Dunk (elephant)

Dunk (c. 1861 – March 30, 1917), a tuskless, male Asian Elephant possibly from Ceylon, was the first elephant to reside at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. He was given to the National Zoo on April 30, 1891 by James E. Cooper, owner and manager of the Adam Forepaugh Circus.

When Dunk first arrived at the National Zoo, he had no shelter and was tied to a tree with his companion Gold Dust to prevent him from wandering. Once a day, both elephants were walked to Rock Creek to swim. A temporary structure, known as the Octagonal House, was eventually built for the elephants. Construction on a permanent, brick elephant house, designed by Hornblower & Marshall, began in September 1902 and was completed in January 1903.

Dunk was ill throughout the winter of 1917. On March 30, 1917, after Dunk broke his shoulder in a fall, keeper William Blackburne euthanized him by shooting.

Despite a famous ill-temper, Dunk was popular with the children of Washington, D.C. To commemorate his memory, they raised money for a plaque, which remains in the elephant house at the National Zoo today.

Dunk

Dunk, Dunks, or Dunking may refer to:

People named

Dunk

Dunks

Henry Dunks, (1882– 1955), Australian politician

In other uses

See also

Dunk (band)

Dunk was a Canadian pop-rock band from Niagara Falls, Ontario, best known for their 2000 Canadian top-30 single "Crowdsurfing".

History

Starkicker

The group formed after the Dunk brothers dissolved their earlier project Starkicker a few years prior. Starkicker achieved two Canadian hits with the songs "Get Up" and "Neil Armstrong" from their only album, 1996's Beach Music.

Beach Music was a top-30 Canadian Campus Radio Chart hit in the late summer and fall of 1996.

The first single from the album, "Get Up" entered the RPM Rock/Alternative 30 charts at No. 30 on July 22, 1996, and stayed on the chart for 10 weeks, peaking at No. 10 the week of August 26.

"Neil Armstrong" enjoyed even greater success, debuting on the RPM Top 100 singles chart on October 14, 1996 at No. 98. The song peaked at No. 26 in December of that year and stayed on the chart for 11 weeks.

Dunk

Dunk's first single "Crowdsurfing" was a hit in May 2000, debuting and peaking on the RPM Rock/Alternative chart at No. 18. It stayed on the chart for 9 weeks. No other singles from the 1999 Time To Fly album charted.

David Lubar

David Lubar (born March 16, 1954) is an author of numerous books for teens. He is also an electronic game programmer, who programmed Super Breakout for the Nintendo Game Boy, and Frogger for both the SNES and Game Boy. As a game designer, he designed the game Frogger 2: Swampy's Revenge for the Nintendo Game Boy Color. His mother was a school librarian. Lubar was born and raised in Morristown, New Jersey, and loves humor.

Biography

David Lubar was born and raised in Morristown, New Jersey. As a boy he frequented the school library where his mother worked, as well as the town library and county library. He attended Rutgers University and received a degree in philosophy. After graduating, he tried to write full-time, but a low income forced him to pursue more lucrative options. David married his wife around this time in 1977. He began writing for Creative Computing in 1980.

In 1982, David was offered a job designing and programming video games in California. There he designed and translated video games for vthe Atari 2600, Apple II, and Atari 8-bit family and later the Nintendo Entertainment System.

Gaja

Gaja (a -Sanskrit word for elephant) is one of the significant animals finding references in Hindu scriptures and Buddhist and Jain texts. In general, a gaja personifies a number of positive attributes, including abundance, fertility and richness; boldness and strength; and wisdom and royalty. In European Portuguese, it means "physically attractive female"; its origin in the Portuguese language can be related to a personification of fertility, as mentioned.

History

In the context of the history of Ancient India, the earliest depiction of gaja is found on the seals discovered at sites (like Harappa and Mohenjo Daro) of the Indus Valley Civilization (3000 BC – 1700 BC). Some scholars believe that by that time elephants had been tamed and domesticated, and used for peaceful and possibly for other purposes. In the Vedas, there is no direct reference to elephants. Megasthenes, the Greek ambassador to the court of Chandragupta Maurya reports use of war elephants during warfare.

Over a period of time encompassing several centuries, elephants became an important part of Indian life and society, particularly of religious tradition, the royalty, and the aristocratic segment of the society. Capturing, taming and training of elephants developed into a specialized skill. In Ancient India, a number of treatises were written about caring and management of elephants, which included the following:

Elephant (pharaoh)

Elephant (maybe read as Pen-abw) is the provisional name of a predynastic ruler. But since the incarved rock inscriptions and ivory tags showing his name are either drawn sloppy, or lacking any royal crest, the reading and thus whole existence of king "Elephant" are highly disputed.

Identity

The proposed existence of Elephant is based on Gunter Dreyer's and Ludwig David Morenz essays. They are convinced that Elephant was a local king who ruled at the region of Qustul. According to Dreyer, Elephant's name appears in incised rock inscriptions at Qustul and Gebel Sheikh-Suleiman, where the hieroglyphs are put inside a royal serekh. On ivory tags found at Abydos, the Elephant appears without any other royal crest. Dreyer sees a cube-shaped throne seat and a walking Elephant beneath it and reads Pen-abu ("Great one from the (throne) seat"). Morenz thinks alike but is highly uncertain about the reading of the name. He prefers to use the neutral provisional name "King Elephant". Alternatively, he proposes a rhinoceros as a royal animal. Morenz points out, that it became a remarkable fashion during the Naqada-III-epoch to choose dangerous and unpredictable animals (such as lions, crocodiles, elephants and rhinoceros') for building up royal names.

Elephant (1989 film)

Elephant is a 1989 British short film directed by Alan Clarke and produced by Danny Boyle. The film is set in Northern Ireland during the Troubles and its title comes from Bernard MacLaverty's description of the conflict as "the elephant in our living room" — a reference to the collective denial of the underlying social problems of Northern Ireland. Produced by BBC Northern Ireland, it first screened on BBC2 in 1989. The film was first conceived by Boyle, who was working as a producer for BBC Northern Ireland at the time.

The film, which contains very little dialogue, depicts eighteen murders and is partly based on actual events drawn from police reports at the time. It is shot with 16mm film with much of it filmed using a steadicam and features a series of tracking shots, a technique the director used regularly. The grainy 16mm film, together with the lack of dialogue, plot, narrative and music give the film a cold, observational documentary feel. Nothing is learnt about any of the gunmen or victims. Each of the murders are carried out calmly and casually; in one scene the gunman is seen to drive away slowly, even stopping to give way for traffic. The victims are shown for several seconds in a static shot of the body.