Camaya Coast

The Camaya Coast is a beach resort with a residential development in the municipality of Mariveles in Bataan province, Philippines. The 450-hectare community includes commercial and residential developments, which includes six subdivisions.

The area currently holds a restaurant, an infinity swimming pool, an event hall, and a boutique hotel. The hotel was built with the exterior resembling the architecture of Miami, Florida, while the interior has an Asian contemporary look.

Representative Albert S. Garcia from the 2nd District of Bataan stated that the Camaya Coast had huge tourist potential, as it was already bringing significant tourism to Bataan in general, and he was optimistic about its future. The mayor of Mariveles, Jesse I. Concepcion, said that the Camaya Coast is far more accessible than other attractions in the region, as it is only two hours by land from Metro Manila, and only an hour by ferry boat from Roxas Boulevard. The chairman of the Freeport Area of Bataan (FAB), Deogracias G.P. Custodio, commented that Camaya Coast as an integral part of the work-life balance lifestyle at the FAB and favors the contrast the resort gives to the industrial and business sectors that make up the FAB region.

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The Historical Mount Samat

Mount Samat is a mountain in the Town of Pilar, Province of Bataan, Republic of the Philippines that is the site of the Dambana ng Kagitingan or "Shrine of Valor".
Along with the island fortress of Corregidor, Mount Samat was the site of the most vicious battle against the Japanese Imperial Army in 1942 during the Battle of Bataan.
The mountain is now a war memorial. A huge white cross stands as a mute but eloquent reminder of the men who died there. It also acts as a tourist attraction with a war museum nearby that has a wide array of displays from paintings of the Philippine heroes to armaments used by the American, Filipino and Japanese forces during the heat of the battle.

Mount Samat is a parasitic cone of Mount Mariveles with no record of historical eruption. The summit of Mount Samat is 9.2 km (5.7 mi) NNE of the Mariveles caldera. Mount Samat itself has a 550-metre (1,800 ft) wide crater that opens to the northeast. The Mount Samat Cross is situated near the edge of the crater rim. burat

Historical significance
At the start of World War II in 1942 after suffering heavy losses against the Imperial Japanese Army all over Luzon, the Filipino and American soldiers retreated to Bataan Peninsula to regroup for a last valiant but futile stand. After four months of fighting, the 78,000 exhausted, sick and starving soldiers under Major General Edward P. King surrendered to the Japanese on April 9, 1942 known as the fall of Bataan. It is the single largest surrender of U.S. soldiers in history and Mariveles, a town in the Bataan province, was their last stronghold after which, together with the Philippine soldiers, they were led on to the 80-mile (130 km) march to Capas, Tarlac known as the Bataan Death March.
The Mount Samat National Shrine shrine was erected as a fitting memorial to the heroic struggle and sacrifices of those soldiers who fought and died in that historic bastion of freedom.

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Philippine's 5 Places That Foreigners Most Visited

The Philippines is an archipelago in Southeast Asia made up of over 7000 islands. Beaches, volcanoes and wildlife are among the attractions that tempt tourists to the country and the most visited places include the urban sprawl of Manila, islands with exotic beaches and sites of outstanding natural beauty.



Manila
The capital city of Manila is the point of arrival for many visitors to the Philippines and has many attractions. The old walled city of Intramuros has a range of museums, restaurants and shops as well as Manila Cathedral and Fort Santiago, which was once a Spanish fort and garrison. Other popular tourist venues include Manila Ocean Park, a modern oceanarium and Malacanang Palace, the 18th-century building that acts as the official residence of the Philippine president. The city has a lively and varied nightlife with bars, restaurants, casino and karaoke cafes. The Malate district is a busy bohemian area.

Boracay
Boracay is a small island north of Panay. It has some of the finest sand beaches in the Philippines, and you can swim, enjoy a beach massage, or try water sport activities in crystal clear waters. Visit the shopping malls after a day at the beach or take your chances with the vendors selling watches, jewelry and sunglasses along the seafront. Boracay is also a place to party. It has countless bars, restaurants and clubs with a range of hotels to cater for the large number of tourists.

Banaue and the Rice Terraces
Listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Banaue and the Rice Terraces are one of the Philippines' most popular visitor attractions. The terraces were built as an irrigation system on the hills overlooking Banaue over 2000 years ago, and tourists marvel at how the terraces, still in use today, could have been built by the Ifugao tribesmen with only primitive tools. Hotels, bars and restaurants in Banaue cater to tourists, while private homes also take in overnight guests.

Bohol
Bohol Island draws large numbers of visitors to admire its beaches, its iconic Chocolate Hills, and the Spanish colonial architecture. It is also home to the Tarsier, the world’s smallest primate. Coastal waters around Bohol offer excellent diving among coral reefs, and the island is also home to more than 1400 caves for visitors to explore. Nearby Panglao Island has several beach resorts and it is easy to hop between the islands. You may even see dolphins swimming as you sail between the two.

Tagaytay City
Tagaytay is a popular tourist location for Filipino families as well as travelers from overseas. The volcano island at the center of Taal Lake is one of the most famous natural attractions in the Philippines, while the Enchanted Kingdom is a Disney-style theme park. Other popular destinations in and around Tagaytay City include the Pagsanjan Falls, The Flower Farm and the 18-hole golf course at Tagaytay Highlands.

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Giant Crystal Cave's Mystery Solved

 Buried a thousand feet (300 meters) below Naica mountain in the Chihuahuan Desert, the cave was discovered by two miners excavating a new tunnel for the Industrias Peñoles company in 2000.
The cave contains some of the largest natural crystals ever found: translucent gypsum beams measuring up to 36 feet (11 meters) long and weighing up to 55 tons.
"It's a natural marvel," said García-Ruiz, of the University of Granada in Spain.
To learn how the crystals grew to such gigantic sizes, García-Ruiz studied tiny pockets of fluid trapped inside.

The crystals, he said, thrived because they were submerged in mineral-rich water with a very narrow, stable temperature range—around 136 degrees Fahrenheit (58 degrees Celsius).
At this temperature the mineral anhydrite, which was abundant in the water, dissolved into gypsum, a soft mineral that can take the form of the crystals in the Naica cave.
The new findings appear in the April issue of the journal Geology.

           

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Turmeric's Healing Powers

Turmeric is on of spices that has been around for centuries.  It is commonly used in Eastern cooking, especially on the Asian continent.  Turmeric is actually a plant in its original form as it is a part of the ginger family.  You would be able to tell by just looking at it.

The more common powder spice form is made by boiling and then drying the plant, which is then ground into a mustard yellow powder.  The color has actually been used to help color mustards.

Turmeric's Healing Powers

Turmeric has anti-inflammatory and antiseptic agents making it great for skin care.  In fact, it is used in the beautification process of brides in India and Pakistan: a turmeric paste is made and applied on

the entire bride’s body and then washed off.  It is believed to help even out skin tone and help soften the skin.  Recently, Japan has conducted research that suggests that turmeric helps sooth inflamed joints as well.  It is known to also be useful in treating cuts and burns since it is a natural anti-bacterial.

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Flappy Bird Already Generating $50k per day in Ad Revenue

Helicopter games are nothing new, not by a long shot. But, sometimes a game will capture the attention of the masses at just the right time.

Flappy Bird seems to be that game right now. The game is very difficult (some would say annoyingly difficult or perhaps rage-inducingly difficult), but it is crazy popular anyway. It is so popular that it is reportedly generating an average of $50,000 per day in ad revenue.

That is an impressive number for a game that was "inspired" by a pipe level from Super Mario Bros, with the physics of a Mario Bros water level, and a character based on the Cheep Cheep (a flying fish, not a bird) from the same game. Add in that it is an insta-kill any time you touch anything, and you have the recipe for a hit. Of course, being at the top of the iTunes and Google Play charts for about a month will definitely help with reaching that level of revenue. The app has been downloaded about 50 million times and has garnered very high reviews in both app stores.

Maybe the most impressive of all is that the game was created by Vietnamese developer Dong Nguyen, who made the game as a part time project after school. In all, the game took him about three days to create, and now it is generating an average of $50,000 in ad revenue every day. Of course, Nguyen does openly admit that he got lucky with this game. Statistics have shown that with the glut of games and apps these days, the chances of hitting it big are incredibly low, but Nguyen has managed it.

Nguyen even said in an interview with The Verge that he feels like "Flappy Bird has reached a state where anything added to the game will ruin it somehow". He has considered adding an in-app payment to remove the ads, but might not bother. Given that quote, we probably can't expect volume controls either. Nguyen feels like he got lucky finding the right balance of difficulty and fun with this game, so he has already started thinking about his next game.

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Yamashita's Gold, Also Referred to as the Yamashita Treasure

Yamashita's gold, also referred to as the Yamashita treasure, is the name given to the alleged war loot stolen in Southeast Asia by Japanese forces during World War II and hidden in caves, tunnels and underground complexes in the Philippines. It is named for the Japanese general Tomoyuki Yamashita, nicknamed "The Tiger of Malaya". Though accounts that the treasure remains hidden in Philippines have lured treasure hunters from around the world for over fifty years, its existence is dismissed by most experts. The rumored treasure has been the subject of a complex lawsuit that was filed in a Hawaiian state court in 1988 involving a Filipino treasure hunter, Rogelio Roxas, and the former Philippine president, Ferdinand Marcos.

The looting and the alleged cover-up
Prominent among those arguing for the existence of Yamashita's gold are Sterling Seagrave and Peggy Seagrave, who have written two books relating to the subject: The Yamato Dynasty: the Secret History of Japan's Imperial Family (2000) and Gold Warriors: America's Secret Recovery of Yamashita's Gold (2003). The Seagraves contend that looting was organized on a massive scale, by both yakuza gangsters such as Yoshio Kodama, and the highest levels of Japanese society, including Emperor Hirohito. The Japanese government intended that loot from Southeast Asia would finance Japan's war effort The Seagraves allege that Hirohito appointed his brother, Prince Yasuhito Chichibu, to head a secret organization called Kin no yuri ("Golden Lily"), for this purpose. It is purported that many of those who knew the locations of the loot were killed during the war, or later tried by the Allies for war crimes and executed or incarcerated. Yamashita himself was (controversially) convicted of war crimes and executed by the U.S. Army on February 23, 1946.

The stolen property reportedly included many different kinds of valuables looted from banks, depositories, temples, churches, other commercial premises, mosques, museums and private homes. It takes its name from General Tomoyuki Yamashita, who assumed command of Japanese forces in the Philippines in 1944.

According to various accounts, the loot was initially concentrated in Singapore, and later transported to the Philippines. The Japanese hoped to ship the treasure from the Philippines to the Japanese Home Islands after the war ended. As the War in the Pacific progressed, U.S. Navy submarines and Allied warplanes inflicted increasingly heavy sinkings of Japanese merchant shipping. Some of the ships carrying the war booty back to Japan were sunk in combat.

The Seagraves and a few others have claimed that American military intelligence operatives located much of the loot; they colluded with Hirohito and other senior Japanese figures to conceal its existence, and they used it to finance American covert intelligence operations around the world during the Cold War. These rumors have inspired many hopeful treasure hunters, but most experts and Filipino historians say there is no credible evidence behind these claims.

In 1992, Imelda Marcos claimed that Yamashita's gold accounted for the bulk of the wealth of her husband, Ferdinand Marcos.

Many individuals and consortia, both Philippine and foreign, continue to search for treasure sites. A number of accidental deaths, injuries and financial losses incurred by treasure hunters have been reported.

At present, the Mines & Geosciences Bureau of the Department of Natural Resources of the Philippines is the Filipino government agency that grants treasure permits.
Treasure skeptics

University of the Philippines professor Rico Jose has questioned the theory that treasure from mainland South East Asia was transported to the Philippines: "By 1943 the Japanese were no longer in control of the seas... It doesn't make sense to bring in something that valuable here when you know it's going to be lost to the Americans anyway. The more rational thing would have been to send it to Taiwan or China."

Philippines National Historical Institute chairman and historian Ambeth Ocampo commented: “Two of the wealth myths I usually encounter are the Yamashita treasure and gossip that the Cojuangco fortune was founded on a bag of money…” Ocampo also said: "For the past 50 years many people, both Filipinos and foreigners, have spent their time, money and energy in search of Yamashita's elusive treasure.” Professor Ocampo noted “What makes me wonder is that for the past 50 years, despite all the treasure hunters, their maps, oral testimony and sophisticated metal detectors, nobody has found a thing.”
Rogelio Roxas lawsuit

In March 1988, a Filipino treasure hunter named Rogelio Roxas filed a lawsuit in the state of Hawaii against the former president of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos and his wife Imelda Marcos for theft and human rights abuses. Roxas claimed that in Baguio City in 1961 he met the son of a former member of the Japanese army who mapped for him the location of the legendary Yamashita Treasure. Roxas claimed a second man, who served as Yamashita's interpreter during the Second World War, told him of visiting an underground chamber there where stores of gold and silver were kept, and who told of a golden buddha kept at a convent located near the underground chambers. Roxas claimed that within the next few years he formed a group to search for the treasure, and obtained a permit for the purpose from a relative of Ferdinand, Judge Pio Marcos. In 1971, Roxas claimed, he and his group uncovered an enclosed chamber on state lands near Baguio City where he found bayonets, samurai swords, radios, and skeletal remains dressed in a Japanese military uniform. Also found in the chamber, Roxas claimed, were a 3-foot-high (0.91 m) golden-colored Buddha and numerous stacked crates which filled an area approximately 6 feet x 6 feet x 35 feet. He claimed he opened just one of the boxes, and found it packed with gold bullion. He said he took from the chamber the golden Buddha, which he estimated to weigh 1,000 kilograms, and one box with twenty-four gold bars, and hid them in his home. He claimed he resealed the chamber for safekeeping until he could arrange the removal of the remaining boxes, which he suspected were also filled with gold bars. Roxas said he sold seven of the gold bars from the opened box, and sought potential buyers for the golden Buddha. Two individuals representing prospective buyers examined and tested the metal in the Buddha, Roxas said, and reported it was made of solid, 20-carat gold. It was soon after this, Roxas claimed, that President Ferdinand Marcos learned of Roxas' discovery and ordered him arrested, beaten, and the Buddha and remaining gold seized. Roxas alleged that in retaliation to his vocal campaign to reclaim the Buddha and the remainder of the treasure taken from him, Ferdinand continued to have Roxas threatened, beaten and eventually incarcerated for over a year.

Following his release, Roxas put his claims against Marcos on hold until Ferdinand lost the presidency in 1986. But in 1988, Roxas and the Golden Budha Corporation, which now held the ownership rights to the treasure Roxas claims was stolen from him, filed suit against Ferdinand and wife Imelda in a Hawaiian state court seeking damages for the theft and the surrounding human rights abuses committed against Roxas. Roxas died on the eve of trial, but prior to his death he gave the deposition testimony that would be later used in evidence. In 1996, the Roxas estate and the Golden Budha Corporation received what was then largest judgment ever awarded in history, $22 billion which with interest increased to $40.5 billion. In 1998, The Hawaii Supreme Court held that there was sufficient evidence to support the jury's finding that Roxas found the treasure and that Marcos converted it. However, the court reversed the damage award, holding that the $22 billion award of damages for the chamber full of gold was too speculative, as there was no evidence of quantity or quality, and ordered a new hearing on the value of the golden Buddha and 17 bars of gold only. After several more years of legal proceedings, the Golden Budha Corporation obtained a final judgment against Imelda Marcos to the extent of her interest in the Marcos estate in the principal amount of $13,275,848.37 and Roxas’ estate obtained a $6 million judgment on the claim for human right abuse.

This lawsuit ultimately concluded that Roxas found a treasure, and although the Hawaiian state court was not required to determine whether this particular treasure was the legendary Yamashita’s gold, the testimony relied upon by the court in reaching its conclusion pointed in that direction. Roxas was allegedly following a map from the son of a Japanese soldier; Roxas allegedly relied on tips provided from Yamashita’s interpreter; and Roxas allegedly found samurai swords and the skeletons of dead Japanese soldiers in the treasure chamber. All this led the United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal to summarize the allegations leading to Roxas’ final judgment as follows: "The Yamashita Treasure was found by Roxas and stolen from Roxas by Marcos' men."

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Heliocentrism

Heliocentrism, or heliocentricism, is the astronomical model in which the Earth and planets revolve around a relatively stationary Sun at the center of the Solar System. The word comes from the Greek (ἥλιος helios "sun" and κέντρον kentron "center"). Historically, heliocentrism was opposed to geocentrism, which placed the Earth at the center. The notion that the Earth revolves around the Sun had been proposed as early as the 3rd century BC by Aristarchus of Samos, but Aristarchus's heliocentrism attracted little attention until Copernicus revived and elaborated it. Lucio Russo, however, argues that this is a misleading impression resulting from the loss of scientific works of the Hellenistic Era. Using indirect evidence he argues that a heliocentric view was expounded in Hipparchus's work on gravity
It was not until the 16th century that a fully predictive mathematical model of a heliocentric system was presented, by the Renaissance mathematician, astronomer, and Catholic cleric Nicolaus Copernicus of Poland, leading to the Copernican Revolution. In the following century, Johannes Kepler elaborated upon and expanded this model to include elliptical orbits, and supporting observations made using a telescope were presented by Galileo Galilei.
To anyone who stands and looks up at the sky, it seems that the Earth stays in one place, while everything in the sky rises in the east and sets in the west once a day. With more scrutiny, however, one will observe more complicated movements. The positions at which the Sun and moon rise change over the course of a year, some planets and stars do not appear at all for many months, and planets sometimes appear to have moved in the reverse direction for a while, relative to the background stars.
As these motions became better understood, more elaborate descriptions were required, the most famous of which was the geocentric Ptolemaic system, which achieved its full expression in the 2nd century. The Ptolemaic system was a sophisticated astronomical system that managed to calculate the positions for the planets to a fair degree of accuracy. Ptolemy himself, in his Almagest, points out that any model for describing the motions of the planets is merely a mathematical device, and since there is no actual way to know which is true, the simplest model that gets the right numbers should be used.However, he rejected the idea of a spinning earth as absurd as he believed it would create huge winds. His planetary hypotheses were sufficiently real that the distances of moon, sun, planets and stars could be determined by treating orbits' celestial spheres as contiguous realities. This made the stars' distance less than 20 Astronomical Units, a regression, since Aristarchus of Samos's heliocentric scheme had centuries earlier necessarily placed the stars at least two orders of magnitude more distant.

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The Rosetta Stone

The Rosetta Stone is a fragment of a stela, a free-standing stone inscribed with Egyptian governmental or religious records.

It’s made of black basalt and weighs about three-quarters of a ton (0.680 metric tons).

The stone is 118 cm (46.5 in.) high, 77 cm. (30 in.) wide and 30 cm. (12 in.) deep — roughly the size of a medium-screen LCD television or a heavy coffee table

But what’s inscribed on the Rosetta Stone is far more significant than its composition. It features three columns of inscriptions, each relaying the same message but in three different languages:

Greek, hieroglyphics and Demotic. Scholars used the Greek and Demotic inscriptions to make sense of the hieroglyphic alphabet.

 By using the Rosetta Stone as a translation device, scholars revealed more than1,400 years of ancient Egyptian secrets

Museum Image Gallery: Rosetta Stone on display in British Museum

The discovery and translation of the Rosetta Stone are as fascinating as the translations that resulted from the stone. 

 Controversial from the start, it was unearthed as a result of warfare and Europe’s quest for world domination.

 . Its translation continued to cause strife between nations, and even today, scholars debate who should be credited with the triumph of solving the hieroglyphic code.

  Even the stone’s current location is a matter of debate. This artifact has long held a powerful grip over history and politics.

 Since 1802, the Rosetta Stone has occupied a space in London’s British Museum.

                           

                             

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Bataan Nuclear Power Plant

Bataan Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear power plant, completed but never fueled, on Bataan Peninsula, 100 kilometres (62 mi) west of Manila in the Philippines. It is located on a 3.57 square kilometre government reservation at Napot Point in Morong, Bataan. It was the Philippines' only attempt at building a nuclear power plant.

History
The Philippine nuclear program started in 1958 with the creation of the Philippine Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) under Republic Act 2067. Under a regime of martial law, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos in July 1973 announced the decision to build a nuclear power plant. This was in response to the 1973 oil crisis, as the Middle East oil embargo had put a heavy strain on the Philippine economy, and Marcos believed nuclear power to be the solution to meeting the country's energy demands and decreasing dependence on imported oil.

Construction on the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant began in 1976. Following the 1979 Three Mile Island accident in the United States, construction on the BNPP was stopped, and a subsequent safety inquiry into the plant revealed over 4,000 defects. Among the issues raised was that it was built near major earthquake fault lines and close to the then dormant Mount Pinatubo.

By 1984, when the BNPP was nearly complete, its cost had reached $US2.3 billion. Equipped with a Westinghouse light water reactor, it was designed to produce 621 megawatts of electricity.

Marcos was overthrown by the People Power Revolution in 1986. Days after the April 1986 Chernobyl disaster, the succeeding administration of President Corazon Aquino decided not to operate the plant. Among other considerations taken were the strong opposition from Bataan residents and Philippine citizens.

The government sued Westinghouse for overpricing and bribery but was ultimately rejected by a United States court. Debt repayment on the plant became the country's biggest single obligation. While successive governments have looked at several proposals to convert the plant into an oil, coal, or gas-fired power station, these options have all been deemed less economically attractive in the long term than simply constructing new power stations.
Anti-nuclear movement

See also: Anti-nuclear movement in the Philippines

The Bataan Nuclear Power Plant was a focal point for anti-nuclear protests in the late 1970s and 1980s. The project was criticised for being a potential threat to public health, especially since the plant was located in an earthquake zone. And because a volcano formation was found near the location of the plant.
2000s

Despite never having been commissioned, the plant has remained intact, including the nuclear reactor, and has continued to be maintained. The Philippine government completed paying off its obligations on the plant in April 2007, more than 30 years after construction began.

On January 29, 2008, Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes announced that International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) 8-man team led by Akira Omoto inspected the mothballed Bataan Nuclear power station on rehabilitation prospects. In preparing their report, the IAEA made two primary recommendations. First, the power plant's status must be thoroughly evaluated by technical inspections and economic evaluations conducted by a committed group of nuclear power experts with experience in preservation management. Second, the IAEA mission advised the Philippines Government on the general requirements for starting its nuclear power program, stressing that the proper infrastructure, safety standards, and knowledge be implemented. The IAEA's role did not extend to assessing whether the power plant is usable or not, or how much the plant may cost to rehabilitate. On February 1, 2010, NAPOCOR started evaluating the financial plan of Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO), assessing that it may cost $US1-billion to rehabilitate the nuclear plant.

On February 22, 2011, the Philippine government will reimburse the National Power Corporation (NAPOCOR) ₱4.2 billion (US$96 million) it spent for maintaining the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant. It requires an average of ₱40 million a year just to maintain it. In May 2011, it was announced that the plant would be turned into a tourist attraction.

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Talaga Beach in Mariveles,Bataan

TALAGA BEACH PROBABLY THE BEST BEACH IN CENTRAL LUZON! But unfortunately this was neglected over the year since the 1st EDSA Revolution of 1986. Opened to public and took over under the Dept. of Tourism during Pres. Cory Aquino's time. Because of the suspicion that part of Marcos weatlh hidden in his Mansion over the hillside where he frequently made his vacation there, Treasure Hunters made a series of diggings inside and around the Mansion. They torn down the beautiful Mansion over the hillside and the Club House along the beach. Looters and robbers feasted on every items left by the Marcoses up to cannibalizing the whole structure of the building. At present the concrete foundation was left as witness to the horrible past of this MAJESTIC PLACE.

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