David Oswald Thomas

David Oswald Thomas (4 March 1924 – 28 May 2005) was a Welsh philosopher, best known as an interpreter of the work of Richard Price.

Thomas was born in Rhuthun, Denbighshire, the son of the Clerk to the Department of Education for the county. He was educated at Denbigh Grammar School, after which he worked as a bank clerk. In 1943, after two years in the bank, he joined the RAF. He served until 1946. Stationed for most of the time in the Middle East, he served one and a half years in Iraq. At the end of his service he took advantage of a scheme for demobilizing into university and studied philosophy at the University College of Wales, Bangor. His student days were marked by the onset of ankylosing spondylitis. After completing his degree, Thomas studied the British idealists for his MA, and then moved from Bangor to London where, for his PhD, he studied the political philosophy of Richard Price. His choice of subject had been influenced by the publication in 1948 of D.D. Raphael's new edition of Price's A Review of the Principal Questions in Morals, first published 190 years earlier. He was successively Tutor in Philosophy and Psychology at Coleg Harlech 1955-60; Lecturer in Philosophy, UCW Aberystwyth 1960-67, Senior Lecturer 1967-79, Reader 1979-83. In 1965, he married Dr Beryl Jones, with whom he had one daughter, Janet. Thomas died in Aberystwyth on May 28, 2005.

Oswald Thomas

Oswald Thomas (born July 27, 1882 in Kronstadt [now Braşov in Transylvania, Romania]; died Feb. 13, 1963 in Vienna, Austria), was a German astronomer and a protagonist of the popularization of astronomy in Germany and Austria.

Career

Thomas's father Karl, a girl's school director, imbued his son with the fascination of astronomical phenomenology from early on. In 1907 Oswald Thomas organized a formal registration system for fireball observations in his home town Kronstadt and named this institution Astronomisches Büro (Astronomical Bureau). Its tasks soon extended to a broader range of adult education in astronomy.

From 1910-1913 Thomas taught mathematics and physics at the German Gymnasium (high school) in Kronstadt. He relocated to Vienna, taking his Astronomical Bureau organization with him, and was a teacher at various private and public schools from 1913-1915 until he became head of the Urania observatory in Vienna (1915-1922, and again 1933-1934). When the first Zeiss projector planetarium to be installed outside of Germany was established in Vienna in 1927, Thomas became its chief astronomer. His standard presentation Der Himmel über Wien (The Sky Above Vienna) achieved huge popularity. It was performed over a thousand times, and according to Thomas it provided the inspiration for the first Zeiss planetarium to be set up in the United States (in Chicago).

David of Bulgaria

David (Bulgarian: Давид) (died 976) was a Bulgarian noble, brother of Emperor Samuel and eldest son of komes Nicholas. After the disastrous invasion of Rus' armies and the fall of North-eastern Bulgaria under Byzantine occupation in 971, he and his three younger brothers took the lead of the defence of the country. They executed their power together and each of them governed and defended a separate region. He ruled the southern-most parts of the realm from Prespa and Kastoria and was responsible for the defence the dangerous borders with Thessalonica and Thessaly. In 976 he participated in the major assault against the Byzantine Empire but was killed by vagrant Vlachs between Prespa and Kostur.

Family tree

Another theory

However, there's also another version about David’s origin. David gains the title "comes" during his service in the Byzantine army which recruited many Armenians from the Eastern region of the empire. The 11th-century historian Stepanos Asoghik wrote that Samuel had one brother, and they were Armenians from the district Derjan. This version is supported by the historians Nicholas Adontz, Jordan Ivanov, and Samuil's Inscription where it’s said that Samuel’s brother is David. Also, the historians Yahya and Al Makin clearly distinguish the race of Samuel and David (the Comitopouli) from the one of Moses and Aaron (the royal race):

David, Chiriquí

David (Spanish pronunciation: [daˈβið]) officially San José de David is a city and corregimiento located in the west of Panama. It is the capital of the province of Chiriquí and has an estimated population of 144,858 inhabitants as confirmed in 2013. It is a relatively affluent city with a firmly established, dominant middle class and a very low unemployment and poverty index. The Pan-American Highway is a popular route to David.

The development of the banking sector, public construction works such as the expansion of the airport and the David-Boquete highway alongside the growth of commercial activity in the city have increased its prominence as one of the fastest growing regions in the country. The city is currently the economic center of the Chiriqui province and produces more than half the gross domestic product of the province, which totals 2.1 billion. It is known for being the third-largest city in the country both in population and by GDP and for being the largest city in Western Panama.

David (Bernini)

David is a life-size marble sculpture by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The sculpture was one of many commissions to decorate the villa of Bernini's patron Cardinal Scipione Borghese – where it still resides today, as part of the Galleria Borghese It was completed in the course of seven months from 1623 to 1624.

The subject of the work is the biblical David, about to throw the stone that will bring down Goliath, which will allow David to behead him. Compared to earlier works on the same theme (notably the David of Michelangelo), the sculpture broke new ground in its implied movement and its psychological intensity.

Background

Between 1618 and 1625 Bernini was commissioned to undertake various sculptural work for the villa of one of his patrons, Cardinal Scipione Borghese. In 1623 – only yet 24 years old – he was working on the sculpture of Apollo and Daphne, when, for unknown reasons, he abandoned this project to start work on the David. According to records of payment, Bernini had started on the sculpture by mid–1623, and his contemporary biographer, Filippo Baldinucci, states that he finished it in seven months.