Anatoli Yevgenyevich Karpov

Anatoli Yevgenyevich Karpov (Russian: Анато́лий Евге́ньевич Ка́рпов) (born May 23, 1951) is a Russian chess grandmaster and former World Champion. He is the most successful tournament player of all time, and as of July 2005 he has 161 first-place finishes to his credit. From 1978 to 1998 he played in every FIDE World Championship match. His overall professional record is 1,118 wins, 287 losses, and 1,480 draws in 3,163 games. His peak Elo rating is 2780. The asteroid 90414 Karpov is named in his honour.

Grandmaster

Karpov was born on May 23, 1951 in Zlatoust in the former Soviet Union and learned to play chess at the age of four. At age 12 he was accepted into Mikhail Botvinnik's prestigious chess school. Ironically, Botvinnik had this to say about a young Karpov: "The boy doesn't have a clue about chess, and there's no future at all for him in this profession." ^[1] Karpov proved him wrong by becoming the youngest Soviet National Master in history at 15, and won in his first international chess tournament several months later. In 1967 he took 5th in the Soviet Junior Chess Championship and won the European Junior Chess Championship later that same year. In 1969 he became the first Soviet player since Boris Spassky (1955) to win the World Junior Chess Championship with a score of 10 out of 11. Soon afterwards he tied for 4th place at an international tournament in Caracas, Venezuela, and became a Grandmaster.

Candidate

The 1970s showed a major improvement in his game. His Elo rating shot up from 2540 in 1971 to 2660 in 1973, when he came in 2nd in the USSR Chess Championship and placed first in the Leningrad Interzonal Tournament. The latter qualified him for the 1974 Candidates cycle, which determined who was allowed to challenge the reigning World Champion, Bobby Fischer.

Karpov beat Lev Polugaevsky by +3=5 in the first Candidates match to face former World Champion Boris Spassky in the next round. Karpov was on record saying that he believed Spassky would easily beat him and win the Candidates cycle to face Fischer, and that he (Karpov) would win the following Candidates cycle in 1977.

Most expected the Spassky-Karpov match to be a one-sided rout by the ex-champ Spassky. Although Spassky won the first game as black in good style, tenacious and aggressive play from Karpov secured him a win +4-1=6. Karpov was certainly not hurt by the fact that Spassky's chief opening analyst, 1955 Soviet Champion Efim Geller, defected to Karpov's side several months before the match.

The Candidates final was against fellow Russian Viktor Korchnoi, a notable fighting player. Intense games were fought, including one "opening laboratory" win against the Sicilian Dragon. Karpov went 3—0 up but tired towards the end and allowed Korchnoi two wins, but Karpov prevailed +3-2=19. Thus he won the right to challenge Fischer for the World Championship.

Though the world championship match between the young Soviet prodigy and the already retired American Fischer was highly anticipated, the match never came about. Fischer drew up a list of ten demands, chief among them the provisions that draws wouldn't count, the first to ten victories wins, and if the score was tied 9—9 the champion would retain the crown. This means that candidate needed two wins more than the reigning champion because narrowest possible win for him is 10—8. The International Chess Federation (FIDE) flatly refused at first, but eventually conceded the first two. However, Fischer demanded all or nothing, and when FIDE refused to give into the third demand, Fischer resigned his crown, to the huge disappointment of the chess world. Karpov later attempted to set up another match with Fischer, but all the negotiations fell through. Fischer never did play Karpov (or the legendary Garry Kasparov, for that matter) and scorned them as inferior players. This thrust the young Karpov into the role of World Champion without defeating the reigning champion, which led some chess pundits to accuse Karpov of being a "paper world champion"—that he had earned the title in a ceremony, but not over a chessboard.

When Kasparov was in a bitter struggle for the world championship with Karpov, he often reminded others that Karpov won the title by default. But while preparing a monumental book series Kasparov: On My Great Predecessors, Kasparov argued that Karpov would have had the better chances, because he had beaten Spassky convincingly and was a new breed of tough professional, and indeed had higher quality games, while Fischer had been inactive for three years. Critics argue that Kasparov was trying to boost his own prestige by boosting that of the man he defeated. Spassky thought that Fischer would have won in 1975 but Karpov would have qualified again and beaten Fischer in 1978^{[citation needed]}.

[edit] World champion

Shamed that he had become the twelfth world champion in this manner, and desperately trying to prove he was worthy of the crown, Karpov participated in nearly every major tournament for the next ten years. He created the most phenomenal streak of tournament wins against the strongest players the chess world had ever seen. This tournament success even eclipsed the pre-war tournament record of Alexander Alekhine. He held the record for most consecutive tournament victories (9) until it was shattered by Garry Kasparov (14).

In 1978, Karpov's first title defence was against Viktor Korchnoi, the opponent he defeated in the previous Candidates tournament. The situation was vastly different from the previous match, because in the intervening years Korchnoi had defected from the Soviet Union. The match was played in Baguio in the Philippines, and a vast array of psychological tricks were used during the match, from Karpov's Dr. Zukhar who allegedly attempted to hypnotize Korchnoi during the game, to Korchnoi's mirror glasses to ward off the hypnotic stare, Korchnoi's offering to play under the Jolly Roger flag when he was denied the right to play under Switzerland's, to Karpov's yogurt supposedly being used to send him secret messages, to Korchnoi inviting two local cult members (on trial for attempted murder) into the hall as members of his team.

The off-board antics are better remembered than the actual chess match. Karpov took an early lead, but Korchnoi staged an amazing comeback very late in the match, and came very close to winning. Karpov narrowly won the last game to take the match 6–5, with 21 draws.

Three years later Korchnoi re-emerged as the Candidates winner against German finalist Dr. Robert Huebner to challenge Karpov in Merano, Italy. This time the psychological trick was the arrest of Korchnoi's son for evading conscription. Again the politics off the board overshadowed the games, but this time Karpov easily won (11–7, +6 -2 =10) in what is remembered as the "Massacre at Merano".

Karpov's tournament career also reached a peak at the exceptional Montreal "Super-Grandmaster" tournament in 1979, where he ended joint first with Mikhail Tal ahead of a field of superb grandmasters like Jan Timman, Ljubomir Ljubojevic, Boris Spassky, and Lubomir Kavalek. Meanwhile, he had also won the prestigious Linares tournament in 1981 and 1994, the Tilburg tournament in 1977, 1979, 1980, 1982, and 1983, and the Soviet Championship in 1976, 1983, and 1988.

To illustrate Karpov's dominance over his peers as champion, his score was +11 -2 =20 versus Spassky, +5 =12 versus Robert Hübner, +6 -1 =16 versus Ulf Andersson, +3 -1 =10 versus Vasily Smyslov, +1 =16 versus Mikhail Tal, +10 -2 =13 versus Ljubojevic.

Karpov had cemented his position as the world's best player and world champion when Garry Kasparov arrived on the scene. In their first World Championship match in 1984, Karpov quickly built a 4–0 lead, and needed only two more wins to keep his title. Instead, the next 17 games were drawn, and it took Karpov until Game 27 to finally win another game. In Game 31, Karpov had a winning position but failed to take advantage and settled for a draw. He lost the next game, but drew the next 14. In particular, Karpov held a solidly winning position in Game 41, but again blundered terribly and had to settle for a draw. After Kasparov suddenly won Game 47 and 48, Karpov suffered a physical collapse, having lost 10 kg (22 lb) over the course of the match. The FIDE President controversially terminated the match, which had lasted an unprecedented four months with five wins for Karpov, three for Kasparov, and a staggering forty draws. A rematch was set for the following year. In a hard fight, Karpov had to win Game 24 of 1985 match to retain his title, but lost it and the title 11 to 13 (+3 -5 =16), ending his ten-year reign as champion.

[edit] Rival

Karpov remained a formidable opponent for most of the eighties. He fought Kasparov in three more World Championship matches in 1986 (held in London and Leningrad), 1987 (held in Seville), and 1990 (held in Lyon and New York City). All three matches were extremely close: the scores were 11.5 to 12.5 (+4 -5 = 15), 12 to 12 (+4 -4 =16), and 11.5 to 12.5 (+3 -4 =17). In all three matches Karpov had winning chances up to the very last games. In particular, the 1987 Seville match featured an astonishing blunder by Kasparov in the 23rd game, and should have led to Karpov's winning the title. Instead, in the final game, needing only a draw to win the title, Karpov cracked under pressure from the clock at the end of the first session of play, allowing Kasparov to adjourn the game a pawn up. After a further mistake in the second session, Karpov was slowly ground down and resigned on move 64, ending the match and allowing Kasparov to keep the title.

The overall game score between them stayed virtually even until the late 1990s, when the score shifted decisively towards Kasparov. Currently, in their 235 formal games played, Karpov has 23 wins, 33 losses, and an incredible 179 draws. In their five world championship matches, Karpov has 19 wins, 21 losses, and 104 draws in 144 games.

Although twelve years older than Kasparov, Karpov still has the stamina and endurance to be a match for Kasparov. In 2002, he defeated Kasparov in a rapid time control match 2.5-1.5. Karpov is on record saying that had he had the opportunity to fight Fischer for the crown like Kasparov had the opportunity to fight him, he (Karpov) could have been a much better player as a result.

[edit] FIDE champion again

It came as a surprise, then, that Karpov lost a Candidates Match against Nigel Short in 1992. But in 1993, Karpov reacquired the FIDE World Champion title when Kasparov and Short split from FIDE. Karpov crushed Jan Timman—the loser of the Candidates final against Short. Once again he had become World Champion, and once again he did so controversially. He defended his title against Gata Kamsky (+6 -3 =9) in 1996. However, in 1998, FIDE largely scrapped the old system of Candidate Matches, instead having a large knock-out event in which a large number of players contested short matches against each other over just a few weeks. In the first of these events, champion Karpov was seeded straight into the final, defeating Viswanathan Anand (+4 -2 =2). But subsequently the champion had to qualify like other players. Karpov resigned his title in anger at the new rules in 1999, so the winner of the 1999 tournament (Alexander Khalifman) became FIDE World Champion.

However, the FIDE champions were not recognized as such by the general public. The fact that the FIDE champions were regularly crushed by Kasparov in tournaments testified to his dominance. The FIDE matches received little public attention, while Kasparov's matches with the PCA and subsequently Braingames were widely reported in the media. For more details about these series of champions, see the World Chess Championship article.

[edit] Towards retirement?

In 1991 Karpov temporarily dropped to third in the FIDE ranking list, the first time since 1971. Though he quickly recovered, many said that Karpov had lost his edge, and that his playing level had declined. However, Karpov bounced back against the world's very strongest players (in the order of their finish, Kasparov, Shirov, Bareev, Kramnik, Lautier, Anand, Kamsky, Topalov, Ivanchuk, Gelfand, Illescas, Judit Polgar, and Beliavsky) in the landmark "super-strong" tournament Linares 1994 (average ELO rating 2685, the highest ever to that moment, meaning it was the first Category XVIII tournament ever held).

Impressed by the strength of the tournament, Kasparov had said several days before the tournament that the winner could rightfully be called the world champion of tournaments. Perhaps spurred on by this comment, Karpov played the chess of his life and dramatically won the tournament. He was undefeated and earned 11 points out of 13 possible (the best world-class tournament winning percentage since Alekhine won San Remo in 1930), dominating second-place Kasparov and Shirov by a huge 2.5 points. Many of his wins were spectacular (in particular, his win over Topalov, detailed below, is considered possibly his finest throughout his career). This performance against the best players in the world put his ELO rating tournament performance at 2985, the highest performance rating of any chess player in any tournament in all of chess history.

Even recently, few players have surpassed Karpov's achievements. Since he dropped out of the top three players in the world on the FIDE rankings, only Garry Kasparov, Viswanathan Anand, Vladimir Kramnik, and Veselin Topalov (as of January 2006) have been in the top three slots. In other words, Karpov is the last person to have been in the top three in the world before Kasparov, Anand, Kramnik, and Topalov.

However, Karpov's outstanding classical tournament play has been seriously limited since 1995, since he prefers to be more involved in politics of his home country of Russia. He had been a member of the Supreme Soviet Commission for Foreign Affairs and the President of the Soviet Peace Fund before the Soviet Union broke up. In addition, he had been involved in several disputes with FIDE and became increasingly disillusioned with chess. In the April 2006 FIDE rating list, he is 32nd in the world with an ELO rating of 2672.

However, more recently, because of his traditional strength at managing his thinking time, Karpov has instead begun revamping his style to specialize in rapid chess.

Anna pavlova

Anna Pavlovna Pavlova (Анна Павловна Павлова) (31 January 1881 (Old Style)/12 February 1881 (New Style) - 23 January 1931) was a famous ballet dancer of the early 20th century.

Pavlova was born in St. Petersburg, Russia two months early. She later claimed her father had died when she was two years old. She was rejected at the age of eight from the School of Imperial Ballet because she was too small for her age and was asked to return when 10. When she was 10, she was accepted, and trained there until she left at 16. Pavlova then danced with the Maryinsky Theatre. In the first years of the Ballets Russes she worked briefly for Serge Diaghilev before founding her own company and performing throughout the world.

Pavlova forever changed the ideal for ballerinas. In the 1890s, ballerinas at the Mariinsky Theatre were expected to be strong technicians, and this usually meant a strong, muscular, compact body. Pavlova was thin, delicate-looking, and ethereal, perfect for romantic roles such as Giselle. Her feet were extremely arched, so she strengthened her pointe shoe by adding a piece of hard leather on the soles for support and flattening the box of the shoe. At the time, many considered this "cheating." But this became the modern pointe shoe, as pointe work became less painful and easier for arched feet.

Her most famous showpiece was The Dying Swan choreographed for her by Michel Fokine, danced to The Swan from Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saëns.

She died of pleurisy in The Hague, Netherlands while touring, a few days or weeks before her 50th birthday. Her last request was to hold her costume from The Swan, and her last words were "Play that last measure very softly". In accordance with ballet tradition, on the day she was to have next performed, the show went on as scheduled, with a single spotlight circling an empty stage where the dancer would have been. She was cremated, and services were held in a Russian Orthodox church in London before burial in Golders Green Cemetery in London. Her remains were moved in 2001 to the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow in accordance with her requests and after considerable controversy [1].

The Pavlova dessert was named after her, although its origins are disputed. Both New Zealand and Australia have claimed the credit.

Ruth St. Denis, a popular modern dancer said "Pavlova lived on the threshold of heaven and earth as an interpreter of the ways of God". ^{[citation needed]}

Amitabh bachchan

Amitabh Bachchan was born in the city of Allahabad, India. His father, Harivansh Rai Bachchan, was a well-known poet of Urdu and Hindi. The original last name of the family is "Srivastava"; "Bachchan" was in fact a pen name used by his father. However, when Bachchan entered films he did so under his father's pen name. Now he is never known as anything but Amitabh Bachchan. His immediate family has also adopted the Bachchan surname. His mother is Teji Bachchan, who is a Sikh born in Punjab, India. His father is a Hindu Kayastha from Uttar Pradesh, hence popularly known as a UPite.

Bachchan attended Allahabad's Boys' High School, followed by Nainital's Sherwood College, where he gained a degree in art. He later went on to study at Kirori Mal College in Delhi University earning a degree in science. When he was in his twenties, Bachchan gave up a job as freight broker for the shipping firm, Bird and Co., based in Kolkata, to pursue a career in acting.

He is married to actress Jaya Bhaduri (now Bachchan). The couple have two children: daughter Shweta and son Abhishek. Abhishek Bachchan has also entered the Bollywood film industry.

Bachchan is said to have met Jaya Bhaduri at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) at Pune[1], [2], though there is no evidence to confirm that he was ever enrolled there as a student.

In 1984, Bachchan briefly entered politics in support of long-time family friend Rajiv Gandhi. He contested Allahabad's Parliament seat against H. N. Bahuguna, a well-known politician, and won by a large margin (68.2% of the vote).^[1] His political career, however, was short-lived: he resigned after only three years, not finishing his term. At the time of his resignation, it was rumoured that he might have been involved in the Bofors Scandal. Bachchan was not implicated in the case, and has since distanced himself from the Gandhi family. He denies that the two events were connected, commenting that he "should have never got into politics".

In November 2005, Bachchan was admitted to India's Lilavati Hospital,[3] in order to undergo surgery on his intestine. The procedure came after Bachchan complained of pain in his abdomen. After the operation, Bachchan took several months off from work, unable to leave his home even to shoot the sequel to his recently-launched television program, Kaun Banega Crorepati 2. By April 2006 Bachchan had resumed shooting for most of his projects

Early career

Bachchan's first film, Saat Hindustani, his only black-and-white film, was released in 1969. In this film he played a Muslim poet. The film was not a success at the box office and he went unnoticed. However for his second film Anand he won a Filmfare Best Supporting Actor Award for his performance.

He went on to appear in films such as Reshma Aur Shera, playing a mute man (1971), and Parwaana (1971), where he played a psychopath, but neither of these films established him as a celebrity.

Bachchan's first box office success came in 1973 when director Prakash Mehra cast Bachchan in the film Zanjeer. The film was a cops-and-robbers melodrama which helped establish Amitabh's persona as an "angry young man" and was the first major hit of his career. Bachchan then had at least one major hit every year for the next decade. Some of his hit films included Deewaar (1975), Sholay (1975), Trishul (1978), Kaala Patthar (1979) and Shakti (1982) which further cemented his image as an "angry young man."

In addition to being an "angry young man", he also become known for his comedy roles in hit films such as Chupke Chupke (1975) and Amar Akbar Anthony (1977) and romantic roles in films such as Kabhie Kabhie (1976) and Silsila (1981).

While filming Coolie in 1982, Bachchan was seriously injured during the filming of a fight scene with co-star Puneet Issar.[4]. He was in the hospital with a ruptured intestine for months, and at times was close to death. A remarkable outpouring of support and concern by his fans and the nation in general followed. After recovery Bachchan resumed the shooting for Coolie, and it finally released and was a huge success owing to its pre-release over-rated publicity.[5]

The director, Manmohan Desai altered the ending for Coolie after Bachchan's accident. Bachchan's character was originally intended to have been killed off but after the change of script, the character lived in the end. It would have been inappropriate, said Desai, for the man who had just fended off death in real life to be killed on screen as well. Also, remarkably, in the released film the footage of the fight scene is frozen at the critical moment, and a caption appears onscreen marking this as the instant of the actor's injury to encash the pre-release over-rated publicity of the accident episode.[6]

During the late 1980s, after his brief stint in politics, Bachchan's films became less successful. Many films did very poorly, such as Jaadugar and Toofan, both from 1989. His 1991 film Hum did well, but later films also suffered at the box office. Starting in 1992, after the release of Khuda Gawah, he took a break from the film industry.

He returned to films in 1997, but for a year or so, hits still eluded him. His first comeback vehicle, Mrityudaata produced by his own production company ABCL, was a box-office disaster.[7]Subsequent films, such as Major Saab (1997), Sooryavansham (1999), and Lal Baadshah (1999) also failed at the box office.

The first two of his comeback films to succeed were the 1998 comedy Bade Miyan Chote Miyan[8] in which he starred with Govinda, and 2000's Mohabbatein[9], which co-starred Shah Rukh Khan.

Bachchan then accepted an television offer to host an Indian version of the popular British game show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, or Kaun Banega Crorepati?. The show was a hit, to the point that the Theatre Owner's Association president requested it be aired in the morning, as it was seriously cutting into theatre attendance on the four nights per week it was aired.^[2]

Two films that followed, in which he appeared as a stern patriarch, Ek Rishta (2001) and Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001), were both box office hits and Bachchan regained his old fame

He has since appeared in a number of films each year, sometimes in unconventional or supporting roles. He has been praised for his performances in films such as Aks (2001)[10], Aankhen (2002)[11]Baghban(2003)[12], Khakee (2004)[13] and Dev [14]

In 2005, he appeared in the film Black, in which he played the driven, eccentric teacher of a deaf and blind student played by Rani Mukherjee. In the same year he co-starred for the first time with his son Abhishek in the comedy Bunty Aur Babli and the Godfather-esque crime drama Sarkar both of which were hits at the box office.[15] He once again appeared with Abhishek, playing a sex-obsessed father in the newly-released Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna (2006).

Alfred 'The great'

(r. 871-899)

Born at Wantage, Berkshire, in 849, Alfred was the fifth son of Aethelwulf, king of the West Saxons. At their father's behest and by mutual agreement, Alfred's elder brothers succeeded to the kingship in turn, rather than endanger the kingdom by passing it to under-age children at a time when the country was threatened by worsening Viking raids from Denmark.

Since the 790s, the Vikings had been using fast mobile armies, numbering thousands of men embarked in shallow-draught longships, to raid the coasts and inland waters of England for plunder.

Such raids were evolving into permanent Danish settlements; in 867, the Vikings seized York and established their own kingdom in the southern part of Northumbria. The Vikings overcame two other major Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, East Anglia and Mercia, and their kings were either tortured to death or fled.

Finally, in 870 the Danes attacked the only remaining independent Anglo-Saxon kingdom, Wessex, whose forces were commanded by King Aethelred and his younger brother Alfred. At the battle of Ashdown in 871, Alfred routed the Viking army in a fiercely fought uphill assault. However, further defeats followed for Wessex and Alfred's brother died.

As King of Wessex at the age of 21, Alfred (reigned 871-99) was a strongminded but highly strung battle veteran at the head of remaining resistance to the Vikings in southern England.

In early 878, the Danes led by King Guthrum seized Chippenham in Wiltshire in a lightning strike and used it as a secure base from which to devastate Wessex. Local people either surrendered or escaped (Hampshire people fled to the Isle of Wight), and the West Saxons were reduced to hit and run attacks seizing provisions when they could.

With only his royal bodyguard, a small army of thegns (the king's followers) and Aethelnoth earldorman of Somerset as his ally, Alfred withdrew to the Somerset tidal marshes in which he had probably hunted as a youth. (It was during this time that Alfred, in his preoccupation with the defence of his kingdom, allegedly burned some cakes which he had been asked to look after; the incident was a legend dating from early twelfth century chroniclers.)

A resourceful fighter, Alfred reassessed his strategy and adopted the Danes' tactics by building a fortified base at Athelney in the Somerset marshes and summoning a mobile army of men from Wiltshire, Somerset and part of Hampshire to pursue guerrilla warfare against the Danes. In May 878, Alfred's army defeated the Danes at the battle of Edington.

According to his contemporary biographer Bishop Asser, 'Alfred attacked the whole pagan army fighting ferociously in dense order, and by divine will eventually won the victory, made great slaughter among them, and pursued them to their fortress (Chippenham) ... After fourteen days the pagans were brought to the extreme depths of despair by hunger, cold and fear, and they sought peace'. This unexpected victory proved to be the turning point in Wessex's battle for survival.

Realising that he could not drive the Danes out of the rest of England, Alfred concluded peace with them in the treaty of Wedmore. King Guthrum was converted to Christianity with Alfred as godfather and many of the Danes returned to East Anglia where they settled as farmers. In 886, Alfred negotiated a partition treaty with the Danes, in which a frontier was demarcated along the Roman Watling Street and northern and eastern England came under the jurisdiction of the Danes - an area known as 'Danelaw'. Alfred therefore gained control of areas of West Mercia and Kent which had been beyond the boundaries of Wessex.

To consolidate alliances against the Danes, Alfred married one of his daughters, Aethelflaed, to the ealdorman of Mercia. Alfred himself had married Eahlswith, a Mercian noblewoman, and another daughter, Aelfthryth, to the Count of Flanders, a strong naval power at a time when the Vikings were settling in eastern England.

The Danish threat remained, and Alfred reorganised the Wessex defences in recognition that efficient defence and economic prosperity were interdependent. First, he organised his army (the thegns, and the existing militia known as the fyrd) on a rota basis, so he could raise a 'rapid reaction force' to deal with raiders whilst still enabling his thegns and peasants to tend their farms.

Second, Alfred started a building programme of well-defended settlements across southern England. These were fortified market places ('borough' comes from the Old English burh, meaning fortress); by deliberate royal planning, settlers received plots and in return manned the defences in times of war. (Such plots in London under Alfred's rule in the 880s shaped the streetplan which still exists today between Cheapside and the Thames.)

This obligation required careful recording in what became known as 'the Burghal Hidage', which gave details of the building and manning of Wessex and Mercian burhs according to their size, the length of their ramparts and the number of men needed to garrison them.

Centred round Alfred's royal palace in Winchester, this network of burhs with strongpoints on the main river routes was such that no part of Wessex was more than 20 miles from the refuge of one of these settlements. Together with a navy of new fast ships built on Alfred's orders, southern England now had a defence in depth against Danish raiders.

Alfred's concept of kingship extended beyond the administration of the tribal kingdom of Wessex into a broader context. A religiously devout and pragmatic man who learnt Latin in his late thirties, he recognised that the general deterioration in learning and religion caused by the Vikings' destruction of monasteries (the centres of the rudimentary education network) had serious implications for rulership. For example, the poor standards in Latin had led to a decline in the use of the charter as an instrument of royal government to disseminate the king's instructions and legislation.

In one of his prefaces, Alfred wrote 'so general was its [Latin] decay in England that there were very few on this side of the Humber who could understand their rituals in English or translate a letter from Latin into English ... so few that I cannot remember a single one south of the Thames when I came to the throne.'

To improve literacy, Alfred arranged, and took part in, the translation (by scholars from Mercia) from Latin into Anglo-Saxon of a handful of books he thought it 'most needful for men to know, and to bring it to pass ... if we have the peace, that all the youth now in England ... may be devoted to learning'.

These books covered history, philosophy and Gregory the Great's 'Pastoral Care' (a handbook for bishops), and copies of these books were sent to all the bishops of the kingdom. Alfred was patron of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (which was copied and supplemented up to 1154), a patriotic history of the English from the Wessex viewpoint designed to inspire its readers and celebrate Alfred and his monarchy.

Like other West Saxon kings, Alfred established a legal code; he assembled the laws of Offa and other predecessors, and of the kingdoms of Mercia and Kent, adding his own administrative regulations to form a definitive body of Anglo-Saxon law.

'I ... collected these together and ordered to be written many of them which our forefathers observed, those which I liked; and many of those which I did not like I rejected with the advice of my councillors ... For I dared not presume to set in writing at all many of my own, because it was unknown to me what would please those who should come after us ... Then I ... showed those to all my councillors, and they then said that they were all pleased to observe them' (Laws of Alfred, c.885-99).

By the 890s, Alfred's charters and coinage (which he had also reformed, extending its minting to the burhs he had founded) referred to him as 'king of the English', and Welsh kings sought alliances with him. Alfred died in 899, aged 50, and was buried in Winchester, the burial place of the West Saxon royal family.

By stopping the Viking advance and consolidating his territorial gains, Alfred had started the process by which his successors eventually extended their power over the other Anglo-Saxon kings; the ultimate unification of Anglo-Saxon England was to be led by Wessex.

It is for his valiant defence of his kingdom against a stronger enemy, for securing peace with the Vikings and for his farsighted reforms in the reconstruction of Wessex and beyond, that Alfred - alone of all the English kings and queens - is known as 'the Great'.

Alexander 'The great'

(356-323 B.C.)

...was king of Macedonia and one of the greatest generals in history. He conquered much of what was then the civilized world. Alexander brought Greek ideas and the Greek way of doing things to all the countries he conquered. This great general and king made possible the broadly developed culture of the Hellenistic Age.

HIS BOYHOOD

Alexander was born in Pella, Macedonia, the son of Philip of Macedon, who was an excellent general and organizer. His mother was Olympias, princess of Epirus.
She was brilliant and hot-tempered. Alexander inherited the best qualities of both his parents. But he was even more ambitious than his father. He wept bitterly when he heard of Philip's conquests and said, " My father will get ahead of me in everything, and will leave nothing great for me to do." Alexander's mother taught him that Achilles was his ancestor, and that his father was descended from Hercules. Alexander learned by heart the Iliad, a story about the deeds of Achilles. He carried a copy of the Iliad with him, and Achilles became Alexander's model .

Even as a boy Alexander was fearless and strong. He tamed the beautiful and spirited Bucephalus, a horse that no one else dared to touch or ride. Later, this famous steed carried him as far as India, where it died. Alexander then built the city of Bucephala on the Hydaspes River in memory of his beloved horse. Philip was so proud of Alexander's power over the horse that he said, "O my son, seek out a kingdom worthy of thyself, for Macedonia is too little for thee."

HIS YOUTH

When Alexander was 13 years old, he became the pupil of Aristotle. He was always eager to learn. Aristotle inspired the talented youth with a great love for literature. He took part in sports and daily exercise to develop a strong body. Aristotle also inspired in Alexander a keen interest in other countries and races of people, and in animals and plants. Alexander's education was not all from books. He talked with ambassadors from many foreign countries, and with other noted persons at his father's court. When he was only 18, he commanded part of Philip's cavalry at the battle of Chaeronea. Alexander also acted as his father's ambassador to Athens.

Alexander was 20 when he became king of Macedonia. The Greek other states had grown restless under Macedonian rule. While Alexander was away making war on some barbarian tribes in the north, someone spread a story that he was dead. The people in the city of Thebes revolted and called upon the people of Athens to join them. Alexander soon appeared before Thebes with his army. His soldiers stormed the city. Every building in Thebes was destroyed, except the temples and the house of the poet Pindar. About 30,000 inhabitants were sold into slavery. Alexander's action broke the spirit of rebellion in the other Greek states.

CONQUEST OF PERSIA

The ambitious young king then turned his thoughts to conquering Persia. This had been part of his father's plan before him. He crossed the Hellespont with an army of 35,000 soldiers in the spring of 334 B.C. He had very little money, and gambled on a quick victory. The Persians met him on the banks of the Granicus River.
Alexander stormed across the river with his cavalry. This victory opened all Asia Minor to him. Only Halicarnassus withstood a long siege.

In 333 B.C., Alexander became seriously ill. But he recovered and marched along the coast into Syria. The king of Persia, Darius III, raised a large army. He fortified a riverbank near Issus behind Alexander. Alexander turned north and routed the Greek and Persian heavy infantry with his phalanx. He captured the king's camp, including Dairus' wife and mother. His gallantry toward them was his finest act. Alexander then marched south into Phoenicia and captured Tyre after a seven-month siege. The city was on an island, but Alexander built a causeway out to it, so that it is now a peninsula. About 8,000 Tyrians were slain and 30,000 sold into slavery. Alexander's victory over Tyre is sometimes considered his greatest military achievement. The whole region then submitted to him except Gaza, where a brave Persian governor resisted for three months. Gaza eventually suffered the same fate as Tyre.

Alexander next went to Egypt. The Egyptians welcomed him as a deliverer, because they hated their harsh Persian rulers. Alexander founded a city on a strip of land between Lake Mareotis and the Mediterranean Sea. This city, Alexandria, became a world center of commerce and learning. While it was being built, Alexander made the long, dangerous march to the temple and oracle of Zeus-Ammon, in the Libyan desert. Alexander was told that he was the son of the god and would conquer the world.

THE BATTLE OF ARBELA

Alexander turned again to the Persian front in 331 B.C. Darius had collected an enormous army, including the famous heavy cavalry of the Iranian steppe, and many chariots with scythelike knives protruding from the wheels. The Persians smoothed and cleared a vast level plain near Arbela, east of the Tigris River. The Persian cavalry outflanked Alexander's left and captured his camp. But, with a charge which he led himself, Alexander routed Darius, and the Persian Army retired to the east. The battle of Arbela is also known as the Battle of Gaugamela. It is considered on of the most decisive battles in history.

The city of Babylon surrendered, and Alexander easily captured the Persian cities of Susa and Persepolis. These cities yielded him vast treasures of gold and silver. All the inhabitants of Persepolis were either killed or sold into slavery. Alexander burned Persepolis in revenge for the Persian burning of Athens in 480 B.C.

Alexander crossed the Zagros Mountains into Media in 330 B.C. Darius had fled there, and was soon afterward killed by his own nobles. His death left Alexander king of Asia. He marched on, against only local opposition from tribespeople, and occupied the southern shore of the Caspian Sea. Continuing to the east, he set up Iranian nobles as new local governors, but they revolted after he left. Alexander swung south into Arachosia (southeast Persia) and then north into Afghanistan, founding cities to serve as garrisons and centers of administration. He entered Bactria and Sogdiana, behind the Hindu Kush mountain range, and marched as far as the Jaxartes River. It took two years to pacify the region. Alexander married Roxane, the daughter of a Sogdian baron.

In Sogdiana, Alexander lost his temper and killed a close friend, Clitus, in a drunken quarrel. This cost him the sympathy of his Macedonian troops. There were plots against his life, and he executed several prominent people.

VICTORY IN INDIA

Alexander reinforced his troops with Iranians and reached the rich plains of India in 326 B.C. He defeated an Indian prince, Porus, in this region (now part of Pakistan) and planned to march to the Ganges River. But his army mutinied. Alexander then sailed down the Indus River to its mouth, and led his army west across the terrible desert of Gedrosia, in present-day Pakistan and Iran. His fleet under Nearchus sailed along the coast to the Persian Gulf. Both the army and the fleet returned together to Susa.

Alexander then became busy with the organization and administration of his empire. At the height of his power, his realm stretched from the Ionian Sea to northern India. He planned to make Asia and Europe one country and combine the best of the East with the West. He chose Babylon as his capital city.

To achieve his goal, Alexander encouraged intermarriages, setting an example by marrying a Persian princess himself. He placed soldiers from all the provinces in his army. He introduced a uniform currency system throughout the empire and promoted trade and commerce. He encouraged the spread of Greek ideas, customs, and laws into Asia. When he heard that some of his provincial officials ruled unjustly, he replaced them. To receive recognition as the supreme ruler, he required the provinces to worship him as a god.

HIS DEATH

Alexander had vast plans, including his governmental reorganization and an expedition to Arabia. But he was taken seriously ill with malaria at Babylon. The simple
remedies of the day did not help him. He died on June 13, 323 B.C. His body was placed in a gold coffin and taken to Memphis, in Egypt. Later it was carried to Alexandria, and placed in a beautiful tomb.

Alexander left no choice for a successor. His only son, Alexander IV, was born after Alexander's death. As a result, Alexander's leading generals became governors of various areas and fought among themselves for control of the Empire. But no single leader emerged, and by 311 B.C. the empire split into independant states or monarchies.

Sir Alexander Fleming

Sir Alexander Fleming was born at Lochfield near Darvel in Ayrshire, Scotland on August 6th, 1881. He attended Louden Moor School, Darvel School, and Kilmarnock Academy before moving to London where he attended the Polytechnic. He spent four years in a shipping office before entering St. Mary's Medical School, London University. He qualified with distinction in 1906 and began research at St. Mary's under Sir Almroth Wright, a pioneer in vaccine therapy. He gained M.B., B.S., (London), with Gold Medal in 1908, and became a lecturer at St. Mary's until 1914. He served throughout World War I as a captain in the Army Medical Corps, being mentioned in dispatches, and in 1918 he returned to St.Mary's. He was elected Professor of the School in 1928 and Emeritus Professor of Bacteriology, University of London in 1948. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1943 and knighted in 1944.

Early in his medical life, Fleming became interested in the natural bacterial action of the blood and in antiseptics. He was able to continue his studies throughout his military career and on demobilization he settled to work on antibacterial substances which would not be toxic to animal tissues. In 1921, he discovered in «tissues and secretions» an important bacteriolytic substance which he named Lysozyme. About this time, he devised sensitivity titration methods and assays in human blood and other body fluids, which he subsequently used for the titration of penicillin. In 1928, while working on influenza virus, he observed that mould had developed accidently on a staphylococcus culture plate and that the mould had created a bacteria-free circle around itself. He was inspired to further experiment and he found that a mould culture prevented growth of staphylococci, even when diluted 800 times. He named the active substance penicillin.

Sir Alexander wrote numerous papers on bacteriology, immunology and chemotherapy, including original descriptions of lysozyme and penicillin. They have been published in medical and scientific journals.

Fleming, a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons (England), 1909, and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (London), 1944, has gained many awards. They include Hunterian Professor (1919), Arris and Gale Lecturer (1929) and Honorary Gold Medal (1946) of the Royal College of Surgeons; Williams Julius Mickle Fellowship, University of London (1942); Charles Mickle Fellowship, University of Toronto (1944); John Scott Medal, City Guild of Philadelphia (1944); Cameron Prize, University of Edinburgh (1945); Moxon Medal, Royal College of Physicians (1945); Cutter Lecturer, Harvard University (1945); Albert Gold Medal, Royal Society of Arts (1946); Gold Medal, Royal Society of Medicine (1947); Medal for Merit, U.S.A. (1947); and the Grand Cross of Alphonse X the Wise, Spain (1948).

He served as President of the Society for General Microbiology, he was a Member of the Pontifical Academy of Science and Honorary Member of almost all the medical and scientific societies of the world. He was Rector of Edinburgh University during 1951-1954, Freeman of many boroughs and cities and Honorary Chief Doy-gei-tau of the Kiowa tribe. He was also awarded doctorate, honoris causa, degrees of almost thirty European and American Universities.

In 1915, Fleming married Sarah Marion McElroy of Killala, Ireland, who died in 1949. Their son is a general medical practitioner.

Fleming married again in 1953, his bride was Dr. Amalia Koutsouri-Voureka, a Greek colleague at St. Mary's.

In his younger days he was a keen member of the Territorial Army and he served from 1900 to 1914 as a private in the London Scottish Regiment.

Dr Fleming died on March 11th in 1955 and is buried in St. Paul's Cathedra

Albert Schweitzer

Albert Schweitzer (January 14, 1875-September 4, 1965) was born into an Alsatian family which for generations had been devoted to religion, music, and education. His father and maternal grandfather were ministers; both of his grandfathers were talented organists; many of his relatives were persons of scholarly attainments.

Schweitzer entered into his intensive theological studies in 1893 at the University of Strasbourg where he obtained a doctorate in philosophy in 1899, with a dissertation on the religious philosophy of Kant, and received his licentiate in theology in 1900. He began preaching at St. Nicholas Church in Strasbourg in 1899; he served in various high ranking administrative posts from 1901 to 1912 in the Theological College of St.Thomas, the college he had attended at the University of Strasbourg. In 1906 he published The Quest of the Historical Jesus, a book on which much of his fame as a theological scholar rests.

Meanwhile he continued with a distinguished musical career initiated at an early age with piano and organ lessons. Only nine when he first performed in his father's church, he was, from his young manhood to his middle eighties, recognized as a concert organist, internationally known. From his professional engagements he earned funds for his education, particularly his later medical schooling, and for his African hospital. Musicologist as well as performer, Schweitzer wrote a biography of Bach in 1905 in French, published a book on organ building and playing in 1906, and rewrote the Bach book in German in 1908.

Having decided to go to Africa as a medical missionary rather than as a pastor, Schweitzer in 1905 began the study of medicine at the University of Strasbourg. In 1913, having obtained his M.D. degree, he founded his hospital at Lambaréné in French Equatorial Africa, but in 1917 he and his wife were sent to a French internment camp as prisoners of war. Released in 1918, Schweitzer spent the next six years in Europe, preaching in his old church, giving lectures and concerts, taking medical courses, writing On the Edge of the Primeval Forest, The Decay and Restoration of Civilization, Civilization and Ethics, and Christianity and the Religions of the World.

Schweitzer returned to Lambaréné in 1924 and except for relatively short periods of time, spent the remainder of his life there. With the funds earned from his own royalties and personal appearance fees and with those donated from all parts of the world, he expanded the hospital to seventy buildings which by the early 1960's could take care of over 500 patients in residence at any one time.

At Lambaréné, Schweitzer was doctor and surgeon in the hospital, pastor of a congregation, administrator of a village, superintendent of buildings and grounds, writer of scholarly books, commentator on contemporary history, musician, host to countless visitors. The honors he received were numerous, including the Goethe Prize of Frankfurt and honorary doctorates from many universities emphasizing one or another of his achievements. The Nobel Peace Prize for 1952, having been withheld in that year, was given to him on December 10, 1953. With the $33,000 prize money, he started the leprosarium at Lambaréné.

Albert Schweitzer died on September 4, 1965, and was buried at Lambaréné.