Alpine (automobile)

Alpine (French pronunciation: ​[alpin(ə)]) was a French manufacturer of racing and sports cars that used rear-mounted Renault engines.

Jean Rédélé, the founder of Alpine, was originally a Dieppe garage proprietor, who began to achieve considerable competition success in one of the few French cars produced just after the Second World War. The company was bought in 1973 by Renault.

History

Early days

Using Renault 4CVs, Rédélé gained class wins in a number of major events, including the Mille Miglia and Coupe des Alpes. As his experience with the little 4CV built up, he incorporated many modifications, including for example, special 5-speed gear boxes replacing the original 3-speed unit. To provide a lighter car he built a number of special versions with lightweight aluminium bodies: he drove in these at Le Mans and Sebring with some success in the early 1950s.

Encouraged by the development of these cars and consequent customer demand, he founded the Société Anonyme des Automobiles Alpine in 1954. The firm was named Alpine after his Coupe des Alpes successes. He did not realise that in England the previous year, Sunbeam had introduced a sports coupe derived from the Sunbeam Talbot and called the Sunbeam Alpine. This naming problem was to cause problems for Alpine throughout its history.

Fen

A fen is one of the main types of wetland, the others being grassy marshes, forested swamps, and peaty bogs. Along with bogs, fens are a kind of mire. Fens are usually fed by mineral-rich surface water or groundwater. They are characterised by their water chemistry, which is pH neutral or alkaline, with relatively high dissolved mineral levels but few other plant nutrients. They are usually dominated by grasses and sedges, and typically have brown mosses in general including Scorpidium or Drepanocladus. Fens frequently have a high diversity of other plant species including carnivorous plants such as Pinguicula. They may also occur along large lakes and rivers where seasonal changes in water level maintain wet soils with few woody plants. The distribution of individual species of fen plants is often closely connected to water regimes and nutrient concentrations.

Fens have a characteristic set of plant species, which sometimes provide the best indicators of environmental conditions. For example, fen indicator species in New York State include Carex flava, Cladium mariscoides, Potentilla fruticosa, Pogonia ophioglossoides and Parnassia glauca.

Car (surname)

Car is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:

Car (Greek mythology)

Car or Kar (Greek: Κάρ) is a name in Greek mythology that refers to two characters who may or may not be one and the same.

The name "Car" is unrelated to the English word "car" (vehicle).

Car of Megara

According to Pausanias, Car was the king of Megara and the son of Phoroneus (and Cerdo). His tomb was located on the road from Megara to Corinth. The acropolis at Megara derived its name Caria from him.

Car of the Carians

Herodotus mentions a (probably) different Car, brother of Lydus and Mysus; the three brothers were believed to have been the ancestral heroes and eponyms of the Carians, the Lydians and the Mysians respectively. This Car was credited by Pliny the Elder with inventing the auspicia.

Car was also said to have founded the city Alabanda, which he named after Alabandus, his son by Callirhoe (the daughter of the river god Maeander). In turn, Alabandus's name is said to have been chosen in commemoration of his Car's victory in a horse fight— according to the scholar Stephanus of Byzantium, "Alabandos" was the Carian word for "winner in a horse fight". Another son of Car, Idrieus, had the city Idrias named after himself.

Beyonder

The Beyonder is a fictional cosmic entity appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Jim Shooter and artist Mike Zeck, the Beyonder first appeared in Secret Wars #1 (May 1984) as an unseen, omnipotent being who kidnapped the heroes and villains of the Marvel Universe and had them do battle on another planet called Battleworld. He later appeared in a more antagonistic role in the 1985 sequel Secret Wars II, in which he took human form, and threatened to destroy the Marvel multiverse. Although he first took on a physical, humanoid form in Secret Wars II #2, it was in Secret Wars II #3 that he took on the permanent form in which he remained for the rest of his existence, that of a Caucasian human male with curly black hair. Although the character met his demise at the end of Secret Wars II, he has subsequently appeared in stories well into the 2000s, although in greatly diminished form.

Publication history

Created by writer Jim Shooter, and artist Mike Zeck, the Beyonder first appeared in Secret Wars #1, as an unseen, apparently omnipotent being. He reappears in Secret Wars II #1 (July 1985), which was written by Jim Shooter and drawn by Al Milgrom.

Alpine (plantation)

Alpine is a historic plantation house in Alpine, Alabama, United States. Completed in 1858, the two-story Greek Revival-style house was built for Nathaniel Welch by a master builder, Almarion Devalco Bell. The wood-frame house has several unusual features that make it one of the more architecturally interesting antebellum houses in the state. These features include the foundation materials, interior floor-plan, and the window fenestration.

History

Nathaniel Welch was born in Madison County, Virginia on November 24, 1814, the son of the Reverend Oliver Welch, a Baptist minister. Oliver Welch was a founder of the Alpine Baptist Church. He built the simple two-story hewn-log house at his homestead nearby, known as Kingston, upon his arrival from Virginia in 1832. The Welch family was intermarried with the Reynolds family, of the now-destroyed Mount Ida nearby.

Nathaniel Welch married Mary Jane Wilson on January 7, 1840. Nathaniel Welch died on November 4, 1883, followed by Mary Jane on January 16, 1902. Over time, a town grew up around the plantation when a railroad came through. Initially known as Welchs Depot, it eventually came to be known as Alpine, in honor of the plantation. The plantation remained in the Welch family until 1970.