Estelí

Estelí, officially Villa de San Antonio de Pavia de Estelí is a city and municipality within the Estelí department. It is the third largest city in Nicaragua, an active commercial center in the north and is known as "the Diamond of the Segovia"; this name being created by Oscar Corea Molina in his radio show "Trampolin 43"

Located on the Pan-American Highway, 150 km north of Managua, Estelí is a fast-growing and progressive city of about 119,000 people. It enjoys a pleasant climate throughout most of the year due to its location in the north central highlands at a mean elevation of 844 m above sea level. The city is also surrounded by forested mountains of pines, oaks, and walnuts, and plateaus that go up to 1600 m above sea level, some which are protected as natural reserves.

Estelí was the scene of heavy fighting in the civil war against the Somoza government from 1978 to 1979. The city was heavily air-bombed by the regime's National Guard, which reduced many of the city's buildings to rubble. The human casualties were around 15,000; many of them were youths massacred on suspicion of being part of the insurrection. The city was rebuilt but some structures still show bullet holes.

Estel

Estel (also styled as ESTEL) was a steel company formed by the merging of Koninklijke Hoogovens IJmuiden steel plant and Hoesch's main steel plant in Dortmund. The company existed from 1972 to 1982 until de-merged.

History

In 1966 the board of Koninklijke Hoogovens voted in favour of merging their IJmuiden steelworks with the Dortmund plant of German steelmaker Hoesch; Hoesch would benefit from the IJmuiden steelwork's port, and Koninklijke Hoogovens' 43% shareholding in the Dortmund-Hörder Hüttenunion (DHHU) was converted into a 15% shareholding in Hoesch with Hoesch acquiring DHUU. The two firms made agreements on division of work between the plants – IJmuiden was to concentrate on pig iron, crude steel, and semi-manufactured products, whilst Hoesch's Dortmund plant was to produce finished steels and manufactured products. The two entities were merged in 1972, forming Estel NV, headquarter in Nijmegen.

In the mid 1970s the Steel crisis caused overcapacity in steel production throughout Europe; Estel needed to invest to improve production quality and efficiency to compensate for loss of production volume, and to cut production costs; additionally Hoesch's branch of Estel was making losses, and required support; as such it sought investment from both the German and Netherlands government; however the Dutch government was only willing to invest if the German state also supported the venture, whilst the German state wished any restructuring and investment to be done in collaboration with Krupp (also loss making) which was not acceptable to Dutch banks. As a result in 1982 the 50:50 partnership of Estel was dissolved, with Hoesch taking 61% of its liabilities.

Aragorn

Aragorn II, son of Arathorn is a fictional character from J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. He is one of the main protagonists of The Lord of the Rings. Aragorn was a Ranger of the North, first introduced with the name Strider at Bree, as the Hobbits continued to call him throughout The Lord of the Rings. He was eventually discovered to be the heir of Isildur and rightful claimant to the thrones of Arnor and Gondor. He was also a confidant of Gandalf and an integral part of the quest to destroy the One Ring and defeat the Dark Lord Sauron.

He led the Fellowship of the Ring following the loss of Gandalf in the Mines of Moria while fighting the Balrog of Morgoth. When the Fellowship was broken, he tracked the hobbits Meriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took with the help of Legolas the elf and Gimli the dwarf to Fangorn Forest and fought in the battle at Helm's Deep and the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. After defeating Sauron's forces in Gondor he led an army of Gondor and Rohan against the Black Gate of Mordor to distract Sauron's attention so that Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee would have a chance to destroy the One Ring.