January 1878 – 25 April 1955) was an English stage and film actress and acting coach.

Constance Collier (* 22. Januar 1878 in Windsor, England als "Laura Constance Hardie"; † 25. April 1955 in New York City) war eine britische Schauspielerin und Schauspiellehrerin.


Biography.

Marble was born in Dixfield (in modern-day Maine, then a part of Massachusetts) on March 1, 1817, one of nine children of Ephraim Marble (1787 -1871) and his wife, the former Hannah Packard. He was educated at the Waterville Academy, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1843.  He practiced law in Waldoboro, Maine, and became active in the Republican Party. Marble served as federal deputy collector of customs for his district from 1862 to 1863, and collector from 1864 to 1867. Marble was Maine's federal registrar in bankruptcy (a judicial position) from 1867 to 1870, and served as the United States Marshal for Maine from 1870 to 1878.  Marble was a delegate to the Republican National Conventions in 1864 and 1880.  He was elected to three terms in the Maine State Senate beginning in 1882, and was President of the Senate in his last term. Governor Joseph R. Bodwell died on December 15, 1887, and as Senate President, Marble succeeded to the governorship. Marble was unsuccessful in his bid for election to a full term; he was 71 at the time and the Republican party decided to nominate a younger candidate. They settled on Edwin C. Burleigh, who was nominated and won the general election.  Marble left office at the end of his term on January 2, 1889. He remained active in his local community, including service on the school board and chairman of the Board of Selectmen. He died in Waldoboro on May 10, 1902, and was buried at the Rural Cemetery in Waldoboro.

Sebastian Streeter Marble (March 1, 1817 – May 10, 1902) was an American politician and who most notably served as the 41st Governor of Maine.

Sebastian Streeter Marble (* 1. März 1817 in Dixfield, Maine; † 10. Mai 1902) war ein US-amerikanischer Politiker und von 1887 bis 1889 Gouverneur von Maine.