Outlaw

In historical legal systems, an outlaw is declared as outside the protection of the law. In pre-modern societies, the criminal is withdrawn all legal protection, so that anyone is legally empowered to persecute or kill them. Outlawry was thus one of the harshest penalties in the legal system. In early Germanic law, the death penalty is conspicuously absent, and outlawing is the most extreme punishment, presumably amounting to a death sentence in practice. The concept is known from Roman law, as the status of homo sacer, and persisted throughout the Middle Ages.

In the common law of England, a "Writ of Outlawry" made the pronouncement Caput gerat lupinum ("Let his be a wolf's head", literally "May he bear a wolfish head") with respect to its subject, using "head" to refer to the entire person (cf. "per capita") and equating that person with a wolf in the eyes of the law: Not only was the subject deprived of all legal rights of the law being outside of the "law", but others could kill him on sight as if he were a wolf or other wild animal. Women were declared "waived" rather than outlawed but it was effectively the same punishment.

Outlaw (roller coaster)

Not to be confused with the roller coaster at Silver Dollar City, Outlaw Run.

The Outlaw is a wooden roller coaster located at Adventureland in Altoona, Iowa, near Des Moines.

The Outlaw made its debut in 1993. It was the second roller coaster built by Custom Coasters International, which soon became known as one of the world's premier builders of wooden roller coasters.

The original spokesperson for The Outlaw was an old miner character who appeared in television, radio, and print advertisements for Adventureland. He can still be seen outside the lower queue of The Outlaw in cartoon representation, on the "you must be this tall to ride" sign.

The "Prototype" for Great Coasters International

Even though Outlaw was built by CCI, it was designed by Mike Boodley, who later went on to form Great Coasters International. In fact, Outlaw is considered to be the prototype GCI roller coaster as it laid the groundwork for coasters like Lightning Racer and Kentucky Rumbler.

References

Outlaw (novel)

Outlaw is the first novel of the eight-part Outlaw Chronicles series by British writer of historical fiction, Angus Donald, released on 10 July 2009 through Little, Brown and Company. The début novel was relatively well received.

Plot

The plot centres around a character named Alan Dale, based on the historical Alan-a-Dale. Alan, who comes from abject poverty often going hungry for days, is caught in the middle of Nottingham stealing a hot beef pie. He manages to escape immediate punishment by running away and, as the notorious outlaw Robert Odo (Robin Hood's real name in the novel) is holding court in the local church, his mother pays for Alan to be taken into his service, saving him from the Sheriff of Nottingham's vicious justice. Alan never sees his mother again as he departs that night to live in the vast expanse of Sherwood Forest under the tutelage of the most notorious outlaw in English folklore. A few days later it emerges that Robin was close friends with Alan's father, an exceptional trouvére or minstrel, which leads Robin to take Alan under his wing and become his mentor. As the legend of the outlaw Robin Hood spread in the coming centuries, it was said that Robin was a contemporary and supporter of king Richard the Lionheart, driven to outlawry during the misrule of Richard's brother John while Richard was away at the Third Crusade, but this is not the story that spreads during Alan's and Robin's own time. At the time, it is even rumored that Robin was granted a king's pardon which he later repudiates and returns to the greenwood.

USSR-1

USSR-1 (Russian: СССР-1) was a record-setting, hydrogen-filled Soviet Air Forces high-altitude balloon designed to seat a crew of three and perform scientific studies of the Earth's stratosphere. September 30, 1933, USSR-1 under Georgy Prokofiev's command set an unofficial world altitude record of 19,000 meters (60,698 feet).

After the crash of Osoaviakhim-1 in January 1934 USSR-1 was retrofitted with a gondola parachute and a new gas envelope. June 26, 1935 it flew again as USSR-1 Bis. The balloon reached 16,000 meters where an accidental release of hydrogen, probably caused by a faulty valve, forced it into an unexpected descent. After expending all available ballast, two crewmembers bailed out on personal parachutes at low altitudes; flight commander stayed on board and managed to perform a soft landing on a crippled aircraft.

Design

Auguste Piccard's high-altitude flights of 1930–1932 aroused interest of Soviet Air Forces and Osoaviakhim, the Soviet paramilitary training organization, as well as individual pilots, designers and flight enthusiasts. Civilian projects by Osoaviakhim and the national Meteorology Committee were delayed by lack of finance, and in the first half 1933 the military stratospheric program had a solid lead in time.