Hour 2: The Siege of Malta Part 1

Kicked out of Rhodes and on to Malta to fend off the Ottomans

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is a Jesse Kelly Show.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
It is the Jesse Kelly Show. Another hour of The
Jesse Kelly Show. On an Amazing Tuesday. We had a
rip roar in first hour. If you missed any of that,
including the Crappiest Country in the World Championship, you gotta
go download the podcast. iHeart Spotify iTunes. We don't have
any time for anymore of that right now. In fact,

(00:35):
we don't even have any time for politics now. I
should remember. I have to keep this in mind. This
is something that's easy to forget. Not everybody has been
listening for the seven years we've been on the air.
In fact, most have not. People come along relatively recently,
so I need to explain something about me before I

(00:57):
derail the show. I love history, to be honest with you.
It's my favorite thing in the world. I love it.
It is what I do in my spare time. I
read history books. I gobble up all the history information
I can. You want to hear the biggest old Man

(01:19):
Jesse thing in the world. I love museums. Don't roll
your eyes, Chris, I'm a museum guy, and occasionally on
The Jesse Kelly Show I try to do it every
three or four weeks. I would say, we take time
and I tell a history story about some sort of

(01:41):
historical event, battle, expedition of some kind, whatever happens to
interest me. And yeah, we take requests for them and
things like that. But I love it. I enjoy it.
If we if you and me, if we could right
all the wrongs in this country, get rid of all
these dirty comies, I'd probably do history every single day.

(02:03):
That's how much. That's how much I genuinely enjoyed it.
I'd quit and go just start a history podcast. But
we got work to do now. Again, this is just
in case you are new. I do not always fit
it all in one show. This show was three hours long.
It depends on the history tale. I've had these things
stretch out three or four days. I'm just gonna go

(02:26):
ahead and tell you right now, the chances I'm able
to finish this entire thing tonight are It's almost zero.
It's probably zero. We'll come back and do some more
politics next hour. There's just so much background I want
to go into, and then the siege itself. It's a
little more complicated than some other things we've done. I

(02:48):
have a lot, a lot of reasons. But it's gonna
take a little bit and I'm gonna talk history. If
you don't like it, change the channel. I'll see you
next hour or tomorrow. I love it. Now, I want
you to imagine something. I want you to imagine that

(03:09):
you are manning a cannon and obviously you are firing
cannon balls at the other side, and the other side
is firing cannon balls back at you. Okay, not an
ideal situation, obviously a little bit frightening. Only you see

(03:32):
their cannons go off one day and you're thinking, uh, oh,
I better take cover. There's a cannon ball come in
my way. Only after you duck down, you hear the
cannon ball land and it doesn't sound like the other

(03:54):
cannon balls at all. In fact, it made a kind
of funny splat. So you poke your head up to
see what the problem is, and you find out they
didn't fire a cannon ball this time. They fired your
best friend's head at you. We are about to talk

(04:18):
about one of the nastiest sieges and most important sieges
in human history. Honestly, you can say this siege probably
affects the world we live in today, and the world
we live in today, possibly would have been radically different.
What time period are we in now? The Siege of

(04:41):
Malta is in the fifteen hundreds, and I'm about to
give a bunch of background on the two different sides,
So just hang with me for a moment. But it's
important to understand just some basics about the technology and
the world we live in in the fifteen hundreds, right,
So this is post Christopher Columbus. You got that fourteen
ninety two and all that. This is the era where

(05:04):
there still have sailing ships. Ships still have sails in them,
so there's no engines and things like that. But it's
not all bows and arrows and swords. However, there are crossbows,
bows and arrows and swords, and they are employed a

(05:24):
lot on the battlefield. There are cannons, as I just
pointed out, each every major country will have cannons at
their disposal, and they have I'm gonna call them guns muskets,
you know, old single shot things that they are the
most basic thing you have ever seen, gigantic, heavy, cumbersome,

(05:52):
not very accurate at all. We're not Look, you're not
going to square up against a guy who's two hundred
yards of way and have a snowballs chance in you
nowhere of hitting him with these things. So yes, gunpowder
and shot and those things they do matter. It is important.
But I wanted you to understand we're still talking swords here, Okay, swords, cannons,

(06:16):
old old old guns. Now, before we get to Malta,
I'm going to talk about two different sides Jerusalem. We're
gonna go way way, way, way way back. This is
about the year one thousand, and in fact, very close
to being exactly one thousand years ago Jerusalem. You are

(06:40):
well aware Jerusalem is considered a holy land for the
three largest religions on the planet, Christianity, Judaism and Islam.
That is the case today. If you go to Jerusalem today,
you will see all three represented there. And it was
very much the case back in this era. And the

(07:04):
Muslims and the Christians both have laid claim to it.
They want it to be theirs, and they're fighting over it.
This is the era of what is known as the Crusades.
I'm not going to do a bunch of Crusades history.
But you've heard of a pilgrimage, right, you at least

(07:25):
understand what a pilgrimage is Christians at this time will
make pilgrimages and the same way you would do today.
I guess you could argue what we did as a
show a couple of years ago was a pilgrimage. You
are going to visit the holy sites of what you believe.
Muslims make pilgrimages there as well. Christians would make pilgrimages

(07:49):
to Jerusalem. While there, and remember there's all kinds of
fighting going on and ugly things. An order has been started,
an order exactly. I want you to think of the
Knights of Columbus. You've heard of the Knights of Columbus.
My father in law is a member of the Knights
of Columbus. What do they do well? They serve the

(08:13):
community in various ways. They'll give back, they do fish fries.
It's an order. Orders were a little different back then.
Now they did a lot of that as well. But
they could be they could be orders of service, they
could be military orders. An order begins in Jerusalem in

(08:35):
the year one thousand and It is known as the
Knights of Saint John or the Knights Hospitaller or the
Knights Hospitaller, depending on how you want to pronounce it,
I'm going to tell you right now. I picked the
one that I thought was the coolest sounding, and so
it's the what I'm sticking with. The Knights of Saint

(08:55):
John is the one I'm sticking with. But knights hospital
or hospital is a very very common way. It's an order.
It was not a military order. When it began. You
know the name hospitaler, hospital er, depending on your accent.
It was a hospital. They started a hospital in Jerusalem.

(09:17):
They did not only treat Christians or Jews or Muslims.
All were welcome. They started a hospital there. Hospitals. We
are used to hospitals being everywhere today, even if you're
in a rural area, there are hospitals twenty thirty minutes
from you. If you're in an urban area, you're probably
ten minutes from a hospital. That is not the case

(09:39):
in the ancient world. They started a hospital to care
for the sick. But like I said, this was an
era where there was quite a bit of it still is,
but there was quite a bit of controversy over this
chunk of ground. Wholly to the Muslims, holy to the Christians.
The Jews are not going to They're not going to

(10:01):
play a major role in our story here, so we're
going to set them aside right now. And they were
fighting over it, the Christians and the Muslims were fighting
over it. And if you were a Christian making a
pilgrimage to Jerusalem, remember you're not flying in on United
you have to walk, ride a horse, ride a camel,

(10:21):
and it was a dangerous affair. We'll continue in a moment.
Before we continue, think for a moment, think how sore
you'd be after riding on a camel for that.

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Speaker 1 (11:43):
We'll be back, mistost catch up Jesse Kellyshow dot com.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
It is the Jesse Kelly Show on a wonderful Tuesday,
doing some history right now on the siege of Malta.
If you're just joining us, don't worry. You just missed
a touch of background on one of our two sides.
The Knights of Saint John or Knights Hospitaller. They start
a hospital in Jerusalem around the year one thousand. But

(12:15):
Christians making the pilgrimage to Jerusalem at this time they
kept getting attacked, attacked by robbers, attacked by Muslims. It
was a problem. So the Knights and I should pause
real quick. Jewish producer Chris said something during the break
about the Knights Templar. There's a very famous this is
not them this is not them. It's no. I wasn't

(12:38):
insulting you, Chris, but a lot of people would think,
are these the same knights. The Knights of Saint John
were a Catholic order very similar to the Knights Templar.
These are not them. This is a separate group, all right.
So they expand and they go from being just a
hospital just giving medical care to a military order. Now

(13:00):
they are a strict military order. They are funded by
various sources, and they are well trained, very very good fighters. Eventually,
during those crusades, the Muslims are led by a man
named Saladein. If you are ever, if you are a
history buffet, all know anything about the crusade, you will

(13:23):
have heard of the name Saladein. Saladein was a famous
Muslim general, very very talented, and he won. It became
his And after he won, he took this military order
of knights and he kicked them out. He kicked them
out to a place called roads. Now we're going to

(13:45):
pause for just a moment. The Knights of Saint John
are on a place called Roads. In case you're wondering
where this is. This is important for our story. Like
I said, there's going to be a lot more background
in location here to try to explain who's who and
what's on and where we are. And I know you're listening,
not looking at it. So the Mediterranean, you know about

(14:06):
the Mediterranean, you're at least aware of it. That's where
Greece and Italy and all the southern France, southern Spain,
that's where all those things are. But Italy, Southern Spain,
Southern France. That is the Western Mediterranean. The Eastern Mediterranean
is Greece, and this is where Turkey is located a right,

(14:29):
So that's the Eastern Mediterranean. The Mediterranean has always since
boats have gotten onto the water, the Mediterranean has been
prized choice territory. You want the Mediterranean to ship goods
and men, and you want to be able to ship
things to and fro. The Mediterranean is prime real estate,

(14:51):
and it is still prime real estate to this day.
You want to be able to own the waves, own
the shores on those waves. By the way, I should
note northern Africa, but this is all part of the Mediterranean.
Now that brings us to the Ottoman Empire. I'm not
going to go into the whole background on the Ottoman Empire.
We've done a bit of them before, and we'll probably
do a bit of them again because they're a fascinating

(15:13):
powerful empire. They rose up and they began to conquer
the world around them, very very powerful, very very smart,
science heavy, really sharp empire that was run in a
really sharp way. And they're Muslim. What was Europe? Europe

(15:35):
was Catholic slash Christian. Honestly during the era we're in,
that's when Protestantism in the Catholics were starting to kill
each other. We're not going to go in any of that.
I'm going to dumb this down and just say Europe
was Catholic at this time. Okay, Europe's Catholic, Europe's Christian
or whatever. The Ottomans are Muslim. That may mean nothing

(15:59):
to you, maybe you have no belief system or whatever,
but that is not at all important to our story.
What is important to our story is it meant everything
to both sides for the Ottomans as they rose up
and they began to conquer really the Muslim world. They
were conquering much of the Muslim world, pulling them under

(16:19):
the Ottoman umbrella. They were selling themselves and viewed themselves
as we are the protectors of Islam. We are the
ones who will spread Islam. We will protect the people
of Islam. And for a very, very, very long time,
the Ottomans saw themselves that way, and many people in
the Islamic world saw themselves that way. Now, as the

(16:44):
Ottoman Empire, this Islamic Empire was rising, Christian Europe, Catholic
Europe was afraid, and understandably so. It wasn't an ungrounded fear.
The Ottoman Empire was spreading and conquering and spreading and conquering.
And there was an event which we've done before. I'm
not going to go into it. The Byzantine Empire or

(17:07):
the Eastern Roman Empire, depending they would have called themselves Roman.
They had Constantinople. It was really the center of Christianity
at the time, and in the fourteen hundreds, the Ottoman
Empire took the center of Christianity at this time. Whatever
your belief system is, I want you to picture what

(17:28):
you consider to be maybe your most holy or cherished place.
Imagine it falling to what you consider to be your
religious mortal enemy. The fall of Constantinople rocked and brought
a whole lot of fear into Christian Europe. These Muslims,

(17:50):
are they going to come kill us all? Are they
going to come bring Islam and force it into all
of Europe? They're so powerful? How do we stop them?
So this happened in the fourteen hundreds. Now something else
had happened then. Remember I said that the Knights of
Saint John were sent to Rhodes, And we'll get to

(18:13):
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Speaker 1 (19:36):
We'll be back mists. Catch up Jesse Kellyshow dot com.

Speaker 2 (19:44):
It is the Jesse Kelly Show on a Fantastic Tuesday. Member.
You can email the show Jesse at Jesse kellyshow dot com.
We're doing a little history on the Siege of Malta,
and I realize they're a bit of bit a thousand
of them, so we're talking about the one in fifteen
sixty five. Okay, just to spoil it, but we're not
quite there yet. The Knights of Saint John get kicked

(20:05):
out of Jerusalem when the Muslims conquer it, and they
get sent to roads. But they don't just sit around
on roads. They fortify roads. Now here's the important part.
I just talked about the Ottoman Empire expanding and growing
and expanding and growing. They are in the Eastern Mediterranean
at this time. Roads is over there in Greece in

(20:30):
the eastern Mediterranean, they attack roads the Ottoman Empire does.
The Knights of Saint John were not chumps, as we
will continue to find out. They were hard as nails,
and for them this was a deeply religious conflict. They
saw themselves as being the protectors of Christendom, the protectors

(20:55):
of the Catholic Church, the protectors of people who believe
in Jesus, in the same way the Autumn saw the
Autumn saw themselves as you know, the sword of Islam,
all those things they attacked Rhodes. The knights fight so
valiantly that the big cheese of the Ottoman Empire says, hey,

(21:17):
by the way, his name is Suliman. I probably should
go ahead and name him. I try not to give
you too many details and names, but Suliman the Magnificent,
I'm sure he nicknamed himself. Suliman the Magnificent is so
impressed by how valiant the Knights fight, he does not
wipe them all out. When he defeats them at Rhodes,

(21:38):
he says, you know, you guys fought like lions. I
respect that, so you may go. He grants them clemency
and safe passage for their bravery, so anyone he hadn't
already killed, he says, you can go. Well, now you
have the Knights of Saint John, this religious order, and

(21:59):
they don't have a home, so they are given a
home by Christian Europe. Their home is a place known
as Malta. Where is Malta. Here's where it is. You know,
I told you there's an Eastern Mediterranean and a Western Mediterranean.
Don't worry if you don't have it memorized, it's not important.

(22:21):
There's an eastern half and there's a western half. You know, Italy,
that boot that comes down, and then there's that huge
island Sicily that's right off the toe of that boot.
Right to the west of that boot. Right below Sicily,
there is a frankly pretty desolate, crappy piece of rock

(22:44):
called Malta. So when the Knights of Saint John were
given Malta, you should understand a couple things. This was
not exactly a luxurious post. But they were people without
a home at this time, and there were Maltese people
on Malta who weren't necessarily given a choice in this

(23:06):
whole thing. The Knights were given this place, and the
Knights stepped in and they made it their home. Now,
I already told you the Ottomans were expanding. They were
coming east, they were coming west towards Europe. They were
moving from the east to the west. They were already
taking over places like Hungary. Christian Europe is not only

(23:29):
divided in fighting itself, they are deathly afraid of the
Ottomans who are coming the Ottomans. The Ottomans as they
seize more and more control of the Mediterranean, they are
taking over. I already told you how important the Mediterranean
is today and was in yesteryear. They are taking over

(23:51):
valuable sea lanes, and they're now getting stupid wealthy shipping
goods and services back and forth across the Mediterranean. So
you're a knight, you're in Malta. What do you do, well,
you're on an island. You're there to protect Europe. The

(24:11):
Ottomans are the Muslims are your sworn enemy. You need
to build up the fortifications of the island and then
get your butt on a boat and you need to
go make life very, very miserable for the Ottomans. And
they do. The knights essentially, they kept calling them, they
call them corsairs. You've ever heard that term corsair. Corsair.

(24:35):
You know what a corsair is. It's a pirate. It's
a pirate when you don't want to call somebody a pirate.
The Knights sail forth and they start creating nightmares for
the Ottomans, raiding ships, raiding goods, kidnapping people. They are stealing,
essentially stealing now. I already said Sulaman, the mack magnificent

(25:01):
big Cheese of the Ottoman Empire. He had previously let
the Ottomans go, or let them sorry, he had previously
let the Knights of Saint John go. He had given
them clemency. He was displeased, to put it mildly, to
find out that the Knights of Saint John, who he
had let go, were now raiding his ships and making

(25:25):
his life miserable. He thought that was completely out of line.
And frankly, he probably has a pretty good point, but
that's not important. What is important is this, Sulaiman not
only goes down to Northern Africa and takes over the
portion of Northern Africa the Knights had word gets back

(25:46):
to the Knights. You see, this is every era is
an era of intelligence gathering and spying. I already said
the Ottoman Empire had taken over Constantinople. It's known today
as Istanbul. They had taken over Constantinople, that was the
capital of the Ottoman Empire. Word got back to the
Knights on Malta that Sulaman the Magnificent was building a

(26:10):
large fleet. The Knights, it didn't exactly take a genius
to figure out what he was planning on doing with
that fleet. They figured out he was coming, and they
knew it was going to be large. They knew that
he was going to be coming to take Malta from them.

(26:33):
So now I have to do something, and I'm probably
gonna have to do this a couple of times, but
I try to make sure you can visualize what we're
dealing with here, and this is probably the most complicated
thing I will ever have you visualize. So I'm going
to simplify it. Okay, you know what pac Man looks like.

(26:55):
Everybody knows what pac Man looks like. He got it,
pac Man. If you don't know what pac Man looks like,
I can't help you. Okay, pac Man. I want you
to picture pac Man and his mouth is open to
the right, all right, His mouth is open to the right.
For simplicity purposes, this is going to be our Malta. Okay,

(27:15):
you have your pack pac Man pictured in your head.
Now pac Man on his lower jaw, towards the back
of his lower jaw, he has two teeth. They're close
to each other. They're both coming out of his lower jaw.
He has two teeth.

Speaker 1 (27:37):
You with me.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
There are four locations that are going to matter for
the siege of Malta. The siege of Malta is not
one gigantic fortress. It's a big, desolate, crappy island. It
is four locations. There is one. Don't worry about memorizing
all this though, I'll keep covering it again. There's one
on pac Man's nose, up by where his nose would be.

(28:03):
This is going to be the site of a lot
of nastiness. This is called the Fort of Saint Elmo.
Don't worry about memorizing the names the teeth down to
the teeth. The teeth have names, which we'll get to.
That's not important. I'll get to those in a little
bit now. The fourth location is his tonsils, way back

(28:25):
in the back of his mouth. And again I'm making
this very simple m dina is what it's called. So
you have his nose, two teeth, and his tonsils that
those are the four locations of the four fortifications on Malta,
and the Ottomans are coming and there's a lot of them,

(28:48):
and the knights have to get ready. Will continue in
a moment before we continue. I know that discussing things
like swords and knights and cannons and conquest, probably as
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Speaker 1 (30:09):
Jesse Kelly returns. Next.

Speaker 2 (30:13):
It is the Jesse Kelly's Show on a Fantastic Tuesday.
Remember you can email the show Jesse at Jesse kellyshow
dot com. As we as we go over the Siege
of Malta. So that was a little bit of the background.
The Knights of Saint John are digging in on Malta.
They know the Ottoman Empire is coming with the massive

(30:35):
invasion fleet, and so they begin to fortify the island.
The four locations I already discussed just for your reference
in case you're interested, It is the fort Saint Elmo, Senglia,
Burgo and m Dina. Don't worry about those four locations.
Don't worry about the names. Just know there are four locations.

(30:58):
For now, we're gonna focus on a couple different things.
How how are they planning on fighting this? What are
the Ottomans bringing first? The Knights of Saint John on Malta.
They understand there's very little chance for them to win
without help. Now, I already said Europe it was not
a unified place then. It's not a unified place now,

(31:20):
But back then it was really, really not unified. The
Knights were sending out essentially help wanted letters. They were
reaching out to the pope, they were reaching out to kings.
Hey I need troops, I need help, I need boats
that the Ottomans are coming, the Muslims are coming. Help,
please send help. They are not getting rejected, I should clarify,

(31:45):
but everyone they're asking for help from, they're most definitely
dragging their feet. Oh hey, you need some help. Yeah, well,
you know, I got to move some things around. We'll
get on that at some point in time. Keep in
mind the desperate they need help. Now, what kind of
numbers are we talking about here? About seven hundred knights.

(32:08):
That number will be disputed no matter what source you read,
but traditionally it's thought to be about seven hundred knights.
There are some civilians on the island, as I pointed out,
and there are some other troops a few thousand who
aren't knights. Remember the siege of Malta is normally it's

(32:30):
sold as seven hundred knights versus thirty thousand Ottomans. The
Knights had some help, but the Knights were most definitely
the biggest, strongest, toughest. They were the leaders of this
whole thing. So that's what they had. Now I gave
the game away a little thirty thousand Ottomans. They're crossing
the sea. They have these gigantic galleys. Picture this, This

(32:54):
is a galley. Is a big ship. Eight hundred people
on one ship. Even if you picture old sailing ships
as large, that's amazingly large. They not only have sails,
they have oars. Who mans the oars slaves? Remember slavery.

(33:18):
I know your history professor told you that America was
the only person, the only country that ever participated in it. No,
it has always existed, will always exist, exists to this
day as well. And some of the worst slavery I've
ever read about are galley slaves. You are down in
the bows of a ship. It is nasty, it is smelly,

(33:40):
disease is everywhere, The work is absolutely brutal. So anyway,
these huge ships are coming across the ocean. There are
two different commanders on this ship. Before they even get
to Malta, they are fighting with each other. They end
up in a night this little squabble. Generals have egos too,

(34:03):
so that's already a problem, but shouldn't be a big issue,
right because they obviously outnumber the Knights. There aren't that
many of them. In case you're wondering, pause, what were
they arguing about? Where They argued about a lot, But
one of the main things they were arguing about is, Okay,
we have these four locations on Malta. We have pac

(34:24):
Man's nose, his tonsils, and the two teeth, and his
bottom jaw. What do we attack first? The guy who
was in charge, the guy who won the argument, he
wanted to attacks Fort Saint Elmo. He wanted to attack
pac Man's nose. So they show up, they land their

(34:48):
ships on there, and they start bombarding this fort. Now,
maybe you think this fort is completely impregnable. Nothing could
be further from the truth. This fort is not impressive
at all. It is a fort, and the Knights have

(35:08):
known they are coming, so they're building it up. But
this is not some gigantic, impregnable fortress. The Ottoman's land
right around pac bands, i'd say his forehead. They land
their boats, they land their troops, They put all their
cannons out there, and they start firing their cannons at

(35:29):
Fort Saint Elmo. While the cannons are firing, they are
digging trenches. In case you're wondering, historically this is one
of the most common ways to take a fortified city,
not just tunnels, but trenches. How does this work. Here's

(35:50):
an example of how trenches work. You obviously cannot just
get in the ground with a shovel and start digging
in a straight line tours a fort because then they're
going to take their cannons and their guns and they're
just gonna shoot it down the trench and murder everybody.
So you instead you have to zigzag back and forth,

(36:12):
back and forth, essentially keeping the trench always as a
wall between you and the guns that are on the fortification. Well,
right away we are seeing a problem the Ottomans are
going to have. I already pointed out that Malta is crappy,

(36:33):
it's wind swept, it's a rock. We're not talking about
a lush place before the Ottomans got there. The man
in charge of the Knights, it's the last name I'm
gonna give you, dave Lette is his name. He is
the top knight dave Lette. Yes, in case you're wondering,
he is French. Don't hold that against him. Dave Lette,

(36:54):
the man in charge of the knights. He goes and
he finds all the houses, all the food, all the
live stock around Malta, and he burns down the houses,
takes down everything, takes the food and brings all the
stuff inside of the fortifications. A thirty thousand man army

(37:17):
from the Ottoman's lands, and there's nothing for them to
find to eat. They have to bring it all with them.
Now we will pause right there and we'll continue again tomorrow.
Before we continue tomorrow, I want you, I want you
to think about the most precious picture you have. I'm

(37:43):
talking about a hard copy picture. What is it? It
might be your wedding day, or your father, or your
daughter or your son. But there is one, isn't there?
Maybe it's in a book. What are you going to
do if a fire or a flood destroys it? What

(38:03):
are you gonna do when you open up that book
one day and find out that humidity has destroyed it.
Let Legacy Box preserve it for you forever. Legacy Box
will preserve your memories. Forever. They take your VHS tapes,
they take your hard copy pictures, and they'd hand digitize

(38:27):
them and they preserve them for you forever. And they
have a huge sale going on right now. They'll send
you a box. At least get the box while there's
a sale. Legacybox dot com slash Jesse. Legacybox dot com
slash Jesse. We'll be back.