e7ba602418af741e4afefd084fd7047631e82a460082060168f734853c52c798

en/2349.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,142 @@
+
+
+French Guiana (/ɡiˈɑːnə/ or /ɡiˈænə/; French: Guyane [ɡɥijan]) is an overseas department and region of France on the northern Atlantic coast of South America in the Guianas. It borders Brazil to the east and south and Suriname to the west. French Guiana is the only territory of the mainland Americas to have full integration in a European country.
+
+With a land area of 83,534 km2 (32,253 sq mi), French Guiana is the second-largest region of France (it is more than one-seventh the size of Metropolitan France) and the largest outermost region within the European Union. It has a very low population density, with only 3.5 inhabitants per square kilometre (9.1/sq mi). (Its population is less than ​1⁄200 that of Metropolitan France.) Half of its 290,691 inhabitants in 2020 lived in the metropolitan area of Cayenne, its capital. 98.9% of the land territory of French Guiana is covered by forests,[3] a large part of which is primeval rainforest. The Guiana Amazonian Park, which is the largest national park in the European Union,[4] covers 41% of French Guiana's territory.
+
+Since December 2015 both the region and the department have been ruled by a single assembly within the framework of a new territorial collectivity, the French Guiana Territorial Collectivity (French: collectivité territoriale de Guyane). This assembly, the French Guiana Assembly (French: assemblée de Guyane), has replaced the former regional council and departmental council, which were both disbanded. The French Guiana Assembly is in charge of regional and departmental government. Its president is Rodolphe Alexandre.
+
+Before European contact, the territory was originally inhabited by Native Americans, most speaking the Arawak language, of the Arawakan language family. The people identified as Lokono. The first French establishment is recorded in 1503, but France did not establish a durable presence until colonists founded Cayenne in 1643. Guiana was developed as a slave society, where planters imported Africans as enslaved labourers on large sugar and other plantations in such number as to increase the population. Slavery was abolished in the colonies at the time of the French Revolution. Guiana was designated as a French department in 1797. But, after France gave up most of its territory in North America in 1803, it developed Guiana as a penal colony, establishing a network of camps and penitentiaries along the coast where prisoners from metropolitan France were sentenced to forced labour.[not verified in body]
+
+During World War II and the fall of France to Nazi German forces, Félix Éboué was one of the first to support General Charles de Gaulle of Free France, as early as June 18, 1940. Guiana officially rallied to Free France in 1943. It abandoned its status as a colony and once again became a French department in 1946.[citation needed]
+
+After de Gaulle was elected as president of France, he established the Guiana Space Centre in 1965. It is now operated by the CNES, Arianespace and the European Space Agency (ESA).[citation needed]
+
+In the late 1970s and early 1980s, several hundred Hmong refugees from Laos immigrated to French Guiana, fleeing displacement after the communist takeover of Laos by Pathet Lao in 1975.[5] In the late 1980s, more than 10,000 Surinamese refugees, mostly Maroons, arrived in French Guiana, fleeing the Surinamese Civil War.[5] More recently, French Guiana has received large numbers of Brazilian and Haitian economic migrants.[5] Illegal and ecologically destructive gold mining by Brazilian garimpeiros is a chronic issue in the remote interior rain forest of French Guiana.[6][7] The region still faces such problems as illegal immigration, poorer infrastructure than mainland France, higher costs of living, higher levels of crime and more common social unrest.[8]
+
+Fully integrated[according to whom?] in the French central state in the 21st century, French Guiana is a part of the European Union, and its official currency is the euro. The region has the highest nominal GDP per capita in South America.[2] A large part of French Guiana's economy derives from jobs and businesses associated with the presence of the Guiana Space Centre, now the European Space Agency's primary launch site near the equator. As elsewhere in France, the official language is standard French, but each ethnic community has its own language, of which French Guianese Creole, a French-based creole language, is the most widely spoken.
+
+The addition of the adjective "French" in most languages other than French is rooted in colonial times, when five such colonies (The Guianas) had been named along the coast, subject to differing powers: namely (from west to east) Spanish Guiana (now Guayana Region and Guayana Esequiba in Venezuela), British Guiana (now Guyana), Dutch Guiana (now Suriname), French Guiana, and Portuguese Guiana (now Amapá in Brazil). French Guiana and the two larger countries to the north and west, Guyana and Suriname, are still often collectively referred to as "the Guianas" and constitute one large landmass known as the Guiana Shield.
+
+French Guiana was originally inhabited by indigenous people: Kalina, Arawak, Emerillon, Galibi, Palikur, Wayampi and Wayana. The French attempted to create a colony there in the 18th century in conjunction with its settlement of some Caribbean islands, such as Guadeloupe and Saint-Domingue.
+
+During the Revolution, the National Convention voted to abolish slavery in February 1794, months after the rebelling slaves had already announced an abolition of slavery in Saint-Domingue. However, the 1794 decree was only implemented in Saint-Domingue, Guadeloupe and Guyane: it was a dead letter in Senegal, Mauritius and Reunion. Martinique had been conquered by the British, who maintained slavery there.[9]
+
+Bill Marshall, Professor of Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Stirling[10] wrote of French Guiana's origins:
+
+The first French effort to colonize Guiana, in 1763, failed utterly, as settlers were subject to high mortality given the numerous tropical diseases and harsh climate: all but 2,000 of the initial 12,000 settlers died. 
+During operations as a penal colony beginning in the mid-19th century, France transported approximately 56,000 prisoners to Devil's Island. Fewer than 10% survived their sentence.[11]
+
+Île du Diable (Devil's Island) was the site of a small prison facility, part of a larger penal system by the same name, which consisted of prisons on three islands and three larger prisons on the mainland. This was operated from 1852 to 1953.
+
+In addition, in the late nineteenth century, France began requiring forced residencies by prisoners who survived their hard labour.[12] A Portuguese-British naval squadron took French Guiana for the Portuguese Empire in 1809. It was returned to France with the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1814. Though Portugal returned the region to France, it kept a military presence until 1817.
+
+After French Guiana had been established as a penal colony, officials sometimes used convicts to catch butterflies. The sentences of the convicts were often long, and the prospect of employment very weak, so the convicts caught butterflies to sell in the international market, both for scientific purposes as well as general collecting.[13]
+
+A border dispute with Brazil arose in the late 19th century over a vast area of jungle, resulting in the short-lived, pro-French, independent state of Counani in the disputed territory. There was some fighting among settlers. The dispute was resolved largely in favour of Brazil by the arbitration of the Swiss government.[14]
+
+The territory of Inini      consisted of most of the interior of French Guiana when it was created in 1930. It was abolished in 1946, the year that French Guiana as a whole was formally established as an overseas department of France. During the 1970s, following the French withdrawal from Vietnam in the 1950s and warfare conducted in the region by the United States, France helped resettle thousands of Hmong refugees from Laos to French Guiana.
+
+In 1964, French president Charles de Gaulle decided to construct a space-travel base in French Guiana. It was intended to replace the Sahara base in Algeria and stimulate economic growth in French Guiana. The department was considered particularly suitable for the purpose because it is near the equator and has extensive access to the ocean as a buffer zone. The Guiana Space Centre, located a short distance along the coast from Kourou, has grown considerably since the initial launches of the Véronique rockets. It is now part of the European space industry and has had commercial success with such launches as the Ariane 4 and Ariane 5.
+
+The Guianese General Council officially adopted a departmental flag in 2010.[15] In a referendum that same year, French Guiana voted against autonomy.[16]
+
+On March 20, 2017, French Guianese workers began going on strike and demonstrating for more resources and infrastructure.[17] March 28, 2017 was the day of the largest demonstration ever held in French Guiana.[18]
+
+French Guiana has been impacted severely by the COVID-19 outbreak, with more than 1% of French Guianese testing positive by the end of June 2020.[19]
+
+French Guiana lies between latitudes 3° and 6° N, and longitudes 51° and 55° W. It consists of two main geographical regions: a coastal strip where the majority of the people live, and dense, near-inaccessible rainforest which gradually rises to the modest peaks of the Tumuc-Humac mountains along the Brazilian frontier. French Guiana's highest peak is Bellevue de l'Inini in Maripasoula (851 m, 2,792 ft). Other mountains include Mont Machalou (782 m, 2,566 ft), Pic Coudreau (711 m, 2,333 ft), Mont St Marcel (635 m, 2,083 ft), Mont Favard (200 m, 660 ft) and Montagne du Mahury (156 m, 512 ft).
+
+Several small islands are found off the coast, the three Salvation's Islands which include Devil's Island, and the isolated Îles du Connétable bird sanctuary further along the coast towards Brazil.
+
+The Petit-Saut Dam, a hydroelectric dam in the north of French Guiana forms an artificial lake and provides hydroelectricity. There are many rivers in French Guiana, including the Waki River.
+
+As of 2007[update], the Amazonian forest, located in the most remote part of the department, is protected as the Guiana Amazonian Park, one of the ten national parks of France. The territory of the park covers some 33,900 km2 (13,090 sq mi) upon the communes of Camopi, Maripasoula, Papaïchton, Saint-Élie and Saül.
+
+French Guiana has a tropical rainforest climate predominant.[20] Located within six degrees of the Equator and rising only to modest elevations, French Guiana is hot and oppressively humid all year round. During most of the year, rainfall across the country is heavy due to the presence of the Intertropical Convergence Zone and its powerful thunderstorm cells. In most parts of French Guiana, rainfall is always heavy especially from December to June or July – typically over 330 millimetres or 13 inches can be expected each month during this period throughout the department. Between August and November, the eastern half experiences a "dry" season with as little as 30 millimetres or 1.18 inches in September and October, causing eastern French Guiana to be classed as a tropical monsoon climate (Köppen Am); Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni in the west has a tropical rainforest climate (Af).
+
+French Guiana is home to many different ecosystems: tropical rainforests, coastal mangroves, savannahs, inselbergs and many types of wetlands. French Guiana has a high level of biodiversity of both flora and fauna. This is due to the presence of old-growth forests (i.e., ancient/primary forests), which are biodiversity hotspots. The rainforests of French Guiana provide shelter for many species during dry periods and terrestrial glaciation. These forests are protected by a national park (the Guiana Amazonian Park), and six additional nature reserves. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the European Union (EU) have recommended special efforts to protect these areas.[22]
+
+Following the Grenelle Environment Round Table of 2007, the Grenelle Law II was proposed in 2009, under law number 2010-788. Article 49 of the law proposed the creation of a single organization responsible for environmental conservation in French Guiana. Article 64 proposes a "departmental plan of mining orientation" for French Guiana, which would promote mining (specifically of gold) that is compatible with requirements for environmental protection.[23] The coastal environment along the N1 has historically experienced the most changes, but development is occurring locally along the N2, and also in western French Guiana due to gold mining.
+
+5,500 plant species have been recorded, including more than a thousand trees, along with 700 species of birds, 177 species of mammals, over 500 species of fish including 45% of which are endemic and 109 species of amphibians. The micro-organisms would be much more numerous, especially in the north, which competes with the Brazilian Amazon, Borneo and Sumatra. This single French department has at least 98% of vertebrate fauna and 96% of vascular plants as found in all of France and its overseas territories.
+
+Threats to the ecosystem are: habitat fragmentation from roads, which remains very limited compared to other forests of South America; immediate and deferred impacts of EDF's Petit-Saut Dam; gold mining; poor control of hunting and poaching, facilitated by the creation of many tracks; and the introduction of all-terrain vehicles. Logging remains moderate due to the lack of roads, difficult climate, and difficult terrain. The Forest Code of French Guiana was modified by ordinance on 28 July 2005. Logging concessions or free transfers are sometimes granted by local authorities to persons traditionally deriving their livelihood from the forest.
+
+The beaches of the natural reserve of the Amana, the joint Awala-Yalimapo in the west, is an exceptional marine turtle nesting site. This is one of the largest worldwide for the leatherback turtle.
+
+French Guiana has some of the poorest soils in the world. The soil is low in nutrients (e.g., nitrogen, potassium) and organic matter. Soil acidity is another cause of the poor soils, and it requires farmers to add lime to their fields. All of these soil characteristics have led to the use of slash and burn agriculture. The resulting ashes elevate soil pH (i.e., lower soil acidity), and contribute minerals and other nutrients to the soil. Sites of Terra preta (anthropogenic soils) have been discovered in French Guiana, particularly near the border with Brazil. Research is being actively pursued in multiple fields to determine how these enriched soils were historically created, and how this can be done in modern times.
+
+As a part of France, French Guiana is part of the European Union and the Eurozone; its currency is the euro. The country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for French Guiana is .gf, but .fr is generally used instead.[24]
+
+In 2017, the GDP of French Guiana at market exchange rates was US$5.18 billion (€4.59 billion),[2] ranking as the largest economy in the Guianas, and the 11th largest in South America.[25]
+
+French Guiana is heavily dependent on mainland France for subsidies, trade, and goods.[citation needed] The main traditional industries are fishing (accounting for 5% of exports in 2012), gold mining (accounting for 32% of exports in 2012) and timber (accounting for 1% of exports in 2012).[26] In addition, the Guiana Space Centre has played a significant role in the local economy since it was established in Kourou in 1964: it accounted directly and indirectly for 16% of French Guiana's GDP in 2002 (down from 26% in 1994, as the French Guianese economy is becoming increasingly diversified).[27] The Guiana Space Centre employed 1,659 people in 2012.[28]
+
+There is very little manufacturing. Agriculture is largely undeveloped and is mainly confined to the area near the coast and along the Maroni River. Sugar and bananas were traditionally two of the main cash crops grown for export but have almost completely disappeared. Today they have been replaced by livestock raising (essentially beef cattle and pigs) in the coastal savannas between Cayenne and the second-largest town, Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, and market gardening (fruits and vegetables) developed by the Hmong communities settled in French Guiana in the 1970s, both destined to the local market. A thriving rice production, developed on polders near Mana from the early 1980s to the late 2000s, has almost completely disappeared since 2011 due to marine erosion and new EU plant health rules which forbid the use of many pesticides and fertilizers. Tourism, especially eco-tourism, is growing. Unemployment has been persistently high in the last few decades: 20% to 25% (22.3% in 2012).[29]
+
+In 2017, the GDP per capita of French Guiana at market exchange rates, not at PPP, was US$18,313 (€16,218),[2] the highest in South America,[30] but only 46.7% of metropolitan France's average GDP per capita that year, and 55.5% of the metropolitan French regions outside the Paris Region.[2] The 2017 social unrest in French Guiana which paralyzed the economy for several weeks led to an economic recession (−1.9% in real terms) which sunk the GDP per capita that year.[31]
+
+French Guiana's population of 290,691 (2020 estimate[1]), most of whom live along the coast, is substantially ethnically diverse. At the 2014 census, 57.3% of the inhabitants of French Guiana were born in French Guiana, 9.3% were born in Metropolitan France, 3.0% were born in the French Caribbean departments and collectivities (Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Martin, Saint Barthélemy), and 30.2% were born in foreign countries (primarily Suriname, Brazil and Haiti).[32]
+
+Estimates of the percentages of French Guiana ethnic composition are difficult to produce due to the presence of a large proportion of immigrants. People of mixed African and French ancestry are the largest ethnic group, though estimates vary as to the exact percentage, depending upon whether the large Haitian community is included as well. Generally, the Creole population is judged to be about 60–70% of the total population if Haitians (comprising roughly one-third of Creoles) are included, and 30–50% otherwise. There are also smaller groups from various Caribbean islands, mainly Martinique, Guadeloupe, Saint Lucia as well as Dominica.
+
+Roughly 14% of the population is of European ancestry. The vast majority of these are of French ancestry, though there are also people of Dutch, British, Spanish and Portuguese ancestry.
+
+The main Asian communities are the Chinese (about 3–4%, primarily from Zhejiang Province and Guangdong Province in mainland China) and Hmong from Laos (1–2%). Other groups from Asia include East Indians, Lebanese and Vietnamese.
+
+The main groups living in the interior are the Maroons who are of African descent, and Amerindians. The Maroons, descendants of escaped African slaves, live primarily along the Maroni River. The main Maroon groups are the Saramaca, Aucan (both of whom also live in Suriname), and Boni (Aluku).
+
+The main Amerindian groups (forming about 3–4% of the population) are the Arawak, Carib, Emerillon (now called the Teko), Galibi (now called the Kaliña), Palikur, Wayampi and Wayana. As of the late 1990s, there was evidence of an uncontacted group of Wayampi.
+
+The dominant religion of French Guiana is Roman Catholicism; the Maroons and some Amerindian peoples maintain their own religions. The Hmong people are also largely Catholic owing to the influence of missionaries who helped bring them to French Guiana.[33] Guianan Catholics are part of the Diocese of Cayenne.
+
+The total fertility rate in French Guiana has remained high and is today considerably higher than that of metropolitan France, as well as most of the other French overseas departments. It is largely responsible for the rapid population growth of French Guiana.
+
+A Data for the four overseas departments of French Guiana, Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Réunion, not including the new overseas department of Mayotte.
+
+The official language of French Guiana is French, and it is the predominant language of the department, spoken by most residents as a first or second language. In addition, a number of other local languages exist. Regional languages include French Guianese Creole (not to be confused with Guyanese Creole), six Amerindian languages (Arawak, Palijur, Kali'na, Wayana, Wayampi, Emerillon), four Maroon creole languages (Saramaka, Paramaccan, Aluku, Ndyuka), as well as Hmong Njua.[35] Other languages spoken include Portuguese, Hakka, Haitian Creole, Spanish, Dutch, English, and Tamil, and Caribbean Hindustani.
+
+French Guiana, as part of France, forms part of the European Union – the largest landmass for an area outside of Europe (since Greenland left the European Community in 1985), with one of the longest EU external boundaries. It is one of only three European Union territories outside Europe that is not an island (the others being the Spanish Autonomous Cities in Africa, Ceuta and Melilla). As an integral part of France, its head of state is the President of the French Republic, and its head of government is the Prime Minister of France. The French Government and its agencies have responsibility for a wide range of issues that are reserved to the national executive power, such as defense and external relations.
+
+The President of France appoints a prefect (resident at the prefecture building in Cayenne) as his representative to head the local government of French Guiana. There is one elected, local executive body, the Assemblée de Guyane.[36]
+
+French Guiana sends two deputies to the French National Assembly, one representing the commune (municipality) of Cayenne and the commune of Macouria, and the other representing the rest of French Guiana. This latter constituency is the largest in the French Republic by land area. French Guiana also sends two senators to the French Senate.
+
+The Guianese Socialist Party dominated politics in French Guiana until 2010.
+
+A chronic issue affecting French Guiana is the influx of illegal immigrants and clandestine gold prospectors from Brazil and Suriname. The border between the department and Suriname, the Maroni River, flows through rain forest and is difficult for the Gendarmerie and the French Foreign Legion to patrol. There have been several phases launched by the French government to combat illegal gold mining in French Guiana, beginning with Operation Anaconda beginning in 2003, followed by Operation Harpie in 2008, 2009 and Operation Harpie Reinforce in 2010. Colonel François Müller, the commander of French Guiana's gendarmes, believes these operations have been successful. However, after each operation ends, Brazilian miners, garimpeiros [fr], return.[37] Soon after Operation Harpie Reinforce began, an altercation took place between French authorities and Brazilian miners. On 12 March 2010 a team of French soldiers and border police were attacked while returning from a successful operation, during which "the soldiers had arrested 15 miners, confiscated three boats, and seized 617 grams of gold... currently worth about $22,317". Garimpeiros returned to retrieve their lost loot and colleagues. The soldiers fired warning shots and rubber "flash balls", but the miners managed to retake one of their boats and about 500 grams of gold. "The violent reaction by the garimpeiros can be explained by the exceptional take of 617 grams of gold, about 20 percent of the quantity seized in 2009 during the battle against illegal mining", said Phillipe Duporge, the director of French Guiana's border police, at a press conference the next day.[38]
+
+French Guiana is divided into 2 arrondissements and 22 communes:
+
+Arrondissement ofSaint-Laurent-du-Maroni
+
+
+
+Arrondissement ofCayenne
+
+
+
+French Guiana's main international airport is Cayenne – Félix Eboué Airport, located in the commune of Matoury, a southern suburb of Cayenne. There are two flights a day to Paris (Orly Airport), served by Air France and Air Caraïbes. The flight time from Cayenne to Paris is 8 hours and 10 minutes, and from Paris to Cayenne it is 8 hours and 30 minutes. There are also flights to Fort-de-France, Pointe-à-Pitre, Belém, and Fortaleza.
+
+French Guiana's main seaport is the port of Dégrad des Cannes, located on the estuary of the Mahury River, in the commune of Remire-Montjoly, a south-eastern suburb of Cayenne. Almost all of French Guiana's imports and exports pass through the port of Dégrad des Cannes. Built in 1969, it replaced the old harbour of Cayenne which was congested and could not cope with modern traffic.
+
+An asphalted road from Régina to Saint-Georges de l'Oyapock (a town by the Brazilian border) was opened in 2004, completing the road from Cayenne to the Brazilian border. It is now possible to drive on a fully paved road from Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni on the Surinamese border to Saint-Georges de l'Oyapock on the Brazilian border.
+
+Following a treaty between France and Brazil signed in July 2005, the Oyapock River Bridge over the Oyapock River was built and completed in 2011, becoming the first land crossing ever between French Guiana and the rest of the world (there exists no other bridge crossing the Oyapock River, and no bridge crossing the Maroni River marking the border with Suriname, although there is a ferry crossing to Albina, Suriname). The bridge was officially opened on March 18, 2017. However, since the Brazilian government is yet to complete its border posts, only passenger vehicles will be allowed through the bridge for the time being.[39] The inauguration makes it possible to drive uninterrupted from Cayenne to Macapá, the capital of the state of Amapá in Brazil.
+
+Population figures are those recorded in the 2017 census.[40]
+
+The commander of the French armed forces in French Guiana since July 2009 has been General Jean-Pierre Hestin. The military there is currently 1,900 strong, expected to increase enrollment in 2014–2015.[41]
+
+Among the military, police and security forces in French Guiana, are the following:
+
+At Easter, French Guianese people eat a traditional dish called Awara broth.
+
+As a French Overseas department, French Guiana is not a member of the Pan American Sports Organization; rather, athletes compete within the French National Olympic and Sports Committee and are governed by the Ligue d'Athlétisme de la Guyane, a sub-unit of the Fédération française d'athlétisme.
+
+The Ligue de Football de la Guyane is a member of CONCACAF but not of FIFA, and the French Guiana football team finished third in the 2017 Caribbean Cup. The French Guiana Honor Division is the main football club tournament.
+
+Starting in 1960, the Tour of Guiana, an annual multiple stage bicycle race, is held.[43]
+
+The novel Papillon, by the French convict Henri Charrière, is set in French Guiana. It was first published in France in 1969, describing his escape from a penal colony there. Becoming an instant bestseller, it was translated into English from the original French by June P. Wilson and Walter B. Michaels for a 1970 edition, and by author Patrick O'Brian. Soon afterward the book was adapted for a Hollywood film of the same name. Charrière stated that all events in the book are truthful and accurate, allowing for minor lapses in memory. Since its publication there has been controversy over its accuracy.[44][45]

en/235.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,171 @@
+
+
+An angel is a supernatural being in various religions and mythologies.  Abrahamic religions often depict them as benevolent celestial intermediaries between God (or Heaven) and humanity.[1][2] Other roles include protectors and guides for humans, and servants of God.[3] Abrahamic religions describe angelic hierarchies, which vary by sect and religion. Some angels have specific names (such as Gabriel or Michael) or titles (such as seraph or archangel). Humans have also used "angel" to describe various spirits and figures in other religious traditions. The theological study of angels is known as "angelology". Those expelled from Heaven are called fallen angels, distinct from the heavenly host.
+
+Angels in art are usually shaped like humans of extraordinary beauty.[4] They are often identified In Christian artwork with bird wings,[5] halos,[6]
+and divine light.
+
+The word angel arrives in modern English from Old English engel (with a hard g) and the Old French angele.[7] Both of these derive from Late Latin angelus (literally "messenger"), which in turn was borrowed from Late Greek ἄγγελος angelos.[8] Additionally, per Dutch linguist R. S. P. Beekes, ángelos itself may be "an Oriental loan, like ἄγγαρος (ángaros, 'Persian mounted courier')."[9] Perhaps then, the word's earliest form is Mycenaean a-ke-ro, attested in Linear B syllabic script.[10][11]
+
+The rendering of "ángelos" is the Septuagint's default translation of the Biblical Hebrew term malʼākh, denoting simply "messenger" without connoting its nature. In the Latin Vulgate, this meaning becomes bifurcated: when malʼākh or ángelos is supposed to denote a human messenger, words like nuntius or legatus are applied. If the word refers to some supernatural being, the word angelus appears. Such differentiation has been taken over by later vernacular translations of the Bible, early Christian and Jewish exegetes and eventually modern scholars.[12]
+
+The Torah uses the (Hebrew) terms מלאך אלהים (mal'āk̠  'ĕlōhîm; messenger of God), מלאך יהוה (mal'āk̠ YHWH; messenger of the Lord), בני אלהים (bənē 'ĕlōhîm; sons of God) and הקודשים (haqqôd̠əšîm; the holy ones) to refer to beings traditionally interpreted as angels. Later texts use other terms, such as העליונים (hā'elyônîm; the upper ones).
+
+The term מלאך (mal'āk̠) is also used in other books of the Tanakh. Depending on the context, the Hebrew word may refer to a human messenger or to a supernatural messenger. A human messenger might be a prophet or priest, such as Malachi, "my messenger"; the Greek superscription in the Septuagint translation states the Book of Malachi was written "by the hand of his messenger" ἀγγέλου angélu. Examples of a supernatural messenger[13] are the "Malak YHWH," who is either a messenger from God,[14] an aspect of God (such as the Logos),[15] or God himself as the messenger (the "theophanic angel.")[13][16]
+
+Scholar Michael D. Coogan notes that it is only in the late books that the terms "come to mean the benevolent semi-divine beings familiar from later mythology and art."[17] Daniel is the first biblical figure to refer to individual angels by name,[18] mentioning Gabriel (God's primary messenger) in Daniel 9:21 and Michael (the holy fighter) in Daniel 10:13. These angels are part of Daniel's apocalyptic visions and are an important part of all apocalyptic literature.[17][19]
+
+In Daniel 7, Daniel receives a dream-vision from God. [...] As Daniel watches, the Ancient of Days takes his seat on the throne of heaven and sits in judgement in the midst of the heavenly court [...] an [angel] like a son of man approaches the Ancient One in the clouds of heaven and is given everlasting kingship.[20]
+
+Coogan explains the development of this concept of angels: "In the postexilic period, with the development of explicit monotheism, these divine beings—the 'sons of God' who were members of the Divine Council—were in effect demoted to what are now known as 'angels', understood as beings created by God, but immortal and thus superior to humans."[17] This conception of angels is best understood in contrast to demons and is often thought to be "influenced by the ancient Persian religious tradition of Zoroastrianism, which viewed the world as a battleground between forces of good and forces of evil, between light and darkness."[17] One of these is hāšāṭān, a figure depicted in (among other places) the Book of Job.
+
+Philo of Alexandria identifies the angel with the Logos inasmuch as the angel is the immaterial voice of God. The angel is something different from God himself, but is conceived as God's instrument.[21]
+
+Four classes of ministering angels minister and utter praise before the Holy One, blessed be He: the first camp (led by) Michael on His right, the second camp (led by) Gabriel on His left, the third camp (led by) Uriel before Him, and the fourth camp (led by) Raphael behind Him; and the Shekhinah of the Holy One, blessed be He, is in the centre. He is sitting on a throne high and exalted[22]
+
+In post-Biblical Judaism, certain angels took on particular significance and developed unique personalities and roles. Although these archangels were believed to rank among the heavenly host, no systematic hierarchy ever developed. Metatron is considered one of the highest of the angels in Merkabah and Kabbalist mysticism and often serves as a scribe; he is briefly mentioned in the Talmud[23] and figures prominently in Merkabah mystical texts. Michael, who serves as a warrior[24] and advocate for Israel (Daniel 10:13), is looked upon particularly fondly.[25] Gabriel is mentioned in the Book of Daniel (Daniel 8:15–17) and briefly in the Talmud,[26] as well as in many Merkabah mystical texts. There is no evidence in Judaism for the worship of angels, but there is evidence for the invocation and sometimes even conjuration of angels.[18]
+
+According to Kabbalah, there are four worlds and our world is the last world: the world of action (Assiyah). Angels exist in the worlds above as a 'task' of God. They are an extension of God to produce effects in this world. After an angel has completed its task, it ceases to exist. The angel is in effect the task. This is derived from the book of Genesis when Abraham meets with three angels and Lot meets with two. The task of one of the angels was to inform Abraham of his coming child. The other two were to save Lot and to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah.[18]
+
+Jewish philosopher Maimonides explained his view of angels in his Guide for the Perplexed II:4 and II
+
+... This leads Aristotle in turn to the demonstrated fact that God, glory and majesty to Him, does not do things by direct contact. God burns things by means of fire; fire is moved by the motion of the sphere; the sphere is moved by means of a disembodied intellect, these intellects being the 'angels which are near to Him', through whose mediation the spheres move ... thus totally disembodied minds exist which emanate from God and are the intermediaries between God and all the bodies [objects] here in this world.
+
+Maimonides had a neo-Aristotelian interpretation of the Bible. Maimonides writes that to the wise man, one sees that what the Bible and Talmud refer to as "angels" are actually allusions to the various laws of nature; they are the principles by which the physical universe operates.
+
+For all forces are angels! How blind, how perniciously blind are the naive?! If you told someone who purports to be a sage of Israel that the Deity sends an angel who enters a woman's womb and there forms an embryo, he would think this a miracle and accept it as a mark of the majesty and power of the Deity, despite the fact that he believes an angel to be a body of fire one third the size of the entire world. All this, he thinks, is possible for God. But if you tell him that God placed in the sperm the power of forming and demarcating these organs, and that this is the angel, or that all forms are produced by the Active Intellect; that here is the angel, the "vice-regent of the world" constantly mentioned by the sages, then he will recoil.– Guide for the Perplexed II:4
+
+Maimonides, in his Yad ha-Chazakah: Yesodei ha-Torah, counts ten ranks of angels in the Jewish angelic hierarchy, beginning from the highest:
+
+From the Jewish Encyclopedia, entry "Angelology".[18]
+
+(Only these two angels are mentioned by name in the Hebrew Bible; the rest are from extra-biblical tradition.)
+
+Later Christians inherited Jewish understandings of angels, which in turn may have been partly inherited from the Egyptians.[27] In the early stage, the Christian concept of an angel characterized the angel as a messenger of God. Later came identification of individual angelic messengers: Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, and Uriel.[28] Then, in the space of little more than two centuries (from the 3rd to the 5th) the image of angels took on definite characteristics both in theology and in art.[29]
+
+According to St. Augustine, " 'Angel' is the name of their office, not of their nature. If you seek the name of their nature, it is 'spirit'; if you seek the name of their office, it is 'angel': from what they are, 'spirit', from what they do, 'angel'."[30] Basilian Father Thomas Rosica says, "Angels are very important, because they provide people with an articulation of the conviction that God is intimately involved in human life."[31]
+
+By the late 4th century, the Church Fathers agreed that there were different categories of angels, with appropriate missions and activities assigned to them. There was, however, some disagreement regarding the nature of angels. Some argued that angels had physical bodies,[32] while some maintained that they were entirely spiritual. Some theologians had proposed that angels were not divine but on the level of immaterial beings subordinate to the Trinity. The resolution of this Trinitarian dispute included the development of doctrine about angels.[33]
+
+The angels are represented throughout the Christian Bible as spiritual beings intermediate between God and men: "You have made him [man] a little less than the angels ..." (Psalms 8:4–5). Christians believe that angels are created beings, based on (Psalms 148:2–5; Colossians 1:16): "praise ye Him, all His angels: praise ye Him, all His hosts ... for He spoke and they were made. He commanded and they were created ...". The Forty Gospel Homilies by Pope Gregory I noted angels and archangels.[34] The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) declared that the angels were created beings. The Council's decree Firmiter credimus (issued against the Albigenses) declared both that angels were created and that men were created after them. The First Vatican Council (1869) repeated this declaration in Dei Filius, the "Dogmatic constitution on the Catholic faith".
+
+Thomas Aquinas (13th century) relates angels to Aristotle's metaphysics in his Summa contra Gentiles,[35] Summa Theologica,[36] and in De substantiis separatis,[37] a treatise on angelology. Although angels have greater knowledge than men, they are not omniscient, as Matthew 24:36 points out.[38]
+
+Forget not to show love unto strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.—Hebrews 13:2
+
+The New Testament includes many interactions and conversations between angels and humans. For instance, three separate cases of angelic interaction deal with the births of John the Baptist and Jesus Christ. In Luke 1:11, an angel appears to Zechariah to inform him that he will have a child despite his old age, thus proclaiming the birth of John the Baptist. In Luke 1:26 the Archangel Gabriel visits the Virgin Mary in the Annunciation to foretell the birth of Jesus Christ. Angels then proclaim the birth of Jesus in the Adoration of the shepherds in Luke 2:10.[39]
+
+According to Matthew 4:11, after Jesus spent 40 days in the desert, "...the Devil left him and, behold, angels came and ministered to him." In Luke 22:43 an angel comforts Jesus Christ during the Agony in the Garden.[40] In Matthew 28:5 an angel speaks at the empty tomb, following the Resurrection of Jesus and the rolling back of the stone by angels.[39]
+
+In 1851 Pope Pius IX approved the Chaplet of Saint Michael based on the 1751 reported private revelation from archangel Michael to the Carmelite nun Antonia d'Astonac.[41] In a biography of Saint Gemma Galgani written by Venerable Germanus Ruoppolo, Galgani stated that she had spoken with her guardian angel.
+
+Pope John Paul II emphasized the role of angels in Catholic teachings in his 1986 address titled "Angels Participate In History Of Salvation", in which he suggested that modern mentality should come to see the importance of angels.[42]
+
+According to the Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, "The practice of assigning names to the Holy Angels should be discouraged, except in the cases of Gabriel, Raphael and Michael whose names are contained in Holy Scripture."[43]
+
+The New Church denominations that arose from the writings of theologian Emanuel Swedenborg have distinct ideas about angels and the spiritual world in which they dwell. Adherents believe that all angels are in human form with a spiritual body, and are not just minds without form.[44] There are different orders of angels according to the three heavens,[45] and each angel dwells in one of innumerable societies of angels. Such a society of angels can appear as one angel as a whole.[46]
+
+All angels originate from the human race, and there is not one angel in heaven who first did not live in a material body.[47] Moreover, all children who die not only enter heaven but eventually become angels.[48] The life of angels is that of usefulness, and their functions are so many that they cannot be enumerated. However each angel will enter a service according to the use that they had performed in their earthly life.[49] Names of angels, such as Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, signify a particular angelic function rather than an individual being.[50]
+
+While living in one's body an individual has conjunction with heaven through the angels,[51] and with each person, there are at least two evil spirits and two angels.[52] Temptation or pains of conscience originates from a conflict between evil spirits and angels.[53] Due to man's sinful nature it is dangerous to have open direct communication with angels[54] and they can only be seen when one's spiritual sight has been opened.[55] Thus from moment to moment angels attempt to lead each person to what is good tacitly using the person's own thoughts.[56]
+
+The Latter Day Saint movement views angels as the messengers of God. They are sent to mankind to deliver messages, minister to humanity, teach doctrines of salvation, call mankind to repentance, give priesthood keys, save individuals in perilous times, and guide humankind.[57]
+
+Latter Day Saints believe that angels either are the spirits of humans who are deceased or who have yet to be born, or are humans who have been resurrected or translated and have physical bodies of flesh and bones,[58] and accordingly Joseph Smith taught that "there are no angels who minister to this earth but those that do belong or have belonged to it."[59] As such, Latter Day Saints also believe that Adam, the first man, was and is now the archangel Michael,[60][61][62] and that Gabriel lived on the earth as Noah.[58] Likewise the Angel Moroni first lived in a pre-Columbian American civilization as the 5th-century prophet-warrior named Moroni.
+
+Smith described his first angelic encounter in the following manner:[63]
+
+"While I was thus in the act of calling upon God, I discovered a light appearing in my room, which continued to increase until the room was lighter than at noonday, when immediately a personage appeared at my bedside, standing in the air, for his feet did not touch the floor.
+
+He had on a loose robe of most exquisite whiteness. It was a whiteness beyond anything earthly I had ever seen; nor do I believe that any earthly thing could be made to appear so exceedingly white and brilliant ...
+
+Not only was his robe exceedingly white, but his whole person was glorious beyond description, and his countenance truly like lightning. The room was exceedingly light, but not so very bright as immediately around his person. When I first looked upon him, I was afraid; but the fear soon left me."
+
+Most angelic visitations in the early Latter Day Saint movement were witnessed by Smith and Oliver Cowdery, who both said (prior to the establishment of the church in 1830) they had been visited by the prophet Moroni, John the Baptist, and the apostles Peter, James, and John. Later, after the dedication of the Kirtland Temple, Smith and Cowdery said they had been visited by Jesus, and subsequently by Moses, Elias, and Elijah.[64]
+
+Others who said they received a visit by an angel include the other two of the Three Witnesses: David Whitmer and Martin Harris. Many other Latter Day Saints, both in the early and modern church, have said they had seen angels, although Smith posited that, except in extenuating circumstances such as the restoration, mortals teach mortals, spirits teach spirits, and resurrected beings teach other resurrected beings.[65]
+
+Belief in angels is fundamental to Islam. The Quranic word for angel (Arabic: ملاك‎ malak) derives either from Malaka, meaning "he controlled", due to their power to govern different affairs assigned to them,[66] or from the root either from  ʼ-l-k, l-ʼ-k or m-l-k with the broad meaning of a "messenger", just like its counterparts in Hebrew (malʾákh) and Greek (angelos). Unlike their Hebrew counterpart, the term is exclusively used for heavenly spirits of the divine world, but not for human messengers. The Quran refers to both angelic and human messengers as "rasul" instead.[67]
+
+The Quran is the principal source for the Islamic concept of angels.[68] Some of them, such as Gabriel and Michael, are mentioned by name in the Quran, others are only referred to by their function. In hadith literature, angels are often assigned to only one specific phenomena.[69] Angels play a significant role in Mi'raj literature, where Muhammad encounters several angels during his journey through the heavens.[70] Further angels have often been featured in Islamic eschatology, Islamic theology and Islamic philosophy.[71] Duties assigned to angels include, for example, communicating revelations from God, glorifying God, recording every person's actions, and taking a person's soul at the time of death.
+
+In Islam, just like in Judaism and Christianity, angels are often represented in anthropomorphic forms combined with supernatural images, such as wings, being of great size or wearing heavenly articles.[72] The Quran describes them as "messengers with wings—two, or three, or four (pairs): He [God] adds to Creation as He pleases..."[73] Common characteristics for angels are their missing needs for bodily desires, such as eating and drinking.[74] Their lack of affinity to material desires is also expressed by their creation from light: Angels of mercy are created from nur (cold light) in opposition to the angels of punishment created from nar (hot light).[75] Muslims do not generally share the perceptions of angelic pictorial depictions, such as those found in Western art.
+
+Although believing in angels remain one of Six Articles of Faith in Islam, one can not find a dogmatic angelology in Islamic tradition. Despite this, scholars had discussed the role of angels from specific canonical events, such as the Mi'raj, and Quranic verses. Even if they are not in focus, they have been featured in folklore, philosophy debates and systematic theology. While in classical Islam, widespread notions were accepted as canonical, there is a tendecy in contemporary scholarship to reject much material about angels, like calling the Angel of Death by the name Azra'il.[76]
+
+Ibn Sina, who drew upon the Neo-Platonistic emanation cosmology of Al-Farabi, developed an angelological hierarchy of Intellects, which are created by "the One". Therefore, the first creation by God was the supreme archangel followed by other archangels, who are identified with lower Intellects. From these Intellects again, emanated lower angels or "moving spheres", from which in turn, emanated other Intellects until it reaches the Intellect, which reigns over the souls. The tenth Intellect is responsible for bringing material forms into being and illuminating the minds.[77][78]
+
+In Folk Islam, individual angels may be evoked in exorcism rites, whose names are engraved in talismans or amulets.[79]
+
+Some modern scholars have emphasized a metaphorical reinterpretation of the concept of angels.[80]
+
+In Zoroastrianism there are different angel-like figures. For example, each person has one guardian angel, called Fravashi. They patronize human beings and other creatures, and also manifest God's energy. The Amesha Spentas have often been regarded as angels, although there is no direct reference to them conveying messages,[81] but are rather emanations of Ahura Mazda ("Wise Lord", God); they initially appeared in an abstract fashion and then later became personalized, associated with diverse aspects of the divine creation.[82]
+
+In the commentaries of Proclus (4th century) on the Timaeus of Plato, Proclus uses the terminology of "angelic" (aggelikos) and "angel" (aggelos) in relation to metaphysical beings. According to Aristotle, just as there is a Prime Mover,[83] so, too, must there be spiritual secondary movers.[84]
+
+The poetry of the holy scripture of the Sikhs – the Sri Guru Granth Sahib – figuratively mentions a messenger or angel of death, sometimes as Yam (ਜਮ – "Yam") and sometimes as Azrael (ਅਜਰਾਈਲੁ – "Ajraeel"):
+
+In a similar vein, the Sri Guru Granth Sahib talks of a figurative Chitar (ਚਿਤ੍ਰ) and Gupat (ਗੁਪਤੁ):
+
+However, Sikhism has never had a literal system of angels, preferring guidance without explicit appeal to supernatural orders or beings.
+
+According to the Kabbalah as described by the Golden Dawn there are ten archangels, each commanding one of the choir of angels and corresponding to one of the Sephirot. It is similar to the Jewish angelic hierarchy.
+
+In the teachings of the Theosophical Society, Devas are regarded as living either in the atmospheres of the planets of the solar system (Planetary Angels) or inside the Sun (Solar Angels) and they help to guide the operation of the processes of nature such as the process of evolution and the growth of plants; their appearance is reputedly like colored flames about the size of a human. It is believed by Theosophists that devas can be observed when the third eye is activated. Some (but not most) devas originally incarnated as human beings.[91]
+
+It is believed by Theosophists that nature spirits, elementals (gnomes, undines, sylphs, and salamanders), and fairies also can be observed when the third eye is activated.[92] It is maintained by Theosophists that these less evolutionarily developed beings have never been previously incarnated as humans; they are regarded as being on a separate line of spiritual evolution called the "deva evolution"; eventually, as their souls advance as they reincarnate, it is believed they will incarnate as devas.[93]
+
+It is asserted by Theosophists that all of the above-mentioned beings possess etheric bodies that are composed of etheric matter, a type of matter finer and more pure that is composed of smaller particles than ordinary physical plane matter.[93]
+
+Suitably the Greek magical papyri, a set of texts forming into a completed grimoire that date somewhere between 100 BC and 400 AD, also list the names of the angels found in monotheistic religions. Except in this saga they appear as deities.[94]
+
+Numerous references to angels present themselves in the Nag Hammadi Library, in which they both appear as malevolent servants of the Demiurge and innocent associates of the aeons.[95]
+
+The Brahma Kumaris uses the term "angel" to refer to a perfect, or complete state of the human being, which they believe can be attained through a connection with God.[96][97] It is expanded as a state of being rather that an entity. [96]
+
+In his Book of Certitude Baháʼu'lláh, founder of the Baháʼí Faith, describes angels as people who "have consumed, with the fire of the love of God, all human traits and limitations", and have "clothed themselves" with angelic attributes and have become "endowed with the attributes of the spiritual". ʻAbdu'l-Bahá describes angels as the "confirmations of God and His celestial powers" and as "blessed beings who have severed all ties with this nether world" and "been released from the chains of self", and "revealers of God's abounding grace". The Baháʼí writings also refer to the Concourse on High, an angelic host, and the Maid of Heaven of Baháʼu'lláh's vision.[98]
+
+"I raised my hand another time, and bared one of Her breasts that had been hidden beneath Her gown. Then the firmament was illumined by the radiance of its light, contingent beings were made resplendent by its appearance and effulgence, and by its rays infinite numbers of suns dawned forth, as though they trekked through heavens that were without beginning or end. I became bewildered at the pen of God's handiwork, and at what it had inscribed upon Her temple. It was as though She had appeared with a body of light in the forms of the spirit, as though She moved upon the earth of essence in the substance of manifestation. I noticed that the houris had poked their heads out of their rooms and were suspended in the air above Her. They grew perplexed at Her appearance and Her beauty, and were entranced by the raptures of Her song. Praise be to Her creator, fashioner, and maker--to the one Who made Her manifest.
+
+Then she nearly swooned within herself, and with all her being she sought to inhale My fragrance. She opened Her lips, and the rays of light dawned forth from Her teeth, as though the pearls of the cause had appeared from Her treasures and Her shells.
+
+She asked, "Who art Thou?"
+
+I said, "A servant of God and the son of his maidservant.""
+
+The Satanic Temple heavily promotes what it calls "literary Satanism", the idea of Satan and fallen angels as literary figures and metaphors. In particular, the novel Revolt of the Angels by Anatole France is seen as an example of this tradition. In it, a guardian angel by the name Arcade organizes a revolt against Heaven after learning about science.
+
+According to mainstream Christian theology, angels are wholly spiritual beings and therefore do not eat, excrete or have sex, and have no gender. Although their different roles, such as warriors for some archangels, may suggest a human gender, Christian artists were careful not to given them specific gender attributes, at least until the 19th century, when some acquire breasts for example.[100]
+
+In an address during a General Audience of 6 August 1986, entitled "Angels participate in the history of salvation", Pope John Paul II explained that "[T]he angels have no 'body' (even if, in particular circumstances, they reveal themselves under visible forms because of their mission for the good of people)."[42] Christian art perhaps reflects the descriptions in Revelation 4:6–8 of the Four Living Creatures (Greek: τὰ τέσσαρα ζῷα) and the descriptions in the Hebrew Bible of cherubim and seraphim (the chayot in Ezekiel's Merkabah vision and the Seraphim of Isaiah). However, while cherubim and seraphim have wings in the Bible, no angel is mentioned as having wings.[101]
+The earliest known Christian image of an angel—in the Cubicolo dell'Annunziazione in the Catacomb of Priscilla (mid-3rd century)—is without wings. In that same period, representations of angels on sarcophagi, lamps and reliquaries also show them without wings,[102] as for example the angel in the Sacrifice of Isaac scene in the Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus (although the side view of the Sarcophagus shows winged angelic figures).
+
+The earliest known representation of angels with wings is on the "Prince's Sarcophagus", attributed to the time of Theodosius I (379–395), discovered at Sarigüzel, near Istanbul, in the 1930s.[103] From that period on, Christian art has represented angels mostly with wings, as in the cycle of mosaics in the Basilica of Saint Mary Major (432–440).[104] Four- and six-winged angels, drawn from the higher grades of angels (especially cherubim and seraphim) and often showing only their faces and wings, are derived from Persian art and are usually shown only in heavenly contexts, as opposed to performing tasks on earth. They often appear in the pendentives of church domes or semi-domes. Prior to the Judeo-Christian tradition, in the Greek world the goddess Nike and the gods Eros and Thanatos were also depicted in human-like form with wings.
+
+Saint John Chrysostom explained the significance of angels' wings:
+
+They manifest a nature's sublimity. That is why Gabriel is represented with wings. Not that angels have wings, but that you may know that they leave the heights and the most elevated dwelling to approach human nature. Accordingly, the wings attributed to these powers have no other meaning than to indicate the sublimity of their nature.[105]
+
+Angels are typically depicted in Mormon art as having no wings based on a quote from Joseph Smith ("An angel of God never has wings").[106]
+
+In terms of their clothing, angels, especially the Archangel Michael, were depicted as military-style agents of God and came to be shown wearing Late Antique military uniform. This uniform could be the normal military dress, with a tunic to about the knees, an armour breastplate and pteruges, but was often the specific dress of the bodyguard of the Byzantine Emperor, with a long tunic and the loros, the long gold and jewelled pallium restricted to the Imperial family and their closest guards.
+
+The basic military dress was shown in Western art into the Baroque period and beyond (see Reni picture above), and up to the present day in Eastern Orthodox icons. Other angels came to be conventionally depicted in long robes, and in the later Middle Ages they often wear the vestments of a deacon, a cope over a dalmatic. This costume was used especially for Gabriel in Annunciation scenes—for example the Annunciation in Washington by Jan van Eyck.
+
+Some types of angels are described as possessing more unusual or frightening attributes, such as the fiery bodies of the Seraphim, and the wheel-like structures of the Ophanim.
+
+French Gothic angel from an altar, circa 1275-1300, oak with traces of paint, 73.7 × 19.4 × 19 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City)
+
+Italian Gothic adorning angel, circa 1395-1396, lunense marble from Carrara (Italy), overall: 118.7 x 28.6 x 32.4 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art
+
+Italian Gothic angel of the annunciation, circa 1430-1440, Istrian limestone, gesso and gilt, 95.3 x 37.5 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art
+
+Southern German Baroque angel, by Ignaz Günther, circa 1760-1770, lindenwood with traces of gesso, 26.7 x 18.4 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art
+
+Angels holding a red textile and a Baroque cartouche, in the Charlottenburg Palace (Berlin)
+
+Arquebusier Angels, Colonial Bolivia, were part of the Cusco School
+
+The extraordinary-looking Cherubim (immediately to the left of Ezekiel) and Ophanim (the nested-wheels) appear in the chariot vision of Ezekiel
+
+Corinthian capital with an angel who wolds a festoon with his wings, in Stiftskirche Mariae Himmelfahrt in Schlägl (Austria)

en/2350.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,142 @@
+
+
+French Guiana (/ɡiˈɑːnə/ or /ɡiˈænə/; French: Guyane [ɡɥijan]) is an overseas department and region of France on the northern Atlantic coast of South America in the Guianas. It borders Brazil to the east and south and Suriname to the west. French Guiana is the only territory of the mainland Americas to have full integration in a European country.
+
+With a land area of 83,534 km2 (32,253 sq mi), French Guiana is the second-largest region of France (it is more than one-seventh the size of Metropolitan France) and the largest outermost region within the European Union. It has a very low population density, with only 3.5 inhabitants per square kilometre (9.1/sq mi). (Its population is less than ​1⁄200 that of Metropolitan France.) Half of its 290,691 inhabitants in 2020 lived in the metropolitan area of Cayenne, its capital. 98.9% of the land territory of French Guiana is covered by forests,[3] a large part of which is primeval rainforest. The Guiana Amazonian Park, which is the largest national park in the European Union,[4] covers 41% of French Guiana's territory.
+
+Since December 2015 both the region and the department have been ruled by a single assembly within the framework of a new territorial collectivity, the French Guiana Territorial Collectivity (French: collectivité territoriale de Guyane). This assembly, the French Guiana Assembly (French: assemblée de Guyane), has replaced the former regional council and departmental council, which were both disbanded. The French Guiana Assembly is in charge of regional and departmental government. Its president is Rodolphe Alexandre.
+
+Before European contact, the territory was originally inhabited by Native Americans, most speaking the Arawak language, of the Arawakan language family. The people identified as Lokono. The first French establishment is recorded in 1503, but France did not establish a durable presence until colonists founded Cayenne in 1643. Guiana was developed as a slave society, where planters imported Africans as enslaved labourers on large sugar and other plantations in such number as to increase the population. Slavery was abolished in the colonies at the time of the French Revolution. Guiana was designated as a French department in 1797. But, after France gave up most of its territory in North America in 1803, it developed Guiana as a penal colony, establishing a network of camps and penitentiaries along the coast where prisoners from metropolitan France were sentenced to forced labour.[not verified in body]
+
+During World War II and the fall of France to Nazi German forces, Félix Éboué was one of the first to support General Charles de Gaulle of Free France, as early as June 18, 1940. Guiana officially rallied to Free France in 1943. It abandoned its status as a colony and once again became a French department in 1946.[citation needed]
+
+After de Gaulle was elected as president of France, he established the Guiana Space Centre in 1965. It is now operated by the CNES, Arianespace and the European Space Agency (ESA).[citation needed]
+
+In the late 1970s and early 1980s, several hundred Hmong refugees from Laos immigrated to French Guiana, fleeing displacement after the communist takeover of Laos by Pathet Lao in 1975.[5] In the late 1980s, more than 10,000 Surinamese refugees, mostly Maroons, arrived in French Guiana, fleeing the Surinamese Civil War.[5] More recently, French Guiana has received large numbers of Brazilian and Haitian economic migrants.[5] Illegal and ecologically destructive gold mining by Brazilian garimpeiros is a chronic issue in the remote interior rain forest of French Guiana.[6][7] The region still faces such problems as illegal immigration, poorer infrastructure than mainland France, higher costs of living, higher levels of crime and more common social unrest.[8]
+
+Fully integrated[according to whom?] in the French central state in the 21st century, French Guiana is a part of the European Union, and its official currency is the euro. The region has the highest nominal GDP per capita in South America.[2] A large part of French Guiana's economy derives from jobs and businesses associated with the presence of the Guiana Space Centre, now the European Space Agency's primary launch site near the equator. As elsewhere in France, the official language is standard French, but each ethnic community has its own language, of which French Guianese Creole, a French-based creole language, is the most widely spoken.
+
+The addition of the adjective "French" in most languages other than French is rooted in colonial times, when five such colonies (The Guianas) had been named along the coast, subject to differing powers: namely (from west to east) Spanish Guiana (now Guayana Region and Guayana Esequiba in Venezuela), British Guiana (now Guyana), Dutch Guiana (now Suriname), French Guiana, and Portuguese Guiana (now Amapá in Brazil). French Guiana and the two larger countries to the north and west, Guyana and Suriname, are still often collectively referred to as "the Guianas" and constitute one large landmass known as the Guiana Shield.
+
+French Guiana was originally inhabited by indigenous people: Kalina, Arawak, Emerillon, Galibi, Palikur, Wayampi and Wayana. The French attempted to create a colony there in the 18th century in conjunction with its settlement of some Caribbean islands, such as Guadeloupe and Saint-Domingue.
+
+During the Revolution, the National Convention voted to abolish slavery in February 1794, months after the rebelling slaves had already announced an abolition of slavery in Saint-Domingue. However, the 1794 decree was only implemented in Saint-Domingue, Guadeloupe and Guyane: it was a dead letter in Senegal, Mauritius and Reunion. Martinique had been conquered by the British, who maintained slavery there.[9]
+
+Bill Marshall, Professor of Comparative Cultural Studies at the University of Stirling[10] wrote of French Guiana's origins:
+
+The first French effort to colonize Guiana, in 1763, failed utterly, as settlers were subject to high mortality given the numerous tropical diseases and harsh climate: all but 2,000 of the initial 12,000 settlers died. 
+During operations as a penal colony beginning in the mid-19th century, France transported approximately 56,000 prisoners to Devil's Island. Fewer than 10% survived their sentence.[11]
+
+Île du Diable (Devil's Island) was the site of a small prison facility, part of a larger penal system by the same name, which consisted of prisons on three islands and three larger prisons on the mainland. This was operated from 1852 to 1953.
+
+In addition, in the late nineteenth century, France began requiring forced residencies by prisoners who survived their hard labour.[12] A Portuguese-British naval squadron took French Guiana for the Portuguese Empire in 1809. It was returned to France with the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1814. Though Portugal returned the region to France, it kept a military presence until 1817.
+
+After French Guiana had been established as a penal colony, officials sometimes used convicts to catch butterflies. The sentences of the convicts were often long, and the prospect of employment very weak, so the convicts caught butterflies to sell in the international market, both for scientific purposes as well as general collecting.[13]
+
+A border dispute with Brazil arose in the late 19th century over a vast area of jungle, resulting in the short-lived, pro-French, independent state of Counani in the disputed territory. There was some fighting among settlers. The dispute was resolved largely in favour of Brazil by the arbitration of the Swiss government.[14]
+
+The territory of Inini      consisted of most of the interior of French Guiana when it was created in 1930. It was abolished in 1946, the year that French Guiana as a whole was formally established as an overseas department of France. During the 1970s, following the French withdrawal from Vietnam in the 1950s and warfare conducted in the region by the United States, France helped resettle thousands of Hmong refugees from Laos to French Guiana.
+
+In 1964, French president Charles de Gaulle decided to construct a space-travel base in French Guiana. It was intended to replace the Sahara base in Algeria and stimulate economic growth in French Guiana. The department was considered particularly suitable for the purpose because it is near the equator and has extensive access to the ocean as a buffer zone. The Guiana Space Centre, located a short distance along the coast from Kourou, has grown considerably since the initial launches of the Véronique rockets. It is now part of the European space industry and has had commercial success with such launches as the Ariane 4 and Ariane 5.
+
+The Guianese General Council officially adopted a departmental flag in 2010.[15] In a referendum that same year, French Guiana voted against autonomy.[16]
+
+On March 20, 2017, French Guianese workers began going on strike and demonstrating for more resources and infrastructure.[17] March 28, 2017 was the day of the largest demonstration ever held in French Guiana.[18]
+
+French Guiana has been impacted severely by the COVID-19 outbreak, with more than 1% of French Guianese testing positive by the end of June 2020.[19]
+
+French Guiana lies between latitudes 3° and 6° N, and longitudes 51° and 55° W. It consists of two main geographical regions: a coastal strip where the majority of the people live, and dense, near-inaccessible rainforest which gradually rises to the modest peaks of the Tumuc-Humac mountains along the Brazilian frontier. French Guiana's highest peak is Bellevue de l'Inini in Maripasoula (851 m, 2,792 ft). Other mountains include Mont Machalou (782 m, 2,566 ft), Pic Coudreau (711 m, 2,333 ft), Mont St Marcel (635 m, 2,083 ft), Mont Favard (200 m, 660 ft) and Montagne du Mahury (156 m, 512 ft).
+
+Several small islands are found off the coast, the three Salvation's Islands which include Devil's Island, and the isolated Îles du Connétable bird sanctuary further along the coast towards Brazil.
+
+The Petit-Saut Dam, a hydroelectric dam in the north of French Guiana forms an artificial lake and provides hydroelectricity. There are many rivers in French Guiana, including the Waki River.
+
+As of 2007[update], the Amazonian forest, located in the most remote part of the department, is protected as the Guiana Amazonian Park, one of the ten national parks of France. The territory of the park covers some 33,900 km2 (13,090 sq mi) upon the communes of Camopi, Maripasoula, Papaïchton, Saint-Élie and Saül.
+
+French Guiana has a tropical rainforest climate predominant.[20] Located within six degrees of the Equator and rising only to modest elevations, French Guiana is hot and oppressively humid all year round. During most of the year, rainfall across the country is heavy due to the presence of the Intertropical Convergence Zone and its powerful thunderstorm cells. In most parts of French Guiana, rainfall is always heavy especially from December to June or July – typically over 330 millimetres or 13 inches can be expected each month during this period throughout the department. Between August and November, the eastern half experiences a "dry" season with as little as 30 millimetres or 1.18 inches in September and October, causing eastern French Guiana to be classed as a tropical monsoon climate (Köppen Am); Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni in the west has a tropical rainforest climate (Af).
+
+French Guiana is home to many different ecosystems: tropical rainforests, coastal mangroves, savannahs, inselbergs and many types of wetlands. French Guiana has a high level of biodiversity of both flora and fauna. This is due to the presence of old-growth forests (i.e., ancient/primary forests), which are biodiversity hotspots. The rainforests of French Guiana provide shelter for many species during dry periods and terrestrial glaciation. These forests are protected by a national park (the Guiana Amazonian Park), and six additional nature reserves. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the European Union (EU) have recommended special efforts to protect these areas.[22]
+
+Following the Grenelle Environment Round Table of 2007, the Grenelle Law II was proposed in 2009, under law number 2010-788. Article 49 of the law proposed the creation of a single organization responsible for environmental conservation in French Guiana. Article 64 proposes a "departmental plan of mining orientation" for French Guiana, which would promote mining (specifically of gold) that is compatible with requirements for environmental protection.[23] The coastal environment along the N1 has historically experienced the most changes, but development is occurring locally along the N2, and also in western French Guiana due to gold mining.
+
+5,500 plant species have been recorded, including more than a thousand trees, along with 700 species of birds, 177 species of mammals, over 500 species of fish including 45% of which are endemic and 109 species of amphibians. The micro-organisms would be much more numerous, especially in the north, which competes with the Brazilian Amazon, Borneo and Sumatra. This single French department has at least 98% of vertebrate fauna and 96% of vascular plants as found in all of France and its overseas territories.
+
+Threats to the ecosystem are: habitat fragmentation from roads, which remains very limited compared to other forests of South America; immediate and deferred impacts of EDF's Petit-Saut Dam; gold mining; poor control of hunting and poaching, facilitated by the creation of many tracks; and the introduction of all-terrain vehicles. Logging remains moderate due to the lack of roads, difficult climate, and difficult terrain. The Forest Code of French Guiana was modified by ordinance on 28 July 2005. Logging concessions or free transfers are sometimes granted by local authorities to persons traditionally deriving their livelihood from the forest.
+
+The beaches of the natural reserve of the Amana, the joint Awala-Yalimapo in the west, is an exceptional marine turtle nesting site. This is one of the largest worldwide for the leatherback turtle.
+
+French Guiana has some of the poorest soils in the world. The soil is low in nutrients (e.g., nitrogen, potassium) and organic matter. Soil acidity is another cause of the poor soils, and it requires farmers to add lime to their fields. All of these soil characteristics have led to the use of slash and burn agriculture. The resulting ashes elevate soil pH (i.e., lower soil acidity), and contribute minerals and other nutrients to the soil. Sites of Terra preta (anthropogenic soils) have been discovered in French Guiana, particularly near the border with Brazil. Research is being actively pursued in multiple fields to determine how these enriched soils were historically created, and how this can be done in modern times.
+
+As a part of France, French Guiana is part of the European Union and the Eurozone; its currency is the euro. The country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for French Guiana is .gf, but .fr is generally used instead.[24]
+
+In 2017, the GDP of French Guiana at market exchange rates was US$5.18 billion (€4.59 billion),[2] ranking as the largest economy in the Guianas, and the 11th largest in South America.[25]
+
+French Guiana is heavily dependent on mainland France for subsidies, trade, and goods.[citation needed] The main traditional industries are fishing (accounting for 5% of exports in 2012), gold mining (accounting for 32% of exports in 2012) and timber (accounting for 1% of exports in 2012).[26] In addition, the Guiana Space Centre has played a significant role in the local economy since it was established in Kourou in 1964: it accounted directly and indirectly for 16% of French Guiana's GDP in 2002 (down from 26% in 1994, as the French Guianese economy is becoming increasingly diversified).[27] The Guiana Space Centre employed 1,659 people in 2012.[28]
+
+There is very little manufacturing. Agriculture is largely undeveloped and is mainly confined to the area near the coast and along the Maroni River. Sugar and bananas were traditionally two of the main cash crops grown for export but have almost completely disappeared. Today they have been replaced by livestock raising (essentially beef cattle and pigs) in the coastal savannas between Cayenne and the second-largest town, Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, and market gardening (fruits and vegetables) developed by the Hmong communities settled in French Guiana in the 1970s, both destined to the local market. A thriving rice production, developed on polders near Mana from the early 1980s to the late 2000s, has almost completely disappeared since 2011 due to marine erosion and new EU plant health rules which forbid the use of many pesticides and fertilizers. Tourism, especially eco-tourism, is growing. Unemployment has been persistently high in the last few decades: 20% to 25% (22.3% in 2012).[29]
+
+In 2017, the GDP per capita of French Guiana at market exchange rates, not at PPP, was US$18,313 (€16,218),[2] the highest in South America,[30] but only 46.7% of metropolitan France's average GDP per capita that year, and 55.5% of the metropolitan French regions outside the Paris Region.[2] The 2017 social unrest in French Guiana which paralyzed the economy for several weeks led to an economic recession (−1.9% in real terms) which sunk the GDP per capita that year.[31]
+
+French Guiana's population of 290,691 (2020 estimate[1]), most of whom live along the coast, is substantially ethnically diverse. At the 2014 census, 57.3% of the inhabitants of French Guiana were born in French Guiana, 9.3% were born in Metropolitan France, 3.0% were born in the French Caribbean departments and collectivities (Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Martin, Saint Barthélemy), and 30.2% were born in foreign countries (primarily Suriname, Brazil and Haiti).[32]
+
+Estimates of the percentages of French Guiana ethnic composition are difficult to produce due to the presence of a large proportion of immigrants. People of mixed African and French ancestry are the largest ethnic group, though estimates vary as to the exact percentage, depending upon whether the large Haitian community is included as well. Generally, the Creole population is judged to be about 60–70% of the total population if Haitians (comprising roughly one-third of Creoles) are included, and 30–50% otherwise. There are also smaller groups from various Caribbean islands, mainly Martinique, Guadeloupe, Saint Lucia as well as Dominica.
+
+Roughly 14% of the population is of European ancestry. The vast majority of these are of French ancestry, though there are also people of Dutch, British, Spanish and Portuguese ancestry.
+
+The main Asian communities are the Chinese (about 3–4%, primarily from Zhejiang Province and Guangdong Province in mainland China) and Hmong from Laos (1–2%). Other groups from Asia include East Indians, Lebanese and Vietnamese.
+
+The main groups living in the interior are the Maroons who are of African descent, and Amerindians. The Maroons, descendants of escaped African slaves, live primarily along the Maroni River. The main Maroon groups are the Saramaca, Aucan (both of whom also live in Suriname), and Boni (Aluku).
+
+The main Amerindian groups (forming about 3–4% of the population) are the Arawak, Carib, Emerillon (now called the Teko), Galibi (now called the Kaliña), Palikur, Wayampi and Wayana. As of the late 1990s, there was evidence of an uncontacted group of Wayampi.
+
+The dominant religion of French Guiana is Roman Catholicism; the Maroons and some Amerindian peoples maintain their own religions. The Hmong people are also largely Catholic owing to the influence of missionaries who helped bring them to French Guiana.[33] Guianan Catholics are part of the Diocese of Cayenne.
+
+The total fertility rate in French Guiana has remained high and is today considerably higher than that of metropolitan France, as well as most of the other French overseas departments. It is largely responsible for the rapid population growth of French Guiana.
+
+A Data for the four overseas departments of French Guiana, Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Réunion, not including the new overseas department of Mayotte.
+
+The official language of French Guiana is French, and it is the predominant language of the department, spoken by most residents as a first or second language. In addition, a number of other local languages exist. Regional languages include French Guianese Creole (not to be confused with Guyanese Creole), six Amerindian languages (Arawak, Palijur, Kali'na, Wayana, Wayampi, Emerillon), four Maroon creole languages (Saramaka, Paramaccan, Aluku, Ndyuka), as well as Hmong Njua.[35] Other languages spoken include Portuguese, Hakka, Haitian Creole, Spanish, Dutch, English, and Tamil, and Caribbean Hindustani.
+
+French Guiana, as part of France, forms part of the European Union – the largest landmass for an area outside of Europe (since Greenland left the European Community in 1985), with one of the longest EU external boundaries. It is one of only three European Union territories outside Europe that is not an island (the others being the Spanish Autonomous Cities in Africa, Ceuta and Melilla). As an integral part of France, its head of state is the President of the French Republic, and its head of government is the Prime Minister of France. The French Government and its agencies have responsibility for a wide range of issues that are reserved to the national executive power, such as defense and external relations.
+
+The President of France appoints a prefect (resident at the prefecture building in Cayenne) as his representative to head the local government of French Guiana. There is one elected, local executive body, the Assemblée de Guyane.[36]
+
+French Guiana sends two deputies to the French National Assembly, one representing the commune (municipality) of Cayenne and the commune of Macouria, and the other representing the rest of French Guiana. This latter constituency is the largest in the French Republic by land area. French Guiana also sends two senators to the French Senate.
+
+The Guianese Socialist Party dominated politics in French Guiana until 2010.
+
+A chronic issue affecting French Guiana is the influx of illegal immigrants and clandestine gold prospectors from Brazil and Suriname. The border between the department and Suriname, the Maroni River, flows through rain forest and is difficult for the Gendarmerie and the French Foreign Legion to patrol. There have been several phases launched by the French government to combat illegal gold mining in French Guiana, beginning with Operation Anaconda beginning in 2003, followed by Operation Harpie in 2008, 2009 and Operation Harpie Reinforce in 2010. Colonel François Müller, the commander of French Guiana's gendarmes, believes these operations have been successful. However, after each operation ends, Brazilian miners, garimpeiros [fr], return.[37] Soon after Operation Harpie Reinforce began, an altercation took place between French authorities and Brazilian miners. On 12 March 2010 a team of French soldiers and border police were attacked while returning from a successful operation, during which "the soldiers had arrested 15 miners, confiscated three boats, and seized 617 grams of gold... currently worth about $22,317". Garimpeiros returned to retrieve their lost loot and colleagues. The soldiers fired warning shots and rubber "flash balls", but the miners managed to retake one of their boats and about 500 grams of gold. "The violent reaction by the garimpeiros can be explained by the exceptional take of 617 grams of gold, about 20 percent of the quantity seized in 2009 during the battle against illegal mining", said Phillipe Duporge, the director of French Guiana's border police, at a press conference the next day.[38]
+
+French Guiana is divided into 2 arrondissements and 22 communes:
+
+Arrondissement ofSaint-Laurent-du-Maroni
+
+
+
+Arrondissement ofCayenne
+
+
+
+French Guiana's main international airport is Cayenne – Félix Eboué Airport, located in the commune of Matoury, a southern suburb of Cayenne. There are two flights a day to Paris (Orly Airport), served by Air France and Air Caraïbes. The flight time from Cayenne to Paris is 8 hours and 10 minutes, and from Paris to Cayenne it is 8 hours and 30 minutes. There are also flights to Fort-de-France, Pointe-à-Pitre, Belém, and Fortaleza.
+
+French Guiana's main seaport is the port of Dégrad des Cannes, located on the estuary of the Mahury River, in the commune of Remire-Montjoly, a south-eastern suburb of Cayenne. Almost all of French Guiana's imports and exports pass through the port of Dégrad des Cannes. Built in 1969, it replaced the old harbour of Cayenne which was congested and could not cope with modern traffic.
+
+An asphalted road from Régina to Saint-Georges de l'Oyapock (a town by the Brazilian border) was opened in 2004, completing the road from Cayenne to the Brazilian border. It is now possible to drive on a fully paved road from Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni on the Surinamese border to Saint-Georges de l'Oyapock on the Brazilian border.
+
+Following a treaty between France and Brazil signed in July 2005, the Oyapock River Bridge over the Oyapock River was built and completed in 2011, becoming the first land crossing ever between French Guiana and the rest of the world (there exists no other bridge crossing the Oyapock River, and no bridge crossing the Maroni River marking the border with Suriname, although there is a ferry crossing to Albina, Suriname). The bridge was officially opened on March 18, 2017. However, since the Brazilian government is yet to complete its border posts, only passenger vehicles will be allowed through the bridge for the time being.[39] The inauguration makes it possible to drive uninterrupted from Cayenne to Macapá, the capital of the state of Amapá in Brazil.
+
+Population figures are those recorded in the 2017 census.[40]
+
+The commander of the French armed forces in French Guiana since July 2009 has been General Jean-Pierre Hestin. The military there is currently 1,900 strong, expected to increase enrollment in 2014–2015.[41]
+
+Among the military, police and security forces in French Guiana, are the following:
+
+At Easter, French Guianese people eat a traditional dish called Awara broth.
+
+As a French Overseas department, French Guiana is not a member of the Pan American Sports Organization; rather, athletes compete within the French National Olympic and Sports Committee and are governed by the Ligue d'Athlétisme de la Guyane, a sub-unit of the Fédération française d'athlétisme.
+
+The Ligue de Football de la Guyane is a member of CONCACAF but not of FIFA, and the French Guiana football team finished third in the 2017 Caribbean Cup. The French Guiana Honor Division is the main football club tournament.
+
+Starting in 1960, the Tour of Guiana, an annual multiple stage bicycle race, is held.[43]
+
+The novel Papillon, by the French convict Henri Charrière, is set in French Guiana. It was first published in France in 1969, describing his escape from a penal colony there. Becoming an instant bestseller, it was translated into English from the original French by June P. Wilson and Walter B. Michaels for a 1970 edition, and by author Patrick O'Brian. Soon afterward the book was adapted for a Hollywood film of the same name. Charrière stated that all events in the book are truthful and accurate, allowing for minor lapses in memory. Since its publication there has been controversy over its accuracy.[44][45]

en/2351.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,137 @@
+Rhythmic gymnastics is a sport in which gymnasts perform on a floor with an apparatus: hoop, ball, clubs, ribbon or rope.[2][3] The sport combines elements of gymnastics, dance and calisthenics; gymnasts must be strong, flexible, agile, dexterous and coordinated.[2] Rhythmic gymnastics is governed by the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG), which first recognized it as a sport in 1963.[2] It became an Olympic sport in 1984, with an individual all-around event.[2][3] The group all-around competition was added to the Olympics in 1996.[2][3] At the international level, rhythmic gymnastics is a women-only sport. The most prestigious competitions, besides the Olympic Games, are the World Championships, World Games, European Championships, European Games, the World Cup Series and the Grand Prix Series. Gymnasts are judged on their artistry, execution of skills, and difficulty of skills, for which they gain points. They perform leaps, balances, pivots, and flexibility movements, along with tossing, catching, rolling and otherwise manipulating the apparatus.[3]
+
+Rhythmic gymnastics grew out of the ideas of Jean-Georges Noverre (1727–1810), François Delsarte (1811–1871), and Rudolf Bode (1881–1970), who all believed in movement expression, where one used dance to express oneself and exercise various body parts. Peter Henry Ling further developed this idea in his 19th-century Swedish system of free exercise, which promoted "aesthetic gymnastics", in which students expressed their feelings and emotions through body movement. This idea was extended by Catharine Beecher, who founded the Western Female Institute in Ohio, United States, in 1837. In Beecher's gymnastics program, called dance without dancing", the young women exercised to music, moving from simple calisthenics to more strenuous activities.
+
+During the 1880s, Émile Jaques-Dalcroze of Switzerland developed eurhythmics, a form of physical training for musicians and dancers. George Demeny of France created exercises to music that were designed to promote grace of movement, muscular flexibility, and good posture. All of these styles were combined around 1900 into the Swedish school of rhythmic gymnastics, which would later add dance elements from Finland. Around this time, Ernst Idla of Estonia established a degree of difficulty for each movement. In 1929, Hinrich Medau founded The Medau School in Berlin to train gymnasts in "modern gymnastics", and to develop the use of the apparatus.
+
+Competitive rhythmic gymnastics began in the 1940s in the Soviet Union. The FIG formally recognized this discipline in 1961, first as modern gymnastics, then as rhythmic sportive gymnastics, and finally as rhythmic gymnastics. The first World Championships for individual rhythmic gymnasts was held in 1963 in Budapest. Groups were introduced at the same level in 1967 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Rhythmic gymnastics was added to the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, with an individual all-around competition. However, many federations from the Eastern European countries were forced to boycott by the Soviet Union. Canadian Lori Fung was the first rhythmic gymnast to earn an Olympic gold medal. The group competition was added to the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. The Spanish team won the first gold medal of the new competition with a team formed by Estela Giménez, Marta Baldó, Nuria Cabanillas, Lorena Guréndez, Estíbaliz Martínez and Tania Lamarca.
+
+Olympic rhythmic gymnastics is only for female participants. Japan has begun developing programs in which men can compete. Also in Spain, men are allowed to participate in the women's competition. The men's program has yet to be formally recognized by the FIG, however, and men cannot compete in the Olympics as a rhythmic gymnast. Gymnasts start at a young age and become age-eligible to compete in the Olympic Games and other major international competitions on January 1 of their 16th year (For example, a gymnast born on 12-31-2004 would be age eligible for the 2020 Olympics). Gymnasts in Russia and Europe typically start training at a very young age and those at their peak are typically in their late teens (15–19) or early twenties, but since 2004 it is common to see gymnasts achieving their peak after reaching their twenties.
+
+Top rhythmic gymnasts must have many qualities; balance, flexibility, coordination, and strength are some of the most important. They also must possess psychological attributes such as the ability to compete under intense pressure, in which one mistake can cost them the title, and the discipline and work ethic to practice the same skills over and over again.
+
+Currently a gymnast can perform in the individual event or in the group event. They perform routines in 12 x 12 meter areas, accompanied by music (recorded or played by musician(s)). Since 1995, groups are consisted of 5 gymnasts, but originally six gymnasts composed a group, although around the 1980s this could be even eight. The duration of a group exercise should be two and a half minutes, one minute more than the individual one, which is one minute and a half.
+
+The FIG selects which apparatus will be used in competitions, only four out of the five possible apparatuses are sanctioned. Hoop and rope were the first apparatus used at World Championships, followed later by ball, ribbon and clubs. For 2011, rope was dropped for senior national individual and group competition. In 2011, it was to be dropped for junior national individual competition but returned again in 2015. Rope appeared in junior national group competition in 2011–2012.[4]  In 2017, rope appeared in senior group competition. Freehand was an event for the four first World Championships before being dropped and only used in local competitions, usually for the youngest levels.
+
+Since 2011, senior individual gymnasts perform four different routines with hoop, ball, clubs and ribbon. Senior group performed two different routines, one with a single apparatus and one with mixed apparatus (for example, a routine with 5 hoop and a routine with 3 balls / 2 ropes). For junior individual gymnasts, the FIG selects four out of the five possible apparatuses. Junior groups performed two different routines with two different types of apparatus (for example, a routine with 5 hoops and a routine with 5 ribbons). As of 2017 rhythmic gymnastics equipment used in F.I.G. sanctioned events must come have the F.I.G. logo on the apparatus.
+
+Customization: Ropes can be color dyed. It is not common practice because the majority of the paints are water-based and can start coming off with sweat
+
+Customization: Hoops are often customized using colored tapes to match the design of the leotards.[6] As of 2017 F.I.G.[7][circular reference] sanctioned events must
+
+In rhythmic gymnastics competitions exercises are evaluated by the following parameters which are reviewed every four years, the system defining the FIG Code of Points. After each Olympic games, the scoring process is modified.
+
+In the current Code of Points (2017-2020),[8] the final score of a routine is the sum of the difficulty score and execution score. Penalties incurred will also be deducted from the final score. The difficulty score is open-ended with no maximum score, while the execution score has a starting value of 10 points. There are also penalties, which are realized by subtracting points from the final note for certain specified mistakes made by the gymnast.
+
+Difficulty consists of body difficulties (jumps, balances and rotations), dynamic elements with rotation (commonly known as risks) and dance step combinations (for individuals gymnasts and groups), and apparatus difficulties (only for individuals gymnasts) and exchange and collaborations (only for groups). The difficulty score is evaluated during the routine without a pre-made difficulty sheet, unlike with previous Codes. Each difficulty component has an assigned value, which accumulate throughout the routine, resulting in the final difficulty score.
+
+Execution is the degree to which the gymnast performs with aesthetic and technical perfection. The execution score is composed of artistic faults and technical faults. In the first, the unity and character of the composition, harmony with the music, body expression and the variety in the use of space and apparatus elements, among others are valued; on the other hand, the technical handling of the apparatus (like catching the ball with one hand and not two, not losing the apparatus, etc.) and technical aspects of body movements (like touching the head with the foot during a ring form, not falling, etc.) are valued. Errors regarding the perfect model of conduct accumulate and are assigned specific penalty values, which ultimately are subtracted from the starting value (an execution score of 10 represents a perfect execution equal to the model, without any error).
+
+Finally, Penalties are taken by the time, line, and coordinator judges. Possible penalties include:
+
+The first Code of Point was published in 1970. Since then, rhythmics gymnastics has known 14 different codes (1970-1971, 1971-1972, 1973-1976, 1977-1980, 1981-1984, 1985-1988, 1989-1992, 1993-1996, 1997-2000, 2001-2004, 2005-2008, 2009–2012, 2013-2016, 2017-2020). Since 1984 and the first appearance at the Olympics, the Code of Point is renew after each Olympics.
+
+In the decades of the 60s and 70s, the weight of the note fell most heavily on the artistic side, with little presence of difficulties. In the 80s new difficulty elements were introduced to give greater prominence to the flexibility and risk releases, and to encourage originality with emerging new devices. In 1985 the score was composed of: Composition (Technical + Artistry) was scored on 5 points and Execution was scored on 5 points. In 1997, the Code of Points was subjected to an important change, by separating the score the score between Artistry (on 5 for individual or 6 points group groups), Technical (on 5 points for individuals or 4 points for groups) and Execution (on 10 points), the Total score being given on 10 points for individuals and 20 points for groups.
+
+In the late 90s, there was an appearance of gymnasts whose exercise flexibility was used as a main element (Yana Batyrchina or Alina Kabaeva for example), which was one of the motivations for a major change in the Code in 2001, which doubled the number of required elements of difficulty (12 maximum during the Olympics cycle 2001-2004 and 18 maximum during the Olympic cycle 2005-2008) and reduced the value of the artistic element, which was now mixed with apparatus difficulty (also known as mastery) and risks. The final mark then was obtained by adding notes Difficulty (or Technical before 2005), Artistry and Execution, each with a maximum value of 10 points, so the final score would be a maximum of 30 points. During the Olympic cycle 2005-2008, the final note would be a maximum of 20 points to join the average grade of Difficulty and Artistry.
+
+In 2009 the code was subjected to a new important change. The final mark was obtained by adding notes Difficulty (12 difficulties with the body, masteries and risks), Artistry and Execution, each with a maximum value of 10 points, so the final score would be a maximum of 30 points. In 2013, the code introduced the Dance steps combination and an Execution score taking into account both technical and artistic execution. The score then was on 20 points with 10 points for Difficulty (9 difficulties with the body, masteries, 5 risks and dance steps combination) and 10 points for Execution (technical and artistic penalties). The 2017 code was very similar, with a difficulty strictly limited and differences among the best gymnasts heavily determined by the execution. Therefore in 2018, the Difficulty became open for the first time.
+
+As of 2019, according to the technical regulations defined by the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG), the only official competitions in which rhythmic gymnastics events are contested globally are: the World Championships; the stages of the World Cup series (including the defunct World Cup Final and World Cup qualifiers); the World Games; and the Olympic Games (as well as the Youth Olympic Games).[10] Since 2019, Junior World Championships are held every two years.
+
+The nations which have earned at least one medal in official FIG competitions are:[11][12]
+
+Defunct competitions previously organized and promoted by FIG include the Test Events for the Olympic Games, and the Four Continents Gymnastics Championships (reserved for senior athletes from the Americas, Asia, Africa and Oceania). Major rhythmic gymnastics tournaments not officially organized by FIG include the European Championships (as well as its junior division), the European Games, the Grand-Prix series and the competitions at the Summer Universiade.[30] Major defunct championships or competitions in which rhythmic gymnastics events were held include the European Cup Final, the European Team Gymnastics Championships, and the Goodwill Games. Also, continental championships are held in the Americas and Asia, as well regional multi-sport events in which rhythmic gymnastics is part of the program, such as the Pan American Games and the Asian Games.
+
+Rhythmic gymnastics has been dominated by Eastern European countries, especially the Soviet Union (Post-Soviet Republics of today) and Bulgaria. The two countries were in rivalry with each other before the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
+
+Before the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Soviet rhythmic gymnasts were engaged in a fierce competition with Bulgaria. The first World Championships held in 1963 in Budapest, Hungary was won by Soviet gymnast Ludmila Savinkova and in 1967 in Copenhagen, Denmark the first Group Championships was also won by the USSR.
+
+Other Soviet World AA Champions in individuals included Elena Karpuchina, Galina Shugurova and Irina Deriugina. Marina Lobatch became the first Soviet to win the Olympic Games in the 1988 Seoul Olympics. In 1991, The Unified Team was formed and saw a competition of the two Soviet/Ukrainian gymnasts, Olexandra Tymoshenko and Oxana Skaldina at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona.
+
+Other notable Soviet gymnasts include: Tatiana Kravtchenko, Liubov Sereda, Alfia Nazmutdinova, Natalia Krachinnekova, Irina Devina, Elena Tomas, Irina Gabashvili, Inessa Lisovskaya, Dalia Kutkaitė, Venera Zaripova, Galina Beloglazova, Anna Kotchneva and Tatiana Druchinina.
+
+Since the start of the inception of rhythmic gymnastics as a World Championship event, Bulgaria was in competition with the USSR; during the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, Bulgaria has won 10 individual World Titles with its star gymnasts Maria Gigova (3 time World AA Champion), Neshka Robeva and Kristina Guiourova.
+
+The 1980s marked the height of Bulgarian success known as the Golden Girls of Bulgaria, with gymnasts Iliana Raeva, Anelia Ralenkova, Lilia Ignatova, Diliana Gueorguieva, Bianka Panova, Adriana Dunavska and Elizabeth Koleva dominating the World Championships. Bianka Panova became the first rhythmic gymnast to make a clean sweep of all five individual events at a World Championship by attaining full marks. She also became the first rhythmic gymnast to get into the Guinness Book of World Records by her perfect performance of full 10 marks in all her routines (total of 8) at a World Championship, and received the trophy personally from the President of the International Olympic Committee at the time, Juan Antonio Samaranch.
+
+The early 1990s were marked by the full domination of Maria Petrova, 3 time World AA Champion and 3 time European AA Champion.
+
+The early 2000s marked the decline of individual rhythmic gymnasts of Bulgaria, though with still a few notable gymnasts including Simona Peycheva and Sylvia Miteva. Bulgaria is currently more engaged in group rhythmic gymnastics with successful gymnasts including Zhaneta Ilieva, Eleonora Kezhova, Kristina Rangelova, Zornitsa Marinova, Vladislava Tancheva, Hristiana Todorova, Tsvetelina Naydenova, Tsvetelina Stoyanova, Lubomira Kazanova, Reneta Kamberova and Mihaela Maevska. Boyanka Angelova, who gained popularity among the public, retired early due to injuries.
+
+Bulgaria's new generation of talents in individual gymnastics include: Neviana Vladinova, Katrin Taseva, Boryana Kaleyn, Petya Borisova, Tatyana Volozhanina and Erika Zafirova.
+
+After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia has been the dominant country in rhythmic gymnastics since the start of the late 1990s saw the rise of stars like Amina Zaripova, Yanina Batyrchina and Alina Kabaeva. Oxana Kostina became Russia's first World Champion as an independent country.
+
+In the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Yulia Barsukova became the first Russian to win the Olympic gold medal. Alina Kabaeva, who had won bronze in Sydney, went on to win gold in the 2004 Athens Olympics. Evgenia Kanaeva became the first individual rhythmic gymnast to win two gold medals in the Olympic Games at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2012 London Olympics. Margarita Mamun continued the streak of individual gold medalists at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics while the competition favorite 3-times World champion Yana Kudryavtseva took silver because of a drop in her clubs routine during the finals.
+
+Other notable gymnasts include Natalia Lipkovskaya, Irina Tchachina, Natalia Lavrova, Zarina Gizikova, Laysan Utiasheva, Vera Sessina, Olga Kapranova, Yelena Posevina, Anna Gavrilenko, Margarita Aliychuk, Olga Belova, Daria Shkurikhina, Anastasia Maksimova, Tatiana Gorbunova, Uliana Donskova, Yana Lukonina, Anastasia Nazarenko, Anastasia Bliznyuk, Ksenia Dudkina, Karolina Sevastyanova, Olga Ilina, Daria Kondakova, Daria Dmitrieva, Alexandra Merkulova, Daria Svatkovskaya, Yana Kudryavtseva, Maria Tolkacheva, Aleksandra Soldatova, Dina Averina, Arina Averina, Irina Annenkova, Diana Borisova, Iuliia Bravikova, Anastasiia Tatareva, Daria Dubova, Vera Biryukova, Sofya Skomorokh and Ekaterina Selezneva.
+
+The Russian Group has won five of the six Group exercises held in the Olympics since it was included in the Olympic Games back in 1996 Summer Olympics.
+
+Even as part of the USSR, a number of Soviet gymnasts were trained in Ukraine or with Ukrainian origin including the first World Champion Ludmila Savinkova and Liubov Sereda. Ukraine has won 1 gold and 3 bronze medals at the Olympic Games. If you include all Ukrainian gymnasts, then they have won 2 gold and 4 bronze medals. The mother and daughter tandem of Albina and Irina Deriugina played an important role in the success of RG in the country, raising stars like Olexandra Tymoshenko and Oxana Skaldina.
+
+After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Ukraine continued its success in rhythmic gymnastics with Kateryna Serebrianska winning the Olympic gold medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
+
+Other notable gymnasts include Anna Bessonova (two-time Olympic bronze medalist), Ganna Rizatdinova (2016 Olympics bronze), Olena Vitrychenko (1996 Olympics bronze), Tamara Yerofeeva, Natalia Godunko, Alina Maksymenko, Vlada Nikolchenko, Victoria Stadnik, Olena Dmytrash, Viktoriia Mazur, Valeriia Gudym, Yevgeniya Gomon, Oleksandra Gridasova, Anastasiia Mulmina, Anastasiya Voznyak, Kateryna Lutsenko and Olena Diachenko.
+
+Belarus has had success in both individual and group rhythmic gymnastics after the breakup of the Soviet Union. It is worth noting that the first Soviet Olympic gold medalist at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, Marina Lobatch, was a Belarusian.
+
+Since the late 1990s, Belarus has had continued success in the Olympic Games and has won two silver and a bronze medal in individuals respectively, with Yulia Raskina, Inna Zhukova and Liubov Charkashyna.
+
+Other notable gymnasts include Larissa Loukianenko, Ksenia Sankovich, Svetlana Rudalova, Aliaksandra Narkevich, Tatiana Ogrizko, Zinaida Lunina, Arina Charopa, Alina Tumilovich, Valeria Vatkina, Evgenia Pavlina, Maria Kadobina, Anastasia Ivankova, Hanna Bazhko, Elena Tkachenko, Melitina Staniouta, Elena Bolotina, Mariya Trubach, Katsiaryna Halkina, Julia Evchik, Alina Harnasko, Anastasiia Salos.
+
+The Belarusian Group has won two silver and a bronze medal in the Olympics.
+
+Other Post-Soviet Republics, especially in Central Asia, have had considerable success in rhythmic gymnastics, including Azerbaijan,  Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
+
+Azerbaijan is now amongst the top countries for individual and group rhythmic gymnastics. The development of the sport particularly boosted after Mehriban Aliyeva became the President of the Azerbaijan Gymnastics Federation in 2002.[31] In 2007, Mariana Vasileva who was a former Bulgarian rhythmic gymnast and a coach in Levski club in Sofia came to Azerbaijan to coach Azerbaijani gymnasts. Since 2009, Vasileva has been appointed as head coach of the Azerbaijan Rhythmic Gymnastics Federation. Notable rhythmic gymnasts include 2011 World All-Around bronze medalist Aliya Garayeva, Anna Gurbanova, Dinara Gimatova, Zeynab Javadli, Lala Yusifova, Marina Durunda, Zhala Piriyeva, Ayshan Bayramova, and Zohra Aghamirova. Azerbaijan hosted a number of large competitions, including 2005 World Rhythmic Gymnastics Championships, 2007 Rhythmic Gymnastics European Championships, 2009 Rhythmic Gymnastics European Championships, 2014 Rhythmic Gymnastics European Championships, and 2019 World Rhythmic Gymnastics Championships.
+
+Notable Kazakhstani gymnasts include Aliya Yussupova (4th at the 2004 Olympic Games), as well as Anna Alyabyeva, Aliya Assymova and Sabina Ashirbayeva. In Uzbekistan, notable gymnasts include: Ulyana Trofimova, Djamila Rakhmatova, Elizaveta Nazarenkova, Anastasiya Serdyukova, Valeriya Davidova, Anora Davlyatova and Sabina Tashkenbaeva. In Georgia, Soviet rhythmic gymnast and 1979 World All-around bronze medalist Irina Gabashvili was of Georgian origin. Another notable Georgian is the dynamic Salome Pazhava, doing well in the Continental Games and World Championships.
+
+Spain has a great tradition in rhythmic gymnastics. Some notable success in rhythmic gymnastics for Spain include Carolina Pascual, the silver medalist at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, Carmen Acedo who won gold medal in clubs competition in World Championships in 1993, Rosabel Espinosa, 1991 European Junior All-around bronze medalist, Almudena Cid who is a four-time Olympian (1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008) and Carolina Rodriguez. Newer Spanish individual gymnasts include Polina Berezina and Sara Llana.
+
+Spain is more engaged in group rhythmic gymnastics and the Spanish Group became the first to win the Olympic gold in Group rhythmic gymnastics since it was added in the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. The Spanish Group was formed by Marta Baldó, Nuria Cabanillas, Estela Giménez, Lorena Guréndez, Tania Lamarca and Estíbaliz Martínez. Spanish group also won the silver in the 2016 Summer Olympics.
+
+Like Spain, Italy is more engaged in Group rhythmic gymnastics; the Italian Group is 4 time Group World AA Champion and has won two medals (a silver and a bronze) at the Olympic Games. Famous group gymnasts include Marta Pagnini, Elisa Santoni, Andreea Stefanescu, Romina Laurito, Anzhelika Savrayuk, Elisa Blanchi.
+
+Notable athletes include Samantha Ferrari who won a bronze medal in clubs at the 1991 World Championships, other notable individual gymnasts are Katia Pietrosanti, Susanna Marchesi, Julieta Cantaluppi, Federica Febbo, Veronica Bertolini, Alexandra Agiurgiuculese and Milena Baldassarri.
+
+Israel is a rising nation in rhythmic gymnastics. Israeli head coach Irina Vigdorchik, who moved from Moscow to Israel in 1979, said rhythmic gymnastics had been brought to Israel by Russian immigrants in the early 1970s.[32]
+
+The sport began its success in the 2000s with notable Israeli gymnasts including Irina Risenzon, Neta Rivkin who have placed in Top 10 in the Olympic Games finals. Other notable gymnasts include Katerina Pisetsky, Veronika Vitenberg, Rahel Vigdozchik, Victoria Veinberg Filanovsky, Linoy Ashram (the first Israeli rhythmic gymnast to win an All-around medal at a World Championships) and Nicol Zelikman.
+
+The Israeli Group has also begun to be amongst the leading Group rhythmic gymnasts in the World Cup and World Championship competitions, and has won its first gold medal at the 2016 European Championships.
+
+Germany has had considerable success in the sport, especially from the late 1960s to the early 1990s, with World medalists Ute Lehmann, Carmen Rischer, Christiana Rosenberg, Bianca Dittrich and 1984 Olympic medalist Regina Weber. The 1990s had notable gymnasts Magdalena Brzeska and Edita Schaufler, and in the 2000s with Lisa Ingildeeva, Laura Jung, Jana Berezko-Marggrander, Noemi Peschel and Lea Tkaltschewitsch. In Czechoslovakia, the 1960s and 1970s marked the peak of Czechoslovak rhythmic gymnastics' success with World medalists Hana Machatová-Bogušovská, Hana Sitnianská-Mičechová, Zuzana Záveská, Iveta Havlíčková.
+
+Other notable Czech gymnasts from the 2000s are Dominika Červenková, Monika Míčková and Anna Šebková. Romania has enjoyed more success in artistic gymnastics, but also had their share of producing talents (especially in the 1980s and 1990s), like Doina Stăiculescu (1984 Olympics silver), Irina Deleanu, Alexandra Piscupescu and Ana Luiza Filiorianu. Greece is primarily oriented towards Group exercises, especially successful during the 1996-2000 quad, but has also established in individuals notably with gymnasts Maria Pagalou, Evmorfia Dona, Eleni Andriola, Varvara Filiou and Eleni Kelaiditi. France has had considerable success in Individual rhythmic gymnastics with Eva Serrano placing 5th at the 2000 Sydney Olympics; other French gymnasts include Delphine Ledoux, Kseniya Moustafaeva, Axelle Jovenin and Valérie Romenski. In 2017, a new group appeared and placed 9th at the 2017 World Championships.
+
+Although Europeans countries have been always dominant in this sport (only four World Championships have been held outside Europe so far, one in Cuba, one in USA and two in Japan) and only five gymnasts (Mitsuru Hiraguchi, Sun Duk Jo, Myong Sim Choi, Son Yeon-jae, Kaho Minagawa) and two groups (Japan and North Korea) have won at medals at the World Championships, rhythmic gymnastics is growing.
+
+Japan had a very long tradition in rhythmic gymnastics. Since they first started in 1971, Japan group never finishing lower than 10th (except in 2003, 16th) at an AA World Championships. In 2019, they became World Champion with 5 balls for the first time. Japan had and still has notable gymnasts with Mitsuru Hiraguchi, Sakura Hayakawa, Kaho Minagawa, Sumire Kita, Chisaki Oiwa. Other countries in East Asia began its following and interest in the sport having gymnasts in South Korea with Shin Soo-ji, Son Yeon-jae, and in China with Zhong Ling, Sun Dan, Zhao Yating, Deng Senyue, Liu Jiahui and Shang Rong doing well against the traditional rhythmic gymnastics powerhouse countries. North Korea has had success in group rhythmics gymnastics in the 1970s to the early 1990s and individual rhythmic gymnastics with Sun Duk Jo and Myong Sim Choi.
+
+Although it has not gained as much following compared to its artistic gymnastics counterpart, it is also a rising sport in the United States with some notable rhythmic gymnasts including Mary Sanders (a dual USA/Canadian citizen who has competed for both countries), Julie Zetlin and Jasmine Kerber. Internationally successful current national team members include Nastasya Generalova, Laura Zeng, and Evita Griskenas. Other up-and-coming nations in the Western Hemisphere include Brazil, Mexico, Canada, with some notable rhythmic gymnasts including Lori Fung (1984 Olympics gold), Mary Sanders (who also competed for the USA), Alexandra Orlando, Cynthia Valdez, Angélica Kvieczynski, Patricia Bezzoubenko, Natália Gaudio and Bárbara Domingos.
+
+Men's Rhythmic Gymnastics (Men's RG, MRG) is an artistic sport which is performed to music on a 13 x13m gymnastic spring floor. It is sometimes called synchronized tumbling, combining the dynamism of powerful acrobatics and perfection of synchronous moves. Athletes are judged on some of the same physical abilities and skills as their female counterparts, such as hand/body/eye co-ordination, but tumbling, strength, and power are the main focus, as well as apparatus handling, flexibility and movements called "Toshu" ("freehand"). There are an increasing number of gymnasts, competing alone and on a team; it is most popular in Japan, where high school and university teams compete fiercely. As of 2016, it is estimated there are about 2,000 participants in Japan alone. Some of the outstanding rhythmic gymnasts have made most of their physical abilities for their second careers and become performers in the field of entertainment such as the world-famous circus Cirque du Soleil.[33][citation needed]
+
+Men's rhythmic gymnastics in Japan was originally created by adopting elements from Swedish, Danish, and German gymnastics. It has been taught and performed for many years with the aim of improving physical strength and health as early as the 1940s. Originally, both boys and girls used to perform this type of gymnastics, which is called "Dantai Toshu Taisou", literally "group freehand gymnastics". In 1967, the name "Shintaisou" ("new gymnastics") was adopted as a translation of "Modern Gymnastics," which used to be done in Northern and Central Europe. On the other hand, rhythmic gymnastics for women has also been called "Shintaisou" in Japan since it was first imported to the country. Currently, MRG and women's rhythmic gymnastics are both under the umbrella of Japan Gymnastics Association and major competitions are often held at the same venue. Men's RG consists of two types of events: group events of 6 people (freehand or no apparatus) and individual events using apparatus (stick, rings, rope and clubs). Both group and individual events are performed on a spring floor, allowing gymnasts to do various kinds of tumbling during their performance.
+
+For individual performances, a gymnast manipulates one or two pieces of apparatus (double rings, stick, clubs, rope) to demonstrate their skill at apparatus handling, throws, and catches as well as the difficulty of the tumbling. The gymnast must work the entire floor area whilst showing continuous flowing movement. The permitted time for individual events is between 1 minute 25 seconds to 1 minute 33 seconds. During a competition, each individual gymnast performs four separate routines, one for each apparatus. Points are based a 20-point scale. The first 10-point scale measures composition (difficulty) based on technical value, variety, harmony between music and movements, and originality, while the execution of performance is a maximum of 10 points. The individual scores of all four routines for each gymnast are then added up to decide the all-around winner.
+
+Group performance includes non-acrobatic movements called "Toshu" (handstands, flexibility exercises, balance, etc.), and rotational movements (tumbling and lifts). Group performances are done without using any apparatus. The permitted time for group events is between 2 minutes 45 seconds to 3 minutes. Points are awarded based a 20-point scale that measures difficulty and execution of the routine. Composition/difficulty of performance is scored out of a maximum of 10 points, based on technical value (such as difficulty of tumbling elements and movement elements), variety (variety of movements, change of formations, etc.), harmony between music and movements, and originality, with deductions for lack of required elements or stepping out of bounds, and so on. Execution of performance is scored out of a maximum of 10 points, based on quality of execution, accuracy of performance and synchronization, with deductions taken for mistakes or lack of movements in unison, etc. Some of the group routine videos went viral on the Internet, including Ibara High School's two routines in 2013 and 2016 and Aomori University's routine in 2009, which was dedicated to their deceased teammate. Many other MRG videos are also available on YouTube.
+
+On November 27–29, 2003, Japan hosted the Men's RG World Championship. This first championship drew five countries from two continents: Japan, Canada, Korea, Malaysia, and the United States. The 2005 World Championship included Australia, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Korea, Russia, and the United States. Men's RG is not currently recognized by the FIG.
+
+There are, particularly in Europe, some male rhythmic gymnasts who train and perform in much the same way as their female counterparts. They are, however, not eligible to participate in any major competition. Examples include Rubén Orihuela (Spain), Ismael Del Valle (Spain), Jose Sanchez Diaz (Spain), and Thomas Gandon (France).
+
+In 2013, the Aomori University MRG Team collaborated with renowned Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake and American choreographer Daniel Ezralow (Spiderman, Cirque du Soleil) to create a one-hour contemporary performance, "Flying Bodies, Soaring Spirits," that featured all 27 Aomori men's rhythmic gymnasts outfitted in Miyake's signature costumes. Held July 18, 2013 at Yoyogi National Stadium in Tokyo, the show drew an audience of 2,600. "Flying Bodies" was also captured in a 78-minute documentary by director Hiroyuki Nakano that follows the coaches, gymnasts and creative team for the three months leading up to the performance.[34]
+
+Men's rhythmic gymnasts of Aomori University showed their Performance at the 2016 Summer Olympics closing ceremony.
+
+Conversely to Japanese Men's rhythmic gymnastics, Spanish Men's rhythmic gymnastics applies the same FIG rules as for Women's rhythmic gymnastics. The unofficial name is Spanish Men's rhythmic gymnastics since Spain is pioneer country in the field, the Spanish federation having approved at national level a separate category for individual men since 2009 and mixed groups since 2020.
+[35]
+
+
+

en/2352.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,76 @@
+
+
+Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula CaSO4·2H2O.[3] It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, blackboard/sidewalk chalk, and drywall.  A massive fine-grained white or lightly tinted variety of gypsum, called alabaster, has been used for sculpture by many cultures including Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Ancient Rome, the Byzantine Empire, and the Nottingham alabasters of Medieval England. Gypsum also crystallizes as translucent crystals of selenite. It also forms as an evaporite mineral and as a hydration product of anhydrite.
+
+The Mohs scale of mineral hardness defines hardness value 2 as gypsum based on scratch hardness comparison.
+
+The word gypsum is derived from the Greek word γύψος (gypsos), "plaster".[4] Because the quarries of the Montmartre district of Paris have long furnished burnt gypsum (calcined gypsum) used for various purposes, this dehydrated gypsum became known as plaster of Paris. Upon addition of water, after a few tens of minutes plaster of Paris becomes regular gypsum (dihydrate) again, causing the material to harden or "set" in ways that are useful for casting and construction.
+
+Gypsum  was known in Old English as spærstān, "spear stone", referring to its crystalline projections. (Thus, the word spar in mineralogy is by way of comparison to gypsum, referring to any non-ore mineral or crystal that forms in spearlike projections).  In the mid-18th century, the German clergyman and agriculturalist Johann Friderich Mayer investigated and publicized gypsum's use as a fertilizer.[5]  Gypsum may act as a source of sulfur for plant growth, and in the early 19th century, it was regarded as an almost miraculous fertilizer. American farmers were so anxious to acquire it that a lively smuggling trade with Nova Scotia evolved, resulting in the so-called "Plaster War" of 1820.[6] In the 19th century, it was also known as lime sulfate or sulfate of lime.
+
+Gypsum is moderately water-soluble (~2.0–2.5 g/l at 25 °C)[7] and, in contrast to most other salts, it exhibits retrograde solubility, becoming less soluble at higher temperatures. When gypsum is heated in air it loses water and converts first to calcium sulfate hemihydrate, (bassanite, often simply called "plaster") and, if heated further, to anhydrous calcium sulfate (anhydrite).  As for anhydrite, its solubility in saline solutions and in brines is also strongly dependent on NaCl (common table salt) concentration.[7]
+
+Gypsum crystals are found to contain anion water and hydrogen bonding.[8]
+
+Gypsum occurs in nature as flattened and often twinned crystals, and transparent, cleavable masses called selenite. Selenite contains no significant selenium; rather, both substances were named for the ancient Greek word for the Moon.
+
+Selenite may also occur in a silky, fibrous form, in which case it is commonly called "satin spar". Finally, it may also be granular or quite compact. In hand-sized samples, it can be anywhere from transparent to opaque. A very fine-grained white or lightly tinted variety of gypsum, called alabaster, is prized for ornamental work of various sorts. In arid areas, gypsum can occur in a flower-like form, typically opaque, with embedded sand grains called desert rose. It also forms some of the largest crystals found in nature, up to 12 m (39 ft) long, in the form of selenite.[9]
+
+Gypsum is a common mineral, with thick and extensive evaporite beds in association with sedimentary rocks. Deposits are known to occur in strata from as far back as the Archaean eon.[10] Gypsum is deposited from lake and sea water, as well as in hot springs, from volcanic vapors, and sulfate solutions in veins. Hydrothermal anhydrite in veins is commonly hydrated to gypsum by groundwater in near-surface exposures. It is often associated with the minerals halite and sulfur. Gypsum is the most common sulfate mineral.[11] Pure gypsum is white, but other substances found as impurities may give a wide range of colors to local deposits.
+
+Because gypsum dissolves over time in water, gypsum is rarely found in the form of sand.  However, the unique conditions of the White Sands National Park in the US state of New Mexico have created a 710 km2 (270 sq mi) expanse of white gypsum sand, enough to supply the US construction industry with drywall for 1,000 years.[12]
+Commercial exploitation of the area, strongly opposed by area residents, was permanently prevented in 1933 when President Herbert Hoover declared the gypsum dunes a protected national monument.
+
+Gypsum is also formed as a by-product of sulfide oxidation, amongst others by pyrite oxidation, when the sulfuric acid generated reacts with calcium carbonate. Its presence indicates oxidizing conditions. Under reducing conditions, the sulfates it contains can be reduced back to sulfide by sulfate-reducing bacteria. Electric power stations burning coal with flue gas desulfurization produce large quantities of gypsum as a byproduct from the scrubbers.
+
+Orbital pictures from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) have indicated the existence of gypsum dunes in the northern polar region of Mars,[13] which were later confirmed at ground level by the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Opportunity.[14]
+
+Crystals in the Cave of the Crystals in Mexico. Note person (lower right) for scale.
+
+Crystals that formed as the water evaporated in Lake Lucero, White Sands National Park.
+
+Veins in the silts/marls of the Tea Green and Grey Marls, Blue Anchor, Somerset, United Kingdom.
+
+Veins in Caprock Canyons State Park and Trailway, Texas.
+
+Commercial quantities of gypsum are found in the cities of Araripina and Grajaú in Brazil; in Pakistan, Jamaica, Iran (world's second largest producer), Thailand, Spain (the main producer in Europe), Germany, Italy, England, Ireland and Canada[16] and the United States. Large open pit quarries are located in many places including Fort Dodge, Iowa, which sits on one of the largest deposits of gypsum in the world,[17] and Plaster City, California, United States, and East Kutai, Kalimantan, Indonesia. Several small mines also exist in places such as Kalannie in Western Australia, where gypsum is sold to private buyers for additions of calcium and sulfur as well as reduction of aluminum toxicities on soil for agricultural purposes.
+
+Crystals of gypsum up to 11 m (36 ft) long have been found in the caves of the Naica Mine of Chihuahua, Mexico. The crystals thrived in the cave's extremely rare and stable natural environment. Temperatures stayed at 58 °C (136 °F), and the cave was filled with mineral-rich water that drove the crystals' growth. The largest of those crystals weighs 55 tonnes (61 short tons) and is around 500,000 years old.[18]
+
+Golden gypsum crystals from Winnipeg
+
+Gypsum sand from White Sands National Park, New Mexico
+
+Synthetic gypsum is recovered via flue-gas desulfurization at some coal-fired power plants. It can be used interchangeably with natural gypsum in some applications.
+
+Gypsum also precipitates onto brackish water membranes, a phenomenon known as mineral salt scaling, such as during brackish water desalination of water with high concentrations of calcium and sulfate. Scaling decreases membrane life and productivity. This is one of the main obstacles in brackish water membrane desalination processes, such as reverse osmosis or nanofiltration. Other forms of scaling, such as calcite scaling, depending on the water source, can also be important considerations in distillation, as well as in heat exchangers, where either the salt solubility or concentration can change rapidly.
+
+A new study has suggested that the formation of gypsum starts as tiny crystals of a mineral called bassanite (CaSO4·​1⁄2H2O).[19] This process occurs via a three-stage pathway:
+
+People can be exposed to gypsum in the workplace by breathing it in, skin contact, and eye contact.
+
+The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has set the legal limit (permissible exposure limit) for gypsum exposure in the workplace as TWA 15 mg/m3 for total exposure and TWA 5 mg/m3 for respiratory exposure over an 8-hour workday. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has set a recommended exposure limit (REL) of TWA 10 mg/m3 for total exposure and TWA 5 mg/m3 for respiratory exposure over an 8-hour workday.[20]
+
+Gypsum is used in a wide variety of applications:
+
+Green gypsum crystals from Pernatty Lagoon, Mt Gunson, South Australia - its green color is due to presence of copper ions.
+
+Unusual selenite gypsum from the Red River, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
+
+Classic "ram's horn" gypsum from Santa Eulalia, Chihuahua, Mexico, 7.5×4.3×3.8 cm
+
+Desert rose, 47 cm long
+
+Gypsum from Pernatty Lagoon, Mt Gunson, Stuart Shelf area, Andamooka Ranges - Lake Torrens area, South Australia, Australia
+
+Gypsum with crystalline native copper inside
+
+Gypsum from Swan Hill, Victoria, Australia. The colouring is due to the copper oxide
+
+Waterclear twined crystal of the form known as "Roman sword". Fuentes de Ebro, Zaragoza (Spain)
+
+Bright, cherry-red gypsum crystals 2.5 cm in height colored by rich inclusions of the rare mineral botryogen
+
+Gypsum from Naica, Mun. de Saucillo, Chihuahua, Mexico
+
+Golden color gem, "fishtail"-twinned crystals of gypsum sitting atop a "ball" of gypsum which is composed of several single bladed crystals

en/2353.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,319 @@
+
+
+Water is an inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms. It is vital for all known forms of life, even though it provides no calories or organic nutrients. Its chemical formula is H2O, meaning that each of its molecules contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms, connected by covalent bonds.
+
+"Water" is the name of the liquid state of H2O at standard ambient temperature and pressure. It forms precipitation in the form of rain and aerosols in the form of fog. Clouds are formed from suspended droplets of water and ice, its solid state. When finely divided, crystalline ice may precipitate in the form of snow. The gaseous state of water is steam or water vapor. Water moves continually through the water cycle of evaporation, transpiration (evapotranspiration), condensation, precipitation, and runoff, usually reaching the sea.
+
+Water covers 71% of the Earth's surface, mostly in seas and oceans.[1] Small portions of water occur as groundwater (1.7%), in the glaciers and the ice caps of Antarctica and Greenland (1.7%), and in the air as vapor, clouds (formed of ice and liquid water suspended in air), and precipitation (0.001%).[2][3]
+
+Water plays an important role in the world economy. Approximately 70% of the freshwater used by humans goes to agriculture.[4] Fishing in salt and fresh water bodies is a major source of food for many parts of the world. Much of the long-distance trade of commodities (such as oil, natural gas, and manufactured products) is transported by boats through seas, rivers, lakes, and canals. Large quantities of water, ice, and steam are used for cooling and heating, in industry and homes. Water is an excellent solvent for a wide variety of substances both mineral and organic; as such it is widely used in industrial processes, and in cooking and washing. Water, ice and snow are also central to many sports and other forms of entertainment, such as swimming, pleasure boating, boat racing, surfing, sport fishing, diving, ice skating and skiing.
+
+The word water comes from Old English wæter, from Proto-Germanic *watar (source also of Old Saxon watar, Old Frisian wetir, Dutch water, Old High German wazzar, German Wasser, Old Norse vatn, Gothic wato), from Proto-Indo-European *wod-or, suffixed form of root *wed- ("water"; "wet").[5] Also cognate, through the Indo-European root, with Greek ύδωρ (ýdor), Russian вода́ (vodá), Irish uisce, Albanian ujë.
+
+Water (H2O) is a polar inorganic compound that is at room temperature a tasteless and odorless liquid, nearly colorless with a hint of blue. This simplest hydrogen chalcogenide is by far the most studied chemical compound and is described as the "universal solvent" for its ability to dissolve many substances.[6][7] This allows it to be the "solvent of life":[8] indeed, water as found in nature almost always includes various dissolved substances, and special steps are required to obtain chemically pure water. Water is the only common substance to exist as a solid, liquid, and gas in normal terrestrial conditions.[9]
+
+Along with oxidane, water is one of the two official names for the chemical compound H2O;[10] it is also the liquid phase of H2O.[11] The other two common states of matter of water are the solid phase, ice, and the gaseous phase, water vapor or steam. The addition or removal of heat can cause phase transitions:  freezing (water to ice), melting (ice to water), vaporization (water to vapor), condensation (vapor to water), sublimation (ice to vapor) and deposition (vapor to ice).[12]
+
+Water differs from most liquids in that it becomes less dense as it freezes.[14] In 1 atm pressure, it reaches its maximum density of 1,000 kg/m3 (62.43 lb/cu ft) at 3.98 °C (39.16 °F).[15] The density of ice is 917 kg/m3 (57.25 lb/cu ft), an expansion of 9%.[16][17] This expansion can exert enormous pressure, bursting pipes and cracking rocks (see Frost weathering).[18]
+
+In a lake or ocean, water at 4 °C sinks to the bottom and ice forms on the surface, floating on the liquid water. This ice insulates the water below, preventing it from freezing solid. Without this protection, most aquatic organisms would perish during the winter.[19]
+
+At a pressure of one atmosphere (atm), ice melts or water freezes at 0 °C (32 °F) and water boils or vapor condenses at 100 °C (212 °F). However, even below the boiling point, water can change to vapor at its surface by evaporation (vaporization throughout the liquid is known as boiling). Sublimation and deposition also occur on surfaces.[12] For example, frost is deposited on cold surfaces while snowflakes form by deposition on an aerosol particle or ice nucleus.[20] In the process of freeze-drying, a food is frozen and then stored at low pressure so the ice on its surface sublimates.[21]
+
+The melting and boiling points depend on pressure. A good approximation for the rate of change of the melting temperature with pressure is given by the Clausius–Clapeyron relation:
+
+where 
+
+
+
+
+v
+
+L
+
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle v_{\text{L}}}
+
+ and 
+
+
+
+
+v
+
+G
+
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle v_{\text{G}}}
+
+ are the molar volumes of the liquid and gas phases, and 
+
+
+
+
+L
+
+f
+
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle L_{\text{f}}}
+
+ is the molar latent heat of melting. In most substances, the volume increases when melting occurs, so the melting temperature increases with pressure. However, because ice is less dense than water, the melting temperature decreases.[13] In glaciers, pressure melting can occur under sufficiently thick volumes of ice, resulting in subglacial lakes.[22][23]
+
+The Clausius-Clapeyron relation also applies to the boiling point, except now the vapor phase has a much lower density than the liquid phase, so the boiling point increases with pressure.[24] Water can remain in a liquid state at high temperatures in the deep ocean or underground. For example, temperatures exceed 205 °C (401 °F) in Old Faithful, a geyser in Yellowstone National Park.[25] In hydrothermal vents, the temperature can exceed 400 °C (752 °F).[26]
+
+At sea level, the boiling point of water is 100 °C (212 °F). As atmospheric pressure decreases with altitude, the boiling point decreases by 1 °C every 274 meters. High-altitude cooking takes longer than sea-level cooking. For example, at 1,524 metres (5,000 ft), cooking time must be increased by a fourth to achieve the desired result.[27] (Conversely, a pressure cooker can be used to decrease cooking times by raising the boiling temperature.[28])
+In a vacuum, water will boil at room temperature.[29]
+
+On a pressure/temperature phase diagram (see figure), there are curves separating solid from vapor, vapor from liquid, and liquid from solid. These meet at a single point called the triple point, where all three phases can coexist. The triple point is at a temperature of 273.16 K (0.01 °C) and a pressure of 611.657 pascals (0.00604 atm);[30] it is the lowest pressure at which liquid water can exist. Until 2019, the triple point was used to define the Kelvin temperature scale.[31][32]
+
+The water/vapor phase curve terminates at 647.096 K (373.946 °C; 705.103 °F) and 22.064 megapascals (3,200.1 psi; 217.75 atm).[33] This is known as the critical point. At higher temperatures and pressures the liquid and vapor phases form a continuous phase called a supercritical fluid. It can be gradually compressed or expanded between gas-like and liquid-like densities, its properties (which are quite different from those of ambient water) are sensitive to density. For example, for suitable pressures and temperatures it can mix freely with nonpolar compounds, including most organic compounds. This makes it useful in a variety of applications including high-temperature electrochemistry and as an ecologically benign solvent or catalyst in chemical reactions involving organic compounds. In Earth's mantle, it acts as a solvent during mineral formation, dissolution and deposition.[34][35]
+
+The normal form of ice on the surface of Earth is Ice Ih, a phase that forms crystals with hexagonal symmetry. Another with cubic crystalline symmetry, Ice Ic, can occur in the upper atmosphere.[36] As the pressure increases, ice forms other crystal structures. As of 2019, 17 have been experimentally confirmed and several more are predicted theoretically.[37] When sandwiched between layers of graphene, ice forms a square lattice.[38]
+
+The details of the chemical nature of liquid water are not well understood; some theories suggest that its unusual behaviour is due to the existence of 2 liquid states.[15][39][40][41]
+
+Pure water is usually described as tasteless and odorless, although humans have specific sensors that can feel the presence of water in their mouths,[42] and frogs are known to be able to smell it.[43] However, water from ordinary sources (including bottled mineral water) usually has many dissolved substances, that may give it varying tastes and odors. Humans and other animals have developed senses that enable them to evaluate the potability of water by avoiding water that is too salty or putrid.[44]
+
+Pure water is visibly blue due to absorption of light in the region ca. 600 nm - 800 nm.[45] The color can be easily observed in a glass of tap-water placed against a pure white background, in daylight.The principal absorption bands responsible for the color are overtones of the O-H stretching vibrations. The apparent intensity of the color increases with the depth of the water column, following Beer's law. This also applies, for example, with a swimming pool when the light source is sunlight reflected from the pool's white tiles.
+
+In nature, the color may also be modified from blue to green due to the presence of suspended solids or algae.
+
+In industry, near-infrared spectroscopy is used with aqueous solutions as the greater intensity of the lower overtones of water means that glass cuvettes with short path-length may be employed. To observe the fundamental stretching absorption spectrum of water or of an aqueous solution in the region around 3500 cm−1 (2.85 μm)[46] a path length of about 25 μm is needed. Also, the cuvette must be both transparent around 3500 cm−1 and insoluble in water; calcium fluoride is one material that is in common use for the cuvette windows with aqueous solutions.
+
+The Raman-active fundamental vibrations may be observed with, for example, a 1 cm sample cell.
+
+Aquatic plants, algae, and other photosynthetic organisms can live in water up to hundreds of meters deep, because sunlight can reach them.
+Practically no sunlight reaches the parts of the oceans below 1,000 meters (3,300 ft) of depth.
+
+The refractive index of liquid water (1.333 at 20 °C (68 °F)) is much higher than that of air (1.0), similar to those of alkanes and ethanol, but lower than those of glycerol (1.473), benzene (1.501), carbon disulfide (1.627), and common types of glass (1.4 to 1.6). The refraction index of ice (1.31) is lower than that of liquid water.
+
+In a water molecule, the hydrogen atoms form a 104.5° angle with the oxygen atom. The hydrogen atoms are close to two corners of a tetrahedron centered on the oxygen. At the other two corners are lone pairs of valence electrons that do not participate in the bonding. In a perfect tetrahedron, the atoms would form a 109.5° angle, but the repulsion between the lone pairs is greater than the repulsion between the hydrogen atoms.[47][48]
+
+Other substances have a tetrahedral molecular structure, for example, methane (CH4) and hydrogen sulfide (H2S). However, oxygen is more electronegative (holds on to its electrons more tightly) than most other elements, so the oxygen atom retains a negative charge while the hydrogen atoms are positively charged. Along with the bent structure, this gives the molecule an electrical dipole moment and it is classified as a polar molecule.[49]
+
+Water is a good polar solvent, that dissolves many salts and hydrophilic organic molecules such as sugars and simple alcohols such as ethanol. Water also dissolves many gases, such as oxygen and carbon dioxide—the latter giving the fizz of carbonated beverages, sparkling wines and beers. In addition, many substances in living organisms, such as proteins, DNA and polysaccharides, are dissolved in water. The interactions between water and the subunits of these biomacromolecules shape protein folding, DNA base pairing, and other phenomena crucial to life (hydrophobic effect).
+
+Many organic substances (such as fats and oils and alkanes) are hydrophobic, that is, insoluble in water. Many inorganic substances are insoluble too, including most metal oxides, sulfides, and silicates.
+
+Because of its polarity, a molecule of water in the liquid or solid state can form up to four hydrogen bonds with neighboring molecules. Hydrogen bonds are about ten times as strong as the Van der Waals force that attracts molecules to each other in most liquids. This is the reason why the melting and boiling points of water are much higher than those of other analogous compounds like hydrogen sulfide. They also explain its exceptionally high specific heat capacity (about 4.2 J/g/K), heat of fusion (about 333 J/g), heat of vaporization (2257 J/g), and thermal conductivity (between 0.561 and 0.679 W/m/K). These properties make water more effective at moderating Earth's climate, by storing heat and transporting it between the oceans and the atmosphere. The hydrogen bonds of water are around 23 kJ/mol (compared to a covalent O-H bond at 492 kJ/mol). Of this, it is estimated that 90% is attributable to electrostatics, while the remaining 10% is partially covalent.[50]
+
+These bonds are the cause of water's high surface tension[51] and capillary forces. The capillary action refers to the tendency of water to move up a narrow tube against the force of gravity. This property is relied upon by all vascular plants, such as trees.[52]
+
+Water is a weak solution of hydronium hydroxide - there is an equilibrium 2H2O ⇔ H3O+ + OH−, in combination with solvation of the resulting hydronium ions.
+
+Pure water has a low electrical conductivity, which increases with the dissolution of a small amount of ionic material such as common salt.
+
+Liquid water can be split into the elements hydrogen and oxygen by passing an electric current through it—a process called electrolysis. The decomposition requires more energy input than the heat released by the inverse process (285.8 kJ/mol, or 15.9 MJ/kg).[53]
+
+Liquid water can be assumed to be incompressible for most purposes: its compressibility ranges from 4.4 to 5.1×10−10 Pa−1 in ordinary conditions.[54] Even in oceans at 4 km depth, where the pressure is 400 atm, water suffers only a 1.8% decrease in volume.[55]
+
+The viscosity of water is about 10−3 Pa·s or 0.01 poise at 20 °C (68 °F), and the speed of sound in liquid water ranges between 1,400 and 1,540 meters per second (4,600 and 5,100 ft/s) depending on temperature. Sound travels long distances in water with little attenuation, especially at low frequencies (roughly 0.03 dB/km for 1 kHz), a property that is exploited by cetaceans and humans for communication and environment sensing (sonar).[56]
+
+Metallic elements which are more electropositive than hydrogen, particularly the alkali metals and alkaline earth metals such as lithium, sodium, calcium, potassium and cesium displace hydrogen from water, forming hydroxides and releasing hydrogen. At high temperatures, carbon reacts with steam to form carbon monoxide and hydrogen.
+
+Hydrology is the study of the movement, distribution, and quality of water throughout the Earth. The study of the distribution of water is hydrography. The study of the distribution and movement of groundwater is hydrogeology, of glaciers is glaciology, of inland waters is limnology and distribution of oceans is oceanography. Ecological processes with hydrology are in focus of ecohydrology.
+
+The collective mass of water found on, under, and over the surface of a planet is called the hydrosphere. Earth's approximate water volume (the total water supply of the world) is 1.386 × 109 cubic kilometers (3.33 × 108 cubic miles).[2]
+
+Liquid water is found in bodies of water, such as an ocean, sea, lake, river, stream, canal, pond, or puddle. The majority of water on Earth is sea water. Water is also present in the atmosphere in solid, liquid, and vapor states. It also exists as groundwater in aquifers.
+
+Water is important in many geological processes. Groundwater is present in most rocks, and the pressure of this groundwater affects patterns of faulting. Water in the mantle is responsible for the melt that produces volcanoes at subduction zones. On the surface of the Earth, water is important in both chemical and physical weathering processes. Water, and to a lesser but still significant extent, ice, are also responsible for a large amount of sediment transport that occurs on the surface of the earth. Deposition of transported sediment forms many types of sedimentary rocks, which make up the geologic record of Earth history.
+
+The water cycle (known scientifically as the hydrologic cycle) refers to the continuous exchange of water within the hydrosphere, between the atmosphere, soil water, surface water, groundwater, and plants.
+
+Water moves perpetually through each of these regions in the water cycle consisting of the following transfer processes:
+
+Most water vapor over the oceans returns to the oceans, but winds carry water vapor over land at the same rate as runoff into the sea, about 47 Tt per year. Over land, evaporation and transpiration contribute another 72 Tt per year. Precipitation, at a rate of 119 Tt per year over land, has several forms: most commonly rain, snow, and hail, with some contribution from fog and dew.[57] Dew is small drops of water that are condensed when a high density of water vapor meets a cool surface. Dew usually forms in the morning when the temperature is the lowest, just before sunrise and when the temperature of the earth's surface starts to increase.[58] Condensed water in the air may also refract sunlight to produce rainbows.
+
+Water runoff often collects over watersheds flowing into rivers. A mathematical model used to simulate river or stream flow and calculate water quality parameters is a hydrological transport model. Some water is diverted to irrigation for agriculture. Rivers and seas offer opportunity for travel and commerce. Through erosion, runoff shapes the environment creating river valleys and deltas which provide rich soil and level ground for the establishment of population centers. A flood occurs when an area of land, usually low-lying, is covered with water. It is when a river overflows its banks or flood comes from the sea. A drought is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply. This occurs when a region receives consistently below average precipitation.
+
+Water occurs as both "stocks" and "flows." Water can be stored as lakes, water vapor, groundwater or "aquifers," and ice and snow. Of the total volume of global freshwater, an estimated 69 percent is stored in glaciers and permanent snow cover; 30 percent is in groundwater; and the remaining 1 percent in lakes, rivers, the atmosphere, and biota.[59] The length of time water remains in storage is highly variable: some aquifers consist of water stored over thousands of years but lake volumes may fluctuate on a seasonal basis, decreasing during dry periods and increasing during wet ones. A substantial fraction of the water supply for some regions consists of water extracted from water stored in stocks, and when withdrawals exceed recharge, stocks decrease. By some estimates, as much as 30 percent of total water used for irrigation comes from unsustainable withdrawals of groundwater, causing groundwater depletion.[60]
+
+Sea water contains about 3.5% sodium chloride on average, plus smaller amounts of other substances. The physical properties of sea water differ from fresh water in some important respects. It freezes at a lower temperature (about −1.9 °C (28.6 °F)) and its density increases with decreasing temperature to the freezing point, instead of reaching maximum density at a temperature above freezing. The salinity of water in major seas varies from about 0.7% in the Baltic Sea to 4.0% in the Red Sea. (The Dead Sea, known for its ultra-high salinity levels of between 30–40%, is really a salt lake.)
+
+Tides are the cyclic rising and falling of local sea levels caused by the tidal forces of the Moon and the Sun acting on the oceans. Tides cause changes in the depth of the marine and estuarine water bodies and produce oscillating currents known as tidal streams. The changing tide produced at a given location is the result of the changing positions of the Moon and Sun relative to the Earth coupled with the effects of Earth rotation and the local bathymetry. The strip of seashore that is submerged at high tide and exposed at low tide, the intertidal zone, is an important ecological product of ocean tides.
+
+High tide
+
+Low tide
+
+From a biological standpoint, water has many distinct properties that are critical for the proliferation of life. It carries out this role by allowing organic compounds to react in ways that ultimately allow replication. All known forms of life depend on water. Water is vital both as a solvent in which many of the body's solutes dissolve and as an essential part of many metabolic processes within the body. Metabolism is the sum total of anabolism and catabolism. In anabolism, water is removed from molecules (through energy requiring enzymatic chemical reactions) in order to grow larger molecules (e.g., starches, triglycerides and proteins for storage of fuels and information). In catabolism, water is used to break bonds in order to generate smaller molecules (e.g., glucose, fatty acids and amino acids to be used for fuels for energy use or other purposes). Without water, these particular metabolic processes could not exist.
+
+Water is fundamental to photosynthesis and respiration. Photosynthetic cells use the sun's energy to split off water's hydrogen from oxygen.[citation needed] Hydrogen is combined with CO2 (absorbed from air or water) to form glucose and release oxygen.[citation needed] All living cells use such fuels and oxidize the hydrogen and carbon to capture the sun's energy and reform water and CO2 in the process (cellular respiration).
+
+Water is also central to acid-base neutrality and enzyme function. An acid, a hydrogen ion (H+, that is, a proton) donor, can be neutralized by a base, a proton acceptor such as a hydroxide ion (OH−) to form water. Water is considered to be neutral, with a pH (the negative log of the hydrogen ion concentration) of 7. Acids have pH values less than 7 while bases have values greater than 7.
+
+Earth surface waters are filled with life. The earliest life forms appeared in water; nearly all fish live exclusively in water, and there are many types of marine mammals, such as dolphins and whales. Some kinds of animals, such as amphibians, spend portions of their lives in water and portions on land. Plants such as kelp and algae grow in the water and are the basis for some underwater ecosystems. Plankton is generally the foundation of the ocean food chain.
+
+Aquatic vertebrates must obtain oxygen to survive, and they do so in various ways. Fish have gills instead of lungs, although some species of fish, such as the lungfish, have both. Marine mammals, such as dolphins, whales, otters, and seals need to surface periodically to breathe air. Some amphibians are able to absorb oxygen through their skin. Invertebrates exhibit a wide range of modifications to survive in poorly oxygenated waters including breathing tubes (see insect and mollusc siphons) and gills (Carcinus). However as invertebrate life evolved in an aquatic habitat most have little or no specialization for respiration in water.
+
+Some of the biodiversity of a coral reef
+
+Some marine diatoms – a key phytoplankton group
+
+Squat lobster and Alvinocarididae shrimp at the Von Damm hydrothermal field survive by altered water chemistry
+
+Civilization has historically flourished around rivers and major waterways; Mesopotamia, the so-called cradle of civilization, was situated between the major rivers Tigris and Euphrates; the ancient society of the Egyptians depended entirely upon the Nile. Rome was also founded on the banks of the Italian river Tiber. Large metropolises like Rotterdam, London, Montreal, Paris, New York City, Buenos Aires, Shanghai, Tokyo, Chicago, and Hong Kong owe their success in part to their easy accessibility via water and the resultant expansion of trade. Islands with safe water ports, like Singapore, have flourished for the same reason. In places such as North Africa and the Middle East, where water is more scarce, access to clean drinking water was and is a major factor in human development.
+
+Water fit for human consumption is called drinking water or potable water. Water that is not potable may be made potable by filtration or distillation, or by a range of other methods.
+
+Water that is not fit for drinking but is not harmful to humans when used for swimming or bathing is called by various names other than potable or drinking water, and is sometimes called safe water, or "safe for bathing". Chlorine is a skin and mucous membrane irritant that is used to make water safe for bathing or drinking. Its use is highly technical and is usually monitored by government regulations (typically 1 part per million (ppm) for drinking water, and 1–2 ppm of chlorine not yet reacted with impurities for bathing water). Water for bathing may be maintained in satisfactory microbiological condition using chemical disinfectants such as chlorine or ozone or by the use of ultraviolet light.
+
+In the US, non-potable forms of wastewater generated by humans may be referred to as grey water, which is treatable and thus easily able to be made potable again, and blackwater, which generally contains sewage and other forms of waste which require further treatment in order to be made reusable. Greywater composes 50–80% of residential wastewater generated by a household's sanitation equipment (sinks, showers and kitchen runoff, but not toilets, which generate blackwater.) These terms may have different meanings in other countries and cultures.
+
+This natural resource is becoming scarcer in certain places, and its availability is a major social and economic concern. Currently, about a billion people around the world routinely drink unhealthy water. In 2000, the United Nations established the Millennium Development Goals for water to halve by 2015 the proportion of people worldwide without access to safe water and sanitation. Progress toward that goal was uneven, and in 2015 the UN committed to the following targets set by the Sustainable Development Goals of achieving universal access to safe and affordable water and sanitation by 2030. Poor water quality and bad sanitation are deadly; some five million deaths a year are caused by water-related diseases. The World Health Organization estimates that safe water could prevent 1.4 million child deaths from diarrhoea each year.[61]
+
+Water is not an infinite resource (meaning the availability of water is limited), but rather re-circulated as potable water in precipitation.[62]
+
+In the developing world, 90% of all wastewater still goes untreated into local rivers and streams.[63] Some 50 countries, with roughly a third of the world's population, also suffer from medium or high water stress, and 17 of these extract more water annually than is recharged through their natural water cycles.[64] The strain not only affects surface freshwater bodies like rivers and lakes, but it also degrades groundwater resources.
+
+The most important use of water in agriculture is for irrigation, which is a key component to produce enough food. Irrigation takes up to 90% of water withdrawn in some developing countries[66] and significant proportions in more economically developed countries (in the United States, 42% of freshwater withdrawn for use is for irrigation).[67]
+
+Fifty years ago, the common perception was that water was an infinite resource. At the time, there were fewer than half the current number of people on the planet. People were not as wealthy as today, consumed fewer calories and ate less meat, so less water was needed to produce their food. They required a third of the volume of water we presently take from rivers. Today, the competition for the fixed amount of water resources is much more intense, giving rise to the concept of peak water.[68] This is because there are now nearly eight billion people on the planet, their consumption of water-thirsty meat and vegetables is rising, and there is increasing competition for water from industry, urbanization and biofuel crops. In future, even more, water will be needed to produce food because the Earth's population is forecast to rise to 9 billion by 2050.[69]
+
+An assessment of water management in agriculture was conducted in 2007 by the International Water Management Institute in Sri Lanka to see if the world had sufficient water to provide food for its growing population.[70] It assessed the current availability of water for agriculture on a global scale and mapped out locations suffering from water scarcity. It found that a fifth of the world's people, more than 1.2 billion, live in areas of physical water scarcity, where there is not enough water to meet all demands. A further 1.6 billion people live in areas experiencing economic water scarcity, where the lack of investment in water or insufficient human capacity make it impossible for authorities to satisfy the demand for water. The report found that it would be possible to produce the food required in future, but that continuation of today's food production and environmental trends would lead to crises in many parts of the world. To avoid a global water crisis, farmers will have to strive to increase productivity to meet growing demands for food, while industry and cities find ways to use water more efficiently.[71]
+
+Water scarcity is also caused by production of cotton: 1 kg of cotton—equivalent of a pair of jeans—requires 10.9 cubic meters (380 cu ft) water to produce. While cotton accounts for 2.4% of world water use, the water is consumed in regions which are already at a risk of water shortage. Significant environmental damage has been caused, such as disappearance of the Aral Sea.[72]
+
+Water requirement per tonne of food product
+
+Water distribution in subsurface drip irrigation
+
+Irrigation of field crops
+
+On 7 April 1795, the gram was defined in France to be equal to "the absolute weight of a volume of pure water equal to a cube of one hundredth of a meter, and at the temperature of melting ice".[73] For practical purposes though, a metallic reference standard was required, one thousand times more massive, the kilogram. Work was therefore commissioned to determine precisely the mass of one liter of water. In spite of the fact that the decreed definition of the gram specified water at 0 °C (32 °F)—a highly reproducible temperature—the scientists chose to redefine the standard and to perform their measurements at the temperature of highest water density, which was measured at the time as 4 °C (39 °F).[74]
+
+The Kelvin temperature scale of the SI system was based on the triple point of water, defined as exactly 273.16 K (0.01 °C; 32.02 °F), but as of May 2019 is based on the Boltzmann constant instead. The scale is an absolute temperature scale with the same increment as the Celsius temperature scale, which was originally defined according to the boiling point (set to 100 °C (212 °F)) and melting point (set to 0 °C (32 °F)) of water.
+
+Natural water consists mainly of the isotopes hydrogen-1 and oxygen-16, but there is also a small quantity of heavier isotopes oxygen-18, oxygen-17, and hydrogen-2 (deuterium). The percentage of the heavier isotopes is very small, but it still affects the properties of water. Water from rivers and lakes tends to contain less heavy isotopes than seawater. Therefore, standard water is defined in the Vienna Standard Mean Ocean Water specification.
+
+The human body contains from 55% to 78% water, depending on body size.[75] To function properly, the body requires between one and seven liters (0.22 and 1.54 imp gal; 0.26 and 1.85 U.S. gal)[citation needed] of water per day to avoid dehydration; the precise amount depends on the level of activity, temperature, humidity, and other factors. Most of this is ingested through foods or beverages other than drinking straight water. It is not clear how much water intake is needed by healthy people, though the British Dietetic Association advises that 2.5 liters of total water daily is the minimum to maintain proper hydration, including 1.8 liters (6 to 7 glasses) obtained directly from beverages.[76] Medical literature favors a lower consumption, typically 1 liter of water for an average male, excluding extra requirements due to fluid loss from exercise or warm weather.[77]
+
+Healthy kidneys can excrete 0.8 to 1 liter of water per hour, but stress such as exercise can reduce this amount. People can drink far more water than necessary while exercising, putting them at risk of water intoxication (hyperhydration), which can be fatal.[78][79] The popular claim that "a person should consume eight glasses of water per day" seems to have no real basis in science.[80] Studies have shown that extra water intake, especially up to 500 milliliters (18 imp fl oz; 17 U.S. fl oz) at mealtime was conducive to weight loss.[81][82][83][84][85][86] Adequate fluid intake is helpful in preventing constipation.[87]
+
+An original recommendation for water intake in 1945 by the Food and Nutrition Board of the United States National Research Council read: "An ordinary standard for diverse persons is 1 milliliter for each calorie of food. Most of this quantity is contained in prepared foods."[88] The latest dietary reference intake report by the United States National Research Council in general recommended, based on the median total water intake from US survey data (including food sources): 3.7 liters (0.81 imp gal; 0.98 U.S. gal) for men and 2.7 liters (0.59 imp gal; 0.71 U.S. gal) of water total for women, noting that water contained in food provided approximately 19% of total water intake in the survey.[89]
+
+Specifically, pregnant and breastfeeding women need additional fluids to stay hydrated. The Institute of Medicine (US) recommends that, on average, men consume 3 liters (0.66 imp gal; 0.79 U.S. gal) and women 2.2 liters (0.48 imp gal; 0.58 U.S. gal); pregnant women should increase intake to 2.4 liters (0.53 imp gal; 0.63 U.S. gal) and breastfeeding women should get 3 liters (12 cups), since an especially large amount of fluid is lost during nursing.[90] Also noted is that normally, about 20% of water intake comes from food, while the rest comes from drinking water and beverages (caffeinated included). Water is excreted from the body in multiple forms; through urine and feces, through sweating, and by exhalation of water vapor in the breath. With physical exertion and heat exposure, water loss will increase and daily fluid needs may increase as well.
+
+Humans require water with few impurities. Common impurities include metal salts and oxides, including copper, iron, calcium and lead,[91] and/or harmful bacteria, such as Vibrio. Some solutes are acceptable and even desirable for taste enhancement and to provide needed electrolytes.[92]
+
+The single largest (by volume) freshwater resource suitable for drinking is Lake Baikal in Siberia.[93]
+
+The propensity of water to form solutions and emulsions is useful in various washing processes. Washing is also an important component of several aspects of personal body hygiene. Most of personal water use is due to showering, doing the laundry and dishwashing, reaching hundreds of liters per day per person in developed countries.
+
+The use of water for transportation of materials through rivers and canals as well as the international shipping lanes is an important part of the world economy.
+
+Water is widely used in chemical reactions as a solvent or reactant and less commonly as a solute or catalyst. In inorganic reactions, water is a common solvent, dissolving many ionic compounds, as well as other polar compounds such as ammonia and compounds closely related to water. In organic reactions, it is not usually used as a reaction solvent, because it does not dissolve the reactants well and is amphoteric (acidic and basic) and nucleophilic. Nevertheless, these properties are sometimes desirable. Also, acceleration of Diels-Alder reactions by water has been observed. Supercritical water has recently been a topic of research. Oxygen-saturated supercritical water combusts organic pollutants efficiently. Water vapor is used for some processes in the chemical industry. An example is the production of acrylic acid from acrolein, propylene and propane.[94][95][96][97] The possible effect of water in these reactions includes the physical-, chemical interaction of water with the catalyst and the chemical reaction of water with the reaction intermediates.
+
+Water and steam are a common fluid used for heat exchange, due to its availability and high heat capacity, both for cooling and heating. Cool water may even be naturally available from a lake or the sea. It's especially effective to transport heat through vaporization and condensation of water because of its large latent heat of vaporization. A disadvantage is that metals commonly found in industries such as steel and copper are oxidized faster by untreated water and steam. In almost all thermal power stations, water is used as the working fluid (used in a closed loop between boiler, steam turbine and condenser), and the coolant (used to exchange the waste heat to a water body or carry it away by evaporation in a cooling tower). In the United States, cooling power plants is the largest use of water.[98]
+
+In the nuclear power industry, water can also be used as a neutron moderator. In most nuclear reactors, water is both a coolant and a moderator. This provides something of a passive safety measure, as removing the water from the reactor also slows the nuclear reaction down. However other methods are favored for stopping a reaction and it is preferred to keep the nuclear core covered with water so as to ensure adequate cooling.
+
+Water has a high heat of vaporization and is relatively inert, which makes it a good fire extinguishing fluid. The evaporation of water carries heat away from the fire. It is dangerous to use water on fires involving oils and organic solvents, because many organic materials float on water and the water tends to spread the burning liquid.
+
+Use of water in fire fighting should also take into account the hazards of a steam explosion, which may occur when water is used on very hot fires in confined spaces, and of a hydrogen explosion, when substances which react with water, such as certain metals or hot carbon such as coal, charcoal, or coke graphite, decompose the water, producing water gas.
+
+The power of such explosions was seen in the Chernobyl disaster, although the water involved did not come from fire-fighting at that time but the reactor's own water cooling system. A steam explosion occurred when the extreme overheating of the core caused water to flash into steam. A hydrogen explosion may have occurred as a result of reaction between steam and hot zirconium.
+
+Some metallic oxides, most notably those of alkali metals and alkaline earth metals, produce so much heat on reaction with water that a fire hazard can develop. The alkaline earth oxide quicklime is a mass-produced substance which is often transported in paper bags. If these are soaked through, they may ignite as their contents react with water.[99]
+
+Humans use water for many recreational purposes, as well as for exercising and for sports. Some of these include swimming, waterskiing, boating, surfing and diving. In addition, some sports, like ice hockey and ice skating, are played on ice. Lakesides, beaches and water parks are popular places for people to go to relax and enjoy recreation. Many find the sound and appearance of flowing water to be calming, and fountains and other water features are popular decorations. Some keep fish and other life in aquariums or ponds for show, fun, and companionship. Humans also use water for snow sports i.e. skiing, sledding, snowmobiling or snowboarding, which require the water to be frozen.
+
+The water industry provides drinking water and wastewater services (including sewage treatment) to households and industry. Water supply facilities include water wells, cisterns for rainwater harvesting, water supply networks, and water purification facilities, water tanks, water towers, water pipes including old aqueducts. Atmospheric water generators are in development.
+
+Drinking water is often collected at springs, extracted from artificial borings (wells) in the ground, or pumped from lakes and rivers. Building more wells in adequate places is thus a possible way to produce more water, assuming the aquifers can supply an adequate flow. Other water sources include rainwater collection. Water may require purification for human consumption. This may involve removal of undissolved substances, dissolved substances and harmful microbes. Popular methods are filtering with sand which only removes undissolved material, while chlorination and boiling kill harmful microbes. Distillation does all three functions. More advanced techniques exist, such as reverse osmosis. Desalination of abundant seawater is a more expensive solution used in coastal arid climates.
+
+The distribution of drinking water is done through municipal water systems, tanker delivery or as bottled water. Governments in many countries have programs to distribute water to the needy at no charge.
+
+Reducing usage by using drinking (potable) water only for human consumption is another option. In some cities such as Hong Kong, sea water is extensively used for flushing toilets citywide in order to conserve fresh water resources.
+
+Polluting water may be the biggest single misuse of water; to the extent that a pollutant limits other uses of the water, it becomes a waste of the resource, regardless of benefits to the polluter. Like other types of pollution, this does not enter standard accounting of market costs, being conceived as externalities for which the market cannot account. Thus other people pay the price of water pollution, while the private firms' profits are not redistributed to the local population, victims of this pollution. Pharmaceuticals consumed by humans often end up in the waterways and can have detrimental effects on aquatic life if they bioaccumulate and if they are not biodegradable.
+
+Municipal and industrial wastewater are typically treated at wastewater treatment plants. Mitigation of polluted surface runoff is addressed through a variety of prevention and treatment techniques. (See Surface runoff#Mitigation and treatment.)
+
+A water-carrier in India, 1882. In many places where running water is not available, water has to be transported by people.
+
+A manual water pump in China
+
+Water purification facility
+
+Reverse osmosis (RO) desalination plant in Barcelona, Spain
+
+Many industrial processes rely on reactions using chemicals dissolved in water, suspension of solids in water slurries or using water to dissolve and extract substances, or to wash products or process equipment. Processes such as mining, chemical pulping, pulp bleaching, paper manufacturing, textile production, dyeing, printing, and cooling of power plants use large amounts of water, requiring a dedicated water source, and often cause significant water pollution.
+
+Water is used in power generation. Hydroelectricity is electricity obtained from hydropower. Hydroelectric power comes from water driving a water turbine connected to a generator. Hydroelectricity is a low-cost, non-polluting, renewable energy source. The energy is supplied by the motion of water. Typically a dam is constructed on a river, creating an artificial lake behind it. Water flowing out of the lake is forced through turbines that turn generators.
+
+Pressurized water is used in water blasting and water jet cutters. Also, very high pressure water guns are used for precise cutting. It works very well, is relatively safe, and is not harmful to the environment. It is also used in the cooling of machinery to prevent overheating, or prevent saw blades from overheating.
+
+Water is also used in many industrial processes and machines, such as the steam turbine and heat exchanger, in addition to its use as a chemical solvent. Discharge of untreated water from industrial uses is pollution. Pollution includes discharged solutes (chemical pollution) and discharged coolant water (thermal pollution). Industry requires pure water for many applications and utilizes a variety of purification techniques both in water supply and discharge.
+
+Boiling, steaming, and simmering are popular cooking methods that often require immersing food in water or its gaseous state, steam.[100] Water is also used for dishwashing. Water also plays many critical roles within the field of food science.
+
+Solutes such as salts and sugars found in water affect the physical properties of water. The boiling and freezing points of water are affected by solutes, as well as air pressure, which is in turn affected by altitude. Water boils at lower temperatures with the lower air pressure that occurs at higher elevations. One mole of sucrose (sugar) per kilogram of water raises the boiling point of water by 0.51 °C (0.918 °F), and one mole of salt per kg raises the boiling point by 1.02 °C (1.836 °F); similarly, increasing the number of dissolved particles lowers water's freezing point.[101]
+
+Solutes in water also affect water activity that affects many chemical reactions and the growth of microbes in food.[102] Water activity can be described as a ratio of the vapor pressure of water in a solution to the vapor pressure of pure water.[101] Solutes in water lower water activity—this is important to know because most bacterial growth ceases at low levels of water activity.[102] Not only does microbial growth affect the safety of food, but also the preservation and shelf life of food.
+
+Water hardness is also a critical factor in food processing and may be altered or treated by using a chemical ion exchange system. It can dramatically affect the quality of a product, as well as playing a role in sanitation. Water hardness is classified based on concentration of calcium carbonate the water contains. Water is classified as soft if it contains less than 100 mg/l (UK)[103] or less than 60 mg/l (US).[104]
+
+According to a report published by the Water Footprint organization in 2010, a single kilogram of beef requires 15 thousand liters (3.3×10^3 imp gal; 4.0×10^3 U.S. gal) of water; however, the authors also make clear that this is a global average and circumstantial factors determine the amount of water used in beef production.[105]
+
+Water for injection is on the World Health Organization's list of essential medicines.[106]
+
+Much of the universe's water is produced as a byproduct of star formation. The formation of stars is accompanied by a strong outward wind of gas and dust. When this outflow of material eventually impacts the surrounding gas, the shock waves that are created compress and heat the gas. The water observed is quickly produced in this warm dense gas.[108]
+
+On 22 July 2011, a report described the discovery of a gigantic cloud of water vapor containing "140 trillion times more water than all of Earth's oceans combined" around a quasar located 12 billion light years from Earth. According to the researchers, the "discovery shows that water has been prevalent in the universe for nearly its entire existence".[109][110]
+
+Water has been detected in interstellar clouds within our galaxy, the Milky Way.[111] Water probably exists in abundance in other galaxies, too, because its components, hydrogen and oxygen, are among the most abundant elements in the universe. Based on models of the formation and evolution of the Solar System and that of other star systems, most other planetary systems are likely to have similar ingredients.
+
+Water is present as vapor in:
+
+Liquid water is present on Earth, covering 71% of its surface.[1] Liquid water is also occasionally present in small amounts on Mars.[132] Scientists believe liquid water is present in the Saturnian moons of Enceladus, as a 10-kilometre thick ocean approximately 30–40 kilometres below Enceladus' south polar surface,[133][134] and Titan, as a subsurface layer, possibly mixed with ammonia.[135] Jupiter's moon Europa has surface characteristics which suggest a subsurface liquid water ocean.[136] Liquid water may also exist on Jupiter's moon Ganymede as a layer sandwiched between high pressure ice and rock.[137]
+
+Water is present as ice on:
+
+And is also likely present on:
+
+Water and other volatiles probably comprise much of the internal structures of Uranus and Neptune and the water in the deeper layers may be in the form of ionic water in which the molecules break down into a soup of hydrogen and oxygen ions, and deeper still as superionic water in which the oxygen crystallises but the hydrogen ions float about freely within the oxygen lattice.[156]
+
+The existence of liquid water, and to a lesser extent its gaseous and solid forms, on Earth are vital to the existence of life on Earth as we know it. The Earth is located in the habitable zone of the Solar System; if it were slightly closer to or farther from the Sun (about 5%, or about 8 million kilometers), the conditions which allow the three forms to be present simultaneously would be far less likely to exist.[157][158]
+
+Earth's gravity allows it to hold an atmosphere. Water vapor and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere provide a temperature buffer (greenhouse effect) which helps maintain a relatively steady surface temperature. If Earth were smaller, a thinner atmosphere would allow temperature extremes, thus preventing the accumulation of water except in polar ice caps (as on Mars).[citation needed]
+
+The surface temperature of Earth has been relatively constant through geologic time despite varying levels of incoming solar radiation (insolation), indicating that a dynamic process governs Earth's temperature via a combination of greenhouse gases and surface or atmospheric albedo. This proposal is known as the Gaia hypothesis.[citation needed]
+
+The state of water on a planet depends on ambient pressure, which is determined by the planet's gravity. If a planet is sufficiently massive, the water on it may be solid even at high temperatures, because of the high pressure caused by gravity, as it was observed on exoplanets Gliese 436 b[159] and GJ 1214 b.[160]
+
+Water politics is politics affected by water and water resources. For this reason, water is a strategic resource in the globe and an important element in many political conflicts. It causes health impacts and damage to biodiversity.
+
+Access to safe drinking water has improved over the last decades in almost every part of the world, but approximately one billion people still lack access to safe water and over 2.5 billion lack access to adequate sanitation.[161] However, some observers have estimated that by 2025 more than half of the world population will be facing water-based vulnerability.[162] A report, issued in November 2009, suggests that by 2030, in some developing regions of the world, water demand will exceed supply by 50%.[163]
+
+1.6 billion people have gained access to a safe water source since 1990.[164] The proportion of people in developing countries with access to safe water is calculated to have improved from 30% in 1970[165] to 71% in 1990, 79% in 2000 and 84% in 2004.[161]
+
+A 2006 United Nations report stated that "there is enough water for everyone", but that access to it is hampered by mismanagement and corruption.[166] In addition, global initiatives to improve the efficiency of aid delivery, such as the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, have not been taken up by water sector donors as effectively as they have in education and health, potentially leaving multiple donors working on overlapping projects and recipient governments without empowerment to act.[167]
+
+The authors of the 2007 Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture cited poor governance as one reason for some forms of water scarcity. Water governance is the set of formal and informal processes through which decisions related to water management are made. Good water governance is primarily about knowing what processes work best in a particular physical and socioeconomic context. Mistakes have sometimes been made by trying to apply 'blueprints' that work in the developed world to developing world locations and contexts. The Mekong river is one example; a review by the International Water Management Institute of policies in six countries that rely on the Mekong river for water found that thorough and transparent cost-benefit analyses and environmental impact assessments were rarely undertaken. They also discovered that Cambodia's draft water law was much more complex than it needed to be.[168]
+
+The UN World Water Development Report (WWDR, 2003) from the World Water Assessment Program indicates that, in the next 20 years, the quantity of water available to everyone is predicted to decrease by 30%. 40% of the world's inhabitants currently have insufficient fresh water for minimal hygiene. More than 2.2 million people died in 2000 from waterborne diseases (related to the consumption of contaminated water) or drought. In 2004, the UK charity WaterAid reported that a child dies every 15 seconds from easily preventable water-related diseases; often this means lack of sewage disposal.[citation needed]
+
+Organizations concerned with water protection include the International Water Association (IWA), WaterAid, Water 1st, and the American Water Resources Association. The International Water Management Institute undertakes projects with the aim of using effective water management to reduce poverty. Water related conventions are United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and Ramsar Convention. World Day for Water takes place on 22 March and World Oceans Day on 8 June.[citation needed]
+
+Water is considered a purifier in most religions. Faiths that incorporate ritual washing (ablution) include Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, the Rastafari movement, Shinto, Taoism, and Wicca. Immersion (or aspersion or affusion) of a person in water is a central sacrament of Christianity (where it is called baptism); it is also a part of the practice of other religions, including Islam (Ghusl), Judaism (mikvah) and Sikhism (Amrit Sanskar). In addition, a ritual bath in pure water is performed for the dead in many religions including Islam and Judaism. In Islam, the five daily prayers can be done in most cases after completing washing certain parts of the body using clean water (wudu), unless water is unavailable (see Tayammum). In Shinto, water is used in almost all rituals to cleanse a person or an area (e.g., in the ritual of misogi).
+
+In Christianity, holy water is water that has been sanctified by a priest for the purpose of baptism, the blessing of persons, places, and objects, or as a means of repelling evil.[169][170]
+
+In Zoroastrianism, water (āb) is respected as the source of life.[171]
+
+The Ancient Greek philosopher Empedocles held that water is one of the four classical elements along with fire, earth and air, and was regarded as the ylem, or basic substance of the universe. Thales, who was portrayed by Aristotle as an astronomer and an engineer, theorized that the earth, which is denser than water, emerged from the water. Thales, a monist, believed further that all things are made from water. Plato believed the shape of water is an icosahedron which accounts for why it is able to flow easily compared to the cube-shaped earth.[172]
+
+In the theory of the four bodily humors, water was associated with phlegm, as being cold and moist. The classical element of water was also one of the five elements in traditional Chinese philosophy, along with earth, fire, wood, and metal.
+
+Water is also taken as a role model in some parts of traditional and popular Asian philosophy. James Legge's 1891 translation of the Dao De Jing states, "The highest excellence is like (that of) water. The excellence of water appears in its benefiting all things, and in its occupying, without striving (to the contrary), the low place which all men dislike. Hence (its way) is near to (that of) the Tao" and "There is nothing in the world more soft and weak than water, and yet for attacking things that are firm and strong there is nothing that can take precedence of it—for there is nothing (so effectual) for which it can be changed."[173] Guanzi in the "Shui di" 水地 chapter further elaborates on the symbolism of water, proclaiming that "man is water" and attributing natural qualities of the people of different Chinese regions to the character of local water resources.[174]
+
+Water's technically correct but rarely used chemical name, "dihydrogen monoxide", has been used in a series of hoaxes and pranks that mock scientific illiteracy. This began in 1983, when an April Fools' Day article appeared in a newspaper in Durand, Michigan. The false story consisted of safety concerns about the substance.[175]

en/2354.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,143 @@
+
+
+Haarlem (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈɦaːrlɛm] (listen); predecessor of Harlem in the English language) is a city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland and is situated at the northern edge of the Randstad, one of the most populated metropolitan areas in Europe. Haarlem had a population of 161,265 in 2019.
+
+Haarlem was granted city status or stadsrechten in 1245, although the first city walls were not built until 1270. The modern city encompasses the former municipality of Schoten as well as parts that previously belonged to Bloemendaal and Heemstede. Apart from the city, the municipality of Haarlem also includes the western part of the village of Spaarndam. Newer sections of Spaarndam lie within the neighbouring municipality of Haarlemmermeer.
+
+The city is located on the river Spaarne, giving it its nickname 'Spaarnestad' (Spaarne city). It is situated about 20 km (12 mi) west of Amsterdam and near the coastal dunes. Haarlem has been the historical centre of the tulip bulb-growing district for centuries and bears its other nickname 'Bloemenstad' (flower city) for this reason.
+
+Haarlem has a rich history dating back to pre-medieval times, as it lies on a thin strip of land above sea level known as the strandwal (beach ridge), which connects Leiden to Alkmaar. The people on this narrow strip of land struggled against the waters of the North Sea from the west, and the waters of the IJ and the Haarlem Lake from the east. Haarlem became wealthy with toll revenues that it collected from ships and travellers moving on this busy North-South route. However, as shipping became increasingly important economically, the city of Amsterdam became the main Dutch city of North Holland during the Dutch Golden Age. The town of Halfweg became a suburb, and Haarlem became a quiet bedroom community, and for this reason Haarlem still has many of its central medieval buildings intact. Nowadays many of them are on the Dutch Heritage register known as Rijksmonuments. The list of Rijksmonuments in Haarlem gives an overview of these per neighbourhood, with the majority in the old city centre.
+
+The oldest mentioning of Haarlem dates from the 10th century.[6] The name probably comes from "Haarlo-heim".[7] This name is composed of three elements: haar, lo and heim. There is not much dispute about the meaning of lo and heim; in Old Dutch toponyms lo always refers to 'forest' and heim (heem, em or um) to 'home' or 'house'. Haar, however, has several meanings, one of them corresponding with the location of Haarlem on a sand dune: 'elevated place'. The name Haarlem or Haarloheim would therefore mean 'home on a forested dune'.
+
+There was a stream called "De Beek", dug from the peat grounds west of the river Spaarne as a drainage canal. Over the centuries the Beek was turned into an underground canal, as the city grew larger and the space was needed for construction. Over time it began to silt up and in the 19th century it was filled in. The location of the village was a good one: by the river Spaarne, and by a major road going south to north. By the 12th century it was a fortified town, and Haarlem became the residence of the Counts of Holland.
+
+In 1219 the knights of Haarlem were laurelled by Count Willem I, because they had conquered the Egyptian port of Damietta (or Damiate in Dutch, present-day Dimyat) in the fifth crusade. Haarlem received the right to bear the Count's sword and cross in its coat of arms. On 23 November 1245 Count Willem II granted Haarlem city rights. This implied a number of privileges, among which the right for the sheriff and magistrates  to administer justice, instead of the Count. This allowed for a quicker and more efficient judiciary system, more suited to the needs of the growing city.
+
+After a siege from the surrounding area of Kennemerland in 1270 a defensive wall was built around the city. Most likely this was an earthen wall, with wooden gates. Originally the city started out between Spaarne, Oudegracht, Ridderstraat, Bakenessergracht and Naussaustraat. In the 14th century the city expanded, and the Burgwalbuurt, Bakenes and the area around the Oudegracht became part of the city. The old defenses proved not to be sufficiently strong for the expanded city, and at the end of the 14th century a 16½-metre high wall was built, complete with a 15-metre wide canal circling the city. In 1304 the Flemish threatened the city, but they were defeated by Witte van Haemstede at Manpad.
+
+All the city's buildings were made of wood, and fire was a great risk. In 1328 nearly the whole city burnt down. The Sint-Bavokerk was severely damaged, and rebuilding it would take more than 150 years. Again on 12 June 1347 there was a fire in the city. A third large fire, in 1351, destroyed many buildings including the Count's castle and the city hall. The Count did not need a castle in Haarlem because his castle in Den Haag had taken over all functions. The Count donated the ground to the city and later a new city hall was built there. The shape of the old city was square—this was inspired by the shape of ancient Jerusalem. After every fire the city was rebuilt quickly, an indication of the wealth of the city in those years. The Black Death came to the city in 1381. According to an estimate by a priest from Leiden the disease killed 5,000 people, about half the population at that time.
+
+In the 14th century Haarlem was a major city. It was the second largest city in historical Holland after Dordrecht and before Delft, Leiden, Amsterdam, Gouda and Rotterdam. In 1429 the city gained the right to collect tolls, including ships passing the city on the Spaarne river. At the end of the Middle Ages Haarlem was a flourishing city with a large textile industry, shipyards and beer breweries. Around 1428 the city was put under siege by the army of Jacqueline, Countess of Hainaut. Haarlem had taken side with the Cods in the Hook and Cod wars, and thus against Jacoba of Bavaria. The entire Haarlemmerhout wood was burnt down by the enemy.
+
+When the city of Brielle was conquered by the Geuzen revolutionary army, the municipality of Haarlem started supporting the Geuzen. King Philip II of Spain was not pleased, and sent an army north under the command of Don Fadrique (Don Frederick in Dutch), son of Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, 3rd Duke of Alba. On 17 November 1572 all citizens of the city of Zutphen were killed by the Spanish army, and on 1 December the city of Naarden suffered the same fate.
+
+On 11 December 1572 the Spanish army besieged Haarlem; the city's defenses were commanded by city-governor Wigbolt Ripperda. Kenau Simonsdochter Hasselaer, a powerful widow, helped defend the city together with some three hundred other women.
+
+During the first two months of the siege, the situation was in balance. The Spanish army was digging tunnels to reach the city walls and blow them up; the defenders dug in turn and undermined the Spaniards' tunnels. The situation worsened on 29 March 1573: the Amsterdam army, faithful to the Spanish king, controlled Haarlemmermeer lake, effectively blocking Haarlem from the outside world. An attempt by the Prince of Orange to destroy the Spanish navy on the Haarlemmermeer had failed. Hunger in the city grew, and the situation became so tense that on 27 May many (Spanish-loyal) prisoners were taken from the prison and murdered; the Spaniards had previously gibbeted their own prisoners of war.
+
+In the beginning of July the Prince of Orange assembled an army of 5,000 soldiers near Leiden to free Haarlem. However, he was prevented from accompanying them in person and the Spanish forces trapped them at the Manpad where they were decisively defeated. On 13 July 1573, after seven months of siege, the city surrendered. Many defenders were slaughtered; some were drowned in the Spaarne river. Governor Ripperda and his lieutenant were beheaded. The citizens were allowed to buy freedom for themselves and the city for 240,000 guilders and the city was required to host a Spanish garrison. Don Fadrique thanked God for his victory in the Sint-Bavo Church. However, the terms of the treaty were not kept, with the Spanish soldiery plundering the townspeople's property.[8]
+
+Despite Haarlem's ultimate fall, the fact that the Haarlemers had been able to stand for seven months against the whole Spanish array inspired the rest of Holland to resist the invaders, and their prolonged resistance allowed the Prince of Orange to prepare and arm the rest of the country for war. Some 12,000 of the Spanish army had fallen during the siege.
+
+The city suffered a large fire in the night from 22 October to 23 October 1576. The fire started in brewery het Ankertje, near the weighhouse at the Spaarne, which was used by mercenaries as a guarding place. When they were warming themselves at a fire it got out of control. The fire was spotted by farmers, who sailed  their ships on the river. However, the soldiers turned down all help, saying that they would put out the fire themselves. This failed, and the fire destroyed almost 500 buildings, among them St-Gangolf's church and St-Elisabeth's hospital. Most of the mercenaries were later arrested, and one of them was hanged on the Grote Markt in front of a large audience. Maps from that era clearly show the damage done by the fire: a wide strip through the city was destroyed. The combined result of the siege and the fire was that about a third of the city was destroyed.
+
+The fire and the long siege had taken their toll on the city. The Spanish left in 1577 and under the Agreement of Veere, Protestants and Catholics were given equal rights, though in government the Protestants clearly had the upper hand and Catholic possessions once seized were never returned. To restore the economy and attract workers for the brewing and bleaching businesses (Haarlem was known for these, thanks to the clean water from the dunes), the Haarlem council decided to promote the pursuit of arts and history, showing tolerance for diversity among religious beliefs. This attracted a large influx of Flemish and French immigrants (Catholics and Hugenots alike) who were fleeing the Spanish occupation of their own cities.  Expansion plans soon replaced plans of rebuilding the destroyed city walls. Just like the rest of the country, the Golden Age in the United Provinces had started.
+
+The new citizens had a lot of expertise in linen and silk manufacture and trading, and the city's population grew from 18,000 in 1573 to around 40,000 in 1622. At one point, in 1621, over 50% of the population was Flemish-born. Haarlem's linen became notable and the city flourished. Today an impression of some of those original textile tradesmen can be had from the Book of Trades document created by Jan Luyken and his son.
+
+In 1632 a tow canal between Haarlem and Amsterdam, the Haarlemmertrekvaart was opened, the first tow canal in the country. The empty areas in the city that were a result of the fire of 1576 were filled with new houses and buildings. Even outside the city wall buildings were constructed—in 1643 about 400 houses were counted outside the wall. Having buildings outside the city walls was not a desirable situation to the city administration. Not only because these buildings would be vulnerable in case of an attack on the city, but there was also less control over taxes and city regulations outside the walls. Therefore, a major project was initiated in 1671: expanding the city northwards. Two new canals were dug, and a new defensive wall was constructed (the current Staten en Prinsenbolwerk). Two old city gates, the Janspoort and Kruispoort, were demolished. The idea that a city had to be square-shaped was abandoned.
+
+After the fall of Antwerp, many artists and craftsmen migrated to Haarlem and received commissions from the Haarlem council to decorate the city hall. The paintings commissioned were meant to show Haarlem's glorious history as well as Haarlem's glorious products. Haarlem's cultural life prospered, with painters like Frans Hals and Jacob van Ruisdael, the architect Lieven de Key and Jan Steen who made many paintings in Haarlem. The Haarlem councilmen became quite creative in their propaganda promoting their city. On the Grote Markt, the central market square, there's a statue of Laurens Janszoon Coster who is allegedly the inventor of the printing press. This is actually the second and larger statue to him on the square; the original stands behind the city hall in the little garden known as the Hortus (where today the Stedelijk Gymnasium school is located). Most scholars agree that the scarce evidence seems to point to Johann Gutenberg as the first European inventor of the printing press, but Haarlem children were taught about Lau as he is known, well into the 20th century. This legend served the printers of Haarlem well, however, and it is probably for that reason the most notable Dutch history books from the Dutch Golden Age period were published in Haarlem; by Hadrianus Junius (Batavia), Dirck Volkertszoon Coornhert (Works), Karel van Mander (Schilderboeck), Samuel Ampzing (Description and Ode to Haarlem), Petrus Scriverius (Batavia Illustrata), and Pieter Christiaenszoon Bor (Origin of the Dutch wars).
+
+Beer brewing was a very important industry in Haarlem. Until the 16th century the water for the beer was taken from the canals in the city. These were, through the Spaarne and the IJ, connected to seawater. However, the water in the canals was getting more and more polluted, and no longer suitable for brewing beer. A place 1.5 km (0.9 mi) south-west of the city was then used to take fresh water in. However, the quality of that water was not good enough either. From the 17th century a canal (Santvaert) was used to transport water from the dunes to the city. The water was transported in barrels on ships. The location where the water was taken is called the Brouwerskolkje, and the canal to there still exists, and is now called the Brewers' Canal (Brouwersvaart).
+
+Haarlem was a major beer producer in the Netherlands.  The majority of the beer it produced was consumed in North Holland. During the Spanish siege there were about 50 brewing companies in the city; while 45 years later in 1620 the city numbered about one hundred breweries.
+
+There was another epidemic of the Black Death in 1657, which took a heavy toll in the six months it ravaged the city. From the end of the 17th century the economic situation in the city turned sour, for a long time. In 1752 there were only seven beer breweries left, and in 1820 no breweries were registered in the city anymore. In the 1990s the Stichting Haarlems Biergenootschap revived some of the old recipes under the new Jopen beer brand, that is marketed as a "Haarlem bier". In 2010 Jopen opened a brewery in a former church in central Haarlem called the Jopenkerk. In 2012 Haarlem gained a new local brewery with Uiltje Bar in the Zijlstraat, which specializes in craft beers.
+
+From the 1630s until present day, Haarlem has been a major trading centre for tulips, and it was at the epicentre during tulip mania, when outrageous prices were paid for tulip bulbs. From the time that the Leiden-Haarlem canal Leidsevaart was opened in 1656, it became popular to travel from Rotterdam to Amsterdam by passenger boat rather than by coach. The canals were dug for passenger service only, and were comfortable though slow. The towpath led these passengers through the bulb fields south of Haarlem. Haarlem was an important stopover for passengers from the last half of the 17th century and through the 18th century until the building of the first rail tracks along the routes of former passenger canal systems. As Haarlem slowly expanded southwards, so did the bulb fields, and even today rail travelers between Rotterdam and Amsterdam will see beautifully blooming bulb fields on the stretch between Leiden and Haarlem in Spring.
+
+As the centre of trade gravitated towards Amsterdam, Haarlem declined in the 18th century. The Golden age had created a large upper middle class of merchants and well-to-do small business owners. Taking advantage of the reliability of the trekschuit connection between Amsterdam and Haarlem, many people had a business address in Amsterdam and a weekend or summer home in Haarlem. Haarlem became more and more a bedroom community as the increasingly dense population of Amsterdam caused the canals to smell in the summer. Many well-to-do gentlemen moved their families to summer homes in the Spring and commuted between addresses. Popular places for summer homes were along the Spaarne in southern Haarlem. Pieter Teyler van der Hulst and Henry Hope built summer homes there, as well as many Amsterdam merchants and councilmen. Today, it is still possible to travel by boat along the Spaarne and this has turned into a popular form of tourism in the summer months. In the 18th century Haarlem became the seat of a suffragan diocese of the Old Catholic Church of Utrecht.
+
+At the end of the 18th century a number of anti-Orange commissions were founded. On 18 January 1795 the "Staatse" army was defeated near Woerden. During the night  preceding the 19th, the same night that stadtholder William V of Orange fled the country, the various commissions gathered and implemented a revolution. The commissions changed the city's administrators in a bloodless revolution, and the next morning the city was 'liberated' of the tyranny of the House of Orange. The revolution was peaceful and the Orange-loyal people were not harmed.  The Batavian Republic was then proclaimed.
+
+The French army entered the liberated city two days later, on the 20 January. An army of 1,500 soldiers was provided with food and clothing by the citizens. The new national government was strongly centralised, and the role and influence of the cities was reduced. The Batavian Republic had signed a mutual defense pact with France, and was thus automatically at war with England. The strong English presence at sea severely reduced the trading opportunities, and the Dutch economy suffered accordingly.
+
+The textile industry, which had always been an important pillar of Haarlem's economy, was in a bad shape at the beginning of the 19th century. Strong international competition, and revolutionary new production methods based on steam engines already in use in England, dealt a striking blow to Haarlem's industry. In 1815 the city's population was about 17,000 people, a large percentage of whom were poor. The foundation of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in that year gave hope to many, who believed that under a new government the economy would pick up, and that export-oriented economic activities such as the textile industry would recover.
+
+In the beginning of the 19th century the defense walls had lost their function, and architect Zocher Jr. planned a park on the location of the former defense line. The city walls and gates were demolished and the bricks were reused for construction of workers homes and factories. Haarlem became the provincial capital of North Holland province in the early 19th century. In the mid-19th century the city's economy slowly started to improve. New factories were opened, and a number of large industrial companies were founded in Haarlem by Thomas Wilson, Guillaume Jean Poelman, J.B.T. Prévinaire, J.J. Beijnes, Hendrik Figee, Gerardus Johannes Droste and G.P.J. Beccari.
+
+The Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij (NHM or Dutch Trade Company) was founded by King Willem I to create employment opportunities. As one of the cities in the western part of the Netherlands with the worst economic situation, three cotton mills were created in Haarlem under the NHM-program in the 1830s. These were run by experts from the Southern Netherlands, whom the NHM considered better at mechanical weaving through the local expertise of Lieven Bauwens. The lucky contract winners were Thomas Wilson, whose factory was situated north of what is today the Wilsonplein, Guillaume Jean Poelman, who was in business with his nephew Charles Vervaecke from Ghent and had a factory on what today is the Phoenixstraat, and Jean Baptiste Theodore Prévinaire, who had a factory on the Garenkokerskade and whose son Marie Prosper Theodore Prévinaire created the Haarlemsche Katoenmaatschappij in 1875.
+
+These cotton factories produced goods for export, and because the Dutch government levied heavy taxes on foreign cotton producers this was a profitable business for the NHM-factories, especially for export to the Dutch East Indies. The programme started in the 1830s, and was initially successful, but after 1839 when Belgium was split away from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, the protectionist measures for the Dutch East Indian market were removed and the business began to flounder. When the American Civil War reduced the import of raw cotton significantly after 1863, the business went sour. Only Prévinaire was able to survive through specialisation with his "Turkish Red" dye. The Prévinaire "toile Adrinople" was popular.[10] Prévinaire's son went on to create the Haarlemsche Katoenmaatschappij, which made a kind of imitation batik cloth called "La Javanaise" that became popular in Belgian Congo.[10]
+
+In 1804, Richard Trevithick designed the first locomotive. The government of the Netherlands was relatively slow to catch up, even though the King feared competition from newly established Belgium if they would construct a railway between Antwerp and other cities. The Dutch parliament balked at the high level of investment needed, but a group of private investors started the Hollandsche IJzeren Spoorweg-Maatschappij on 1 June 1836. It took three years to build the first track on the railway, between Haarlem and Amsterdam along the old tow canal called the Haarlemmertrekvaart. The ground there was wet and muddy. On 20 September 1839, the first train service in the Netherlands started. The train had a speed of about 40 km/h (25 mph). The train service gave the Beijnes company, and indirectly the whole economy of Haarlem, a strong boost, and the effects of this can be seen in the Haarlem railway station, now a rijksmonument. Instead of more than two hours, Amsterdam was now only 30 minutes away. The old passenger service by trekschuit along the Haarlemmertrekvaart was quickly taken out of service in favour of the train service, which was quicker and more reliable. In 1878, a Beijnes-made horse tram started servicing passengers from the railway station to the Haarlemmerhout woodland park, and in 1894, the Eerste Nederlandsche Electrische Tram Maatschappij (ENET) was founded with cars built by Beijnes and became the first Dutch electric tram, which ran in Haarlem from 1899 onwards.
+
+Though the old trekvaart is closed for water traffic today, thanks to these early rail developments, it is still possible to travel by boat from Amsterdam to Haarlem, via the ringvaart or the North Sea Canal. Pleasure boating in the summer has become an important Haarlem tourist attraction, though it is not possible to travel all of the old canals as in Amsterdam. The creation of new land in the Haarlemmermeer from 1852 onwards, meant that the city could no longer refresh the water in its canals using the Spaarne river. The increase in industry made the water quality even worse, and in 1859 the Oude Gracht, a city canal, stank so badly in the summer, that it was filled in to create a new street called the Gedempte Oude Gracht.
+
+From 1879 the population of the city almost doubled in thirty years, from 36,976 to 69,410 in 1909. Not only did the population grow, but the city was expanding rapidly too. The Leidsebuurt district was incorporated into Haarlem in the 1880s. A small part of (the now defunct) municipality of Schoten was incorporated in 1884 because the council of Haarlem wanted to have the hospital (Het Dolhuys) inside the municipal borders. This hospital was situated at "het bolwerk" on Schoten's territory.
+
+In the beginning of the 20th century the city expanded north. As early as 1905 an official plan was presented by the Haarlem municipality for expansion. However, the surrounding municipalities did not agree, and it would take 25 years to come to an agreement. On 1 May 1927 the municipality of Schoten became part of Haarlem, as well as part of Spaarndam, Bloemendaal and Heemstede. The population increased at once with 31,184 citizens.
+
+In 1908, a renewed railway station was opened. The station was elevated, so traffic in the city was no longer hampered by railway crossings. In 1911, Anthony Fokker showed his plane, de Spin to the audience in Haarlem by flying around the Sint-Bavokerk on Queen's Day.
+
+Later the expansion of the city went southwards (Schalkwijk) and eastwards (Waarderpolder). In 1932, Vroom & Dreesmann, a Dutch retailer built a department store at Verwulft. Many buildings were demolished, except one small chemist's shop on the corner, "Van der Pigge", who refused to be bought out and which is now encapsulated by the V&D building. They are therefore also called 'David and Goliath' by locals.
+
+During World War II, the Dutch heroine Hannie Schaft worked for a Dutch resistance group; she was captured by the Germans and executed just before the end of the war in 1945. Despite her efforts and those of her colleagues and private families such as the Ten Booms, most Haarlem Jews were deported, the Haarlem Synagogue was demolished and the Jewish hospital was annexed by the St. Elisabeth Gasthuis. Several Haarlem families, whether they were politically active in the NSB or not, suffered from random attacks, as the Haarlem writer Harry Mulisch described in his book De Aanslag. Haarlemmers survived during the Hunger Winter by eating tulip bulbs stored in sheds in the sandy fields around the city.
+
+From 17 September to 21 September 1944, parts of Haarlem-Noord (north of the Jan Gijzenvaart) were evacuated by the Germans to make place for a defensive line. The stadium of HFC Haarlem, the football club, was demolished. Hundreds of people had to leave their houses and were forced to stay with other citizens, who did not welcome them with open arms, since many were already starving.
+
+From 22 September 1944 to the end of the war, there was gas available only two hours per day. Electricity stopped on 9 October. The German occupiers built a thick, black wall through the Haarlemmerhout (in the south of the city), as well as at the Jan Gijzenvaart in the evacuated area. The wall was called Mauer-muur and was meant to help defend the city.
+
+In 1944 the family of Corrie ten Boom was arrested by the Nazis; they had been hiding Jews and Dutch resistance workers from the German occupier throughout the war.
+
+Haarlem never really recovered after the war. After the war much of the large industry moved out of the city, such as the banknote printing firm  of Joh. Enschedé. The centre of industry and shipping had definitely shifted towards Amsterdam. Though the population had been decimated by starvation, a new wave of immigrants came to the city from the former colonies in Indonesia. This brought some government funding for building projects. In 1963 a large number of houses was built in Schalkwijk.
+
+Haarlem has had a Christian parish church since the 9th century. This first church was a "daughter church" of Velsen, which itself was founded in 695 by St. Willibrord. It was a wooden church at the site of the current Grote Kerk on the Grote Markt (central market square). Haarlem was granted its first known indulgence by Clement V in 1309, during the Avignon Papacy. In 1245 Haarlem received city rights as a result of population growth and the church was expanded. Later, after the fires of 1347 and 1351, Haarlem was again granted a Portiuncula indulgence in 1397 for funding to rebuild the church. This indulgence would be used again and again over the centuries to fund expansion and restoration activities.
+
+Having been granted papal rights from Avignon was perhaps the reason that the ties to Rome were never very strong in Haarlem, since the building most commonly called the Cathedral in the centre of town only held a cathedra for 19 years, from 1559 to 1578. This Grote Kerk or Sint-Bavokerk was originally a parish church devoted to Maria, but was later named after the patron saint of Haarlem, Saint Bavo, who descended from Heaven regularly to free the Haarlemmers from invaders, most recently when the Kennemers and West-Friesians attacked in 1274. This is allegedly how the Haarlem war cry "Sint Bavo voor Haarlem" originated, which was used during the siege against the Spaniards in 1572 that eventually resulted in an underground cathedra called the Sint Josephstatie, on the Goudsmitsplein.
+
+The Roman Catholic parish of Haarlem became a Diocese in 1559 (Dioecesis Harlemensis) and the first bishop of Haarlem was Nicolaas van Nieuwland (born in 1510). He accepted the position on 6 November 1561. In 1569 he was advised to resign by the Duke of Alva, because of his reputation for drinking (Dronken Klaasje). He had a good reason to drown his sorrows, because he feared the Catholic Spanish invaders as much as the native Dutch reformers. The Grote Kerk was initially spared from iconoclasm, because the city's mayor ordered the closing of the church for several months in 1566. That gave the various groups in Haarlem the time to quietly remove many of the treasures from the church and stash them safely in underground chapels. All symbols and statues linked to the Roman Catholic faith were removed from the cathedral. Since many groups already had their own chapels in the Grote Kerk, this was conducted in an orderly way. However, after the siege of Haarlem was lost, the Spanish army restored Roman Catholic iconography. The guilds had to restore their old altars, at great expense. Since Haarlem was quite poor after the siege, this led to many of the chapels and other Catholic churches being abandoned and used for other purposes. The Bakenesserkerk, where 1500 soldiers were held before being killed by the Spanish after their victory, was used to store turf for fifty years.
+
+Van Nieuwland was succeeded by Godfried van Mierlo, who was the last bishop in communion with Rome Haarlem would know for 300 years. In 1578 after the Spanish were defeated, the church was attacked on Sacrament day (29 May), this time by soldiers of the Prince of Orange. One of the priests was killed, and many objects in the church were destroyed.  This event, called the Haarlemse Noon, forced the bishop to flee the city. Many treasures were still safe 500 yards away in the underground Catholic church. The city council confiscated the Sint Bavo Kerk and all of its daughter churches, and later converted them along the tenets of the Evangelical Reformed Church. The new (and current) name became Grote Kerk. Old Catholics and the Lutherans, though officially tolerated, went underground. Both Protestants and Catholics alike felt that when all political unrest had subsided, the Catholics could regain control of "their" church. However, the Dutch Protestants had also removed all Catholics from local government and feared that they would have to pay damages to the Catholics if they were allowed their own churches again. All over the Netherlands, new Catholic churches were subsidised, called Waterboard churches, for their similarity to Waterboard pump stations (they were designed by the same architect in Neo-classical style), and in Haarlem they built the St. Joseph kerk in the Jansstraat in 1841. It was not until 1853 that a new Roman Catholic bishop was installed in the St. Joseph kerk. As this church grew, a new cathedral, again called the Cathedral of Saint Bavo, was built at the Leidsevaart (canal to Leiden) in 1898. The Bishop of Haarlem has a formal residence on the Nieuwe Gracht canal.
+
+There is also an Old Catholic bishop of Haarlem.
+
+There is still a small Jewish community with their own synagogue.
+
+The Frans Hals Museum, which was the Haarlem municipal museum, has still in its collection today many pieces confiscated from the churches during the Haarlemse Noon.
+
+There are several museums in Haarlem. The Teylers Museum lies on the Spaarne river and is the oldest museum of the Netherlands. Its main subjects are art, science and natural history,[11] and it owns a number of works by Michelangelo and Rembrandt.[12] Another museum is the Frans Hals Museum of fine arts, with its main location housing Dutch master paintings, and its exhibition halls on the Grote Markt housing a gallery for modern art called De Hallen. Also on the Grote Markt, in the cellar of the Vleeshal is the Archeologisch Museum Haarlem, while across the square on Saturdays, the Hoofdwacht building is open with exhibitions on Haarlem history.
+
+Other museums are the Barrel Organ Museum Haarlem, Het Dolhuys (a museum of psychiatry), the Ten Boom Museum (a hiding place for Jews in World War II[13]) and the Historisch Museum Haarlem, across from the Frans Hals Museum.
+
+The city contains several theatres, a cinema and other cultural attractions. The Philharmonie is a concert hall in the centre of the city near the Grote Markt. Next to it is the Toneelschuur theatre, which also has some movie theatres (often referred to as the Filmschuur). The Stadsschouwburg on the Wilsonsplein reopened in 2008 after a major renovation and can seat 698.[14]
+
+The Cinema Palace was established in 1915 and was one of the oldest cinemas in the Netherlands. It closed definitively on 15 January 2011.[15] The Brinkmann cinema, located on the Grote Markt, closed on 1 February 2012.[16] The only cinema in Haarlem is Pathé Haarlem, located in the newly built Raaks shopping mall. This cinema opened on 5 July 2011.[17]
+
+The Patronaat is a pop music hall, one of the largest of its kind in the Netherlands. It is a popular night spot among many of the city's residents and others.
+
+Every year in April the bloemencorso (flower parade) takes place. Floats decorated with flowers drive from Noordwijk to Haarlem, where they are exhibited for one day. In the same month there is also a funfair organised on the Grote Markt and the Zaanenlaan in Haarlem-Noord. Other festivals are held on the Grote Markt as well, in particular the annual Haarlem Jazz & More (formerly known as Haarlem Jazzstad), a music festival, and Haarlem Culinair, a culinary event, as well as the biannual Haarlemse Stripdagen (Haarlem comic days).
+
+Bevrijdingspop is a music festival to celebrate the Dutch liberation from the Nazis after World War II. It is held every year on 5 May, the day that the Netherlands were liberated in 1945, at the Haarlemmerhout. At the same location, the Haarlemmerhoutfestival is also held every year, which is a music and theatre festival.
+
+Haarlem has many different sport clubs practicing a great diversity of sports.
+
+There are several amateur association football clubs. Haarlem also had a professional football club, HFC Haarlem, which went bankrupt in January 2010. Another Haarlem based football club still in existence is Koninklijke HFC (Royal Haarlemsche Football Club). It was founded by Pim Mulier in 1879 as the first football club in the Netherlands, making it the oldest club in Dutch history.
+
+Tennis club HLTC Haarlem, founded in 1884, and judo association Kenamju, founded in 1948, are also the oldest Dutch clubs in their sports.
+
+Haarlem is known for hosting several international sports tournaments as well: the Haarlemse Honkbalweek (Haarlem Baseball Week), a baseball event held every two years at the Pim Mulier Stadium (named after Pim Mulier), and the Haarlem Basketball Classic, a basketball event. Haarlem also hosted the 2014 Women's Softball World Championship.
+
+The first international bandy match was played between Haarlem and Bury Fen Bandy Club in 1891.[18] Some rink bandy exists today.[19]
+
+Since the 18th century, Haarlem has historically had more museums per inhabitant than any other city of the Netherlands. It also has the highest number of defunct museums per inhabitant.
+
+Haarlem is served by two railway stations of the Nederlandse Spoorwegen (Dutch Railways). From Haarlem railway station there are 8 trains an hour to Amsterdam, with a journey time of 15 to 20 minutes, 6 trains an hour to Leiden and The Hague (two stations), and 2 trains an hour to Zandvoort aan Zee. On the east of Haarlem, there is Haarlem Spaarnwoude, which has 4 trains per hour to Amsterdam.
+
+The city is also served by several bus lines of Connexxion. These buses traverse a large region around Haarlem, including Amsterdam. There is a special bus rapid transit too, called the Zuidtangent which is operated by Connexxion. This bus goes from Haarlem to Amsterdam South East via Schiphol Airport.
+
+The municipal council of Haarlem consists of 39 seats, which are divided as follows:
+
+
+
+The police services in Haarlem are provided by the Kennemerland police corps. The city of Haarlem also employs uniformed municipal enforcement officers, their duties consist of parking, sanitation, traffic, permit enforcement, and patrols throughout the city.
+
+Beer brewing has been a very important industry for Haarlem going back to the 15th century, when there were no fewer than 100 breweries in the city. When the town's 750th anniversary was celebrated in 1995 a group of enthusiasts re-created an original Haarlem beer and brewed it again. The beer is called Jopenbier, or Jopen for short, named after an old type of beer barrel.[21]
+
+In 1658, Peter Stuyvesant, the Director-General of the Dutch colony of Nieuw Nederland (New Netherland), founded the settlement of Nieuw Haarlem in the northern part of Manhattan Island as an outpost of Nieuw Amsterdam (New Amsterdam) at the southern tip of the island. After the English capture of New Netherland in 1664, the new English colonial administration renamed both the colony and its principal city "New York," but left the name of Haarlem more or less unchanged. The spelling changed to Harlem in keeping with contemporary English usage, and the district grew (as part of the borough of Manhattan) into the vibrant centre of African American culture in New York City and the United States generally by the 20th century.
+
+On the main square, the Grote Markt, stands a statue of Laurens Janszoon Coster, nicknamed 'Lautje' by locals. Laurens Janszoon Coster is credited with being the inventor of a printing press using movable type, since he's said to have invented it simultaneously with Johannes Gutenberg, but only some people believe this. In the past the statue was moved a couple of times. It once stood at the other side of the square and even perched at the Riviervismarkt near the Philharmonie.
+
+Haarlem is twinned with:[22]

en/2355.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,69 @@
+Habbo (previously known as Habbo Hotel) is a social networking service and online community aimed at teenagers and young adults.[2] The website has been owned and operated by Sulake, a Finnish corporation that was under the Azerion network. The service began in 2000 and it has expanded to include nine online communities (or "hotels"), with users in over 150 countries. As of August 2012, over 273 million avatars have been registered with an average 5 million unique visitors monthly.[2] It was announced that 90% of Habbo's users are between the ages of 13 and 18.[2]
+
+The service allows users to create their own Habbo character and design hotel rooms, create different characters, meet new friends, chat with other players, organize parties, look after virtual pets, create and play games and complete quests.[3]
+
+Habbo stemmed from a 1999 hobby project by creative designer Sampo Karjalainen and technologist Aapo Kyrölä entitled Mobiles Disco, for a Finnish band. It was a virtual chat room running on Aapo's Fuse technology. After having been contracted to design a virtual game and chat called Lumisota (Snow Wars) for a Finnish internet service provider, they were contracted for another project. They developed Hotelli Kultakala (eng. Hotel Goldfish) with a small team of developers. It launched in August 2000 on the ISP's web portal.
+
+Aapo, Sampo and Dee Edwards, an entrepreneur from the UK, wanted to create an international business based on the virtual hotel concept, drafting a plan in Autumn 2000, and raised finance. By the end of  January 2001, Habbo Hotel had been launched in beta mode. The new hotel exited beta a few weeks afterwards, aimed at the teenage market, with marketing and payment partners in place, run from a HQ in London.  It featured a new credits system with community and safety features.[4] The next hotel was launched in Switzerland a few months later, in four languages. It has since been expanded to over 31 countries in five continents, including Hotelli Kultakala in Finland which was made into a Habbo Hotel and has been invested in by venture capitalists.[5]
+
+In May 2006, the service, along with its domain names, were changed from www.habbohotel.com (.co.uk, .com.au, etc.) to www.habbo.com (.co.uk, .com.au, etc.).
+
+In August 2007, Habbo's Chinese community closed down temporarily, the first time a Habbo website has closed. The challenging Chinese market and high operational costs led to the decision of closing the service. Customers in China were redirected to other Habbo communities.[6]
+In December 2008, Habbo's Russian community announced it was closing in February 2009 as a result of low numbers. Those on the site with "furni" (virtual furniture that can be used to furnish rooms in the hotel that are bought with the use of Habbo Credits or Coins, that can be purchased with actual money) have been told they will receive credit codes for use on the USA Habbo community.
+
+In January 2010, it was announced that Habbo US and Habbo Canada would undergo a merger, to be finalized in April 2010.[7] However, in April 2010, it was announced that all English-speaking hotels will be merged as one.[8] On May 5, the merger for Habbo US and Habbo Canada was complete.[9] On June 2, the Australian site merge was completed.[10] The Singapore site was officially merged on June 4.[11] On June 10, the final Hotel,  Habbo UK, was merged and that completed the set, making Habbo.com the only English speaking site.[12] Accounts were migrated to the final English-speaking hotel with varying degrees of automation until March 2011 - after that date any accounts not migrated from the initial Habbo Canada, Singapore, UK and Australia hotels were deleted.[13]
+
+On June 12, 2012 concerns about the site were raised by Channel 4 News.[14][15] A two-month investigation found users posting pornographic and violent messages – despite the fact that Habbo is intended for young teenagers. A reporter posing as an 11-year-old girl claimed that explicit sex chats were common within minutes of logging on to the service,[16] which she described as "very sexual, perverse, violent, pornographic."[17] As a result of the allegations, Sulake immediately suspended all chat on the service.[16] Speaking in a blog post, chief executive of Sulake, Paul LaFontaine, said that the firm "was reviewing the long-term plans for the Habbo community".[16] The chat services were reinstated in June 2012.[18]  Two leading investors, Balderton Capital and 3i, withdrew their funding from Sulake,[17][19] and some UK retailers stopped selling Habbo gift cards.[20]
+
+In August 2012, Habbo announced its new hotel, Habbo Turkey, fully localised for Turkish-speakers.[21] The then CEO of Sulake, Paul LaFontaine comments, "We're thrilled to announce we have launched in Turkey.  This is a very important market for us and we expect Habbo Hotel to be a big success there, with many teenagers joining to converse with friends, meet people with similar interests and enjoy access to the global Habbo Hotel network. Our launch in Turkey is the next big step on our global roadmap."[21]
+
+In May 2014, Sulake released a Habbo application for the iPad in the App Store worldwide.[22][23][24]
+
+Habbo's main feature is the "Hotel", and consists of a client made using Adobe Flash technologies. The hotel can be accessed by logged-in users via the Habbo Homepage. When a user accesses the Hotel they are brought to a screen colloquially known as Hotel View/Landing View. From this screen, members can navigate to rooms via the Navigator and browse the rooms of the hotel, look for items to buy in the catalogue, private message friends on their Habbo friends list or enter their preset Home room.
+
+Public Rooms are rooms which are available to all members. They often depict scenes such as restaurants, cinemas, and dance clubs. Most Public Rooms contain automated robots which shout pre-recorded messages and tips and can give members drinks and food items. Public rooms are designed by Sulake and are not customizable by users. Some rooms used to contain games called Battle Ball, SnowStorm, Wobble Squabble and diving, but these games were removed due to coding issues when they upgraded from Shockwave to Flash.
+
+In June 2011, most Official rooms were removed from the hotel. The popular games BattleBall and  SnowStorm were replaced with Freeze and Battle Banzai to coincide with the new Flash client. By buying certain  furni, players can build their own rooms for other players to play these games.
+
+Guest Rooms are special rooms which users can customize with furniture, wallpaper, and floor patterns; these can be purchased with credits. Users can choose from pre-made room blueprints or create their own with builders club. Guest rooms can be created by any member and can be locked to allow access only to specific users or password holder. Many users create their own games in their guest rooms, which give furniture or coins as a prize. These rooms are categorized on the navigator in many categories such as "Trading", "Parties", and "Role Playing".[25] Virtual pets and bots can be bought and kept in Guest rooms. Users can interact with the pets and program bots, which will obey certain commands the player throws at them.[26][27]
+
+Users can create their own games in Habbo by buying furniture from the shop - from Puzzle Boxes to ice skating to football. Users can build an ice rink, Battle Banzai arena, or a never-ending maze. Users can also check out the hotel's Navigator and select the Games & Mazes category under the Rooms tab to play in other people's user-created rooms hosting games like Battle Banzai, Freeze, Ice Tag, and more.[28]
+
+Habbo users often create guest rooms which emulate real world businesses, police departments and other establishments. As the game's platform facilitates the creation of groups some users choose to design their groups based on a role-playing theme and go on to participate in activities which promote their groups to other users in the game.
+
+There are 3 main types of currency on Habbo. Credits (or coins) which are used to buy furniture in the catalogue and Duckets (free currency earned by completing achievements such as logging in X days in a row) which enables users to buy effects and 'Rentable furni' (furniture to decorate rooms for a period of time, before it is then removed).[29] Diamonds are used to buy rewards such as exclusive furniture items or Habbo Club and are gained by buying credits (1 diamond for each credit bought). As well as that, seasonally themed currencies (E.g.: "Snowflakes" for Christmas) are given out to players by staff for completing certain quests which can then be used to buy seasonal Furni for a short time.
+
+Credits (also called "coins" on some hotels) are an in-game virtual currency that can be purchased using a variety of different services, such as credit card, a telephone service, a prepaid card and via SMS. They can also be redeemed into Exchange, which displays the Credits as an item of virtual furniture; the furniture can then be traded among users, and redeemed back into Credits. Users can join Habbo Club (HC), which is a premium subscription purchased using Credits. Features of Habbo Club membership include a badge, new clothes and outfits for a player's avatar, more friends on their friends list, the ability to create groups, and a free piece of furni exclusive to club members every month.
+
+Duckets are part of a new and complementary currency introduced in February 2013. Users earn Duckets by completing certain achievements and quests.[30]
+
+The Duckets currency can be used to purchase effects, room promotions, furniture and even as far as pets.
+
+Diamonds are another currency on Habbo. It was introduced in early July 2014. Diamonds are received through purchases of Credits with real money. Diamonds are used to buy Habbo Club, buy rare furniture items or they can be redeemed for credits in furniture form.[31]
+
+Habbo's parent company Sulake has automated online moderation, and only house Community Coordinators are welcome for each hotel, with the exception for the Brazilian version of Habbo Hotel, where moderators are present at all time. Habbo stated in 2011 that the in-game moderators were tasked with tracking some 70 million lines of conversation worldwide every day, and blocking inappropriate users and filtering links to black-listed sites.[32]
+
+Sulake also worked with child safety organizations and local police forces to stop inappropriate behavior. Habbo's moderation and safety systems were recognized as making the service as one of the safest social networks in a 2011 European Commission report.[33] In 2011, Habbo was also awarded the commendation of 'Safer by Design' from the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP).[34] Sulake encouraged users to take responsibility for reporting any abuses or any bad behaviour on the site, providing education and rapid-response support to users who may experience uncomfortable conversations or questions.[32]
+
+As well as working within the Habbo online community, Sulake actively contributed to campaigns like Insafe and Safer Internet Day[35] to be used on relevant user safety issues and collaborates in more than 30 charitable partnerships around the world to educate teens about a load of topics including safe internet use, trolling, the dangers of drugs, bullying etc. Partners include NSPCC (ChildLine), UNICEF, the Red Cross, the National Safety Hospital, Frank, Child Right, Power Child as well as many other market specific organisations.[32]
+
+Users in Habbo can report users breaking the Habbo Way (there are sets of rules on Habbo that everyone must obey)[36] by clicking on the offending avatar, scrolling through their information and clicking report then trying to highlight the offending pieces of chat. Users can also ignore their user by clicking on them and pressing ignore, and this will block every action and chat line that comes from that user into his or her view.[37]
+
+Automatic moderation exists in Habbo's language filter, the "Bobba Filter", which replaces offensive text with the simple word "bobba". Replacement applies to anything from mild to highly offensive words, phrases, and websites.
+
+From August 2000 to 31 December 2005, Habbo existed as a program for experienced members of each Habbo community to become a 'Hobba'. Hobbas were non-paid, volunteer moderators with limited powers that acted as Hotel Guides. On December 31, 2005, Sulake suspended the Hobba program completely due to major security issues and the rapidly growing Habbo community. It was decided that it needed a stronger, more professional moderation team, that would be followed by employees of Sulake.[38] The following requests for the program to be revived, in June 2012, it was announced that modernized Hobbas, called Guardians, would be introduced into Habbo.[39] These users will be limited and will be closely monitored to ensure safety is not compromised or advanced.[40][41]
+
+In June 2012, there was a two-month investigation by Channel 4 News that uncovered lapses in Habbo's online moderation, such as cyber sex, sexual frequences and sexual predation on minors, which subsequently led to withdrawals from two of the company's biggest investors.[14][15][42][43] In response to the news, the company globally muted all chat and text, and launched "The Great Unmute",[44] which allowed users to express their views on the company's future, their experiences with Habbo, and their thoughts on the Channel Four News report.[45] Following this, launching The Great Go-Live, Habbo lifted the chat restrictions for Finnish users to allow testing on a new safety system.[44] Chat restrictions were lifted for users in Brazil and Spain, followed by France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands.[44] A Parental Advisory Summit was also launched, to allow parents and users that the chance to answer how Habbo can deliver a safer experience, have a safe environment and influence what content children view on other social media platforms.[44][46] Restrictions on chat were lifted in Norway, Denmark and Sweden,[47] and finally in the English hotel on 6 July 2012.[48]
+
+Habbo has been a frequent target for organized raids by Anonymous.[49] In 2006, unsubstantiated rumors began circulating on 4chan boards regarding allegations of racist conduct by Habbo moderators and arbitrary banning of players with darker-skinned avatars.  As a result, users signed up to the Habbo site dressed in avatars of a black man wearing a grey suit and an Afro hairstyle and blocked entry to the pool, declaring that it was "closed due to AIDS",[49][50] flooding the site with internet sayings,[50] and forming swastika-like formations.[50] When the raiders were banned, they complained of racism.[50]
+
+As a website geared towards teenagers, Habbo often attracts sponsorship from outside entities and organizations. This sponsorship includes visits by musicians[51] (such as The Veronicas, Gorillaz,[52] Skye Sweetnam,[53] Little Birdy, Stephanie McIntosh, Operator Please, Jamelia,[54][unreliable source?] Akon,[55][unreliable source?] Chingy, Evermore, Avril Lavigne, Ashlee Simpson, Dylan and Cole Sprouse, David Archuleta, Tokio Hotel, The Ting Tings, DJ Ironik, Alesha Dixon, The Take, Same Difference and Eoghan Quigg) as well as various corporations.
+Sulake has also teamed up with Fremantle Media, the company that produces American Idol. Contestants that are voted out of the final 12 (final 13 this current season) were invited to the hotel for an interview following their departure from the show. American Idol furniture was also added to the hotel. Habbo has sponsored Night at the Museum 2 on Habbo UK releasing the rare "Golden Tablet" exclusively. Habbo AU has recently signed up with wrestling giant WWE holding events to win merchandise and live tickets to shows, featuring wrestler Dave Batista as a guest to Habbo AU. Most recently, Habbo has associated itself with the company DitchTheLabel which hosts various anti-bullying sessions on Habbo.[56]
+
+In November 2001, The Daily Telegraph listed Habbo as a top-10 chat and instant messaging site, describing it as "great-looking" and "proving popular with teenagers."[57] In 2005 and 2006, Habbo Australia received the NetGuide Online Web Award for "Best kids'/youth website".[58] In September 2006, Sulake won Deloitte's Fast 50 competition.[59][60]
+
+Common Sense Media, a non-profit association advocating for children and families, and studying the effects that media and technology have on young users, reports that foul talk and sexy chat rooms dominate [this] virtual world, giving it one star on five and don't recommend it for kids of any age.[61]
+
+In 2009, Habbo won the Most Innovative Launch Campaign 2009[62] in The Media Guardian Innovation Awards.
+
+There are currently 9 websites in operation, with as many as 12 up until 29 April 2015.  This date saw the closure of the Danish,[63] Norwegian[64] and Swedish[65] language hotels, having been in operation from December 2004, June 2004 and December 2003 respectively.

en/2356.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,69 @@
+Habbo (previously known as Habbo Hotel) is a social networking service and online community aimed at teenagers and young adults.[2] The website has been owned and operated by Sulake, a Finnish corporation that was under the Azerion network. The service began in 2000 and it has expanded to include nine online communities (or "hotels"), with users in over 150 countries. As of August 2012, over 273 million avatars have been registered with an average 5 million unique visitors monthly.[2] It was announced that 90% of Habbo's users are between the ages of 13 and 18.[2]
+
+The service allows users to create their own Habbo character and design hotel rooms, create different characters, meet new friends, chat with other players, organize parties, look after virtual pets, create and play games and complete quests.[3]
+
+Habbo stemmed from a 1999 hobby project by creative designer Sampo Karjalainen and technologist Aapo Kyrölä entitled Mobiles Disco, for a Finnish band. It was a virtual chat room running on Aapo's Fuse technology. After having been contracted to design a virtual game and chat called Lumisota (Snow Wars) for a Finnish internet service provider, they were contracted for another project. They developed Hotelli Kultakala (eng. Hotel Goldfish) with a small team of developers. It launched in August 2000 on the ISP's web portal.
+
+Aapo, Sampo and Dee Edwards, an entrepreneur from the UK, wanted to create an international business based on the virtual hotel concept, drafting a plan in Autumn 2000, and raised finance. By the end of  January 2001, Habbo Hotel had been launched in beta mode. The new hotel exited beta a few weeks afterwards, aimed at the teenage market, with marketing and payment partners in place, run from a HQ in London.  It featured a new credits system with community and safety features.[4] The next hotel was launched in Switzerland a few months later, in four languages. It has since been expanded to over 31 countries in five continents, including Hotelli Kultakala in Finland which was made into a Habbo Hotel and has been invested in by venture capitalists.[5]
+
+In May 2006, the service, along with its domain names, were changed from www.habbohotel.com (.co.uk, .com.au, etc.) to www.habbo.com (.co.uk, .com.au, etc.).
+
+In August 2007, Habbo's Chinese community closed down temporarily, the first time a Habbo website has closed. The challenging Chinese market and high operational costs led to the decision of closing the service. Customers in China were redirected to other Habbo communities.[6]
+In December 2008, Habbo's Russian community announced it was closing in February 2009 as a result of low numbers. Those on the site with "furni" (virtual furniture that can be used to furnish rooms in the hotel that are bought with the use of Habbo Credits or Coins, that can be purchased with actual money) have been told they will receive credit codes for use on the USA Habbo community.
+
+In January 2010, it was announced that Habbo US and Habbo Canada would undergo a merger, to be finalized in April 2010.[7] However, in April 2010, it was announced that all English-speaking hotels will be merged as one.[8] On May 5, the merger for Habbo US and Habbo Canada was complete.[9] On June 2, the Australian site merge was completed.[10] The Singapore site was officially merged on June 4.[11] On June 10, the final Hotel,  Habbo UK, was merged and that completed the set, making Habbo.com the only English speaking site.[12] Accounts were migrated to the final English-speaking hotel with varying degrees of automation until March 2011 - after that date any accounts not migrated from the initial Habbo Canada, Singapore, UK and Australia hotels were deleted.[13]
+
+On June 12, 2012 concerns about the site were raised by Channel 4 News.[14][15] A two-month investigation found users posting pornographic and violent messages – despite the fact that Habbo is intended for young teenagers. A reporter posing as an 11-year-old girl claimed that explicit sex chats were common within minutes of logging on to the service,[16] which she described as "very sexual, perverse, violent, pornographic."[17] As a result of the allegations, Sulake immediately suspended all chat on the service.[16] Speaking in a blog post, chief executive of Sulake, Paul LaFontaine, said that the firm "was reviewing the long-term plans for the Habbo community".[16] The chat services were reinstated in June 2012.[18]  Two leading investors, Balderton Capital and 3i, withdrew their funding from Sulake,[17][19] and some UK retailers stopped selling Habbo gift cards.[20]
+
+In August 2012, Habbo announced its new hotel, Habbo Turkey, fully localised for Turkish-speakers.[21] The then CEO of Sulake, Paul LaFontaine comments, "We're thrilled to announce we have launched in Turkey.  This is a very important market for us and we expect Habbo Hotel to be a big success there, with many teenagers joining to converse with friends, meet people with similar interests and enjoy access to the global Habbo Hotel network. Our launch in Turkey is the next big step on our global roadmap."[21]
+
+In May 2014, Sulake released a Habbo application for the iPad in the App Store worldwide.[22][23][24]
+
+Habbo's main feature is the "Hotel", and consists of a client made using Adobe Flash technologies. The hotel can be accessed by logged-in users via the Habbo Homepage. When a user accesses the Hotel they are brought to a screen colloquially known as Hotel View/Landing View. From this screen, members can navigate to rooms via the Navigator and browse the rooms of the hotel, look for items to buy in the catalogue, private message friends on their Habbo friends list or enter their preset Home room.
+
+Public Rooms are rooms which are available to all members. They often depict scenes such as restaurants, cinemas, and dance clubs. Most Public Rooms contain automated robots which shout pre-recorded messages and tips and can give members drinks and food items. Public rooms are designed by Sulake and are not customizable by users. Some rooms used to contain games called Battle Ball, SnowStorm, Wobble Squabble and diving, but these games were removed due to coding issues when they upgraded from Shockwave to Flash.
+
+In June 2011, most Official rooms were removed from the hotel. The popular games BattleBall and  SnowStorm were replaced with Freeze and Battle Banzai to coincide with the new Flash client. By buying certain  furni, players can build their own rooms for other players to play these games.
+
+Guest Rooms are special rooms which users can customize with furniture, wallpaper, and floor patterns; these can be purchased with credits. Users can choose from pre-made room blueprints or create their own with builders club. Guest rooms can be created by any member and can be locked to allow access only to specific users or password holder. Many users create their own games in their guest rooms, which give furniture or coins as a prize. These rooms are categorized on the navigator in many categories such as "Trading", "Parties", and "Role Playing".[25] Virtual pets and bots can be bought and kept in Guest rooms. Users can interact with the pets and program bots, which will obey certain commands the player throws at them.[26][27]
+
+Users can create their own games in Habbo by buying furniture from the shop - from Puzzle Boxes to ice skating to football. Users can build an ice rink, Battle Banzai arena, or a never-ending maze. Users can also check out the hotel's Navigator and select the Games & Mazes category under the Rooms tab to play in other people's user-created rooms hosting games like Battle Banzai, Freeze, Ice Tag, and more.[28]
+
+Habbo users often create guest rooms which emulate real world businesses, police departments and other establishments. As the game's platform facilitates the creation of groups some users choose to design their groups based on a role-playing theme and go on to participate in activities which promote their groups to other users in the game.
+
+There are 3 main types of currency on Habbo. Credits (or coins) which are used to buy furniture in the catalogue and Duckets (free currency earned by completing achievements such as logging in X days in a row) which enables users to buy effects and 'Rentable furni' (furniture to decorate rooms for a period of time, before it is then removed).[29] Diamonds are used to buy rewards such as exclusive furniture items or Habbo Club and are gained by buying credits (1 diamond for each credit bought). As well as that, seasonally themed currencies (E.g.: "Snowflakes" for Christmas) are given out to players by staff for completing certain quests which can then be used to buy seasonal Furni for a short time.
+
+Credits (also called "coins" on some hotels) are an in-game virtual currency that can be purchased using a variety of different services, such as credit card, a telephone service, a prepaid card and via SMS. They can also be redeemed into Exchange, which displays the Credits as an item of virtual furniture; the furniture can then be traded among users, and redeemed back into Credits. Users can join Habbo Club (HC), which is a premium subscription purchased using Credits. Features of Habbo Club membership include a badge, new clothes and outfits for a player's avatar, more friends on their friends list, the ability to create groups, and a free piece of furni exclusive to club members every month.
+
+Duckets are part of a new and complementary currency introduced in February 2013. Users earn Duckets by completing certain achievements and quests.[30]
+
+The Duckets currency can be used to purchase effects, room promotions, furniture and even as far as pets.
+
+Diamonds are another currency on Habbo. It was introduced in early July 2014. Diamonds are received through purchases of Credits with real money. Diamonds are used to buy Habbo Club, buy rare furniture items or they can be redeemed for credits in furniture form.[31]
+
+Habbo's parent company Sulake has automated online moderation, and only house Community Coordinators are welcome for each hotel, with the exception for the Brazilian version of Habbo Hotel, where moderators are present at all time. Habbo stated in 2011 that the in-game moderators were tasked with tracking some 70 million lines of conversation worldwide every day, and blocking inappropriate users and filtering links to black-listed sites.[32]
+
+Sulake also worked with child safety organizations and local police forces to stop inappropriate behavior. Habbo's moderation and safety systems were recognized as making the service as one of the safest social networks in a 2011 European Commission report.[33] In 2011, Habbo was also awarded the commendation of 'Safer by Design' from the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP).[34] Sulake encouraged users to take responsibility for reporting any abuses or any bad behaviour on the site, providing education and rapid-response support to users who may experience uncomfortable conversations or questions.[32]
+
+As well as working within the Habbo online community, Sulake actively contributed to campaigns like Insafe and Safer Internet Day[35] to be used on relevant user safety issues and collaborates in more than 30 charitable partnerships around the world to educate teens about a load of topics including safe internet use, trolling, the dangers of drugs, bullying etc. Partners include NSPCC (ChildLine), UNICEF, the Red Cross, the National Safety Hospital, Frank, Child Right, Power Child as well as many other market specific organisations.[32]
+
+Users in Habbo can report users breaking the Habbo Way (there are sets of rules on Habbo that everyone must obey)[36] by clicking on the offending avatar, scrolling through their information and clicking report then trying to highlight the offending pieces of chat. Users can also ignore their user by clicking on them and pressing ignore, and this will block every action and chat line that comes from that user into his or her view.[37]
+
+Automatic moderation exists in Habbo's language filter, the "Bobba Filter", which replaces offensive text with the simple word "bobba". Replacement applies to anything from mild to highly offensive words, phrases, and websites.
+
+From August 2000 to 31 December 2005, Habbo existed as a program for experienced members of each Habbo community to become a 'Hobba'. Hobbas were non-paid, volunteer moderators with limited powers that acted as Hotel Guides. On December 31, 2005, Sulake suspended the Hobba program completely due to major security issues and the rapidly growing Habbo community. It was decided that it needed a stronger, more professional moderation team, that would be followed by employees of Sulake.[38] The following requests for the program to be revived, in June 2012, it was announced that modernized Hobbas, called Guardians, would be introduced into Habbo.[39] These users will be limited and will be closely monitored to ensure safety is not compromised or advanced.[40][41]
+
+In June 2012, there was a two-month investigation by Channel 4 News that uncovered lapses in Habbo's online moderation, such as cyber sex, sexual frequences and sexual predation on minors, which subsequently led to withdrawals from two of the company's biggest investors.[14][15][42][43] In response to the news, the company globally muted all chat and text, and launched "The Great Unmute",[44] which allowed users to express their views on the company's future, their experiences with Habbo, and their thoughts on the Channel Four News report.[45] Following this, launching The Great Go-Live, Habbo lifted the chat restrictions for Finnish users to allow testing on a new safety system.[44] Chat restrictions were lifted for users in Brazil and Spain, followed by France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands.[44] A Parental Advisory Summit was also launched, to allow parents and users that the chance to answer how Habbo can deliver a safer experience, have a safe environment and influence what content children view on other social media platforms.[44][46] Restrictions on chat were lifted in Norway, Denmark and Sweden,[47] and finally in the English hotel on 6 July 2012.[48]
+
+Habbo has been a frequent target for organized raids by Anonymous.[49] In 2006, unsubstantiated rumors began circulating on 4chan boards regarding allegations of racist conduct by Habbo moderators and arbitrary banning of players with darker-skinned avatars.  As a result, users signed up to the Habbo site dressed in avatars of a black man wearing a grey suit and an Afro hairstyle and blocked entry to the pool, declaring that it was "closed due to AIDS",[49][50] flooding the site with internet sayings,[50] and forming swastika-like formations.[50] When the raiders were banned, they complained of racism.[50]
+
+As a website geared towards teenagers, Habbo often attracts sponsorship from outside entities and organizations. This sponsorship includes visits by musicians[51] (such as The Veronicas, Gorillaz,[52] Skye Sweetnam,[53] Little Birdy, Stephanie McIntosh, Operator Please, Jamelia,[54][unreliable source?] Akon,[55][unreliable source?] Chingy, Evermore, Avril Lavigne, Ashlee Simpson, Dylan and Cole Sprouse, David Archuleta, Tokio Hotel, The Ting Tings, DJ Ironik, Alesha Dixon, The Take, Same Difference and Eoghan Quigg) as well as various corporations.
+Sulake has also teamed up with Fremantle Media, the company that produces American Idol. Contestants that are voted out of the final 12 (final 13 this current season) were invited to the hotel for an interview following their departure from the show. American Idol furniture was also added to the hotel. Habbo has sponsored Night at the Museum 2 on Habbo UK releasing the rare "Golden Tablet" exclusively. Habbo AU has recently signed up with wrestling giant WWE holding events to win merchandise and live tickets to shows, featuring wrestler Dave Batista as a guest to Habbo AU. Most recently, Habbo has associated itself with the company DitchTheLabel which hosts various anti-bullying sessions on Habbo.[56]
+
+In November 2001, The Daily Telegraph listed Habbo as a top-10 chat and instant messaging site, describing it as "great-looking" and "proving popular with teenagers."[57] In 2005 and 2006, Habbo Australia received the NetGuide Online Web Award for "Best kids'/youth website".[58] In September 2006, Sulake won Deloitte's Fast 50 competition.[59][60]
+
+Common Sense Media, a non-profit association advocating for children and families, and studying the effects that media and technology have on young users, reports that foul talk and sexy chat rooms dominate [this] virtual world, giving it one star on five and don't recommend it for kids of any age.[61]
+
+In 2009, Habbo won the Most Innovative Launch Campaign 2009[62] in The Media Guardian Innovation Awards.
+
+There are currently 9 websites in operation, with as many as 12 up until 29 April 2015.  This date saw the closure of the Danish,[63] Norwegian[64] and Swedish[65] language hotels, having been in operation from December 2004, June 2004 and December 2003 respectively.

en/2357.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,139 @@
+Clothing (also known as clothes, apparel and attire) is items worn on the body. Clothing is typically made of fabrics or textiles but over time has included garments made from animal skin or other thin sheets of materials put together. The wearing of clothing is mostly restricted to human beings and is a feature of all human societies. The amount and type of clothing worn depends on gender, body type, social, and geographic considerations.
+
+Clothing serves many purposes: it can serve as protection from the elements, rough surfaces, rash-causing plants, insect bites, splinters, thorns and prickles by providing a barrier between the skin and the environment. Clothes can insulate against cold or hot conditions, and they can provide a hygienic barrier, keeping infectious and toxic materials away from the body. Clothing also provides protection from ultraviolet radiation.
+
+Wearing clothes is also a social norm, and being deprived of clothing in front of others may be embarrassing. In most parts of the world, not wearing clothes in public so that genitals, breasts or buttocks are visible could be considered indecent exposure.
+
+Scientists are still debating when people started wearing clothes. Estimates by various experts have ranged from 40,000 to 3 million years ago. Some more recent studies involving the evolution of body lice have implied a more recent development with some indicating a development of around 170,000 years ago and others indicating as little as 40,000. No single estimate is widely accepted.[1][2][3][4]
+
+Ralf Kittler, Manfred Kayser and Mark Stoneking, anthropologists at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, conducted a genetic analysis of human body lice that suggests clothing originated around 170,000 years ago. Body lice are an indicator of clothes-wearing, since most humans have sparse body hair, and lice thus require human clothing to survive. Their research suggests that the invention of clothing may have coincided with the northward migration of modern Homo sapiens away from the warm climate of Africa, thought to have begun between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago. However, a second group of researchers using similar genetic methods estimate that clothing originated around 540,000 years ago.[5]
+
+According to archaeologists and anthropologists, the earliest clothing likely consisted of fur, leather, leaves, or grass that were draped, wrapped, or tied around the body. Knowledge of such clothing remains inferential, since clothing materials deteriorate quickly compared to stone, bone, shell and metal artifacts. Archeologists have identified very early sewing needles of bone and ivory from about 30,000 BC, found near Kostenki, Russia in 1988.[6] Dyed flax fibers that could have been used in clothing have been found in a prehistoric cave in the Republic of Georgia that date back to 34,000 BC.[7][8]
+
+Some human cultures, such as the various peoples of the Arctic Circle, traditionally make their clothing entirely of prepared and decorated furs and skins. Other cultures supplemented or replaced leather and skins with cloth: woven, knitted, or twined from various animal and vegetable fibers including wool, linen, cotton, silk, hemp, and ramie.
+
+Although modern consumers may take the production of clothing for granted, making fabric by hand is a tedious and labor-intensive process involving fiber making, spinning, and weaving. The textile industry was the first to be mechanized – with the powered loom – during the Industrial Revolution.
+
+Different cultures have evolved various ways of creating clothes out of cloth. One approach simply involves draping the cloth. Many people wore, and still wear, garments consisting of rectangles of cloth wrapped to fit – for example, the dhoti for men and the sari for women in the Indian subcontinent, the Scottish kilt and the Javanese sarong. The clothes may simply be tied up (dhoti and sari); or pins or belts hold the garments in place (kilt and sarong). The cloth remains uncut, and people of various sizes can wear the garment.
+
+Another approach involves measuring, cutting, and sewing the cloth by hand or with a sewing machine. Clothing can be cut from a sewing pattern and adjusted by a tailor to the wearer's measurements. An adjustable sewing mannequin or dress form is used to create form-fitting clothing. If the fabric is expensive, the tailor tries to use every bit of the cloth rectangle in constructing the clothing; perhaps cutting triangular pieces from one corner of the cloth, and adding them elsewhere as gussets. Traditional European patterns for men's shirts and women's chemises take this approach. These remnants can also be reused to make patchwork hats, vests, and skirts.
+
+Modern European fashion treats cloth much less conservatively, typically cutting in such a way as to leave various odd-shaped cloth remnants. Industrial sewing operations sell these as waste; home sewers may turn them into quilts.
+
+In the thousands of years that humans have been making clothing, they have created an astonishing array of styles, many of which have been reconstructed from surviving garments, photos, paintings, mosaics, etc., as well as from written descriptions. Costume history can inspire current fashion designers, as well as costumiers for plays, films, television, and historical reenactment.
+
+The most obvious function of clothing is to protect the wearer from the elements. In hot weather, clothing provides protection from sunburn or wind damage. In the cold, it offers thermal insulation. Shelter can reduce the functional need for clothing. For example, coats, hats, gloves and other outer layers are normally removed when entering a warm place. Similarly, clothing has seasonal and regional aspects so that thinner materials and fewer layers of clothing are generally worn in warmer regions and seasons than in colder ones.
+
+Clothing performs a range of social and cultural functions, such as individual, occupational and gender differentiation, and social status.[9] In many societies, norms about clothing reflect standards of modesty, religion, gender, and social status. Clothing may also function as adornment and an expression of personal taste or style.
+
+Clothing has been made from a very wide variety of materials, ranging from leather and furs to woven fabrics to elaborate and exotic natural and synthetic fabrics. Not all body coverings are regarded as clothing. Articles carried rather than worn (such as purses), worn on a single part of the body and easily removed (scarves), worn purely for adornment (jewelry), or those that serve a function other than protection (eyeglasses), are normally considered accessories rather than clothing.
+
+Clothing protects against many things that might injure or irritate the uncovered human body, including rain, snow, wind, and other weather, as well as from the sun. Garments that are too sheer, thin, small or tight offer less protection. Appropriate clothes can also reduce risk during activities such as work or sport. Some clothing protects from specific hazards, such as insects, noxious chemicals, weather, weapons, and contact with abrasive substances.
+
+Humans have devised clothing solutions to environmental or other hazards: such as space suits, air conditioned clothing, armor, diving suits, swimsuits, bee-keeper gear, motorcycle leathers, high-visibility clothing, and other pieces of protective clothing. The distinction between clothing and protective equipment is not always clear-cut, since clothes designed to be fashionable often have protective value and clothes designed for function often consider fashion in their design. The choice of clothes also has social implications. They cover parts of the body that social norms require to be covered, act as a form of adornment, and serve other social purposes. Someone who lacks the means to procure reasonable clothing due to poverty or affordability, or simply lack of inclination, is sometimes said to be scruffy, ragged, or shabby.[10]
+
+Serious books on clothing and its functions appear from the 19th century as imperialists dealt with new environments such as India and the tropics.[11] Some scientific research into the multiple functions of clothing  in the first half of the 20th century, with publications such as J.C. Flügel's Psychology of Clothes in 1930,[9] and Newburgh's seminal Physiology of Heat Regulation and The Science of Clothing in 1949.[12] By 1968, the field of environmental physiology had advanced and expanded significantly, but the science of clothing in relation to environmental physiology had changed little.[13] There has since been considerable research, and the knowledge base has grown significantly, but the main concepts remain unchanged, and indeed Newburgh's book is still cited by contemporary authors, including those attempting to develop thermoregulatory models of clothing development.[14][further explanation needed]
+
+A group of women and men gathered at sport event in Sweden (1938).
+
+3rd Duke of Fife wearing a traditional Scottish kilt skirt (1984).
+
+A Hindu North Indian wedding, with the groom wearing a sherwani and pagri turban, while the bride in a sari.
+
+Advisor to US President and businesswoman Ivanka Trump (right) along with Japanese PM Shinzō Abe wearing Western-style business suits as per their gender, 2017.
+
+Red carpet fashion: Italian actors Gabriel Garko and Laura Torrisi wearing designer dress code, 2009. The man is in suit and the woman is wearing a gown.
+
+In most cultures, gender differentiation of clothing is considered appropriate. The differences are in styles, colors, fabrics, and types.
+
+In Western societies, skirts, dresses, and high-heeled shoes are usually seen as women's clothing, while neckties are usually seen as men's clothing. Trousers were once seen as exclusively men's clothing, but can nowadays be worn by both genders. Men's clothes are often more practical (that is, they can function well under a wide variety of situations), but a wider range of clothing styles are available for women. Men are typically allowed to bare their chests in a greater variety of public places. It is generally common for a woman to wear clothing perceived as masculine, while the opposite is seen as unusual.
+
+In some cultures, sumptuary laws regulate what men and women are required to wear. Islam requires women to wear more modest forms of attire, usually hijab. What qualifies as "modest" varies in different Muslim societies; however, women are usually required to cover more of their bodies than men. Articles of clothing Muslim women wear for modesty range from the head-scarf to the burqa.
+
+Men may sometimes choose to wear men's skirts such as togas or kilts in particular cultures, especially on ceremonial occasions. Such garments were (in previous times) often worn as normal daily clothing by men.
+
+Clothing designed to be worn by either sex is called unisex clothing. Unisex clothes, such as T-shirts, tend to be cut straighter to fit a wider variety of bodies. The majority of unisex clothing styles have started out as menswear, but some articles, like the fedora, were originally worn by women.
+
+Achkan sherwani and churidar (lower body) worn by Arvind Singh Mewar and his kin during a Hindu wedding in Rajasthan, India. Traditionally, these clothes were worn by the elites of the Indian subcontinent.
+
+A Barong Tagalog made for a wedding ceremony.
+
+Alim Khan's bemedaled robe sends a social message about his wealth, status, and power.
+
+In some societies, clothing may be used to indicate rank or status. In ancient Rome, for example, only senators could wear garments dyed with Tyrian purple. In traditional Hawaiian society, only high-ranking chiefs could wear feather cloaks and palaoa, or carved whale teeth. In China, before establishment of the republic, only the emperor could wear yellow. History provides many examples of elaborate sumptuary laws that regulated what people could wear. In societies without such laws, which includes most modern societies, social status is instead signaled by the purchase of rare or luxury items that are limited by cost to those with wealth or status. In addition, peer pressure influences clothing choice.
+
+The Buddha wearing kāṣāya robes. Originating from ancient India, these robes were worn by fully ordained Buddhist monks and nuns.
+
+Muslim men traditionally wear white robes and a cap during prayers.
+
+Non-liturgical clothing worn by Christian clerics.
+
+Some religious clothing might be considered a special case of occupational clothing. Sometimes it is worn only during the performance of religious ceremonies. However, it may also be worn every day as a marker for special religious status.
+
+For example, Jains and Muslim men wear unstitched cloth pieces when performing religious ceremonies. The unstitched cloth signifies unified and complete devotion to the task at hand, with no digression.[citation needed] Sikhs wear a turban as it is a part of their religion.
+
+The cleanliness of religious dresses in some religions such as Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Islam and Jainism is of paramount importance since it indicates purity.
+
+Clothing appears in numerous contexts in the Bible; the most prominent passages are: the story of Adam and Eve who made coverings for themselves out of fig leaves, Joseph's cloak, Judah and Tamar, Mordecai and Esther. Furthermore, the priests officiating in the Temple in Jerusalem had very specific garments, the lack of which made one liable to death.
+
+The Quran says about husbands and wives, regarding clothing: "...They are clothing/covering (Libaas) for you; and you for them" (chapter 2:187).
+
+Jewish ritual also requires rending of one's upper garment as a sign of mourning.[further explanation needed]
+
+Christian clergy members wear religious vestments during liturgical services and may wear specific non-liturgical clothing at other times.
+
+Legend: = Day (before 6 p.m.) = Evening (after 6 p.m.)          = Bow tie colour = Ladies
+
+The Western dress code has changed over the past 500+ years.  The mechanization of the textile industry made many varieties of cloth widely available at affordable prices.  Styles have changed, and the availability of synthetic fabrics has changed the definition of "stylish".  In the latter half of the 20th century, blue jeans became very popular, and are now worn to events that normally demand formal attire.  Activewear has also become a large and growing market.
+
+Jeans in the Western dress code are worn by both men and women. There are several unique styles of jeans found which include: high rise jeans, mid rise jeans, low rise jeans, bootcut jeans, straight jeans, cropped jeans, skinny jeans, cuffed jeans, boyfriend jeans, and capri jeans.
+
+The licensing of designer names was pioneered by designers like Pierre Cardin in the 1960s and has been a common practice within the fashion industry from about the 1970s. Among the more popular include Marc Jacobs and Gucci, named for Marc Jacobs and Guccio Gucci respectively.
+
+By the early years of the 21st century, western clothing styles had, to some extent, become international styles. This process began hundreds of years earlier, during the periods of European colonialism. The process of cultural dissemination has perpetuated over the centuries as Western media corporations have penetrated markets throughout the world, spreading Western culture and styles. Fast fashion clothing has also become a global phenomenon. These garments are less expensive, mass-produced Western clothing. Donated used clothing from Western countries are also delivered to people in poor countries by charity organizations.
+
+People may wear ethnic or national dress on special occasions or in certain roles or occupations. For example, most Korean men and women have adopted Western-style dress for daily wear, but still wear traditional hanboks on special occasions, like weddings and cultural holidays. Items of Western dress may also appear worn or accessorized in distinctive, non-Western ways. A Tongan man may combine a used T-shirt with a Tongan wrapped skirt, or tupenu.
+
+Most sports and physical activities are practiced wearing special clothing, for practical, comfort or safety reasons. Common sportswear garments include shorts, T-shirts, tennis shirts, leotards, tracksuits, and trainers. Specialized garments include wet suits (for swimming, diving or surfing), salopettes (for skiing) and leotards (for gymnastics). Also, spandex materials are often used as base layers to soak up sweat. Spandex is also preferable for active sports that require form fitting garments, such as volleyball, wrestling, track & field, dance, gymnastics and swimming.
+
+Paris set the fashion trends for Europe and North America 1900–1940.[15]  In the 1920s the goal was all about getting loose. Women wore dresses all day, everyday. Day dresses had a drop waist, which was a sash or belt around the low waist or hip and a skirt that hung anywhere from the ankle on up to the knee, never above. Daywear had sleeves (long to mid-bicep) and a skirt that was straight, pleaded, hank hem, or tired.  Jewelry was less conspicuous.[16]  Hair was often bobbed, giving a boyish look.[17]
+
+In the 21st century a diverse range of styles exist in fashion, varying by geography, exposure to modern media, economic conditions, and ranging from expensive haute couture to traditional garb, to thrift store grunge.  Fashion shows are events for designers to show off new and often extravagant designs.
+
+Although mechanization transformed most aspects of human industry by the mid-20th century, garment workers have continued to labor under challenging conditions that demand repetitive manual labor. Mass-produced clothing is often made in what are considered by some to be sweatshops, typified by long work hours, lack of benefits, and lack of worker representation. While most examples of such conditions are found in developing countries, clothes made in industrialized nations may also be manufactured similarly.[citation needed]
+
+Coalitions of NGOs, designers (including Katharine Hamnett, American Apparel, Veja, Quiksilver, eVocal, and Edun) and campaign groups like the Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC) and the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights as well as textile and clothing trade unions have sought to improve these conditions as much as possible by sponsoring awareness-raising events, which draw the attention of both the media and the general public to the workers.
+
+Outsourcing production to low wage countries like Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka became possible when the Multi Fibre Agreement (MFA) was abolished. The MFA, which placed quotas on textiles imports, was deemed a protectionist measure.[citation needed] Although many countries recognize treaties like the International Labour Organization, which attempt to set standards for worker safety and rights, many countries have made exceptions to certain parts of the treaties or failed to thoroughly enforce them. India for example has not ratified sections 87 and 92 of the treaty.[citation needed]
+
+Despite the strong reactions that "sweatshops" evoked among critics of globalization[which?], the production of textiles has functioned as a consistent industry for developing nations, providing work and wages, whether construed as exploitative or not, to millions of people.[18]
+
+The use of animal fur in clothing dates to prehistoric times. It is currently associated in developed countries with expensive, designer clothing, although fur is still used by indigenous people in arctic zones and higher elevations for its warmth and protection. Once uncontroversial, it has recently been the focus of campaigns on the grounds that campaigners consider it cruel and unnecessary. PETA, along with other animal rights and animal liberation groups have called attention to fur farming and other practices they consider cruel.
+
+Clothing suffers assault both from within and without. The human body sheds skin cells and body oils, and exudes sweat, urine, and feces. From the outside, sun damage, moisture, abrasion, and dirt assault garments. Fleas and lice can hide in seams. Worn clothing, if not cleaned and refurbished, itches, becomes outworn, and loses functionality (as when buttons fall off, seams come undone, fabrics thin or tear, and zippers fail).
+
+Often, people wear an item of clothing until it falls apart. Some materials present problems. Cleaning leather is difficult, and bark cloth (tapa) cannot be washed without dissolving it. Owners may patch tears and rips, and brush off surface dirt, but materials like these inevitably age.
+
+However, most clothing consists of cloth, and most cloth can be laundered and mended (patching, darning, but compare felt).
+
+Humans have developed many specialized methods for laundering, ranging from early methods of pounding clothes against rocks in running streams, to the latest in electronic washing machines and dry cleaning (dissolving dirt in solvents other than water). Hot water washing (boiling), chemical cleaning and ironing are all traditional methods of sterilizing fabrics for hygiene purposes.
+
+Many kinds of clothing are designed to be ironed before they are worn to remove wrinkles. Most modern formal and semi-formal clothing is in this category (for example, dress shirts and suits). Ironed clothes are believed to look clean, fresh, and neat. Much contemporary casual clothing is made of knit materials that do not readily wrinkle, and do not require ironing. Some clothing is permanent press, having been treated with a coating (such as polytetrafluoroethylene) that suppresses wrinkles and creates a smooth appearance without ironing.
+
+Once clothes have been laundered and possibly ironed, they are usually hung on clothes hangers or folded, to keep them fresh until they are worn. Clothes are folded to allow them to be stored compactly, to prevent creasing, to preserve creases or to present them in a more pleasing manner, for instance when they are put on sale in stores.
+
+Certain types of insects and larvae feed on clothing and textiles, such as the Black carpet beetle and Clothing moths. To deter such pests, clothes may be stored in cedar-lined closets[19] or chests, or placed in drawers or containers with materials having pest repellent properties, such as Lavender or mothballs. Airtight containers (such as sealed, heavy-duty plastic bags) may also deter insect pest damage to clothing materials.
+
+A resin used for making non-wrinkle shirts releases formaldehyde, which could cause contact dermatitis for some people; no disclosure requirements exist, and in 2008 the U.S. Government Accountability Office tested formaldehyde in clothing and found that generally the highest levels were in non-wrinkle shirts and pants.[20] In 1999, a study of the effect of washing on the formaldehyde levels found that after 6 months after washing, 7 of 27 shirts had levels in excess of 75 ppm, which is a safe limit for direct skin exposure.[21]
+
+When the raw material – cloth – was worth more than labor, it made sense to expend labor in saving it. In past times, mending was an art. A meticulous tailor or seamstress could mend rips with thread raveled from hems and seam edges so skillfully that the tear was practically invisible. Today clothing is considered a consumable item. Mass-manufactured clothing is less expensive than the labor required to repair it. Many people buy a new piece of clothing rather than spend time mending. The thrifty still replace zippers and buttons and sew up ripped hems.
+
+Used, unwearable clothing can be repurposed for quilts, rags, rugs, bandages, and many other household uses. Neutral colored or undyed cellulose fibers can be recycled into paper. In Western societies, used clothing is often thrown out or donated to charity (such as through a clothing bin). It is also sold to consignment shops, dress agencies, flea markets, and in online auctions. Used clothing is also often collected on an industrial scale to be sorted and shipped for re-use in poorer countries.  Globally, used clothes are worth $4 billion[22] with the US as the leading exporter at $575 million.[23]
+
+There are many concerns about the life cycle of synthetics, which come primarily from petrochemicals.[weasel words] Unlike natural fibers, their source is not renewable and they are not biodegradable.[24]
+
+Excess inventory of clothing is sometimes destroyed to preserve brand value.[25]
+
+EU Member States import, in 2018 €166 billion of clothes; 51% come from outside the EU €84 billion.
+
+EU member states exported €116 billion of clothes in 2018, including 77% to other EU member states.

en/2358.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,139 @@
+Clothing (also known as clothes, apparel and attire) is items worn on the body. Clothing is typically made of fabrics or textiles but over time has included garments made from animal skin or other thin sheets of materials put together. The wearing of clothing is mostly restricted to human beings and is a feature of all human societies. The amount and type of clothing worn depends on gender, body type, social, and geographic considerations.
+
+Clothing serves many purposes: it can serve as protection from the elements, rough surfaces, rash-causing plants, insect bites, splinters, thorns and prickles by providing a barrier between the skin and the environment. Clothes can insulate against cold or hot conditions, and they can provide a hygienic barrier, keeping infectious and toxic materials away from the body. Clothing also provides protection from ultraviolet radiation.
+
+Wearing clothes is also a social norm, and being deprived of clothing in front of others may be embarrassing. In most parts of the world, not wearing clothes in public so that genitals, breasts or buttocks are visible could be considered indecent exposure.
+
+Scientists are still debating when people started wearing clothes. Estimates by various experts have ranged from 40,000 to 3 million years ago. Some more recent studies involving the evolution of body lice have implied a more recent development with some indicating a development of around 170,000 years ago and others indicating as little as 40,000. No single estimate is widely accepted.[1][2][3][4]
+
+Ralf Kittler, Manfred Kayser and Mark Stoneking, anthropologists at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, conducted a genetic analysis of human body lice that suggests clothing originated around 170,000 years ago. Body lice are an indicator of clothes-wearing, since most humans have sparse body hair, and lice thus require human clothing to survive. Their research suggests that the invention of clothing may have coincided with the northward migration of modern Homo sapiens away from the warm climate of Africa, thought to have begun between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago. However, a second group of researchers using similar genetic methods estimate that clothing originated around 540,000 years ago.[5]
+
+According to archaeologists and anthropologists, the earliest clothing likely consisted of fur, leather, leaves, or grass that were draped, wrapped, or tied around the body. Knowledge of such clothing remains inferential, since clothing materials deteriorate quickly compared to stone, bone, shell and metal artifacts. Archeologists have identified very early sewing needles of bone and ivory from about 30,000 BC, found near Kostenki, Russia in 1988.[6] Dyed flax fibers that could have been used in clothing have been found in a prehistoric cave in the Republic of Georgia that date back to 34,000 BC.[7][8]
+
+Some human cultures, such as the various peoples of the Arctic Circle, traditionally make their clothing entirely of prepared and decorated furs and skins. Other cultures supplemented or replaced leather and skins with cloth: woven, knitted, or twined from various animal and vegetable fibers including wool, linen, cotton, silk, hemp, and ramie.
+
+Although modern consumers may take the production of clothing for granted, making fabric by hand is a tedious and labor-intensive process involving fiber making, spinning, and weaving. The textile industry was the first to be mechanized – with the powered loom – during the Industrial Revolution.
+
+Different cultures have evolved various ways of creating clothes out of cloth. One approach simply involves draping the cloth. Many people wore, and still wear, garments consisting of rectangles of cloth wrapped to fit – for example, the dhoti for men and the sari for women in the Indian subcontinent, the Scottish kilt and the Javanese sarong. The clothes may simply be tied up (dhoti and sari); or pins or belts hold the garments in place (kilt and sarong). The cloth remains uncut, and people of various sizes can wear the garment.
+
+Another approach involves measuring, cutting, and sewing the cloth by hand or with a sewing machine. Clothing can be cut from a sewing pattern and adjusted by a tailor to the wearer's measurements. An adjustable sewing mannequin or dress form is used to create form-fitting clothing. If the fabric is expensive, the tailor tries to use every bit of the cloth rectangle in constructing the clothing; perhaps cutting triangular pieces from one corner of the cloth, and adding them elsewhere as gussets. Traditional European patterns for men's shirts and women's chemises take this approach. These remnants can also be reused to make patchwork hats, vests, and skirts.
+
+Modern European fashion treats cloth much less conservatively, typically cutting in such a way as to leave various odd-shaped cloth remnants. Industrial sewing operations sell these as waste; home sewers may turn them into quilts.
+
+In the thousands of years that humans have been making clothing, they have created an astonishing array of styles, many of which have been reconstructed from surviving garments, photos, paintings, mosaics, etc., as well as from written descriptions. Costume history can inspire current fashion designers, as well as costumiers for plays, films, television, and historical reenactment.
+
+The most obvious function of clothing is to protect the wearer from the elements. In hot weather, clothing provides protection from sunburn or wind damage. In the cold, it offers thermal insulation. Shelter can reduce the functional need for clothing. For example, coats, hats, gloves and other outer layers are normally removed when entering a warm place. Similarly, clothing has seasonal and regional aspects so that thinner materials and fewer layers of clothing are generally worn in warmer regions and seasons than in colder ones.
+
+Clothing performs a range of social and cultural functions, such as individual, occupational and gender differentiation, and social status.[9] In many societies, norms about clothing reflect standards of modesty, religion, gender, and social status. Clothing may also function as adornment and an expression of personal taste or style.
+
+Clothing has been made from a very wide variety of materials, ranging from leather and furs to woven fabrics to elaborate and exotic natural and synthetic fabrics. Not all body coverings are regarded as clothing. Articles carried rather than worn (such as purses), worn on a single part of the body and easily removed (scarves), worn purely for adornment (jewelry), or those that serve a function other than protection (eyeglasses), are normally considered accessories rather than clothing.
+
+Clothing protects against many things that might injure or irritate the uncovered human body, including rain, snow, wind, and other weather, as well as from the sun. Garments that are too sheer, thin, small or tight offer less protection. Appropriate clothes can also reduce risk during activities such as work or sport. Some clothing protects from specific hazards, such as insects, noxious chemicals, weather, weapons, and contact with abrasive substances.
+
+Humans have devised clothing solutions to environmental or other hazards: such as space suits, air conditioned clothing, armor, diving suits, swimsuits, bee-keeper gear, motorcycle leathers, high-visibility clothing, and other pieces of protective clothing. The distinction between clothing and protective equipment is not always clear-cut, since clothes designed to be fashionable often have protective value and clothes designed for function often consider fashion in their design. The choice of clothes also has social implications. They cover parts of the body that social norms require to be covered, act as a form of adornment, and serve other social purposes. Someone who lacks the means to procure reasonable clothing due to poverty or affordability, or simply lack of inclination, is sometimes said to be scruffy, ragged, or shabby.[10]
+
+Serious books on clothing and its functions appear from the 19th century as imperialists dealt with new environments such as India and the tropics.[11] Some scientific research into the multiple functions of clothing  in the first half of the 20th century, with publications such as J.C. Flügel's Psychology of Clothes in 1930,[9] and Newburgh's seminal Physiology of Heat Regulation and The Science of Clothing in 1949.[12] By 1968, the field of environmental physiology had advanced and expanded significantly, but the science of clothing in relation to environmental physiology had changed little.[13] There has since been considerable research, and the knowledge base has grown significantly, but the main concepts remain unchanged, and indeed Newburgh's book is still cited by contemporary authors, including those attempting to develop thermoregulatory models of clothing development.[14][further explanation needed]
+
+A group of women and men gathered at sport event in Sweden (1938).
+
+3rd Duke of Fife wearing a traditional Scottish kilt skirt (1984).
+
+A Hindu North Indian wedding, with the groom wearing a sherwani and pagri turban, while the bride in a sari.
+
+Advisor to US President and businesswoman Ivanka Trump (right) along with Japanese PM Shinzō Abe wearing Western-style business suits as per their gender, 2017.
+
+Red carpet fashion: Italian actors Gabriel Garko and Laura Torrisi wearing designer dress code, 2009. The man is in suit and the woman is wearing a gown.
+
+In most cultures, gender differentiation of clothing is considered appropriate. The differences are in styles, colors, fabrics, and types.
+
+In Western societies, skirts, dresses, and high-heeled shoes are usually seen as women's clothing, while neckties are usually seen as men's clothing. Trousers were once seen as exclusively men's clothing, but can nowadays be worn by both genders. Men's clothes are often more practical (that is, they can function well under a wide variety of situations), but a wider range of clothing styles are available for women. Men are typically allowed to bare their chests in a greater variety of public places. It is generally common for a woman to wear clothing perceived as masculine, while the opposite is seen as unusual.
+
+In some cultures, sumptuary laws regulate what men and women are required to wear. Islam requires women to wear more modest forms of attire, usually hijab. What qualifies as "modest" varies in different Muslim societies; however, women are usually required to cover more of their bodies than men. Articles of clothing Muslim women wear for modesty range from the head-scarf to the burqa.
+
+Men may sometimes choose to wear men's skirts such as togas or kilts in particular cultures, especially on ceremonial occasions. Such garments were (in previous times) often worn as normal daily clothing by men.
+
+Clothing designed to be worn by either sex is called unisex clothing. Unisex clothes, such as T-shirts, tend to be cut straighter to fit a wider variety of bodies. The majority of unisex clothing styles have started out as menswear, but some articles, like the fedora, were originally worn by women.
+
+Achkan sherwani and churidar (lower body) worn by Arvind Singh Mewar and his kin during a Hindu wedding in Rajasthan, India. Traditionally, these clothes were worn by the elites of the Indian subcontinent.
+
+A Barong Tagalog made for a wedding ceremony.
+
+Alim Khan's bemedaled robe sends a social message about his wealth, status, and power.
+
+In some societies, clothing may be used to indicate rank or status. In ancient Rome, for example, only senators could wear garments dyed with Tyrian purple. In traditional Hawaiian society, only high-ranking chiefs could wear feather cloaks and palaoa, or carved whale teeth. In China, before establishment of the republic, only the emperor could wear yellow. History provides many examples of elaborate sumptuary laws that regulated what people could wear. In societies without such laws, which includes most modern societies, social status is instead signaled by the purchase of rare or luxury items that are limited by cost to those with wealth or status. In addition, peer pressure influences clothing choice.
+
+The Buddha wearing kāṣāya robes. Originating from ancient India, these robes were worn by fully ordained Buddhist monks and nuns.
+
+Muslim men traditionally wear white robes and a cap during prayers.
+
+Non-liturgical clothing worn by Christian clerics.
+
+Some religious clothing might be considered a special case of occupational clothing. Sometimes it is worn only during the performance of religious ceremonies. However, it may also be worn every day as a marker for special religious status.
+
+For example, Jains and Muslim men wear unstitched cloth pieces when performing religious ceremonies. The unstitched cloth signifies unified and complete devotion to the task at hand, with no digression.[citation needed] Sikhs wear a turban as it is a part of their religion.
+
+The cleanliness of religious dresses in some religions such as Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Islam and Jainism is of paramount importance since it indicates purity.
+
+Clothing appears in numerous contexts in the Bible; the most prominent passages are: the story of Adam and Eve who made coverings for themselves out of fig leaves, Joseph's cloak, Judah and Tamar, Mordecai and Esther. Furthermore, the priests officiating in the Temple in Jerusalem had very specific garments, the lack of which made one liable to death.
+
+The Quran says about husbands and wives, regarding clothing: "...They are clothing/covering (Libaas) for you; and you for them" (chapter 2:187).
+
+Jewish ritual also requires rending of one's upper garment as a sign of mourning.[further explanation needed]
+
+Christian clergy members wear religious vestments during liturgical services and may wear specific non-liturgical clothing at other times.
+
+Legend: = Day (before 6 p.m.) = Evening (after 6 p.m.)          = Bow tie colour = Ladies
+
+The Western dress code has changed over the past 500+ years.  The mechanization of the textile industry made many varieties of cloth widely available at affordable prices.  Styles have changed, and the availability of synthetic fabrics has changed the definition of "stylish".  In the latter half of the 20th century, blue jeans became very popular, and are now worn to events that normally demand formal attire.  Activewear has also become a large and growing market.
+
+Jeans in the Western dress code are worn by both men and women. There are several unique styles of jeans found which include: high rise jeans, mid rise jeans, low rise jeans, bootcut jeans, straight jeans, cropped jeans, skinny jeans, cuffed jeans, boyfriend jeans, and capri jeans.
+
+The licensing of designer names was pioneered by designers like Pierre Cardin in the 1960s and has been a common practice within the fashion industry from about the 1970s. Among the more popular include Marc Jacobs and Gucci, named for Marc Jacobs and Guccio Gucci respectively.
+
+By the early years of the 21st century, western clothing styles had, to some extent, become international styles. This process began hundreds of years earlier, during the periods of European colonialism. The process of cultural dissemination has perpetuated over the centuries as Western media corporations have penetrated markets throughout the world, spreading Western culture and styles. Fast fashion clothing has also become a global phenomenon. These garments are less expensive, mass-produced Western clothing. Donated used clothing from Western countries are also delivered to people in poor countries by charity organizations.
+
+People may wear ethnic or national dress on special occasions or in certain roles or occupations. For example, most Korean men and women have adopted Western-style dress for daily wear, but still wear traditional hanboks on special occasions, like weddings and cultural holidays. Items of Western dress may also appear worn or accessorized in distinctive, non-Western ways. A Tongan man may combine a used T-shirt with a Tongan wrapped skirt, or tupenu.
+
+Most sports and physical activities are practiced wearing special clothing, for practical, comfort or safety reasons. Common sportswear garments include shorts, T-shirts, tennis shirts, leotards, tracksuits, and trainers. Specialized garments include wet suits (for swimming, diving or surfing), salopettes (for skiing) and leotards (for gymnastics). Also, spandex materials are often used as base layers to soak up sweat. Spandex is also preferable for active sports that require form fitting garments, such as volleyball, wrestling, track & field, dance, gymnastics and swimming.
+
+Paris set the fashion trends for Europe and North America 1900–1940.[15]  In the 1920s the goal was all about getting loose. Women wore dresses all day, everyday. Day dresses had a drop waist, which was a sash or belt around the low waist or hip and a skirt that hung anywhere from the ankle on up to the knee, never above. Daywear had sleeves (long to mid-bicep) and a skirt that was straight, pleaded, hank hem, or tired.  Jewelry was less conspicuous.[16]  Hair was often bobbed, giving a boyish look.[17]
+
+In the 21st century a diverse range of styles exist in fashion, varying by geography, exposure to modern media, economic conditions, and ranging from expensive haute couture to traditional garb, to thrift store grunge.  Fashion shows are events for designers to show off new and often extravagant designs.
+
+Although mechanization transformed most aspects of human industry by the mid-20th century, garment workers have continued to labor under challenging conditions that demand repetitive manual labor. Mass-produced clothing is often made in what are considered by some to be sweatshops, typified by long work hours, lack of benefits, and lack of worker representation. While most examples of such conditions are found in developing countries, clothes made in industrialized nations may also be manufactured similarly.[citation needed]
+
+Coalitions of NGOs, designers (including Katharine Hamnett, American Apparel, Veja, Quiksilver, eVocal, and Edun) and campaign groups like the Clean Clothes Campaign (CCC) and the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights as well as textile and clothing trade unions have sought to improve these conditions as much as possible by sponsoring awareness-raising events, which draw the attention of both the media and the general public to the workers.
+
+Outsourcing production to low wage countries like Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka became possible when the Multi Fibre Agreement (MFA) was abolished. The MFA, which placed quotas on textiles imports, was deemed a protectionist measure.[citation needed] Although many countries recognize treaties like the International Labour Organization, which attempt to set standards for worker safety and rights, many countries have made exceptions to certain parts of the treaties or failed to thoroughly enforce them. India for example has not ratified sections 87 and 92 of the treaty.[citation needed]
+
+Despite the strong reactions that "sweatshops" evoked among critics of globalization[which?], the production of textiles has functioned as a consistent industry for developing nations, providing work and wages, whether construed as exploitative or not, to millions of people.[18]
+
+The use of animal fur in clothing dates to prehistoric times. It is currently associated in developed countries with expensive, designer clothing, although fur is still used by indigenous people in arctic zones and higher elevations for its warmth and protection. Once uncontroversial, it has recently been the focus of campaigns on the grounds that campaigners consider it cruel and unnecessary. PETA, along with other animal rights and animal liberation groups have called attention to fur farming and other practices they consider cruel.
+
+Clothing suffers assault both from within and without. The human body sheds skin cells and body oils, and exudes sweat, urine, and feces. From the outside, sun damage, moisture, abrasion, and dirt assault garments. Fleas and lice can hide in seams. Worn clothing, if not cleaned and refurbished, itches, becomes outworn, and loses functionality (as when buttons fall off, seams come undone, fabrics thin or tear, and zippers fail).
+
+Often, people wear an item of clothing until it falls apart. Some materials present problems. Cleaning leather is difficult, and bark cloth (tapa) cannot be washed without dissolving it. Owners may patch tears and rips, and brush off surface dirt, but materials like these inevitably age.
+
+However, most clothing consists of cloth, and most cloth can be laundered and mended (patching, darning, but compare felt).
+
+Humans have developed many specialized methods for laundering, ranging from early methods of pounding clothes against rocks in running streams, to the latest in electronic washing machines and dry cleaning (dissolving dirt in solvents other than water). Hot water washing (boiling), chemical cleaning and ironing are all traditional methods of sterilizing fabrics for hygiene purposes.
+
+Many kinds of clothing are designed to be ironed before they are worn to remove wrinkles. Most modern formal and semi-formal clothing is in this category (for example, dress shirts and suits). Ironed clothes are believed to look clean, fresh, and neat. Much contemporary casual clothing is made of knit materials that do not readily wrinkle, and do not require ironing. Some clothing is permanent press, having been treated with a coating (such as polytetrafluoroethylene) that suppresses wrinkles and creates a smooth appearance without ironing.
+
+Once clothes have been laundered and possibly ironed, they are usually hung on clothes hangers or folded, to keep them fresh until they are worn. Clothes are folded to allow them to be stored compactly, to prevent creasing, to preserve creases or to present them in a more pleasing manner, for instance when they are put on sale in stores.
+
+Certain types of insects and larvae feed on clothing and textiles, such as the Black carpet beetle and Clothing moths. To deter such pests, clothes may be stored in cedar-lined closets[19] or chests, or placed in drawers or containers with materials having pest repellent properties, such as Lavender or mothballs. Airtight containers (such as sealed, heavy-duty plastic bags) may also deter insect pest damage to clothing materials.
+
+A resin used for making non-wrinkle shirts releases formaldehyde, which could cause contact dermatitis for some people; no disclosure requirements exist, and in 2008 the U.S. Government Accountability Office tested formaldehyde in clothing and found that generally the highest levels were in non-wrinkle shirts and pants.[20] In 1999, a study of the effect of washing on the formaldehyde levels found that after 6 months after washing, 7 of 27 shirts had levels in excess of 75 ppm, which is a safe limit for direct skin exposure.[21]
+
+When the raw material – cloth – was worth more than labor, it made sense to expend labor in saving it. In past times, mending was an art. A meticulous tailor or seamstress could mend rips with thread raveled from hems and seam edges so skillfully that the tear was practically invisible. Today clothing is considered a consumable item. Mass-manufactured clothing is less expensive than the labor required to repair it. Many people buy a new piece of clothing rather than spend time mending. The thrifty still replace zippers and buttons and sew up ripped hems.
+
+Used, unwearable clothing can be repurposed for quilts, rags, rugs, bandages, and many other household uses. Neutral colored or undyed cellulose fibers can be recycled into paper. In Western societies, used clothing is often thrown out or donated to charity (such as through a clothing bin). It is also sold to consignment shops, dress agencies, flea markets, and in online auctions. Used clothing is also often collected on an industrial scale to be sorted and shipped for re-use in poorer countries.  Globally, used clothes are worth $4 billion[22] with the US as the leading exporter at $575 million.[23]
+
+There are many concerns about the life cycle of synthetics, which come primarily from petrochemicals.[weasel words] Unlike natural fibers, their source is not renewable and they are not biodegradable.[24]
+
+Excess inventory of clothing is sometimes destroyed to preserve brand value.[25]
+
+EU Member States import, in 2018 €166 billion of clothes; 51% come from outside the EU €84 billion.
+
+EU member states exported €116 billion of clothes in 2018, including 77% to other EU member states.

en/2359.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,51 @@
+
+
+An axe (sometimes ax in American English; see spelling differences) is an implement that has been used for millennia to shape, split and cut wood, to harvest timber, as a weapon, and as a ceremonial or heraldic symbol. The axe has many forms and specialised uses but generally consists of an axe head with a handle, or helve.
+
+Before the modern axe, the stone-age hand axe was used from 1.5 million years[citation needed] BP without a handle. It was later fastened to a wooden handle. The earliest examples of handled axes have heads of stone with some form of wooden handle attached (hafted) in a method to suit the available materials and use. Axes made of copper, bronze, iron and steel appeared as these technologies developed. Axes are usually composed of a head and a handle.
+
+The axe is an example of a simple machine, as it is a type of wedge, or dual inclined plane. This reduces the effort needed by the wood chopper. It splits the wood into two parts by the pressure concentration at the blade. The handle of the axe also acts as a lever allowing the user to increase the force at the cutting edge—not using the full length of the handle is known as choking the axe. For fine chopping using a side axe this sometimes is a positive effect, but for felling with a double bitted axe it reduces efficiency.
+
+Generally, cutting axes have a shallow wedge angle, whereas splitting axes have a deeper angle. Most axes are double bevelled, i.e. symmetrical about the axis of the blade, but some specialist broadaxes have a single bevel blade, and usually an offset handle that allows them to be used for finishing work without putting the user's knuckles at risk of injury. Less common today, they were once an integral part of a joiner and carpenter's tool kit, not just a tool for use in forestry. A tool of similar origin is the billhook.
+
+Most modern axes have steel heads and wooden handles, typically hickory in the US and ash in Europe and Asia, although plastic or fibreglass handles are also common. Modern axes are specialised by use, size and form. Hafted axes with short handles designed for use with one hand are often called hand axes but the term hand axe refers to axes without handles as well. Hatchets tend to be small hafted axes often with a hammer on the back side (the poll). As easy-to-make weapons, axes have frequently been used in combat.
+
+Initially axes were tools of stone called hand axes, used without handles (hafts), and had knapped (chipped) cutting edges of flint or other stone. Stone axes made with ground cutting edges were first developed sometime in the late Pleistocene in Australia, where ground-edge axe fragments from sites in Arnhem Land date back at least 44,000 years;[1][2] ground-edge axes were later invented independently in Japan some time around 38,000 BP, and are known from several Upper Palaeolithic sites on the islands of Honshu and Kyushu.[3] In Europe, however, the innovation of ground edges occurred much later, in the Neolithic period ending 4,000 to 2,000 BC. The first true hafted axes are known from the Mesolithic period (c. 6000 BC). Few wooden hafts have been found from this period, but it seems that the axe was normally hafted by wedging. Birch-tar and rawhide lashings were used to fix the blade.
+
+Sometimes a short section of deer antler (an "antler sleeve") was used,[citation needed] which prevented the splitting of the haft and softened the impact on the stone blade itself, helping absorb the impact of each axe-blow and lessening the chances of breaking the handle. The antler was hollowed out at one end to create a socket for the axehead. The antler sheath was then either perforated and a handle inserted into it or set in a hole made in the handle instead.
+
+The distribution of stone axes is an important indication of prehistoric trade.[original research?] Thin sectioning is used to determine the provenance of the stone blades. In Europe, Neolithic "axe factories", where thousands of ground stone axes were roughed out, are known from many places, such as:
+
+Stone axes are still produced and in use today in parts of Papua, Indonesia. The Mount Hagen area of Papua New Guinea was an important production centre.
+
+From the late Neolithic/Chalcolithic onwards, axes were made of copper or copper mixed with arsenic. These axes were flat and hafted much like their stone predecessors. Axes continued to be made in this manner with the introduction of Bronze metallurgy. Eventually the hafting method changed and the flat axe developed into the "flanged axe", then palstaves, and later winged and socketed axes.
+
+The Proto-Indo-European word for "axe" may have been *pelek'u- (Greek pelekus πέλεκυς, Sanskrit parashu, see also Parashurama), but the word was probably a loan, or a Neolithic wanderwort, ultimately related to Sumerian balag, Akkadian pilaku-.[citation needed]
+
+At least since the late Neolithic, elaborate axes (battle-axes, T-axes, etc.) had a religious significance and probably indicated the exalted status of their owner. Certain types almost never show traces of wear; deposits of unshafted axe blades from the middle Neolithic (such as at the Somerset Levels in Britain) may have been gifts to the deities.
+
+In Minoan Crete, the double axe (labrys) had a special significance, used by priestesses in religious ceremonies. The symbol refers to deification ceremonies; part of the leaping over the bull symbol also found at Crete; whereby aspirant becomes able to speak as a god to create any reality; the symbol being a sky map.[citation needed]
+
+In 1998 a labrys, complete with an elaborately embellished haft, was found at Cham-Eslen, Canton of Zug, Switzerland. The haft was 120 cm long and wrapped in ornamented birch-bark. The axe blade is 17.4 cm long and made of antigorite, mined in the Gotthard-area. The haft goes through a biconical drilled hole and is fastened by wedges of antler and by birch-tar. It belongs to the early Cortaillod culture.
+
+In folklore, stone axes were sometimes believed to be thunderbolts and were used to guard buildings against lightning, as it was believed (mythically) that lightning never struck the same place twice. This has caused some skewing of axe distributions.
+
+Steel axes were important in superstition as well. A thrown axe could keep off a hailstorm, sometimes an axe was placed in the crops, with the cutting edge to the skies to protect the harvest against bad weather. An upright axe buried under the sill of a house would keep off witches, while an axe under the bed would assure male offspring.
+
+Basques, Australians and New Zealanders have developed variants of rural sports that perpetuate the traditions of log cutting with axe. The Basque variants, splitting horizontally or vertically disposed logs, are generically called aizkolaritza (from aizkora: axe).[4]
+
+In Yorùbá mythology, the oshe (double-headed axe) symbolises Shango, Orisha (god) of thunder and lightning. It is said to represent swift and balanced justice. Shango altars often contain a carved figure of a woman holding a gift to the god with a double-bladed axe sticking up from her head.
+
+The Arkalochori Axe is a bronze, Minoan, axe from the second millennium BC thought to be used for religious purposes. Inscriptions on this axe have been compared with other ancient writing systems.
+
+The axe has two primary components: the axe head, and the haft.
+
+The axe head is typically bounded by the bit (or blade) at one end, and the poll (or butt) at the other, though some designs feature two bits opposite each other. The top corner of the bit where the cutting edge begins is called the toe, and the bottom corner is known as the heel. Either side of the head is called the cheek, which is sometimes supplemented by lugs where the head meets the haft, and the hole where the haft is mounted is called the eye. The part of the bit that descends below the rest of the axe-head is called the beard, and a bearded axe is an antiquated axe head with an exaggerated beard that can sometimes extend the cutting edge twice the height of the rest of the head.
+
+The axe haft is sometimes called the handle. Traditionally, it was made of a resilient hardwood like hickory or ash, but modern axes often have hafts made of durable synthetic materials. Antique axes and their modern reproductions, like the tomahawk, often had a simple, straight haft with a circular cross-section that wedged onto the axe-head without the aid of wedges or pins. Modern hafts are curved for better grip and to aid in the swinging motion, and are mounted securely to the head. The shoulder is where the head mounts onto the haft, and this is either a long oval or rectangular cross-section of the haft that is secured to the axe head with small metal or wooden wedges. The belly of the haft is the longest part, where it bows in gently, and the throat is where it curves sharply down to the short grip, just before the end of the haft, which is known as the knob.
+
+Climbing axes from circa 1872
+
+Firefighter with a fire axe
+
+Hammer axes (or axe-hammers) typically feature an extended poll, opposite the blade, shaped and sometimes hardened for use as a hammer. The name axe-hammer is often applied to a characteristic shape of perforated stone axe used in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. Iron axe-hammers are found in Roman military contexts, e.g. Cramond, Edinburgh, and South Shields, Tyne and Wear.[citation needed]

en/236.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,179 @@
+
+
+
+
+Angela Dorothea Merkel[a] (née Kasner; born 17 July 1954) is a German politician who has been Chancellor of Germany since 2005. She served as the Leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 2000 to 2018.[10] Merkel has been widely described as the de facto leader of the European Union, the most powerful woman in the world, and by some commentators as the "leader of the free world".[11][12][13]
+
+Merkel was born in Hamburg in then-West Germany, moving to East Germany as an infant when her father, a Lutheran clergyman, received a pastorate in Perleberg. She obtained a doctorate in quantum chemistry in 1986 and worked as a research scientist until 1989.[14] Merkel entered politics in the wake of the Revolutions of 1989, briefly serving as deputy spokesperson for the first democratically elected East German Government led by Lothar de Maizière. Following German reunification in 1990, Merkel was elected to the Bundestag for the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. As the protégée of Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Merkel was appointed as Minister for Women and Youth in 1991, later becoming Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety in 1994. After the CDU lost the 1998 federal election, Merkel was elected CDU General Secretary, before becoming the party's first female leader two years later in the aftermath of a donations scandal that toppled Wolfgang Schäuble.
+
+Following the 2005 federal election, Merkel was appointed the first female Chancellor of Germany, leading a grand coalition consisting of the CDU, its Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU) and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). At the 2009 federal election, the CDU obtained the largest share of the vote, and Merkel was able to form a coalition government with the Free Democratic Party (FDP).[15] In the 2013 federal election, Merkel's CDU won a landslide victory with 41.5% of the vote and formed a second grand coalition with the SPD, after the FDP lost all of its representation in the Bundestag.[16] At the 2017 federal election, Merkel led the CDU to become the largest party for the fourth time, and was sworn in for a joint-record fourth term as Chancellor on 14 March 2018.[17]
+
+In 2007, Merkel served as President of the European Council and played a central role in the negotiation of the Treaty of Lisbon and the Berlin Declaration. One of Merkel's consistent priorities has been to strengthen transatlantic economic relations. Merkel played a crucial role in managing the financial crisis at the European and international level, and she has been referred to as "the decider". In domestic policy, health care reform, problems concerning future energy development and more recently her government's approach to the ongoing migrant crisis have been major issues during her chancellorship.[18] She has served as senior G7 leader since 2014, and previously from 2011 to 2012. In 2014 she became the longest-serving incumbent head of government in the European Union. In October 2018, Merkel announced that she would stand down as Leader of the CDU at the party convention in December 2018, and would not seek a fifth term as Chancellor in 2021.[19]
+
+Revolution of 1989
+
+Kohl Administration
+
+Leader of the Christian Democratic Union
+
+First Ministry and term
+
+Second Ministry and term
+
+Third Ministry and term
+
+Fourth Ministry and term
+
+
+
+Merkel was born Angela Dorothea Kasner in 1954, in Hamburg, West Germany, the daughter of Horst Kasner (1926–2011; né Kaźmierczak),[20][21] a Lutheran pastor and a native of Berlin, and his wife Herlind (1928–2019; née Jentzsch), born in Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland), a teacher of English and Latin. She has two younger siblings, Marcus Kasner, a physicist, and Irene Kasner, an occupational therapist. In her childhood and youth, Merkel was known among her peers by the nickname "Kasi", derived from her last name Kasner.[22]
+
+Merkel is of German and Polish descent. Her paternal grandfather, Ludwik Kasner, was a German policeman of Polish ethnicity, who had taken part in Poland's struggle for independence in the early 20th century.[23] He married Merkel's grandmother Margarethe, a German from Berlin, and relocated to her hometown where he worked in the police. In 1930, they Germanized the Polish name Kaźmierczak to Kasner.[24][25][26][27] Merkel's maternal grandparents were the Danzig politician Willi Jentzsch, and Gertrud Alma née Drange, a daughter of the city clerk of Elbing (now Elbląg, Poland) Emil Drange. Since the mid 1990s, Merkel has publicly mentioned her Polish heritage on several occasions and described herself as a quarter Polish, but her Polish roots became better known as a result of a 2013 biography.[28]
+
+Religion played a key role in the Kasner family's migration from West Germany to East Germany.[29] Merkel's paternal grandfather was originally Catholic but the entire family converted to Lutheranism during the childhood of her father,[25] who later studied Lutheran theology in Heidelberg and Hamburg. In 1954, when Angela was just three months old, her father received a pastorate at the church in Quitzow [de] (a quarter of Perleberg in Brandenburg), which was then in East Germany. The family moved to Templin and Merkel grew up in the countryside 90 km (56 mi) north of East Berlin.[30]
+
+In 1968, Merkel joined the Free German Youth (FDJ), the official communist youth movement sponsored by the ruling Marxist–Leninist Socialist Unity Party of Germany.[31][32][33] Membership was nominally voluntary, but those who did not join found it difficult to gain admission to higher education.[34] She did not participate in the secular coming of age ceremony Jugendweihe, however, which was common in East Germany. Instead, she was confirmed.[35] During this time, she participated in several compulsory courses on Marxism-Leninism with her grades only being regarded as "sufficient".[36] Merkel later said that "Life in the GDR was sometimes almost comfortable in a certain way, because there were some things one simply couldn't influence."[37]
+
+Merkel was educated at Karl Marx University, Leipzig, where she studied physics from 1973 to 1978.[30] While a student, she participated in the reconstruction of the ruin of the Moritzbastei, a project students initiated to create their own club and recreation facility on campus. Such an initiative was unprecedented in the GDR of that period, and initially resisted by the University; however, with backing of the local leadership of the SED party, the project was allowed to proceed.[38] At school she learned to speak Russian fluently, and was awarded prizes for her proficiency in Russian and mathematics. She was the best in her class in mathematics and Russian, and completed her school education with the best possible average Abitur grade 1.0.[39]
+
+Near the end of her studies, Merkel sought an assistant professorship at an engineering school. As a condition for getting the job, Merkel was told she would need to agree to report on her colleagues to officers of the Ministry for State Security (Stasi). Merkel declined, using the excuse that she could not keep secrets well enough to be an effective spy.[40]
+
+Merkel worked and studied at the Central Institute for Physical Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences in Berlin-Adlershof from 1978 to 1990. At first she and her husband squatted in Mitte.[41] At the Academy of Sciences, she became a member of its FDJ secretariat. According to her former colleagues, she openly propagated Marxism as the secretary for "Agitation and Propaganda".[42] However, Merkel has denied this claim and stated that she was secretary for culture, which involved activities like obtaining theatre tickets and organising talks by visiting Soviet authors.[43] She stated: "I can only rely on my memory, if something turns out to be different, I can live with that."[42]
+
+After being awarded a doctorate (Dr. rer. nat.) for her thesis on quantum chemistry in 1986,[44] she worked as a researcher and published several papers.[45] In 1986, she was able to travel freely to West Germany to attend a congress; she also participated in a multi-week language course in Donetsk, in the then-Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.[46]
+
+The fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 served as the catalyst for Merkel's political career. Although she did not participate in the crowd celebrations the night the wall came down, one month later Merkel became involved in the growing democracy movement, joining the new party Democratic Awakening.[47] Following the first (and only) multi-party election in East Germany, she became the deputy spokesperson of the new pre-unification caretaker government under Lothar de Maizière.[48] Merkel had impressed de Maiziere with her adept dealing with journalists questioning the role of a party leader, Wolfgang Schnur, as an "informal co-worker" with the homeland security services.[40][47] In April 1990, Democratic Awakening merged with the East German Christian Democratic Union, which in turn merged with its western counterpart after reunification.
+
+In the German federal election of 1990, the first to be held following reunification, Merkel successfully stood for election to the Bundestag in the parliamentary constituency of Stralsund – Nordvorpommern – Rügen in north Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.[49] She has won re-election from this constituency (renamed, with slightly adjusted borders, Vorpommern-Rügen – Vorpommern-Greifswald I in 2003) at the seven federal elections held since then. Almost immediately following her entry into parliament, Merkel was appointed by Chancellor Helmut Kohl to serve as Minister for Women and Youth in the federal cabinet.[11][50] In 1994, she was promoted to the position of Minister for the Environment and Nuclear Safety, which gave her greater political visibility and a platform on which to build her personal political career. As one of Kohl's protégées and his youngest Cabinet Minister, she was frequently referred to by Kohl as "mein Mädchen" ("my girl").[51]
+
+After the Kohl Government was defeated at the 1998 election, Merkel was appointed Secretary-General of the CDU,[50] a key position as the party was no longer part of the federal government.[citation needed] Merkel oversaw a string of CDU election victories in six out of seven state elections in 1999, breaking the long-standing SPD-Green hold on the Bundesrat. Following a party funding scandal that compromised many leading figures of the CDU – including Kohl himself and his successor as CDU Leader, Wolfgang Schäuble – Merkel criticised her former mentor publicly and advocated a fresh start for the party without him.[50] She was subsequently elected to replace Schäuble, becoming the first female leader of a German party on 10 April 2000.[52] Her election surprised many observers, as her personality offered a contrast to the party she had been elected to lead; Merkel is a centrist Protestant originating from predominantly Protestant northern Germany, while the CDU is a male-dominated, socially conservative party with strongholds in western and southern Germany, and its Bavarian sister party, the CSU, has deep Catholic roots.
+
+Following Merkel's election as CDU Leader, the CDU was not able to win in subsequent state elections. As early as February 2001 her rival Friedrich Merz had made clear he intended to become Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's main challenger in the 2002 election. Merkel's own ambition to become Chancellor was well-known, but she lacked the support of most Minister-presidents and other grandees within her own party. She was subsequently outmaneuvered politically by CSU Leader Edmund Stoiber, to whom she eventually ceded the privilege of challenging Schröder.[53] He went on to squander a large lead in opinion polls to lose the election by a razor-thin margin in an election campaign that was dominated by the Iraq War. While Chancellor Schröder made clear he would not join the war in Iraq,[54] Merkel and the CDU-CSU supported the invasion of Iraq. After Stoiber's defeat in 2002, in addition to her role as CDU Leader, Merkel became Leader of the Opposition in the Bundestag; Friedrich Merz, who had held the post prior to the 2002 election, was eased out to make way for Merkel.[55]
+
+Merkel supported a substantial reform agenda for Germany's economic and social system, and was considered more pro-market than her own party (the CDU). She advocated German labour law changes, specifically removing barriers to laying off employees and increasing the allowed number of work hours in a week. She argued that existing laws made the country less competitive, because companies could not easily control labour costs when business is slow.[56]
+
+Merkel argued that Germany should phase out nuclear power less quickly than the Schröder administration had planned.[57][58]
+
+Merkel advocated a strong transatlantic partnership and German-American friendship. In the spring of 2003, defying strong public opposition, Merkel came out in favour of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, describing it as "unavoidable" and accusing Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of anti-Americanism. She criticised the government's support for the accession of Turkey to the European Union and favoured a "privileged partnership" instead. In doing so, she reflected public opinion that grew more hostile toward Turkish membership of the European Union.[59]
+
+On 30 May 2005, Merkel won the CDU/CSU nomination as challenger to Chancellor Gerhard Schröder of the SPD in the 2005 national elections. Her party began the campaign with a 21-point lead over the SPD in national opinion polls, although her personal popularity lagged behind that of the incumbent. However, the CDU/CSU campaign suffered[60] when Merkel, having made economic competence central to the CDU's platform, confused gross and net income twice during a televised debate.[61] She regained some momentum after she announced that she would appoint Paul Kirchhof, a former judge at the German Constitutional Court and leading fiscal policy expert, as Minister of Finance.[60]
+
+Merkel and the CDU lost ground after Kirchhof proposed the introduction of a flat tax in Germany, again undermining the party's broad appeal on economic affairs and convincing many voters that the CDU's platform of deregulation[citation needed] was designed to benefit only the rich.[62] This was compounded by Merkel's proposal to increase VAT[63] to reduce Germany's deficit and fill the gap in revenue from a flat tax. The SPD were able to increase their support simply by pledging not to introduce flat taxes or increase VAT.[citation needed] Although Merkel's standing recovered after she distanced herself from Kirchhof's proposals, she remained considerably less popular than Schröder,[citation needed] and the CDU's lead was down to 9% on the eve of the election.[64]
+
+On the eve of the election, Merkel was still favored to win a decisive victory based on opinion polls.[65] On 18 September 2005, Merkel's CDU/CSU and Schröder's SPD went head-to-head in the national elections, with the CDU/CSU winning 35.2% (CDU 27.8%/CSU 7.5%)[citation needed] of the second votes to the SPD's 34.2%.[65] The result was so close, both Schröder and Merkel claimed victory.[50][65] Neither the SPD-Green coalition nor the CDU/CSU and its preferred coalition partners, the Free Democratic Party, held enough seats to form a majority in the Bundestag.[65] A grand coalition between the CDU/CSU and SPD faced the challenge that both parties demanded the chancellorship.[65][66] However, after three weeks of negotiations, the two parties reached a deal whereby Merkel would become Chancellor and the SPD would hold 8 of the 16 seats in the cabinet.[66]
+
+On 22 November 2005, Merkel assumed the office of Chancellor of Germany following a stalemate election that resulted in a grand coalition with the SPD. The coalition deal was approved by both parties at party conferences on 14 November 2005.[67] Merkel was elected Chancellor by the majority of delegates (397 to 217) in the newly assembled Bundestag on 22 November 2005, but 51 members of the governing coalition voted against her.[68]
+
+Reports at the time indicated that the grand coalition would pursue a mix of policies, some of which differed from Merkel's political platform as leader of the opposition and candidate for Chancellor. The coalition's intent was to cut public spending whilst increasing VAT (from 16 to 19%), social insurance contributions and the top rate of income tax.[69]
+
+When announcing the coalition agreement, Merkel stated that the main aim of her government would be to reduce unemployment, and that it was this issue on which her government would be judged.[70]
+
+Her party was re-elected in 2009 with an increased number of seats, and could form a governing coalition with the FDP.
+This term was overshadowed by the European debt crisis. Conscription in Germany was abolished and the Bundeswehr became a Volunteer military. Unemployment sank below the mark of 3 million unemployed people.[71]
+
+In the election of September 2013 the CDU/CSU parties emerged as winners, but formed another grand coalition with the SPD due to the FDP's failure to obtain the minimum of 5% of votes required to enter parliament.[16][72]
+
+In the 2017 election, Merkel led her party to victory for the fourth time. Both CDU/CSU and SPD received a significantly lower proportion of the vote than they did in the 2013 election, and attempted to form a coalition with the FDP and Greens.[73][74] The collapse of these talks led to stalemate.[75] The German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier subsequently appealed successfully to the SPD to change their hard stance and to agree a 3rd grand coalition with the CDU/CSU.[76]
+
+In 2019 media speculation persists that Merkel's successor as party leader, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, may take over Merkel's position as chancellor sooner than planned if the current governing coalition proves unsustainable.[77][78]   The possibility is neither confirmed nor denied by the party.[79] In February 2020, Kramp-Karrenbauer announced that she would resign as party leader of the CDU in the summer, after party members in Thuringia defied her by voting with Alternative for Germany to support a FDP-candidate for minister-president.[80]
+
+In October 2010, Merkel told a meeting of younger members of her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party at Potsdam that attempts to build a multicultural society in Germany had "utterly failed",[81] stating that: "The concept that we are now living side by side and are happy about it" does not work[82] and "we feel attached to the Christian concept of mankind, that is what defines us. Anyone who doesn't accept that is in the wrong place here".[83] She continued to say that immigrants should integrate and adopt Germany's culture and values. This has added to a growing debate within Germany[84] on the levels of immigration, its effect on Germany and the degree to which Muslim immigrants have integrated into German society.
+
+Late August 2015, Chancellor Merkel announced that Germany would also process asylum applications from Syrian refugees if they had come to Germany through other EU countries.[85] That year, nearly 1.1 million asylum seekers entered Germany.
+
+On 1 July 2018, German Interior minister Horst Seehofer offered to resign after rejecting Chancellor Angela Merkel's EU migration deal.[86][87][88] He later walked back from this statement.
+
+On April 6, 2020, Merkel stated: "In my view... the European Union is facing the biggest test since its foundation and member states must show greater solidarity so that the bloc can emerge stronger from the economic crisis unleashed by the pandemic".[89] Merkel has won international plaudits for her handling of the pandemic in Germany.[90][91]
+
+Merkel's foreign policy has focused on strengthening European cooperation and international trade agreements. Merkel has been widely described as the de facto leader of the European Union throughout her tenure as Chancellor.
+
+One of Merkel's priorities was strengthening transatlantic economic relations. She signed the agreement for the Transatlantic Economic Council on 30 April 2007 at the White House.[92] Merkel enjoyed good relations with U.S. Presidents George W. Bush, and Barack Obama.[93] Obama described her in 2016 as his "closest international partner" throughout his tenure as President.[94]
+
+On 25 September 2007, Merkel met the 14th Dalai Lama for "private and informal talks" in the Chancellery in Berlin amid protest from China. China afterwards cancelled separate talks with German officials, including talks with Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries.[95]
+
+In 2006, Merkel expressed concern about overreliance on Russian energy, but she received little support from others in Berlin.[96]
+
+Merkel favors the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union; but stated in December 2012 that its implementation depends on reforms in Ukraine.[97]
+
+Merkel expressed support for Israel's right to defend itself during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. She telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on 9 July to condemn "without reservation rocket fire on Israel".[98]
+
+In recognition of the importance of China to the German economy, by 2014 Merkel had led seven trade delegations to China since assuming office in 2005. The same year, in March, China's President Xi Jinping visited Germany.[99]
+
+In 2015, with the absence of Stephen Harper, Merkel became the only leader to have attended every G20 meeting since the very first in 2008, having been present at a record fourteen summits as of 2019. She hosted the twelfth meeting at the 2017 G20 Hamburg summit.[100]
+
+In June 2017, Merkel criticized the draft of new U.S. sanctions against Russia that target EU–Russia energy projects, including Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.[101]
+
+In June 2018, Merkel said that there had been "no moral or political justification" for the post-war expulsion of ethnic Germans from Central and Eastern European countries.[102]
+
+During the financial crisis of 2007–2008, the German government stepped in to assist the mortgage company Hypo Real Estate with a bailout, which was agreed on 6 October, with German banks to contribute €30 billion and the Bundesbank €20 billion to a credit line.[103]
+
+On 4 October 2008, following the Irish Government's decision to guarantee all deposits in private savings accounts, a move she strongly criticised,[104] Merkel said there were no plans for the German Government to do the same. The following day, Merkel stated that the government would guarantee private savings account deposits, after all.[105] However, two days later, on 6 October 2008, it emerged that the pledge was simply a political move that would not be backed by legislation.[106] Other European governments eventually either raised the limits or promised to guarantee savings in full.[106]
+
+At the World Economic Forum in Davos, 2013, she said that Europe had only 7% of the global population and produced only 25% of the global GDP, but that it accounted for almost 50% of global social expenditure. She went on to say that Europe could only maintain its prosperity by being innovative and measuring itself against the best.[107] Since then, this comparison has become a central element in major speeches.[108] The international financial press has widely commented on her thesis, with The Economist saying that:
+
+If Mrs Merkel's vision is pragmatic, so too is her plan for implementing it. It can be boiled down to three statistics, a few charts and some facts on an A4 sheet of paper. The three figures are 7%, 25% and 50%. Mrs Merkel never tires of saying that Europe has 7% of the world's population, 25% of its GDP and 50% of its social spending. If the region is to prosper in competition with emerging countries, it cannot continue to be so generous.[109]
+
+adding that:
+
+She produces graphs of unit labour costs ... at EU meetings in much the same way that the late Margaret Thatcher used to pull passages from Friedrich Hayek's Road to Serfdom from her handbag.[109]
+
+The Financial Times commented:
+
+Although Ms Merkel stopped short of suggesting that a ceiling on social spending might be one yardstick for measuring competitiveness, she hinted as much in the light of soaring social spending in the face of an ageing population.[110][b]
+
+The first cabinet of Angela Merkel was sworn in at 16:00 CET on 22 November 2005. On 31 October 2005, after the defeat of his favoured candidate for the position of Secretary General of the SPD, Franz Müntefering indicated that he would resign as party chairman, which he did in November. Ostensibly responding to this, Edmund Stoiber (CSU), who was originally nominated as Minister for Economics and Technology, announced his withdrawal on 1 November 2005. While this was initially seen as a blow to Merkel's attempt at forming a viable coalition, the manner in which Stoiber withdrew earned him much ridicule and severely undermined his position as a Merkel rival. Separate conferences of the CDU, CSU, and SPD approved the proposed Cabinet on 14 November 2005. The second Cabinet of Angela Merkel was sworn in on 28 October 2009.[111]
+
+In 2013, Merkel won one of the most decisive victories in German history, achieving the best result for the CDU/CSU since reunification and coming within five seats of the first absolute majority in the Bundestag since 1957.[112] However, with their preferred coalition partner, the FDP, failing to enter parliament for the first time since 1949, the CDU/CSU turned to the SPD to form the third grand coalition in postwar German history and the second under Merkel's leadership. The third Cabinet of Angela Merkel was sworn in on 17 December 2013.[113]
+
+The fourth cabinet of Angela Merkel is the current government of Germany, and was sworn in on 14 March 2018 after.[114] The negotiations that led to a Grand Coalition agreement with the Social Democracts (SPD) were the longest in German post-war history, lasting almost six months.[115][116]
+
+Midway through her second term, Merkel's approval plummeted in Germany, resulting in heavy losses in state elections for her party.[117] An August 2011 poll found her coalition had only 36% support compared to a rival potential coalition's 51%.[118] However, she scored well on her handling of the recent euro crisis (69% rated her performance as good rather than poor), and her approval rating reached an all-time high of 77% in February 2012 and again in July 2014.[119] Merkel's approval rating dropped to 54% in October 2015, during the European migrant crisis, the lowest since 2011.[120] According to a poll conducted after terror attacks in Germany Merkel's approval rating dropped to 47% (August 2016).[121] Half of Germans did not want her to serve a fourth term in office compared to 42% in favor.[122] However, according to a poll taken in October 2016, her approval rating had been found to have risen again, 54% of Germans were found to be satisfied with work of Merkel as Chancellor.[123] According to another poll taken in November 2016, 59% were to found to be in favour of a renewed Chancellor candidature of Merkel in 2017.[124] According to a poll carried out just days after the 2016 Berlin attack, in which it was asked which political leader(s) Germans trust to solve their country's problems; 56% named Merkel, 39% Seehofer (CSU), 35% Gabriel (SPD), 32% Schulz (SPD), 25% Özdemir (Greens), 20% Wagenknecht (Left Party), 15% Lindner (FDP), and just 10% for Petry (AfD).[125] A YouGov survey published in late December 2017 found that just 36 percent of all respondents wanted Merkel to stay at the helm until 2021, while half of those surveyed voters called for a change at the top before the end of the legislature.[126] By 2019 this had again changed, with now 67% of Germans wanting Merkel to stay till the end of her term in 2021 and only 29% wanting her to step down earlier.[127]
+
+Merkel has been widely described as the de facto leader of the European Union throughout her tenure as Chancellor. Merkel has twice been named the world's second most powerful person following Vladimir Putin by Forbes magazine, the highest ranking ever achieved by a woman.[128][129][130][131][132] On 26 March 2014, Merkel became the longest-serving incumbent head of government in the European Union. In December 2015, Merkel was named as Time magazine's Person of the Year, with the magazine's cover declaring her to be the "Chancellor of the Free World".[133]  In 2018, Merkel was named the most powerful woman in the world for a record fourteenth time by Forbes.[134] Following the election of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency in November 2016, Merkel was described by The New York Times as "the Liberal West's Last Defender".[135] Since 2016 she has been described by some commentators as the "leader of the free world".[136][137][138][139] Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described Merkel in 2017 as "the most important leader in the free world",[140] She is currently the senior G7 leader. The Atlantic described her in 2019 as "the world's most successful living politician, on the basis of both achievement and longevity".[141] She was found in a 2018 survey to be the most respected world leader internationally.[142] She was named as Harvard University's commencement speaker in 2019; Harvard University President Larry Bacow described her as "one of the most widely admired and broadly influential statespeople of our time".[143] Views both domestic and abroad have often been divisive and critical however, particularly of her migrant policies and attitude towards NATO contributions.[144][145][146][147][148]
+
+On 29 October 2018, Merkel announced that she would not seek reelection as leader of CDU at their party conference in December 2018, but intended to remain as chancellor until 2021, when the next German federal election, at the latest, is to be held. She stated that she does not plan to seek any political office after this. The resignations followed October setbacks for the CSU in the Bavarian state election and for the CDU in the Hessian state election.[19][149] She decided not to suggest any person as her successor as leader of the CDU.[150] However, political observers have long considered Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer as Merkel's protégé groomed for succession. This view was confirmed when Kramp-Karrenbauer – widely seen as the chancellor's favourite for the post – was voted to succeed Merkel as leader of the CDU in December 2018.[151] Kramp-Karrenbauer's elevation to Defence Minister after Ursula von der Leyen's departure to become president of the European Commission has also boosted her standing as Merkel's most likely candidate for succession.[152] In August 2019, Merkel hinted that she might return to academia at the end of her term in 2021.[153]
+
+In 1977, at the age of 23, Merkel, then Angela Kasner, married physics student Ulrich Merkel (born 1953)[154] and took his surname. The marriage ended in divorce in 1982.[155] Her second and current husband is quantum chemist and professor Joachim Sauer, who has largely remained out of the media spotlight. They first met in 1981,[156] became a couple later and married privately on 30 December 1998.[157] She has no children, but Sauer has two adult sons from a previous marriage.[158]
+
+Merkel is a fervent football fan and has been known to listen to games while in the Bundestag and to attend games of the national team in her official capacity.[159][160] Merkel stated that her favorite movie is The Legend of Paul and Paula, an East German movie released in 1973.[161]
+
+Merkel has a fear of dogs after being attacked by one in 1995.[162] Vladimir Putin, in a move reminiscent of Germany's first chancellor, brought in his Labrador Retriever during a press conference in 2007. Putin claims he did not mean to scare her, though Merkel later observed, "I understand why he has to do this – to prove he's a man. ... He's afraid of his own weakness."[162]
+
+Since 2017 Merkel has been seen and filmed to shake visibly on several public occasions, recovering shortly afterwards.[163][164][165] After one such occasion she attributed the shaking to dehydration, saying that she felt better after a drink of water.[166] After three occasions where this happened in June 2019, she began to sit down during the performances of the national anthems during the State visits of Mette Frederiksen and Maia Sandu the following month.
+
+Angela Merkel is a Lutheran member of the Evangelical Church in Berlin, Brandenburg and Silesian Upper Lusatia (German: Evangelische Kirche Berlin-Brandenburg-schlesische Oberlausitz – EKBO), a United Protestant (i.e. both Reformed and Lutheran) church body under the umbrella of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD). The EKBO is a church of the Union of Evangelical Churches.[167] Before the 2004 merger of the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg and the Evangelical Church in Silesian Upper Lusatia (both also being a part of the EKD), she belonged to the former. In 2012, Merkel said, regarding her faith: "I am a member of the evangelical church. I believe in God and religion is also my constant companion, and has been for the whole of my life. We as Christians should above all not be afraid of standing up for our beliefs."[168] She also publicly declared that Germany suffers not from "too much Islam" but "too little Christianity".[169]
+
+As a female politician from a centre-right party who is also a scientist, Merkel has been compared by many in the English-language press to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (Thatcher also had a science degree from Oxford University in chemistry). Some have referred to her as "Iron Lady", "Iron Girl", and even "The Iron Frau", all alluding to Thatcher, whose nickname was "The Iron Lady". Political commentators have debated the precise extent to which their agendas are similar.[205] Later in her tenure, Merkel acquired the nickname "Mutti" (a German familiar form of "mother").
+She has also been called the "Iron Chancellor", in reference to Otto von Bismarck.[206][207]
+
+In addition to being the first female German chancellor, the first to have grown up in the former East Germany (though she was born in the West),[208] and the youngest German chancellor since the Second World War, Merkel is also the first born after World War II, and the first chancellor of the Federal Republic with a background in natural sciences. While she studied physics, her predecessors studied law, business or history, among other professions.
+
+Merkel has been criticised for being personally present and involved at the M100 Media Award handover[209] to Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, who had triggered the Muhammad cartoons controversy. This happened at a time of fierce emotional debate in Germany over a book by the former Deutsche Bundesbank executive and finance senator of Berlin Thilo Sarrazin, which was critical of the Muslim immigration.[210] At the same time she condemned a planned burning of Qurans by a fundamental pastor in Florida.[211] The Central Council of Muslims in Germany[212][213] and the Left Party[214] (Die Linke) as well as the German Green Party[d][215] criticised the action by the centre-right chancellor. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper wrote: "This will probably be the most explosive moment of her chancellorship so far."[216] Others have praised Merkel and called it a brave and bold move for the cause of freedom of speech.
+
+Merkel's position towards the negative statements by Thilo Sarrazin with regard to the integration problems with Arab and Turkish people in Germany has been critical throughout. According to her personal statements, Sarrazin's approach is "totally unacceptable" and counterproductive to the ongoing problems of integration.[217]
+
+The term alternativlos (German for "without an alternative"), which was frequently used by Angela Merkel to describe her measures addressing the European sovereign-debt crisis, was named the Un-word of the Year 2010 by a jury of linguistic scholars. The wording was criticised as undemocratic, as any discussion on Merkel's politics would thus be deemed unnecessary or undesirable.[218] The expression is credited for the name of the political party Alternative for Germany, which was founded in 2013.[219]
+
+In July 2013, Merkel defended the surveillance practices of the National Security Agency, and described the United States as "our truest ally throughout the decades".[220][221] During a visit of U.S. President Barack Obama in Berlin, Merkel said on 19 June 2013 in the context of the 2013 mass surveillance disclosures: "The Internet is uncharted territory for us all" (German: Das Internet ist für uns alle Neuland). This statement led to various internet memes and online mockery of Merkel.[222][223]
+
+Merkel compared the NSA to the Stasi when it became known that her mobile phone was tapped by that agency. In response, Susan Rice pledged that the U.S. will desist from spying on her personally, but said there would not be a no-espionage agreement between the two countries.[224]
+
+In July 2014 Merkel said trust between Germany and the United States could only be restored by talks between the two, and she would seek to have talks. She reiterated the U.S. remained Germany's most important ally.[226]
+
+Her statement "Islam is part of Germany" during a state visit of the Turkish prime minister Ahmet Davutoğlu in January 2015[227] induced criticism within her party. The parliamentary group leader Volker Kauder said that Islam is not part of Germany and that Muslims should deliberate on the question why so many violent people refer to the Quran.[228]
+
+In October 2015, Horst Seehofer, Bavarian State Premier and leader of CSU, the sister party of Merkel's CDU, criticised Merkel's policy of allowing in hundreds of thousands of migrants from the Middle East: "We're now in a state of mind without rules, without system and without order because of a German decision."[229] Seehofer attacked Merkel policies in sharp language, threatened to sue the government in the high court, and hinted that the CSU might topple Merkel. Many MPs of Merkel's CDU party also voiced dissatisfaction with Merkel.[230] Chancellor Merkel insisted that Germany has the economic strength to cope with the influx of migrants and reiterated that there is no legal maximum limit on the number of migrants Germany can take.[231]
+
+At the conclusion of the May 2017 Group of Seven's leaders in Sicily, Merkel criticised American efforts to renege on earlier commitments on climate change.  According to Merkel, the discussions were difficult and marred by dissent. "Here we have the situation where six members, or even seven if you want to add the EU, stand against one."[232]
+
+Since 1991, Merkel has sat annually for sitting and standing portraits by, and interview with, Herlinde Koelbl.[233][234]
+
+Merkel was portrayed by Swiss actress Anna Katarina in the 2012 political satire film The Dictator.[235]
+
+Merkel features as a main character in two of the three plays that make up the Europeans Trilogy (Bruges, Antwerp, Tervuren) by Paris-based UK playwright Nick Awde: Bruges (Edinburgh Festival, 2014) and Tervuren (2016). A character named Merkel, accompanied by a sidekick called Schäuble, also appears as the sinister female henchman in Michael Paraskos's novel In Search of Sixpence.[236]
+
+On the American sketch-comedy Saturday Night Live, she has been parodied by Kate McKinnon since 2013.[237][238][239]
+
+On the British sketch-comedy Tracey Ullman's Show, comedian Tracey Ullman has parodied Merkel to international acclaim with German media dubbing her impersonation as the best spoof of Merkel in the world.[240]
+
+In 2016, a documentary film Angela Merkel – The Unexpected, a story about her unexpected rise to power from an East German physicist to the most powerful woman in the world, was produced by Broadview TV and MDR in collaboration with Arte and Das Erste.[241]

en/2360.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,174 @@
+
+
+Pluto (Latin: Plūtō; Greek: Πλούτων, Ploútōn) was the ruler of the underworld in classical mythology. The earlier name for the god was Hades, which became more common as the name of the underworld itself. In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Pluto represents a more positive concept of the god who presides over the afterlife. Ploutōn was frequently conflated with Ploutos, the Greek god of wealth, because mineral wealth was found underground, and because as a chthonic god Pluto ruled the deep earth that contained the seeds necessary for a bountiful harvest.[1] The name Ploutōn came into widespread usage with the Eleusinian Mysteries, in which Pluto was venerated as both a stern ruler and a loving husband to Persephone. The couple received souls in the afterlife and are invoked together in religious inscriptions, being referred to as Plouton and as Kore respectively. Hades, by contrast, had few temples and religious practices associated with him, and he is portrayed as the dark and violent abductor of Persephone.
+
+Pluto and Hades differ in character, but they are not distinct figures and share two dominant myths. In Greek cosmogony, the god received the rule of the underworld in a three-way division of sovereignty over the world, with his brother Zeus ruling the sky and his other brother Poseidon sovereign over the sea. His central narrative in myth is of him abducting Persephone to be his wife and the queen of his realm.[2] Plouton as the name of the ruler of the underworld first appears in Greek literature of the Classical period, in the works of the Athenian playwrights and of the philosopher Plato, who is the major Greek source on its significance. Under the name Pluto, the god appears in other myths in a secondary role, mostly as the possessor of a quest-object, and especially in the descent of Orpheus or other heroes to the underworld.[3]
+
+Plūtō ([ˈpluːtoː]; genitive Plūtōnis) is the Latinized form of the Greek Plouton. Pluto's Roman equivalent is Dis Pater, whose name is most often taken to mean "Rich Father" and is perhaps a direct translation of Plouton. Pluto was also identified with the obscure Roman Orcus, like Hades the name of both a god of the underworld and the underworld as a place. The borrowed Greek name Pluto is sometimes used for the ruler of the dead in Latin literature, leading some mythology handbooks to assert misleadingly that Pluto was the Roman counterpart of Hades.[4][citation needed] Pluto (Pluton in French and German, Plutone in Italian) becomes the most common name for the classical ruler of the underworld in subsequent Western literature and other art forms.
+
+The name Plouton does not appear in Greek literature of the Archaic period.[5] In Hesiod's Theogony, the six children of Cronus and Rhea are Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Hades, Demeter, and Hestia. The male children divide the world into three realms. Hades takes Persephone by force from her mother Demeter, with the consent of Zeus. Ploutos, "Wealth," appears in the Theogony as the child of Demeter and Iasion: "fine Plutus, who goes upon the whole earth and the broad back of the sea, and whoever meets him and comes into his hands, that man he makes rich, and he bestows much wealth upon him." The union of Demeter and Iasion, described also in the Odyssey,[6] took place in a fallow field that had been ploughed three times, in what seems to be a reference to a ritual copulation or sympathetic magic to ensure the earth's fertility.[7] "The resemblance of the name Ploutos to Plouton ...," it has been noted, "cannot be accidental. Plouton is lord of the dead, but as Persephone's husband he has serious claims to the powers of fertility."[8] Demeter's son Plutus merges in the narrative tradition with her son-in-law Pluto, redefining the implacable chariot-driver Hades whose horses trample the flowering earth.[9]
+
+That the underworld god was associated early on with success in agricultural activity is already evident in Hesiod's Works and Days, line 465-469: "Pray to Zeus of the Earth and to pure Demeter to make Demeter's holy grain sound and heavy, when first you begin ploughing, when you hold in your hand the end of the plough-tail and bring down your stick on the backs of the oxen as they draw on the pole-bar by the yoke-straps."[10]
+
+Plouton was one of several euphemistic names for Hades, described in the Iliad as the god most hateful to mortals.[11] Plato says that people prefer the name Plouton, "giver of wealth," because the name of Hades is fear-provoking.[12] The name was understood as referring to "the boundless riches of the earth, both the crops on its surface—he was originally a god of the land—and the mines hidden within it."[13] What is sometimes taken as "confusion" of the two gods Plouton and Ploutos ("Wealth") held or acquired a theological significance in antiquity. As a lord of abundance or riches, Pluto expresses the aspect of the underworld god that was positive, symbolized in art by the "horn of plenty" (cornucopia),[14] by means of which Plouton is distinguished from the gloomier Hades.[15]
+
+The Roman poet Ennius (ca. 239–169 BC), the leading figure in the Hellenization of Latin literature, considered Pluto a Greek god to be explained in terms of the Roman equivalents Dis Pater and Orcus.[16] It is unclear whether Pluto had a literary presence in Rome before Ennius. Some scholars think that rituals and beliefs pertaining to Pluto entered Roman culture with the establishment of the Saecular Games in 249 BC, and that Dis pater was only a translation of Plouton.[17] In the mid-1st century BC, Cicero identifies Pluto with Dis, explaining that "The earth in all its power and plenty is sacred to Father Dis, a name which is the same as Dives, 'The Wealthy One,' as is the Greek Plouton. This is because everything is born of the earth and returns to it again."[18]
+
+During the Roman Imperial era, the Greek geographer Strabo (1st century AD) makes a distinction between Pluto and Hades. In writing of the mineral wealth of ancient Iberia (Roman Spain), he says that among the Turdetani, it is "Pluto, and not Hades, who inhabits the region down below."[19] In the discourse On Mourning by the Greek author Lucian (2nd century AD), Pluto's "wealth" is the dead he rules over in the abyss (chasma); the name Hades is reserved for the underworld itself.[20]
+
+In Greek religious practice, Pluto is sometimes seen as the "chthonic Zeus" (Zeus Chthonios[21] or Zeus Catachthonios[22]), or at least as having functions or significance equivalent to those of Zeus but pertaining to the earth or underworld.[23] In ancient Roman and Hellenistic religion, Pluto was identified with a number of other deities, including Summanus, the Roman god of nocturnal thunder;[24] Februus, the Roman god from whose purification rites the month of February takes its name;[25] the syncretic god Serapis, regarded as Pluto's Egyptian equivalent;[26] and the Semitic god Muth (Μούθ). Muth was described by Philo of Byblos as the equivalent of both Thanatos (Death personified) and Pluto.[27] The ancient Greeks did not regard Pluto as "death" per se.[28]
+
+The best-known myth involving Pluto or Hades is the abduction of Persephone, also known as Kore ("the Maiden"). The earliest literary versions of the myth are a brief mention in Hesiod's Theogony and the extended narrative of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter; in both these works, the ruler of the underworld is named as Hades ("the Hidden One"). Hades is an unsympathetic figure, and Persephone's unwillingness is emphasized.[29] Increased usage of the name Plouton in religious inscriptions and literary texts reflects the influence of the Eleusinian Mysteries, which treated Pluto and Persephone as a divine couple who received initiates in the afterlife; as such, Pluto was disassociated from the "violent abductor" of Kore.[30] Two early works that give the abductor god's name as Pluto are the Greek mythography traditionally known as the Library of "Apollodorus" (1st century BC)[31] and the Latin Fables of Hyginus (ca. 64 BC–AD 17).[32]
+
+The most influential version of the abduction myth is that of Ovid (d. 17 or 18 AD), who tells the story in both the Metamorphoses (Book 5) and the Fasti (Book 4).[33] Another major retelling, also in Latin, is the long unfinished poem De raptu Proserpinae ("On the Abduction of Proserpina") by Claudian (d. 404 AD). Ovid uses the name Dis, not Pluto in these two passages,[34] and Claudian uses Pluto only once; translators and editors, however, sometimes supply the more familiar "Pluto" when other epithets appear in the source text.[35] The abduction myth was a popular subject for Greek and Roman art, and recurs throughout Western art and literature, where the name "Pluto" becomes common (see Pluto in Western art and literature below). Narrative details from Ovid and Claudian influence these later versions in which the abductor is named as Pluto, especially the role of Venus and Cupid in manipulating Pluto with love and desire.[36] Throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and certainly by the time of Natale Conti's influential Mythologiae (1567), the traditions pertaining to the various rulers of the classical underworld coalesced into a single mythology that made few if any distinctions among Hades, Pluto, Dis, and Orcus.
+
+Unlike his freely procreating brothers Zeus and Poseidon, Pluto is monogamous, and is rarely said to have children.[37] In Orphic texts,[38] the chthonic nymph Melinoe is the daughter of Persephone by Zeus disguised as Pluto,[39] and the Eumenides ("The Kindly Ones") are the offspring of Persephone and Zeus Chthonios, often identified as Pluto.[40] The Augustan poet Vergil says that Pluto is the father of Allecto the Fury, whom he hates.[41] The lack of a clear distinction between Pluto and "chthonic Zeus" confuses the question of whether in some traditions, now obscure, Persephone bore children to her husband. In the late 4th century AD, Claudian's epic on the abduction motivates Pluto with a desire for children. The poem is unfinished, however, and anything Claudian may have known of these traditions is lost.[42]
+
+Justin Martyr (2nd century AD) alludes to children of Pluto, but neither names nor enumerates them.[43] Hesychius (5th century AD) mentions a "son of Pluto."[44] In his 14th-century mythography, Boccaccio records a tradition in which Pluto was the father of the divine personification Veneratio ("Reverence"), noting that she had no mother because Proserpina (the Latin name of Persephone) was sterile.[45]
+
+In The Faerie Queene (1590s), Edmund Spenser invents a daughter for Pluto whom he calls Lucifera.[46] The character's name was taken from the 16th-century mythography of Natale Conti, who used it as the Latin translation of Greek phosphor, "light-bearer," a regular epithet of Hecate.[47] Spenser incorporated aspects of the mysteries into The Faerie Queene.[48]
+
+Orpheus was regarded as a founder and prophet of the mysteries called "Orphic," "Dionysiac," or "Bacchic." Mythologized for his ability to entrance even animals and trees with his music, he was also credited in antiquity with the authorship of the lyrics that have survived as the Orphic Hymns, among them a hymn to Pluto. Orpheus's voice and lyre-playing represented a medium of revelation or higher knowledge for the mystery cults.[49]
+
+In his central myth, Orpheus visits the underworld in the hope of retrieving his bride, Eurydice, relying on the power of his music to charm the king and queen of Hades. Greek narratives of Orpheus's descent and performance typically name the ruler of the underworld as Plouton, as for instance in the Bibliotheca.[50] The myth demonstrates the importance of Pluto "the Rich" as the possessor of a quest-object. Orpheus performing before Pluto and Persephone was a common subject of ancient and later Western literature and art, and one of the most significant mythological themes of the classical tradition.[51]
+
+The demonstration of Orpheus's power depends on the normal obduracy of Pluto; the Augustan poet Horace describes him as incapable of tears.[52] Claudian, however, portrays the steely god as succumbing to Orpheus's song so that "with iron cloak he wipes his tears" (ferrugineo lacrimas deterget amictu), an image renewed by Milton in Il Penseroso (106–107): "Such notes ... / Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek."[53]
+
+The Greek writer Lucian (ca. 125–after 180 AD) suggests that Pluto's love for his wife gave the ruler of the underworld a special sympathy or insight into lovers parted by death.[54] In one of Lucian's Dialogues of the Dead, Pluto questions Protesilaus, the first Greek hero killed in the Trojan War, who wishes to return to the world of the living. "You are then in love with life?" Pluto asks. "Such lovers we have here in plenty; but they love an object, which none of them can obtain." Protesilaus explains, like an Orpheus in reverse, that he has left behind a young bride whose memory even the Lethe's waters of forgetting have not erased from him. Pluto assures him that death will reunite them someday, but Protesilaus argues that Pluto himself should understand love and its impatience, and reminds the king of his grant to Orpheus and to Alcestis, who took her husband's place in death and then was permitted at the insistence of Heracles to return to him. When Persephone intercedes for the dead warrior, Pluto grants the request at once, though allowing only one day for the reunion.[55]
+
+As Pluto gained importance as an embodiment of agricultural wealth within the Eleusinian Mysteries, from the 5th century BC onward the name Hades was increasingly reserved for the underworld as a place.[56] Neither Hades nor Pluto was one of the traditional Twelve Olympians, and Hades seems to have received limited cult,[57] perhaps only at Elis, where the temple was opened once a year.[58] During the time of Plato, the Athenians periodically honored the god called Plouton with the "strewing of a couch" (tên klinên strôsai).[59] At Eleusis, Plouton had his own priestess.[60] Pluto was worshipped with Persephone as a divine couple at Knidos, Ephesos, Mytilene, and Sparta as well as at Eleusis, where they were known simply as God (Theos) and Goddess (Thea).[61]
+
+In the ritual texts of the mystery religions preserved by the so-called Orphic or Bacchic gold tablets, from the late 5th century BC onward[62] the name Hades appears more frequently than Plouton, but in reference to the underground place:[63] Plouton is the ruler who presides over it in a harmonious partnership[64] with Persephone.[65] By the end of the 4th century BC, the name Plouton appears in Greek metrical inscriptions.[66] Two fragmentary tablets greet Pluto and Persephone jointly,[67] and the divine couple appear as welcoming figures in a metrical epitaph:
+
+I know that even below the earth, if there is indeed a reward for the worthy ones,the first and foremost honors, nurse,[68] shall be yours, next to Persephone and Pluto.[69]
+
+Hesychius identifies Pluto with Eubouleus,[70] but other ancient sources distinguish between these two underworld deities. In the Mysteries Eubouleus plays the role of a torchbearer, possibly a guide for the initiate's return.[71] In the view of Lewis Richard Farnell, Eubouleus was originally a title referring to the "good counsel" the ruler of the underworld was able to give and which was sought at Pluto's dream oracles; by the 2nd century BC, however, he had acquired a separate identity.[72]
+
+The Orphic Hymn to Pluto addresses the god as "strong-spirited" and the "All-Receiver" who commands death and is the master of mortals. His titles are given as Zeus Chthonios and Euboulos ("Good Counsel").[73] In the hymn's topography, Pluto's dwelling is in Tartarus, simultaneously a "meadow" and "thick-shaded and dark," where the Acheron encircles "the roots of the earth." Hades is again the name of the place, here described as "windless," and its gates, through which Pluto carried "pure Demeter's daughter" as his bride, are located in an Attic cave within the district of Eleusis. The route from Persephone's meadow to Hades crosses the sea. The hymn concludes:
+
+You alone were born to judge deeds obscure and conspicuous.Holiest and illustrious ruler of all, frenzied god,You delight in the worshiper's respect and reverence.Come with favor and joy to the initiates. I summon you.[74]
+
+The hymn is one of several examples of Greco-Roman prayer that express a desire for the presence of a deity, and has been compared to a similar epiclesis in the Acts of Thomas.[75]
+
+The names of both Hades and Pluto appear also in the Greek Magical Papyri and curse tablets, with Hades typically referring to the underworld as a place, and Pluto regularly invoked as the partner of Persephone.[76] Five Latin curse tablets from Rome, dating to the mid-1st century BC, promise Persephone and Pluto an offering of "dates, figs, and a black pig" if the curse is fulfilled by the desired deadline. The pig was a characteristic animal sacrifice to chthonic deities, whose victims were almost always black or dark in color.[77]
+
+A set of curse tablets written in Doric Greek and found in a tomb addresses a Pasianax, "Lord to All,"[78] sometimes taken as a title of Pluto,[79] but more recently thought to be a magical name for the corpse.[80] Pasianax is found elsewhere as an epithet of Zeus, or in the tablets may invoke a daimon like Abrasax.[81]
+
+A sanctuary dedicated to Pluto was called a ploutonion (Latin plutonium). The complex at Eleusis for the mysteries had a ploutonion regarded as the birthplace of the divine child Ploutos, in another instance of conflation or close association of the two gods.[82] Greek inscriptions record an altar of Pluto, which was to be "plastered", that is, resurfaced for a new round of sacrifices at Eleusis.[83] One of the known ploutonia was in the sacred grove between Tralleis and Nysa, where a temple of Pluto and Persephone was located. Visitors sought healing and dream oracles.[84] The ploutonion at Hierapolis, Phrygia, was connected to the rites of Cybele, but during the Roman Imperial era was subsumed by the cult of Apollo, as confirmed by archaeological investigations during the 1960s. It too was a dream oracle.[85] The sites often seem to have been chosen because the presence of naturally occurring mephitic vapors was thought to indicate an opening to the underworld.[86] In Italy, Avernus was considered an entrance to the underworld that produced toxic vapors, but Strabo seems not to think that it was a ploutonion.[87]
+
+Kevin Clinton attempted to distinguish the iconography of Hades, Plouton, Ploutos, and the Eleusinian Theos in 5th-century vase painting that depicts scenes from or relating to the mysteries. In Clinton's schema, Plouton is a mature man, sometimes even white-haired; Hades is also usually bearded and mature, but his darkness is emphasized in literary descriptions, represented in art by dark hair. Plouton's most common attribute is a sceptre, but he also often holds a full or overflowing cornucopia; Hades sometimes holds a horn, but it is depicted with no contents and should be understood as a drinking horn. Unlike Plouton, Hades never holds agrarian attributes such as stalks of grain. His chest is usually bare or only partly covered, whereas Plouton is fully robed (exceptions, however, are admitted by the author). Plouton stands, often in the company of both Demeter and Kore, or sometimes one of the goddesses, but Hades almost always sits or reclines, usually with Persephone facing him.[88] "Confusion and disagreement" about the interpretation of these images remain.[89]
+
+Attributes of Pluto mentioned in the Orphic Hymn to Pluto are his scepter, keys, throne, and horses. In the hymn, the keys are connected to his capacity for giving wealth to humanity, specifically the agricultural wealth of "the year's fruits."
+
+Pausanias explains the significance of Pluto's key in describing a wondrously carved cedar chest at the Temple of Hera in Elis. Numerous deities are depicted, with one panel grouping Dionysus, Persephone, the nymphs and Pluto. Pluto holds a key because "they say that what is called Hades has been locked up by Pluto, and that nobody will return back again therefrom."[91] Natale Conti cites Pausanias in noting that keys are an attribute of Pluto as the scepter is of Jove (Greek Zeus) and the trident of Neptune (Poseidon).[92]
+
+A golden key (chrusea klês) was laid on the tongue of initiates by priests at Eleusis[93] and was a symbol of the revelation they were obligated to keep secret.[94] A key is among the attributes of other infernal deities such as Hecate, Anubis, and Persephone, and those who act as guardians or timekeepers, such as Janus and Aion.[95] Aeacus (Aiakos), one of the three mortal kings who became judges in the afterlife, is also a kleidouchos (κλειδοῦχος), "holder of the keys," and a priestly doorkeeper in the court of Pluto and Persephone.[96]
+
+According to the Stoic philosopher Cornutus (1st century AD), Pluto wore a wreath of phasganion, more often called xiphion,[97] traditionally identified as a type of gladiolus.[98] Dioscorides recorded medical uses for the plant. For extracting stings and thorns, xiphion was mixed with wine and frankincense to make a cataplasm. The plant was also used as an aphrodisiac[99] and contraceptive.[100] It grew in humid places. In an obscure passage, Cornutus seems to connect Pluto's wearing of phasganion to an etymology for Avernus, which he derives from the word for "air," perhaps through some association with the color glaukos, "bluish grey," "greenish" or "sea-colored," which might describe the plant's leaves. Because the color could describe the sky, Cornutus regularly gives it divine connotations.[101] Pluto's twin sister was named Glauca.
+
+Ambiguity of color is characteristic of Pluto. Although both he and his realm are regularly described as dark, black, or gloomy, the god himself is sometimes seen as pale or having a pallor. Martianus Capella (5th century) describes him as both "growing pale in shadow, a fugitive from light" and actively "shedding darkness in the gloom of Tartarean night," crowned with a wreath made of ebony as suitable for the kingdom he governs.[102] The horses of Pluto are usually black, but Ovid describes them as "sky-colored" (caeruleus, from caelum, "sky"), which might be blue, greenish-blue, or dark blue.[103]
+
+The Renaissance mythographer Natale Conti says wreaths of narcissus, maidenhair fern (adianthus), and cypress were given to Pluto.[104] In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Gaia (Earth) produced the narcissus at Zeus's request as a snare for Persephone; when she grasps it, a chasm opens up and the "Host to Many" (Hades) seizes her.[105] Narcissus wreaths were used in early times to crown Demeter and Persephone, as well as the Furies (Eumenides).[106] The flower was associated with narcotic drugginess (narkê, "torpor"),[107] erotic fascination,[108] and imminent death;[109] to dream of crowning oneself with narcissus was a bad sign.[110] In the myth of Narcissus, the flower is created when a beautiful, self-absorbed youth rejects sexuality and is condemned to perpetual self-love along the Styx.[111]
+
+Conti's inclusion of adianthus (Adiantum in modern nomenclature) is less straightforward. The name, meaning "unmoistened" (Greek adianton), was taken in antiquity to refer to the fern's ability to repel water. The plant, which grew in wet places, was also called capillus veneris, "hair of Venus," divinely dry when she emerged from the sea.[112] Historian of medicine John M. Riddle has suggested that the adianthus was one of the ferns Dioscorides called asplenon and prescribed as a contraceptive (atokios).[113] The associations of Proserpine (Persephone) and the maidenhair are alluded to by Samuel Beckett in a 1946 poem, in which the self is a Platonic cave with capillaires, in French both "maidenhair fern" and "blood vessels".[114]
+
+The cypress (Greek cyparissus, Latin cupressus) has traditional associations with mourning.[115] In ancient Attica, households in mourning were garlanded with cypress,[116] and it was used to fumigate the air during cremations.[117] In the myth of Cyparissus, a youth was transformed into a cypress, consumed by grief over the accidental death of a pet stag.[118] A "white cypress" is part of the topography of the underworld that recurs in the Orphic gold tablets as a kind of beacon near the entrance, perhaps to be compared with the Tree of Life in various world mythologies. The description of the cypress as "white" (Greek leukē), since the botanical tree is dark, is symbolic, evoking the white garments worn by initiates or the clothing of a corpse, or the pallor of the dead. In Orphic funeral rites, it was forbidden to make coffins of cypress.[119]
+
+The tradition of the mystery religions favors Pluto as a loving and faithful partner to Persephone, in contrast to the violence of Hades in early myths, but one ancient myth that preserves a lover for him parallels the abduction and also has a vegetative aspect.[120] A Roman source says that Pluto fell in love with Leuca (Greek Leukē, "White"), the most beautiful of the nymphs, and abducted her to live with him in his realm. After the long span of her life came to its end, he memorialized their love by creating a white tree in the Elysian Fields. The tree was the white poplar (Greek leukē), the leaves of which are white on one side and dark on the other, representing the duality of upper and underworld.[121] A wreath of white poplar leaves was fashioned by Heracles to mark his ascent from the underworld, an aition for why it was worn by initiates[122] and by champion athletes participating in funeral games.[123] Like other plants associated with Pluto, white poplar was regarded as a contraceptive in antiquity.[124] The relation of this tree to the white cypress of the mysteries is debated.[125]
+
+The Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus uses the name Plouton instead of Hades in relating the tripartite division of sovereignty, the abduction of Persephone, and the visit of Orpheus to the underworld. This version of the theogony for the most part follows Hesiod (see above), but adds that the three brothers were each given a gift by the Cyclopes to use in their battle against the Titans: Zeus thunder and lightning; Poseidon a trident; and Pluto a helmet (kyneê).[126]
+
+The helmet Pluto receives is presumably the magical Cap of Invisibility (aidos kyneê), but the Bibliotheca is the only ancient source that explicitly says it belonged to Pluto.[127] The verbal play of aidos, "invisible," and Hades is thought to account for this attribution of the helmet to the ruler of the underworld, since no ancient narratives record his use or possession of it. Later authors such as Rabelais (16th century) do attribute the helmet to Pluto.[128] Erasmus calls it the "helmet of Orcus"[129] and gives it as a figure of speech referring to those who conceal their true nature by a cunning device. Francis Bacon notes the proverbial usage: "the helmet of Pluto, which maketh the politic man go invisible, is secrecy in the counsel, and celerity in the execution."[130]
+
+No ancient image of the ruler of the underworld can be said with certainty to show him with a bident,[131] though the ornamented tip of his scepter may have been misunderstood at times as a bident.[132] In the Roman world, the bident (from bi-, "two" + dent-, "teeth") was an agricultural implement. It may also represent one of the three types of lightning wielded by Jupiter, the Roman counterpart of Zeus, and the Etruscan Tinia. The later notion that the ruler of the underworld wielded a trident or bident can perhaps be traced to a line in Seneca's Hercules Furens ("Hercules Enraged"), in which Father Dis, the Roman counterpart of Pluto, uses a three-pronged spear to drive off Hercules as he attempts to invade the underworld. Seneca calls Dis the "Infernal Jove"[133] or the "dire Jove"[134] (the Jove who gives dire or ill omens, dirae), just as in the Greek tradition, Plouton is sometimes identified as a "chthonic Zeus." That the trident and bident might be somewhat interchangeable is suggested by a Byzantine scholiast, who mentions Poseidon being armed with a bident.[135]
+
+In the Middle Ages, classical underworld figures began to be depicted with a pitchfork.[136] Early Christian writers had identified the classical underworld with Hell, and its denizens as demons or devils.[137] In the Renaissance, the bident became a conventional attribute of Pluto. In an influential ceiling mural depicting the wedding of Cupid and Psyche, painted by Raphael's workshop for the Villa Farnesina in 1517, Pluto is shown holding the bident, with Cerberus at his side, while Neptune holds the trident.[138] Perhaps influenced by this work, Agostino Carracci originally depicted Pluto with a bident in a preparatory drawing for his painting Pluto (1592), in which the god ended up holding his characteristic key.[139] In Caravaggio's Giove, Nettuno e Plutone (ca. 1597), a ceiling mural based on alchemical allegory, it is Neptune who holds the bident.[140]
+
+The name Plouton is first used in Greek literature by Athenian playwrights.[58] In Aristophanes' comedy The Frogs (Batrachoi, 405 BC), in which "the Eleusinian colouring is in fact so pervasive,"[143] the ruler of the underworld is one of the characters, under the name of Plouton. The play depicts a mock descent to the underworld by the god Dionysus to bring back one of the dead tragic playwrights in the hope of restoring Athenian theater to its former glory. Pluto is a silent presence onstage for about 600 lines presiding over a contest among the tragedians, then announces that the winner has the privilege of returning to the upper world.[144] The play also draws on beliefs and imagery from Orphic and Dionysiac cult, and rituals pertaining to Ploutos (Plutus, "wealth").[145] In a fragment from another play by Aristophanes, a character "is comically singing of the excellent aspects of being dead", asking in reference to the tripartition of sovereignty over the world:
+
+And where do you think Pluto gets his name [i.e. "rich"],
+if not because he took the best portion?
+...
+How much better are things below than what Zeus possesses! [146]
+
+To Plato, the god of the underworld was "an agent in [the] beneficent cycle of death and rebirth" meriting worship under the name of Plouton, a giver of spiritual wealth.[147] In the dialogue Cratylus, Plato has Socrates explain the etymology of Plouton, saying that Pluto gives wealth (ploutos), and his name means "giver of wealth, which comes out of the earth beneath". Because the name Hades is taken to mean "the invisible", people fear what they cannot see; although they are in error about the nature of this deity's power, Socrates says, "the office and name of the God really correspond":
+
+He is the perfect and accomplished Sophist, and the great benefactor of the inhabitants of the other world; and even to us who are upon earth he sends from below exceeding blessings. For he has much more than he wants down there; wherefore he is called Pluto (or the rich). Note also, that he will have nothing to do with men while they are in the body, but only when the soul is liberated from the desires and evils of the body. Now there is a great deal of philosophy and reflection in that; for in their liberated state he can bind them with the desire of virtue, but while they are flustered and maddened by the body, not even father Cronos himself would suffice to keep them with him in his own far-famed chains.[148]
+
+Since "the union of body and soul is not better than the loosing,"[149] death is not an evil. Walter Burkert thus sees Pluto as a "god of dissolution."[150] Among the titles of Pluto was Isodaitēs, "divider into equal portions," a title that connects him to the fate goddesses the Moirai.[151] Isodaitēs was also a cult title for Dionysus and Helios.[152]
+
+In ordering his ideal city, Plato proposed a calendar in which Pluto was honored as a benefactor in the twelfth month, implicitly ranking him as one of the twelve principal deities.[153] In the Attic calendar, the twelfth month, more or less equivalent to June, was Skirophorion; the name may be connected to the rape of Persephone.[154]
+
+In the theogony of Euhemerus (4th century BC), the gods were treated as mortal rulers whose deeds were immortalized by tradition. Ennius translated Euhemerus into Latin about a hundred years later, and a passage from his version was in turn preserved by the early Christian writer Lactantius.[155] Here the union of Saturn (the Roman equivalent of Cronus) and Ops, an Italic goddess of abundance, produces Jupiter (Greek Zeus), Juno (Hera), Neptune, Pluto, and Glauca:
+
+Then Saturn took Ops to wife. Titan, the elder brother, demanded the kingship for himself. Vesta their mother, with their sisters Ceres [Demeter] and Ops, persuaded Saturn not to give way to his brother in the matter. Titan was less good-looking than Saturn; for that reason, and also because he could see his mother and sisters working to have it so, he conceded the kingship to Saturn, and came to terms with him: if Saturn had a male child born to him, it would not be reared. This was done to secure reversion of the kingship to Titan's children. They then killed the first son that was born to Saturn. Next came twin children, Jupiter and Juno. Juno was given to Saturn to see while Jupiter was secretly removed and given to Vesta to be brought up without Saturn's knowledge. In the same way without Saturn knowing, Ops bore Neptune and hid him away. In her third labor Ops bore another set of twins, Pluto and Glauce. (Pluto in Latin is Diespiter;[156] some call him Orcus.) Saturn was shown his daughter Glauce but his son Pluto was hidden and removed. Glauce then died young. That is the pedigree, as written, of Jupiter and his brothers; that is how it has been passed down to us in holy scripture.
+
+In this theogony, which Ennius introduced into Latin literature, Saturn, "Titan,"[157] Vesta, Ceres, and Ops are siblings; Glauca is the twin of Pluto and dies mysteriously young. There are several mythological figures named Glauca; the sister of Pluto may be the Glauca who in Cicero's account of the three aspects of Diana conceived the third with the equally mysterious Upis.[158] This is the genealogy for Pluto that Boccaccio used in his Genealogia Deorum Gentilium and in his lectures explicating the Divine Comedy of Dante.[159]
+
+In Book 3 of the Sibylline Oracles, dating mostly to the 2nd century AD, Rhea gives birth to Pluto as she passes by Dodona, "where the watery paths of the River Europus flowed, and the water ran into the sea, merged with the Peneius. This is also called the Stygian river."[160]
+
+The Orphic theogonies are notoriously varied,[161] and Orphic cosmology influenced the varying Gnostic theogonies of late antiquity.[162] Clementine literature (4th century AD) preserves a theogony with explicit Orphic influence that also draws on Hesiod, yielding a distinctive role for Pluto. When the primordial elements came together by orderly cyclonic force, they produced a generative sphere, the "egg" from which the primeval Orphic entity Phanes is born and the world is formed. The release of Phanes and his ascent to the heavenly top of the world-egg causes the matter left in the sphere to settle in relation to weight, creating the tripartite world of the traditional theogonies:[163]
+
+Its lower part, the heaviest element, sinks downwards, and is called Pluto because of its gravity, weight, and great quantity (plêthos) of matter. After the separation of this heavy element in the middle part of the egg the waters flow together, which they call Poseidon. The purest and noblest element, the fire, is called Zeus, because its nature is glowing (ζέουσα, zeousa). It flies right up into the air, and draws up the spirit, now called Metis, that was left in the underlying moisture. And when this spirit has reached the summit of the ether, it is devoured by Zeus, who in his turn begets the intelligence (σύνεσις, sunesis), also called Pallas. And by this artistic intelligence the etherial artificer creates the whole world. This world is surrounded by the air, which extends from Zeus, the very hot ether, to the earth; this air is called Hera.[164]
+
+This cosmogony interprets Hesiod allegorically, and so the heaviest element is identified not as the Earth, but as the netherworld of Pluto.[165] (In modern geochemistry, plutonium is the heaviest primordial element.) Supposed etymologies are used to make sense of the relation of physical process to divine name; Plouton is here connected to plêthos (abundance).[166]
+
+In the Stoic system, Pluto represented the lower region of the air, where according to Seneca (1st century AD) the soul underwent a kind of purgatory before ascending to the ether.[167] Seneca's contemporary Cornutus made use of the traditional etymology of Pluto's name for Stoic theology. The Stoics believed that the form of a word contained the original truth of its meaning, which over time could become corrupted or obscured.[168] Plouton derived from ploutein, "to be wealthy," Cornutus said, because "all things are corruptible and therefore are 'ultimately consigned to him as his property.'"[169]
+
+Within the Pythagorean and Neoplatonic traditions, Pluto was allegorized as the region where souls are purified, located between the moon (as represented by Persephone) and the sun.[170] Neoplatonists sometimes interpreted the Eleusinian Mysteries as a fabula of celestial phenomena:
+
+Authors tell the fable that Ceres was Proserpina's mother, and that Proserpina while playing one day was kidnapped by Pluto. Her mother searched for her with lighted torches; and it was decreed by Jupiter that the mother should have her daughter for fifteen days in the month, but Pluto for the rest, the other fifteen. This is nothing but that the name Ceres is used to mean the earth, called Ceres on analogy with crees ('you may create'), for all things are created from her. By Proserpina is meant the moon, and her name is on analogy with prope serpens ('creeping near'), for she is moved nearer to the earth than the other planets. She is called earth's daughter, because her substance has more of earth in it than of the other elements. By Pluto is meant the shadow that sometimes obstructs the moon.[171]
+
+A dedicatory inscription from Smyrna describes a 1st–2nd century sanctuary to "God Himself" as the most exalted of a group of six deities, including clothed statues of Plouton Helios and Koure Selene, "Pluto the Sun" and "Kore the Moon."[172] The status of Pluto and Kore as a divine couple is marked by what the text describes as a "linen embroidered bridal curtain."[173] The two are placed as bride and groom within an enclosed temple, separately from the other deities cultivated at the sanctuary.
+
+Plouton Helios is mentioned in other literary sources in connection with Koure Selene and Helios Apollon; the sun on its nighttime course was sometimes envisioned as traveling through the underworld on its return to the east. Apuleius describes a rite in which the sun appears at midnight to the initiate at the gates of Proserpina; it has been suggested that this midnight sun could be Plouton Helios.[174]
+
+The Smyrna inscription also records the presence of Helios Apollon at the sanctuary. As two forms of Helios, Apollo and Pluto pose a dichotomy:
+
+It has been argued that the sanctuary was in the keeping of a Pythagorean sodality or "brotherhood". The relation of Orphic beliefs to the mystic strand of Pythagoreanism, or of these to Platonism and Neoplatonism, is complex and much debated.[176]
+
+In the Hellenistic era, the title or epithet Plutonius is sometimes affixed to the names of other deities. In the Hermetic Corpus,[177] Jupiter Plutonius "rules over earth and sea, and it is he who nourishes mortal things that have soul and bear fruit."[178]
+
+In Ptolemaic Alexandria, at the site of a dream oracle, Serapis was identified with Aion Plutonius.[179] Gilles Quispel conjectured that this figure results from the integration of the Orphic Phanes into Mithraic religion at Alexandria, and that he "assures the eternity of the city," where the birth of Aion was celebrated at the sanctuary of Kore on 6 January.[180] In Latin, Plutonius can be an adjective that simply means "of or pertaining to Pluto."[181]
+
+The Neoplatonist Proclus (5th century AD) considered Pluto the third demiurge, a sublunar demiurge who was also identified variously with Poseidon or Hephaestus. This idea is present in Renaissance Neoplatonism, as for instance in the cosmology of Marsilio Ficino (1433–99),[182] who translated Orphic texts into Latin for his own use.[183] Ficino saw the sublunar demiurge as "a daemonic 'many-headed' sophist, a magus, an enchanter, a fashioner of images and reflections, a shape-changer of himself and of others, a poet in a way of being and of not-being, a royal Pluto." This demiurgic figure identified with Pluto is also "'a purifier of souls' who presides over the magic of love and generation and who uses a fantastic counter-art to mock, but also ... to supplement, the divine icastic or truly imitative art of the sublime translunar Demiurge."[184]
+
+Christian writers of late antiquity sought to discredit the competing gods of Roman and Hellenistic religions, often adopting the euhemerizing approach in regarding them not as divinities, but as people glorified through stories and cultic practices and thus not true deities worthy of worship. The infernal gods, however, retained their potency, becoming identified with the Devil and treated as demonic forces by Christian apologists.[185]
+
+One source of Christian revulsion toward the chthonic gods was the arena. Attendants in divine costume, among them a "Pluto" who escorted corpses out, were part of the ceremonies of the gladiatorial games.[186] Tertullian calls the mallet-wielding figure usually identified as the Etruscan Charun the "brother of Jove,"[187] that is, Hades/Pluto/Dis, an indication that the distinctions among these denizens of the underworld were becoming blurred in a Christian context.[188] Prudentius, in his poetic polemic against the religious traditionalist Symmachus, describes the arena as a place where savage vows were fulfilled on an altar to Pluto (solvit ad aram / Plutonis fera vota), where fallen gladiators were human sacrifices to Dis and Charon received their souls as his payment, to the delight of the underworld Jove (Iovis infernalis).[189]
+
+Medieval mythographies, written in Latin, continue the conflation of Greek and Roman deities begun by the ancient Romans themselves. Perhaps because the name Pluto was used in both traditions, it appears widely in these Latin sources for the classical ruler of the underworld, who is also seen as the double, ally, or adjunct to the figure in Christian mythology known variously as the Devil, Satan, or Lucifer. The classical underworld deities became casually interchangeable with Satan as an embodiment of Hell.[190] For instance, in the 9th century, Abbo Cernuus, the only witness whose account of the Siege of Paris survives, called the invading Vikings the "spawn of Pluto."[191]
+
+In the Little Book on Images of the Gods, Pluto is described as
+
+an intimidating personage sitting on a throne of sulphur, holding the scepter of his realm in his right hand, and with his left strangling a soul. Under his feet three-headed Cerberus held a position, and beside him he had three Harpies. From his golden throne of sulphur flowed four rivers, which were called, as is known, Lethe, Cocytus, Phlegethon and Acheron, tributaries of the Stygian swamp.[192]
+
+This work derives from that of the Third Vatican Mythographer, possibly one Albricus or Alberic, who presents often extensive allegories and devotes his longest chapter, including an excursus on the nature of the soul, to Pluto.[193]
+
+In Dante's Divine Comedy (written 1308–1321), Pluto presides over the fourth circle of Hell, to which the greedy are condemned.[194] The Italian form of the name is Pluto, taken by some commentators[195] to refer specifically to Plutus as the god of wealth who would preside over the torment of those who hoarded or squandered it in life.[196] Dante's Pluto is greeted as "the great enemy"[197] and utters the famously impenetrable line Papé Satàn, papé Satàn aleppe. Much of this Canto is devoted to the power of Fortuna to give and take away. Entrance into the fourth circle has marked a downward turn in the poet's journey, and the next landmark after he and his guide cross from the circle is the Stygian swamp, through which they pass on their way to the city of Dis (Italian Dite). Dante's clear distinction between Pluto and Dis suggests that he had Plutus in mind in naming the former. The city of Dis is the "citadel of Lower Hell" where the walls are garrisoned by fallen angels and Furies.[198] Pluto is treated likewise as a purely Satanic figure by the 16th-century Italian poet Tasso throughout his epic Jerusalem Delivered,[199] in which "great Dis, great Pluto" is invoked in the company of "all ye devils that lie in deepest hell."[200]
+
+Influenced by Ovid and Claudian, Geoffrey Chaucer (1343–1400)[201] developed the myth of Pluto and Proserpina (the Latin name of Persephone) in English literature. Like earlier medieval writers, Chaucer identifies Pluto's realm with Hell as a place of condemnation and torment,[202] and describes it as "derk and lowe" ("dark and low").[203] But Pluto's major appearance in the works of Chaucer comes as a character in "The Merchant's Tale," where Pluto is identified as the "Kyng of Fayerye" (Fairy King).[204] As in the anonymous romance Sir Orfeo (ca. 1300), Pluto and Proserpina rule over a fantastical world that melds classical myth and fairyland.[205] Chaucer has the couple engage in a comic battle of the sexes that undermines the Christian imagery in the tale, which is Chaucer's most sexually explicit.[206] The Scottish poet William Dunbar ca. 1503 also described Pluto as a folkloric supernatural being, "the elrich incubus / in cloke of grene" ("the eldritch incubus in cloak of green"), who appears among the courtiers of Cupid.[207]
+
+The name Pluto for the classical ruler of the underworld was further established in English literature by Arthur Golding, whose translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses (1565) was of great influence on William Shakespeare,[208] Christopher Marlowe,[209] and Edmund Spenser.[210][211] Golding translates Ovid's Dis as Pluto,[212] a practice that prevails among English translators, despite John Milton's use of the Latin Dis in Paradise Lost.[213] The Christian perception of the classical underworld as Hell influenced Golding's translation practices; for instance, Ovid's tenebrosa sede tyrannus / exierat ("the tyrant [Dis] had gone out of his shadowy realm") becomes "the prince of fiends forsook his darksome hole".[214]
+
+Pluto's court as a literary setting could bring together a motley assortment of characters. In Huon de Méry's 13th-century poem "The Tournament of the Antichrist", Pluto rules over a congregation of "classical gods and demigods, biblical devils, and evil Christians."[215] In the 15th-century dream allegory The Assembly of Gods, the deities and personifications are "apparelled as medieval nobility"[216] basking in the "magnyfycence" of their "lord Pluto," who is clad in a "smoky net" and reeking of sulphur.[217]
+
+Throughout the Renaissance, images and ideas from classical antiquity entered popular culture through the new medium of print and through pageants and other public performances at festivals. The Fête-Dieu at Aix-en-Provence in 1462 featured characters costumed as a number of classical deities, including Pluto,[218] and Pluto was the subject of one of seven pageants presented as part of the 1521 Midsummer Eve festival in London.[219] During the 15th century, no mythological theme was brought to the stage more often than Orpheus's descent, with the court of Pluto inspiring fantastical stagecraft.[220] Leonardo da Vinci designed a set with a rotating mountain that opened up to reveal Pluto emerging from the underworld; the drawing survives and was the basis for a modern recreation.[221]
+
+The tragic descent of the hero-musician Orpheus to the underworld to retrieve his bride, and his performance at the court of Pluto and Proserpina, offered compelling material for librettists and composers of opera (see List of Orphean operas) and ballet. Pluto also appears in works based on other classical myths of the underworld. As a singing role, Pluto is almost always written for a bass voice, with the low vocal range representing the depths and weight of the underworld, as in Monteverdi and Rinuccini's L'Orfeo (1607) and Il ballo delle ingrate (1608). In their ballo, a form of ballet with vocal numbers, Cupid invokes Pluto from the underworld to lay claim to "ungrateful" women who were immune to love. Pluto's part is considered particularly virtuosic,[222] and a reviewer at the première described the character, who appeared as if from a blazing Inferno, as "formidable and awesome in sight, with garments as given him by poets, but burdened with gold and jewels."[223]
+
+The role of Pluto is written for a bass in Peri's Euridice (1600);[224] Caccini's Euridice (1602); Rossi's Orfeo (1647); Cesti's Il pomo d'oro (1668);[225] Sartoris's Orfeo (1672); Lully's Alceste, a tragédie en musique (1674);[226] Charpentier's chamber opera La descente d'Orphée aux enfers (1686);[227] Telemann's Orpheus (1726); and Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie (1733).[228] Pluto was a baritone in Lully's Proserpine (1680), which includes a duo dramatizing the conflict between the royal underworld couple that is notable for its early use of musical characterization.[229] Perhaps the most famous of the Orpheus operas is Offenbach's satiric Orpheus in the Underworld (1858),[230] in which a tenor sings the role of Pluton, disguised in the giddily convoluted plotting as Aristée (Aristaeus), a farmer.
+
+Scenes set in Pluto's realm were orchestrated with instrumentation that became conventionally "hellish", established in Monteverdi's L'Orfeo as two cornets, three trombones, a bassoon, and a régale.[231]
+
+Pluto has also been featured as a role in ballet. In Lully's "Ballet of Seven Planets'" interlude from Cavalli's opera Ercole amante ("Hercules in Love"), Louis XIV himself danced as Pluto and other characters; it was a spectacular flop.[232] Pluto appeared in Noverre's lost La descente d'Orphée aux Enfers (1760s). Gaétan Vestris danced the role of the god in Florian Deller's Orefeo ed Euridice (1763).[233] The Persephone choreographed by Robert Joffrey (1952) was based on André Gide's line "king of winters, the infernal Pluto."[234]
+
+The abduction of Proserpina by Pluto was the scene from the myth most often depicted by artists, who usually follow Ovid's version. The influential emblem book Iconologia of Cesare Ripa (1593, second edition 1603) presents the allegorical figure of Rape with a shield on which the abduction is painted.[235] Jacob Isaacsz. van Swanenburg, the first teacher of Rembrandt, echoed Ovid in showing Pluto as the target of Cupid's arrow while Venus watches her plan carried out (location of painting unknown). The treatment of the scene by Rubens is similar. Rembrandt incorporates Claudian's more passionate characterizations.[236] The performance of Orpheus in the court of Pluto and Proserpina was also a popular subject.
+
+Major artists who produced works depicting Pluto include:
+
+After the Renaissance, literary interest in the abduction myth waned until the revival of classical myth among the Romantics. The work of mythographers such as J.G. Frazer and Jane Ellen Harrison helped inspire the recasting of myths in modern terms by Victorian and Modernist writers. In Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), Thomas Hardy portrays Alec d'Urberville as "a grotesque parody of Pluto/Dis" exemplifying the late-Victorian culture of male domination, in which women were consigned to "an endless breaking ... on the wheel of biological reproduction."[243] A similar figure is found in The Lost Girl (1920) by D.H. Lawrence, where the character Ciccio[244] acts as Pluto to Alvina's Persephone, "the deathly-lost bride ... paradoxically obliterated and vitalised at the same time by contact with Pluto/Dis" in "a prelude to the grand design of rebirth." The darkness of Pluto is both a source of regeneration, and of "merciless annihilation."[245] Lawrence takes up the theme elsewhere in his work; in The First Lady Chatterley (1926, an early version of Lady Chatterley's Lover), Connie Chatterley sees herself as a Persephone and declares "she'd rather be married to Pluto than Plato," casting her earthy gamekeeper lover as the former and her philosophy-spouting husband as the latter.[246]
+
+In Rick Riordan's young adult fantasy series The Heroes of Olympus, the character Hazel Levesque is the daughter of Pluto, god of riches. She is one of seven characters with a parent from classical mythology.[247]
+
+Scientific terms derived from the name of Pluto include:

en/2361.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,174 @@
+
+
+Pluto (Latin: Plūtō; Greek: Πλούτων, Ploútōn) was the ruler of the underworld in classical mythology. The earlier name for the god was Hades, which became more common as the name of the underworld itself. In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Pluto represents a more positive concept of the god who presides over the afterlife. Ploutōn was frequently conflated with Ploutos, the Greek god of wealth, because mineral wealth was found underground, and because as a chthonic god Pluto ruled the deep earth that contained the seeds necessary for a bountiful harvest.[1] The name Ploutōn came into widespread usage with the Eleusinian Mysteries, in which Pluto was venerated as both a stern ruler and a loving husband to Persephone. The couple received souls in the afterlife and are invoked together in religious inscriptions, being referred to as Plouton and as Kore respectively. Hades, by contrast, had few temples and religious practices associated with him, and he is portrayed as the dark and violent abductor of Persephone.
+
+Pluto and Hades differ in character, but they are not distinct figures and share two dominant myths. In Greek cosmogony, the god received the rule of the underworld in a three-way division of sovereignty over the world, with his brother Zeus ruling the sky and his other brother Poseidon sovereign over the sea. His central narrative in myth is of him abducting Persephone to be his wife and the queen of his realm.[2] Plouton as the name of the ruler of the underworld first appears in Greek literature of the Classical period, in the works of the Athenian playwrights and of the philosopher Plato, who is the major Greek source on its significance. Under the name Pluto, the god appears in other myths in a secondary role, mostly as the possessor of a quest-object, and especially in the descent of Orpheus or other heroes to the underworld.[3]
+
+Plūtō ([ˈpluːtoː]; genitive Plūtōnis) is the Latinized form of the Greek Plouton. Pluto's Roman equivalent is Dis Pater, whose name is most often taken to mean "Rich Father" and is perhaps a direct translation of Plouton. Pluto was also identified with the obscure Roman Orcus, like Hades the name of both a god of the underworld and the underworld as a place. The borrowed Greek name Pluto is sometimes used for the ruler of the dead in Latin literature, leading some mythology handbooks to assert misleadingly that Pluto was the Roman counterpart of Hades.[4][citation needed] Pluto (Pluton in French and German, Plutone in Italian) becomes the most common name for the classical ruler of the underworld in subsequent Western literature and other art forms.
+
+The name Plouton does not appear in Greek literature of the Archaic period.[5] In Hesiod's Theogony, the six children of Cronus and Rhea are Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Hades, Demeter, and Hestia. The male children divide the world into three realms. Hades takes Persephone by force from her mother Demeter, with the consent of Zeus. Ploutos, "Wealth," appears in the Theogony as the child of Demeter and Iasion: "fine Plutus, who goes upon the whole earth and the broad back of the sea, and whoever meets him and comes into his hands, that man he makes rich, and he bestows much wealth upon him." The union of Demeter and Iasion, described also in the Odyssey,[6] took place in a fallow field that had been ploughed three times, in what seems to be a reference to a ritual copulation or sympathetic magic to ensure the earth's fertility.[7] "The resemblance of the name Ploutos to Plouton ...," it has been noted, "cannot be accidental. Plouton is lord of the dead, but as Persephone's husband he has serious claims to the powers of fertility."[8] Demeter's son Plutus merges in the narrative tradition with her son-in-law Pluto, redefining the implacable chariot-driver Hades whose horses trample the flowering earth.[9]
+
+That the underworld god was associated early on with success in agricultural activity is already evident in Hesiod's Works and Days, line 465-469: "Pray to Zeus of the Earth and to pure Demeter to make Demeter's holy grain sound and heavy, when first you begin ploughing, when you hold in your hand the end of the plough-tail and bring down your stick on the backs of the oxen as they draw on the pole-bar by the yoke-straps."[10]
+
+Plouton was one of several euphemistic names for Hades, described in the Iliad as the god most hateful to mortals.[11] Plato says that people prefer the name Plouton, "giver of wealth," because the name of Hades is fear-provoking.[12] The name was understood as referring to "the boundless riches of the earth, both the crops on its surface—he was originally a god of the land—and the mines hidden within it."[13] What is sometimes taken as "confusion" of the two gods Plouton and Ploutos ("Wealth") held or acquired a theological significance in antiquity. As a lord of abundance or riches, Pluto expresses the aspect of the underworld god that was positive, symbolized in art by the "horn of plenty" (cornucopia),[14] by means of which Plouton is distinguished from the gloomier Hades.[15]
+
+The Roman poet Ennius (ca. 239–169 BC), the leading figure in the Hellenization of Latin literature, considered Pluto a Greek god to be explained in terms of the Roman equivalents Dis Pater and Orcus.[16] It is unclear whether Pluto had a literary presence in Rome before Ennius. Some scholars think that rituals and beliefs pertaining to Pluto entered Roman culture with the establishment of the Saecular Games in 249 BC, and that Dis pater was only a translation of Plouton.[17] In the mid-1st century BC, Cicero identifies Pluto with Dis, explaining that "The earth in all its power and plenty is sacred to Father Dis, a name which is the same as Dives, 'The Wealthy One,' as is the Greek Plouton. This is because everything is born of the earth and returns to it again."[18]
+
+During the Roman Imperial era, the Greek geographer Strabo (1st century AD) makes a distinction between Pluto and Hades. In writing of the mineral wealth of ancient Iberia (Roman Spain), he says that among the Turdetani, it is "Pluto, and not Hades, who inhabits the region down below."[19] In the discourse On Mourning by the Greek author Lucian (2nd century AD), Pluto's "wealth" is the dead he rules over in the abyss (chasma); the name Hades is reserved for the underworld itself.[20]
+
+In Greek religious practice, Pluto is sometimes seen as the "chthonic Zeus" (Zeus Chthonios[21] or Zeus Catachthonios[22]), or at least as having functions or significance equivalent to those of Zeus but pertaining to the earth or underworld.[23] In ancient Roman and Hellenistic religion, Pluto was identified with a number of other deities, including Summanus, the Roman god of nocturnal thunder;[24] Februus, the Roman god from whose purification rites the month of February takes its name;[25] the syncretic god Serapis, regarded as Pluto's Egyptian equivalent;[26] and the Semitic god Muth (Μούθ). Muth was described by Philo of Byblos as the equivalent of both Thanatos (Death personified) and Pluto.[27] The ancient Greeks did not regard Pluto as "death" per se.[28]
+
+The best-known myth involving Pluto or Hades is the abduction of Persephone, also known as Kore ("the Maiden"). The earliest literary versions of the myth are a brief mention in Hesiod's Theogony and the extended narrative of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter; in both these works, the ruler of the underworld is named as Hades ("the Hidden One"). Hades is an unsympathetic figure, and Persephone's unwillingness is emphasized.[29] Increased usage of the name Plouton in religious inscriptions and literary texts reflects the influence of the Eleusinian Mysteries, which treated Pluto and Persephone as a divine couple who received initiates in the afterlife; as such, Pluto was disassociated from the "violent abductor" of Kore.[30] Two early works that give the abductor god's name as Pluto are the Greek mythography traditionally known as the Library of "Apollodorus" (1st century BC)[31] and the Latin Fables of Hyginus (ca. 64 BC–AD 17).[32]
+
+The most influential version of the abduction myth is that of Ovid (d. 17 or 18 AD), who tells the story in both the Metamorphoses (Book 5) and the Fasti (Book 4).[33] Another major retelling, also in Latin, is the long unfinished poem De raptu Proserpinae ("On the Abduction of Proserpina") by Claudian (d. 404 AD). Ovid uses the name Dis, not Pluto in these two passages,[34] and Claudian uses Pluto only once; translators and editors, however, sometimes supply the more familiar "Pluto" when other epithets appear in the source text.[35] The abduction myth was a popular subject for Greek and Roman art, and recurs throughout Western art and literature, where the name "Pluto" becomes common (see Pluto in Western art and literature below). Narrative details from Ovid and Claudian influence these later versions in which the abductor is named as Pluto, especially the role of Venus and Cupid in manipulating Pluto with love and desire.[36] Throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and certainly by the time of Natale Conti's influential Mythologiae (1567), the traditions pertaining to the various rulers of the classical underworld coalesced into a single mythology that made few if any distinctions among Hades, Pluto, Dis, and Orcus.
+
+Unlike his freely procreating brothers Zeus and Poseidon, Pluto is monogamous, and is rarely said to have children.[37] In Orphic texts,[38] the chthonic nymph Melinoe is the daughter of Persephone by Zeus disguised as Pluto,[39] and the Eumenides ("The Kindly Ones") are the offspring of Persephone and Zeus Chthonios, often identified as Pluto.[40] The Augustan poet Vergil says that Pluto is the father of Allecto the Fury, whom he hates.[41] The lack of a clear distinction between Pluto and "chthonic Zeus" confuses the question of whether in some traditions, now obscure, Persephone bore children to her husband. In the late 4th century AD, Claudian's epic on the abduction motivates Pluto with a desire for children. The poem is unfinished, however, and anything Claudian may have known of these traditions is lost.[42]
+
+Justin Martyr (2nd century AD) alludes to children of Pluto, but neither names nor enumerates them.[43] Hesychius (5th century AD) mentions a "son of Pluto."[44] In his 14th-century mythography, Boccaccio records a tradition in which Pluto was the father of the divine personification Veneratio ("Reverence"), noting that she had no mother because Proserpina (the Latin name of Persephone) was sterile.[45]
+
+In The Faerie Queene (1590s), Edmund Spenser invents a daughter for Pluto whom he calls Lucifera.[46] The character's name was taken from the 16th-century mythography of Natale Conti, who used it as the Latin translation of Greek phosphor, "light-bearer," a regular epithet of Hecate.[47] Spenser incorporated aspects of the mysteries into The Faerie Queene.[48]
+
+Orpheus was regarded as a founder and prophet of the mysteries called "Orphic," "Dionysiac," or "Bacchic." Mythologized for his ability to entrance even animals and trees with his music, he was also credited in antiquity with the authorship of the lyrics that have survived as the Orphic Hymns, among them a hymn to Pluto. Orpheus's voice and lyre-playing represented a medium of revelation or higher knowledge for the mystery cults.[49]
+
+In his central myth, Orpheus visits the underworld in the hope of retrieving his bride, Eurydice, relying on the power of his music to charm the king and queen of Hades. Greek narratives of Orpheus's descent and performance typically name the ruler of the underworld as Plouton, as for instance in the Bibliotheca.[50] The myth demonstrates the importance of Pluto "the Rich" as the possessor of a quest-object. Orpheus performing before Pluto and Persephone was a common subject of ancient and later Western literature and art, and one of the most significant mythological themes of the classical tradition.[51]
+
+The demonstration of Orpheus's power depends on the normal obduracy of Pluto; the Augustan poet Horace describes him as incapable of tears.[52] Claudian, however, portrays the steely god as succumbing to Orpheus's song so that "with iron cloak he wipes his tears" (ferrugineo lacrimas deterget amictu), an image renewed by Milton in Il Penseroso (106–107): "Such notes ... / Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek."[53]
+
+The Greek writer Lucian (ca. 125–after 180 AD) suggests that Pluto's love for his wife gave the ruler of the underworld a special sympathy or insight into lovers parted by death.[54] In one of Lucian's Dialogues of the Dead, Pluto questions Protesilaus, the first Greek hero killed in the Trojan War, who wishes to return to the world of the living. "You are then in love with life?" Pluto asks. "Such lovers we have here in plenty; but they love an object, which none of them can obtain." Protesilaus explains, like an Orpheus in reverse, that he has left behind a young bride whose memory even the Lethe's waters of forgetting have not erased from him. Pluto assures him that death will reunite them someday, but Protesilaus argues that Pluto himself should understand love and its impatience, and reminds the king of his grant to Orpheus and to Alcestis, who took her husband's place in death and then was permitted at the insistence of Heracles to return to him. When Persephone intercedes for the dead warrior, Pluto grants the request at once, though allowing only one day for the reunion.[55]
+
+As Pluto gained importance as an embodiment of agricultural wealth within the Eleusinian Mysteries, from the 5th century BC onward the name Hades was increasingly reserved for the underworld as a place.[56] Neither Hades nor Pluto was one of the traditional Twelve Olympians, and Hades seems to have received limited cult,[57] perhaps only at Elis, where the temple was opened once a year.[58] During the time of Plato, the Athenians periodically honored the god called Plouton with the "strewing of a couch" (tên klinên strôsai).[59] At Eleusis, Plouton had his own priestess.[60] Pluto was worshipped with Persephone as a divine couple at Knidos, Ephesos, Mytilene, and Sparta as well as at Eleusis, where they were known simply as God (Theos) and Goddess (Thea).[61]
+
+In the ritual texts of the mystery religions preserved by the so-called Orphic or Bacchic gold tablets, from the late 5th century BC onward[62] the name Hades appears more frequently than Plouton, but in reference to the underground place:[63] Plouton is the ruler who presides over it in a harmonious partnership[64] with Persephone.[65] By the end of the 4th century BC, the name Plouton appears in Greek metrical inscriptions.[66] Two fragmentary tablets greet Pluto and Persephone jointly,[67] and the divine couple appear as welcoming figures in a metrical epitaph:
+
+I know that even below the earth, if there is indeed a reward for the worthy ones,the first and foremost honors, nurse,[68] shall be yours, next to Persephone and Pluto.[69]
+
+Hesychius identifies Pluto with Eubouleus,[70] but other ancient sources distinguish between these two underworld deities. In the Mysteries Eubouleus plays the role of a torchbearer, possibly a guide for the initiate's return.[71] In the view of Lewis Richard Farnell, Eubouleus was originally a title referring to the "good counsel" the ruler of the underworld was able to give and which was sought at Pluto's dream oracles; by the 2nd century BC, however, he had acquired a separate identity.[72]
+
+The Orphic Hymn to Pluto addresses the god as "strong-spirited" and the "All-Receiver" who commands death and is the master of mortals. His titles are given as Zeus Chthonios and Euboulos ("Good Counsel").[73] In the hymn's topography, Pluto's dwelling is in Tartarus, simultaneously a "meadow" and "thick-shaded and dark," where the Acheron encircles "the roots of the earth." Hades is again the name of the place, here described as "windless," and its gates, through which Pluto carried "pure Demeter's daughter" as his bride, are located in an Attic cave within the district of Eleusis. The route from Persephone's meadow to Hades crosses the sea. The hymn concludes:
+
+You alone were born to judge deeds obscure and conspicuous.Holiest and illustrious ruler of all, frenzied god,You delight in the worshiper's respect and reverence.Come with favor and joy to the initiates. I summon you.[74]
+
+The hymn is one of several examples of Greco-Roman prayer that express a desire for the presence of a deity, and has been compared to a similar epiclesis in the Acts of Thomas.[75]
+
+The names of both Hades and Pluto appear also in the Greek Magical Papyri and curse tablets, with Hades typically referring to the underworld as a place, and Pluto regularly invoked as the partner of Persephone.[76] Five Latin curse tablets from Rome, dating to the mid-1st century BC, promise Persephone and Pluto an offering of "dates, figs, and a black pig" if the curse is fulfilled by the desired deadline. The pig was a characteristic animal sacrifice to chthonic deities, whose victims were almost always black or dark in color.[77]
+
+A set of curse tablets written in Doric Greek and found in a tomb addresses a Pasianax, "Lord to All,"[78] sometimes taken as a title of Pluto,[79] but more recently thought to be a magical name for the corpse.[80] Pasianax is found elsewhere as an epithet of Zeus, or in the tablets may invoke a daimon like Abrasax.[81]
+
+A sanctuary dedicated to Pluto was called a ploutonion (Latin plutonium). The complex at Eleusis for the mysteries had a ploutonion regarded as the birthplace of the divine child Ploutos, in another instance of conflation or close association of the two gods.[82] Greek inscriptions record an altar of Pluto, which was to be "plastered", that is, resurfaced for a new round of sacrifices at Eleusis.[83] One of the known ploutonia was in the sacred grove between Tralleis and Nysa, where a temple of Pluto and Persephone was located. Visitors sought healing and dream oracles.[84] The ploutonion at Hierapolis, Phrygia, was connected to the rites of Cybele, but during the Roman Imperial era was subsumed by the cult of Apollo, as confirmed by archaeological investigations during the 1960s. It too was a dream oracle.[85] The sites often seem to have been chosen because the presence of naturally occurring mephitic vapors was thought to indicate an opening to the underworld.[86] In Italy, Avernus was considered an entrance to the underworld that produced toxic vapors, but Strabo seems not to think that it was a ploutonion.[87]
+
+Kevin Clinton attempted to distinguish the iconography of Hades, Plouton, Ploutos, and the Eleusinian Theos in 5th-century vase painting that depicts scenes from or relating to the mysteries. In Clinton's schema, Plouton is a mature man, sometimes even white-haired; Hades is also usually bearded and mature, but his darkness is emphasized in literary descriptions, represented in art by dark hair. Plouton's most common attribute is a sceptre, but he also often holds a full or overflowing cornucopia; Hades sometimes holds a horn, but it is depicted with no contents and should be understood as a drinking horn. Unlike Plouton, Hades never holds agrarian attributes such as stalks of grain. His chest is usually bare or only partly covered, whereas Plouton is fully robed (exceptions, however, are admitted by the author). Plouton stands, often in the company of both Demeter and Kore, or sometimes one of the goddesses, but Hades almost always sits or reclines, usually with Persephone facing him.[88] "Confusion and disagreement" about the interpretation of these images remain.[89]
+
+Attributes of Pluto mentioned in the Orphic Hymn to Pluto are his scepter, keys, throne, and horses. In the hymn, the keys are connected to his capacity for giving wealth to humanity, specifically the agricultural wealth of "the year's fruits."
+
+Pausanias explains the significance of Pluto's key in describing a wondrously carved cedar chest at the Temple of Hera in Elis. Numerous deities are depicted, with one panel grouping Dionysus, Persephone, the nymphs and Pluto. Pluto holds a key because "they say that what is called Hades has been locked up by Pluto, and that nobody will return back again therefrom."[91] Natale Conti cites Pausanias in noting that keys are an attribute of Pluto as the scepter is of Jove (Greek Zeus) and the trident of Neptune (Poseidon).[92]
+
+A golden key (chrusea klês) was laid on the tongue of initiates by priests at Eleusis[93] and was a symbol of the revelation they were obligated to keep secret.[94] A key is among the attributes of other infernal deities such as Hecate, Anubis, and Persephone, and those who act as guardians or timekeepers, such as Janus and Aion.[95] Aeacus (Aiakos), one of the three mortal kings who became judges in the afterlife, is also a kleidouchos (κλειδοῦχος), "holder of the keys," and a priestly doorkeeper in the court of Pluto and Persephone.[96]
+
+According to the Stoic philosopher Cornutus (1st century AD), Pluto wore a wreath of phasganion, more often called xiphion,[97] traditionally identified as a type of gladiolus.[98] Dioscorides recorded medical uses for the plant. For extracting stings and thorns, xiphion was mixed with wine and frankincense to make a cataplasm. The plant was also used as an aphrodisiac[99] and contraceptive.[100] It grew in humid places. In an obscure passage, Cornutus seems to connect Pluto's wearing of phasganion to an etymology for Avernus, which he derives from the word for "air," perhaps through some association with the color glaukos, "bluish grey," "greenish" or "sea-colored," which might describe the plant's leaves. Because the color could describe the sky, Cornutus regularly gives it divine connotations.[101] Pluto's twin sister was named Glauca.
+
+Ambiguity of color is characteristic of Pluto. Although both he and his realm are regularly described as dark, black, or gloomy, the god himself is sometimes seen as pale or having a pallor. Martianus Capella (5th century) describes him as both "growing pale in shadow, a fugitive from light" and actively "shedding darkness in the gloom of Tartarean night," crowned with a wreath made of ebony as suitable for the kingdom he governs.[102] The horses of Pluto are usually black, but Ovid describes them as "sky-colored" (caeruleus, from caelum, "sky"), which might be blue, greenish-blue, or dark blue.[103]
+
+The Renaissance mythographer Natale Conti says wreaths of narcissus, maidenhair fern (adianthus), and cypress were given to Pluto.[104] In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Gaia (Earth) produced the narcissus at Zeus's request as a snare for Persephone; when she grasps it, a chasm opens up and the "Host to Many" (Hades) seizes her.[105] Narcissus wreaths were used in early times to crown Demeter and Persephone, as well as the Furies (Eumenides).[106] The flower was associated with narcotic drugginess (narkê, "torpor"),[107] erotic fascination,[108] and imminent death;[109] to dream of crowning oneself with narcissus was a bad sign.[110] In the myth of Narcissus, the flower is created when a beautiful, self-absorbed youth rejects sexuality and is condemned to perpetual self-love along the Styx.[111]
+
+Conti's inclusion of adianthus (Adiantum in modern nomenclature) is less straightforward. The name, meaning "unmoistened" (Greek adianton), was taken in antiquity to refer to the fern's ability to repel water. The plant, which grew in wet places, was also called capillus veneris, "hair of Venus," divinely dry when she emerged from the sea.[112] Historian of medicine John M. Riddle has suggested that the adianthus was one of the ferns Dioscorides called asplenon and prescribed as a contraceptive (atokios).[113] The associations of Proserpine (Persephone) and the maidenhair are alluded to by Samuel Beckett in a 1946 poem, in which the self is a Platonic cave with capillaires, in French both "maidenhair fern" and "blood vessels".[114]
+
+The cypress (Greek cyparissus, Latin cupressus) has traditional associations with mourning.[115] In ancient Attica, households in mourning were garlanded with cypress,[116] and it was used to fumigate the air during cremations.[117] In the myth of Cyparissus, a youth was transformed into a cypress, consumed by grief over the accidental death of a pet stag.[118] A "white cypress" is part of the topography of the underworld that recurs in the Orphic gold tablets as a kind of beacon near the entrance, perhaps to be compared with the Tree of Life in various world mythologies. The description of the cypress as "white" (Greek leukē), since the botanical tree is dark, is symbolic, evoking the white garments worn by initiates or the clothing of a corpse, or the pallor of the dead. In Orphic funeral rites, it was forbidden to make coffins of cypress.[119]
+
+The tradition of the mystery religions favors Pluto as a loving and faithful partner to Persephone, in contrast to the violence of Hades in early myths, but one ancient myth that preserves a lover for him parallels the abduction and also has a vegetative aspect.[120] A Roman source says that Pluto fell in love with Leuca (Greek Leukē, "White"), the most beautiful of the nymphs, and abducted her to live with him in his realm. After the long span of her life came to its end, he memorialized their love by creating a white tree in the Elysian Fields. The tree was the white poplar (Greek leukē), the leaves of which are white on one side and dark on the other, representing the duality of upper and underworld.[121] A wreath of white poplar leaves was fashioned by Heracles to mark his ascent from the underworld, an aition for why it was worn by initiates[122] and by champion athletes participating in funeral games.[123] Like other plants associated with Pluto, white poplar was regarded as a contraceptive in antiquity.[124] The relation of this tree to the white cypress of the mysteries is debated.[125]
+
+The Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus uses the name Plouton instead of Hades in relating the tripartite division of sovereignty, the abduction of Persephone, and the visit of Orpheus to the underworld. This version of the theogony for the most part follows Hesiod (see above), but adds that the three brothers were each given a gift by the Cyclopes to use in their battle against the Titans: Zeus thunder and lightning; Poseidon a trident; and Pluto a helmet (kyneê).[126]
+
+The helmet Pluto receives is presumably the magical Cap of Invisibility (aidos kyneê), but the Bibliotheca is the only ancient source that explicitly says it belonged to Pluto.[127] The verbal play of aidos, "invisible," and Hades is thought to account for this attribution of the helmet to the ruler of the underworld, since no ancient narratives record his use or possession of it. Later authors such as Rabelais (16th century) do attribute the helmet to Pluto.[128] Erasmus calls it the "helmet of Orcus"[129] and gives it as a figure of speech referring to those who conceal their true nature by a cunning device. Francis Bacon notes the proverbial usage: "the helmet of Pluto, which maketh the politic man go invisible, is secrecy in the counsel, and celerity in the execution."[130]
+
+No ancient image of the ruler of the underworld can be said with certainty to show him with a bident,[131] though the ornamented tip of his scepter may have been misunderstood at times as a bident.[132] In the Roman world, the bident (from bi-, "two" + dent-, "teeth") was an agricultural implement. It may also represent one of the three types of lightning wielded by Jupiter, the Roman counterpart of Zeus, and the Etruscan Tinia. The later notion that the ruler of the underworld wielded a trident or bident can perhaps be traced to a line in Seneca's Hercules Furens ("Hercules Enraged"), in which Father Dis, the Roman counterpart of Pluto, uses a three-pronged spear to drive off Hercules as he attempts to invade the underworld. Seneca calls Dis the "Infernal Jove"[133] or the "dire Jove"[134] (the Jove who gives dire or ill omens, dirae), just as in the Greek tradition, Plouton is sometimes identified as a "chthonic Zeus." That the trident and bident might be somewhat interchangeable is suggested by a Byzantine scholiast, who mentions Poseidon being armed with a bident.[135]
+
+In the Middle Ages, classical underworld figures began to be depicted with a pitchfork.[136] Early Christian writers had identified the classical underworld with Hell, and its denizens as demons or devils.[137] In the Renaissance, the bident became a conventional attribute of Pluto. In an influential ceiling mural depicting the wedding of Cupid and Psyche, painted by Raphael's workshop for the Villa Farnesina in 1517, Pluto is shown holding the bident, with Cerberus at his side, while Neptune holds the trident.[138] Perhaps influenced by this work, Agostino Carracci originally depicted Pluto with a bident in a preparatory drawing for his painting Pluto (1592), in which the god ended up holding his characteristic key.[139] In Caravaggio's Giove, Nettuno e Plutone (ca. 1597), a ceiling mural based on alchemical allegory, it is Neptune who holds the bident.[140]
+
+The name Plouton is first used in Greek literature by Athenian playwrights.[58] In Aristophanes' comedy The Frogs (Batrachoi, 405 BC), in which "the Eleusinian colouring is in fact so pervasive,"[143] the ruler of the underworld is one of the characters, under the name of Plouton. The play depicts a mock descent to the underworld by the god Dionysus to bring back one of the dead tragic playwrights in the hope of restoring Athenian theater to its former glory. Pluto is a silent presence onstage for about 600 lines presiding over a contest among the tragedians, then announces that the winner has the privilege of returning to the upper world.[144] The play also draws on beliefs and imagery from Orphic and Dionysiac cult, and rituals pertaining to Ploutos (Plutus, "wealth").[145] In a fragment from another play by Aristophanes, a character "is comically singing of the excellent aspects of being dead", asking in reference to the tripartition of sovereignty over the world:
+
+And where do you think Pluto gets his name [i.e. "rich"],
+if not because he took the best portion?
+...
+How much better are things below than what Zeus possesses! [146]
+
+To Plato, the god of the underworld was "an agent in [the] beneficent cycle of death and rebirth" meriting worship under the name of Plouton, a giver of spiritual wealth.[147] In the dialogue Cratylus, Plato has Socrates explain the etymology of Plouton, saying that Pluto gives wealth (ploutos), and his name means "giver of wealth, which comes out of the earth beneath". Because the name Hades is taken to mean "the invisible", people fear what they cannot see; although they are in error about the nature of this deity's power, Socrates says, "the office and name of the God really correspond":
+
+He is the perfect and accomplished Sophist, and the great benefactor of the inhabitants of the other world; and even to us who are upon earth he sends from below exceeding blessings. For he has much more than he wants down there; wherefore he is called Pluto (or the rich). Note also, that he will have nothing to do with men while they are in the body, but only when the soul is liberated from the desires and evils of the body. Now there is a great deal of philosophy and reflection in that; for in their liberated state he can bind them with the desire of virtue, but while they are flustered and maddened by the body, not even father Cronos himself would suffice to keep them with him in his own far-famed chains.[148]
+
+Since "the union of body and soul is not better than the loosing,"[149] death is not an evil. Walter Burkert thus sees Pluto as a "god of dissolution."[150] Among the titles of Pluto was Isodaitēs, "divider into equal portions," a title that connects him to the fate goddesses the Moirai.[151] Isodaitēs was also a cult title for Dionysus and Helios.[152]
+
+In ordering his ideal city, Plato proposed a calendar in which Pluto was honored as a benefactor in the twelfth month, implicitly ranking him as one of the twelve principal deities.[153] In the Attic calendar, the twelfth month, more or less equivalent to June, was Skirophorion; the name may be connected to the rape of Persephone.[154]
+
+In the theogony of Euhemerus (4th century BC), the gods were treated as mortal rulers whose deeds were immortalized by tradition. Ennius translated Euhemerus into Latin about a hundred years later, and a passage from his version was in turn preserved by the early Christian writer Lactantius.[155] Here the union of Saturn (the Roman equivalent of Cronus) and Ops, an Italic goddess of abundance, produces Jupiter (Greek Zeus), Juno (Hera), Neptune, Pluto, and Glauca:
+
+Then Saturn took Ops to wife. Titan, the elder brother, demanded the kingship for himself. Vesta their mother, with their sisters Ceres [Demeter] and Ops, persuaded Saturn not to give way to his brother in the matter. Titan was less good-looking than Saturn; for that reason, and also because he could see his mother and sisters working to have it so, he conceded the kingship to Saturn, and came to terms with him: if Saturn had a male child born to him, it would not be reared. This was done to secure reversion of the kingship to Titan's children. They then killed the first son that was born to Saturn. Next came twin children, Jupiter and Juno. Juno was given to Saturn to see while Jupiter was secretly removed and given to Vesta to be brought up without Saturn's knowledge. In the same way without Saturn knowing, Ops bore Neptune and hid him away. In her third labor Ops bore another set of twins, Pluto and Glauce. (Pluto in Latin is Diespiter;[156] some call him Orcus.) Saturn was shown his daughter Glauce but his son Pluto was hidden and removed. Glauce then died young. That is the pedigree, as written, of Jupiter and his brothers; that is how it has been passed down to us in holy scripture.
+
+In this theogony, which Ennius introduced into Latin literature, Saturn, "Titan,"[157] Vesta, Ceres, and Ops are siblings; Glauca is the twin of Pluto and dies mysteriously young. There are several mythological figures named Glauca; the sister of Pluto may be the Glauca who in Cicero's account of the three aspects of Diana conceived the third with the equally mysterious Upis.[158] This is the genealogy for Pluto that Boccaccio used in his Genealogia Deorum Gentilium and in his lectures explicating the Divine Comedy of Dante.[159]
+
+In Book 3 of the Sibylline Oracles, dating mostly to the 2nd century AD, Rhea gives birth to Pluto as she passes by Dodona, "where the watery paths of the River Europus flowed, and the water ran into the sea, merged with the Peneius. This is also called the Stygian river."[160]
+
+The Orphic theogonies are notoriously varied,[161] and Orphic cosmology influenced the varying Gnostic theogonies of late antiquity.[162] Clementine literature (4th century AD) preserves a theogony with explicit Orphic influence that also draws on Hesiod, yielding a distinctive role for Pluto. When the primordial elements came together by orderly cyclonic force, they produced a generative sphere, the "egg" from which the primeval Orphic entity Phanes is born and the world is formed. The release of Phanes and his ascent to the heavenly top of the world-egg causes the matter left in the sphere to settle in relation to weight, creating the tripartite world of the traditional theogonies:[163]
+
+Its lower part, the heaviest element, sinks downwards, and is called Pluto because of its gravity, weight, and great quantity (plêthos) of matter. After the separation of this heavy element in the middle part of the egg the waters flow together, which they call Poseidon. The purest and noblest element, the fire, is called Zeus, because its nature is glowing (ζέουσα, zeousa). It flies right up into the air, and draws up the spirit, now called Metis, that was left in the underlying moisture. And when this spirit has reached the summit of the ether, it is devoured by Zeus, who in his turn begets the intelligence (σύνεσις, sunesis), also called Pallas. And by this artistic intelligence the etherial artificer creates the whole world. This world is surrounded by the air, which extends from Zeus, the very hot ether, to the earth; this air is called Hera.[164]
+
+This cosmogony interprets Hesiod allegorically, and so the heaviest element is identified not as the Earth, but as the netherworld of Pluto.[165] (In modern geochemistry, plutonium is the heaviest primordial element.) Supposed etymologies are used to make sense of the relation of physical process to divine name; Plouton is here connected to plêthos (abundance).[166]
+
+In the Stoic system, Pluto represented the lower region of the air, where according to Seneca (1st century AD) the soul underwent a kind of purgatory before ascending to the ether.[167] Seneca's contemporary Cornutus made use of the traditional etymology of Pluto's name for Stoic theology. The Stoics believed that the form of a word contained the original truth of its meaning, which over time could become corrupted or obscured.[168] Plouton derived from ploutein, "to be wealthy," Cornutus said, because "all things are corruptible and therefore are 'ultimately consigned to him as his property.'"[169]
+
+Within the Pythagorean and Neoplatonic traditions, Pluto was allegorized as the region where souls are purified, located between the moon (as represented by Persephone) and the sun.[170] Neoplatonists sometimes interpreted the Eleusinian Mysteries as a fabula of celestial phenomena:
+
+Authors tell the fable that Ceres was Proserpina's mother, and that Proserpina while playing one day was kidnapped by Pluto. Her mother searched for her with lighted torches; and it was decreed by Jupiter that the mother should have her daughter for fifteen days in the month, but Pluto for the rest, the other fifteen. This is nothing but that the name Ceres is used to mean the earth, called Ceres on analogy with crees ('you may create'), for all things are created from her. By Proserpina is meant the moon, and her name is on analogy with prope serpens ('creeping near'), for she is moved nearer to the earth than the other planets. She is called earth's daughter, because her substance has more of earth in it than of the other elements. By Pluto is meant the shadow that sometimes obstructs the moon.[171]
+
+A dedicatory inscription from Smyrna describes a 1st–2nd century sanctuary to "God Himself" as the most exalted of a group of six deities, including clothed statues of Plouton Helios and Koure Selene, "Pluto the Sun" and "Kore the Moon."[172] The status of Pluto and Kore as a divine couple is marked by what the text describes as a "linen embroidered bridal curtain."[173] The two are placed as bride and groom within an enclosed temple, separately from the other deities cultivated at the sanctuary.
+
+Plouton Helios is mentioned in other literary sources in connection with Koure Selene and Helios Apollon; the sun on its nighttime course was sometimes envisioned as traveling through the underworld on its return to the east. Apuleius describes a rite in which the sun appears at midnight to the initiate at the gates of Proserpina; it has been suggested that this midnight sun could be Plouton Helios.[174]
+
+The Smyrna inscription also records the presence of Helios Apollon at the sanctuary. As two forms of Helios, Apollo and Pluto pose a dichotomy:
+
+It has been argued that the sanctuary was in the keeping of a Pythagorean sodality or "brotherhood". The relation of Orphic beliefs to the mystic strand of Pythagoreanism, or of these to Platonism and Neoplatonism, is complex and much debated.[176]
+
+In the Hellenistic era, the title or epithet Plutonius is sometimes affixed to the names of other deities. In the Hermetic Corpus,[177] Jupiter Plutonius "rules over earth and sea, and it is he who nourishes mortal things that have soul and bear fruit."[178]
+
+In Ptolemaic Alexandria, at the site of a dream oracle, Serapis was identified with Aion Plutonius.[179] Gilles Quispel conjectured that this figure results from the integration of the Orphic Phanes into Mithraic religion at Alexandria, and that he "assures the eternity of the city," where the birth of Aion was celebrated at the sanctuary of Kore on 6 January.[180] In Latin, Plutonius can be an adjective that simply means "of or pertaining to Pluto."[181]
+
+The Neoplatonist Proclus (5th century AD) considered Pluto the third demiurge, a sublunar demiurge who was also identified variously with Poseidon or Hephaestus. This idea is present in Renaissance Neoplatonism, as for instance in the cosmology of Marsilio Ficino (1433–99),[182] who translated Orphic texts into Latin for his own use.[183] Ficino saw the sublunar demiurge as "a daemonic 'many-headed' sophist, a magus, an enchanter, a fashioner of images and reflections, a shape-changer of himself and of others, a poet in a way of being and of not-being, a royal Pluto." This demiurgic figure identified with Pluto is also "'a purifier of souls' who presides over the magic of love and generation and who uses a fantastic counter-art to mock, but also ... to supplement, the divine icastic or truly imitative art of the sublime translunar Demiurge."[184]
+
+Christian writers of late antiquity sought to discredit the competing gods of Roman and Hellenistic religions, often adopting the euhemerizing approach in regarding them not as divinities, but as people glorified through stories and cultic practices and thus not true deities worthy of worship. The infernal gods, however, retained their potency, becoming identified with the Devil and treated as demonic forces by Christian apologists.[185]
+
+One source of Christian revulsion toward the chthonic gods was the arena. Attendants in divine costume, among them a "Pluto" who escorted corpses out, were part of the ceremonies of the gladiatorial games.[186] Tertullian calls the mallet-wielding figure usually identified as the Etruscan Charun the "brother of Jove,"[187] that is, Hades/Pluto/Dis, an indication that the distinctions among these denizens of the underworld were becoming blurred in a Christian context.[188] Prudentius, in his poetic polemic against the religious traditionalist Symmachus, describes the arena as a place where savage vows were fulfilled on an altar to Pluto (solvit ad aram / Plutonis fera vota), where fallen gladiators were human sacrifices to Dis and Charon received their souls as his payment, to the delight of the underworld Jove (Iovis infernalis).[189]
+
+Medieval mythographies, written in Latin, continue the conflation of Greek and Roman deities begun by the ancient Romans themselves. Perhaps because the name Pluto was used in both traditions, it appears widely in these Latin sources for the classical ruler of the underworld, who is also seen as the double, ally, or adjunct to the figure in Christian mythology known variously as the Devil, Satan, or Lucifer. The classical underworld deities became casually interchangeable with Satan as an embodiment of Hell.[190] For instance, in the 9th century, Abbo Cernuus, the only witness whose account of the Siege of Paris survives, called the invading Vikings the "spawn of Pluto."[191]
+
+In the Little Book on Images of the Gods, Pluto is described as
+
+an intimidating personage sitting on a throne of sulphur, holding the scepter of his realm in his right hand, and with his left strangling a soul. Under his feet three-headed Cerberus held a position, and beside him he had three Harpies. From his golden throne of sulphur flowed four rivers, which were called, as is known, Lethe, Cocytus, Phlegethon and Acheron, tributaries of the Stygian swamp.[192]
+
+This work derives from that of the Third Vatican Mythographer, possibly one Albricus or Alberic, who presents often extensive allegories and devotes his longest chapter, including an excursus on the nature of the soul, to Pluto.[193]
+
+In Dante's Divine Comedy (written 1308–1321), Pluto presides over the fourth circle of Hell, to which the greedy are condemned.[194] The Italian form of the name is Pluto, taken by some commentators[195] to refer specifically to Plutus as the god of wealth who would preside over the torment of those who hoarded or squandered it in life.[196] Dante's Pluto is greeted as "the great enemy"[197] and utters the famously impenetrable line Papé Satàn, papé Satàn aleppe. Much of this Canto is devoted to the power of Fortuna to give and take away. Entrance into the fourth circle has marked a downward turn in the poet's journey, and the next landmark after he and his guide cross from the circle is the Stygian swamp, through which they pass on their way to the city of Dis (Italian Dite). Dante's clear distinction between Pluto and Dis suggests that he had Plutus in mind in naming the former. The city of Dis is the "citadel of Lower Hell" where the walls are garrisoned by fallen angels and Furies.[198] Pluto is treated likewise as a purely Satanic figure by the 16th-century Italian poet Tasso throughout his epic Jerusalem Delivered,[199] in which "great Dis, great Pluto" is invoked in the company of "all ye devils that lie in deepest hell."[200]
+
+Influenced by Ovid and Claudian, Geoffrey Chaucer (1343–1400)[201] developed the myth of Pluto and Proserpina (the Latin name of Persephone) in English literature. Like earlier medieval writers, Chaucer identifies Pluto's realm with Hell as a place of condemnation and torment,[202] and describes it as "derk and lowe" ("dark and low").[203] But Pluto's major appearance in the works of Chaucer comes as a character in "The Merchant's Tale," where Pluto is identified as the "Kyng of Fayerye" (Fairy King).[204] As in the anonymous romance Sir Orfeo (ca. 1300), Pluto and Proserpina rule over a fantastical world that melds classical myth and fairyland.[205] Chaucer has the couple engage in a comic battle of the sexes that undermines the Christian imagery in the tale, which is Chaucer's most sexually explicit.[206] The Scottish poet William Dunbar ca. 1503 also described Pluto as a folkloric supernatural being, "the elrich incubus / in cloke of grene" ("the eldritch incubus in cloak of green"), who appears among the courtiers of Cupid.[207]
+
+The name Pluto for the classical ruler of the underworld was further established in English literature by Arthur Golding, whose translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses (1565) was of great influence on William Shakespeare,[208] Christopher Marlowe,[209] and Edmund Spenser.[210][211] Golding translates Ovid's Dis as Pluto,[212] a practice that prevails among English translators, despite John Milton's use of the Latin Dis in Paradise Lost.[213] The Christian perception of the classical underworld as Hell influenced Golding's translation practices; for instance, Ovid's tenebrosa sede tyrannus / exierat ("the tyrant [Dis] had gone out of his shadowy realm") becomes "the prince of fiends forsook his darksome hole".[214]
+
+Pluto's court as a literary setting could bring together a motley assortment of characters. In Huon de Méry's 13th-century poem "The Tournament of the Antichrist", Pluto rules over a congregation of "classical gods and demigods, biblical devils, and evil Christians."[215] In the 15th-century dream allegory The Assembly of Gods, the deities and personifications are "apparelled as medieval nobility"[216] basking in the "magnyfycence" of their "lord Pluto," who is clad in a "smoky net" and reeking of sulphur.[217]
+
+Throughout the Renaissance, images and ideas from classical antiquity entered popular culture through the new medium of print and through pageants and other public performances at festivals. The Fête-Dieu at Aix-en-Provence in 1462 featured characters costumed as a number of classical deities, including Pluto,[218] and Pluto was the subject of one of seven pageants presented as part of the 1521 Midsummer Eve festival in London.[219] During the 15th century, no mythological theme was brought to the stage more often than Orpheus's descent, with the court of Pluto inspiring fantastical stagecraft.[220] Leonardo da Vinci designed a set with a rotating mountain that opened up to reveal Pluto emerging from the underworld; the drawing survives and was the basis for a modern recreation.[221]
+
+The tragic descent of the hero-musician Orpheus to the underworld to retrieve his bride, and his performance at the court of Pluto and Proserpina, offered compelling material for librettists and composers of opera (see List of Orphean operas) and ballet. Pluto also appears in works based on other classical myths of the underworld. As a singing role, Pluto is almost always written for a bass voice, with the low vocal range representing the depths and weight of the underworld, as in Monteverdi and Rinuccini's L'Orfeo (1607) and Il ballo delle ingrate (1608). In their ballo, a form of ballet with vocal numbers, Cupid invokes Pluto from the underworld to lay claim to "ungrateful" women who were immune to love. Pluto's part is considered particularly virtuosic,[222] and a reviewer at the première described the character, who appeared as if from a blazing Inferno, as "formidable and awesome in sight, with garments as given him by poets, but burdened with gold and jewels."[223]
+
+The role of Pluto is written for a bass in Peri's Euridice (1600);[224] Caccini's Euridice (1602); Rossi's Orfeo (1647); Cesti's Il pomo d'oro (1668);[225] Sartoris's Orfeo (1672); Lully's Alceste, a tragédie en musique (1674);[226] Charpentier's chamber opera La descente d'Orphée aux enfers (1686);[227] Telemann's Orpheus (1726); and Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie (1733).[228] Pluto was a baritone in Lully's Proserpine (1680), which includes a duo dramatizing the conflict between the royal underworld couple that is notable for its early use of musical characterization.[229] Perhaps the most famous of the Orpheus operas is Offenbach's satiric Orpheus in the Underworld (1858),[230] in which a tenor sings the role of Pluton, disguised in the giddily convoluted plotting as Aristée (Aristaeus), a farmer.
+
+Scenes set in Pluto's realm were orchestrated with instrumentation that became conventionally "hellish", established in Monteverdi's L'Orfeo as two cornets, three trombones, a bassoon, and a régale.[231]
+
+Pluto has also been featured as a role in ballet. In Lully's "Ballet of Seven Planets'" interlude from Cavalli's opera Ercole amante ("Hercules in Love"), Louis XIV himself danced as Pluto and other characters; it was a spectacular flop.[232] Pluto appeared in Noverre's lost La descente d'Orphée aux Enfers (1760s). Gaétan Vestris danced the role of the god in Florian Deller's Orefeo ed Euridice (1763).[233] The Persephone choreographed by Robert Joffrey (1952) was based on André Gide's line "king of winters, the infernal Pluto."[234]
+
+The abduction of Proserpina by Pluto was the scene from the myth most often depicted by artists, who usually follow Ovid's version. The influential emblem book Iconologia of Cesare Ripa (1593, second edition 1603) presents the allegorical figure of Rape with a shield on which the abduction is painted.[235] Jacob Isaacsz. van Swanenburg, the first teacher of Rembrandt, echoed Ovid in showing Pluto as the target of Cupid's arrow while Venus watches her plan carried out (location of painting unknown). The treatment of the scene by Rubens is similar. Rembrandt incorporates Claudian's more passionate characterizations.[236] The performance of Orpheus in the court of Pluto and Proserpina was also a popular subject.
+
+Major artists who produced works depicting Pluto include:
+
+After the Renaissance, literary interest in the abduction myth waned until the revival of classical myth among the Romantics. The work of mythographers such as J.G. Frazer and Jane Ellen Harrison helped inspire the recasting of myths in modern terms by Victorian and Modernist writers. In Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), Thomas Hardy portrays Alec d'Urberville as "a grotesque parody of Pluto/Dis" exemplifying the late-Victorian culture of male domination, in which women were consigned to "an endless breaking ... on the wheel of biological reproduction."[243] A similar figure is found in The Lost Girl (1920) by D.H. Lawrence, where the character Ciccio[244] acts as Pluto to Alvina's Persephone, "the deathly-lost bride ... paradoxically obliterated and vitalised at the same time by contact with Pluto/Dis" in "a prelude to the grand design of rebirth." The darkness of Pluto is both a source of regeneration, and of "merciless annihilation."[245] Lawrence takes up the theme elsewhere in his work; in The First Lady Chatterley (1926, an early version of Lady Chatterley's Lover), Connie Chatterley sees herself as a Persephone and declares "she'd rather be married to Pluto than Plato," casting her earthy gamekeeper lover as the former and her philosophy-spouting husband as the latter.[246]
+
+In Rick Riordan's young adult fantasy series The Heroes of Olympus, the character Hazel Levesque is the daughter of Pluto, god of riches. She is one of seven characters with a parent from classical mythology.[247]
+
+Scientific terms derived from the name of Pluto include:

en/2362.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,174 @@
+
+
+Pluto (Latin: Plūtō; Greek: Πλούτων, Ploútōn) was the ruler of the underworld in classical mythology. The earlier name for the god was Hades, which became more common as the name of the underworld itself. In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Pluto represents a more positive concept of the god who presides over the afterlife. Ploutōn was frequently conflated with Ploutos, the Greek god of wealth, because mineral wealth was found underground, and because as a chthonic god Pluto ruled the deep earth that contained the seeds necessary for a bountiful harvest.[1] The name Ploutōn came into widespread usage with the Eleusinian Mysteries, in which Pluto was venerated as both a stern ruler and a loving husband to Persephone. The couple received souls in the afterlife and are invoked together in religious inscriptions, being referred to as Plouton and as Kore respectively. Hades, by contrast, had few temples and religious practices associated with him, and he is portrayed as the dark and violent abductor of Persephone.
+
+Pluto and Hades differ in character, but they are not distinct figures and share two dominant myths. In Greek cosmogony, the god received the rule of the underworld in a three-way division of sovereignty over the world, with his brother Zeus ruling the sky and his other brother Poseidon sovereign over the sea. His central narrative in myth is of him abducting Persephone to be his wife and the queen of his realm.[2] Plouton as the name of the ruler of the underworld first appears in Greek literature of the Classical period, in the works of the Athenian playwrights and of the philosopher Plato, who is the major Greek source on its significance. Under the name Pluto, the god appears in other myths in a secondary role, mostly as the possessor of a quest-object, and especially in the descent of Orpheus or other heroes to the underworld.[3]
+
+Plūtō ([ˈpluːtoː]; genitive Plūtōnis) is the Latinized form of the Greek Plouton. Pluto's Roman equivalent is Dis Pater, whose name is most often taken to mean "Rich Father" and is perhaps a direct translation of Plouton. Pluto was also identified with the obscure Roman Orcus, like Hades the name of both a god of the underworld and the underworld as a place. The borrowed Greek name Pluto is sometimes used for the ruler of the dead in Latin literature, leading some mythology handbooks to assert misleadingly that Pluto was the Roman counterpart of Hades.[4][citation needed] Pluto (Pluton in French and German, Plutone in Italian) becomes the most common name for the classical ruler of the underworld in subsequent Western literature and other art forms.
+
+The name Plouton does not appear in Greek literature of the Archaic period.[5] In Hesiod's Theogony, the six children of Cronus and Rhea are Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Hades, Demeter, and Hestia. The male children divide the world into three realms. Hades takes Persephone by force from her mother Demeter, with the consent of Zeus. Ploutos, "Wealth," appears in the Theogony as the child of Demeter and Iasion: "fine Plutus, who goes upon the whole earth and the broad back of the sea, and whoever meets him and comes into his hands, that man he makes rich, and he bestows much wealth upon him." The union of Demeter and Iasion, described also in the Odyssey,[6] took place in a fallow field that had been ploughed three times, in what seems to be a reference to a ritual copulation or sympathetic magic to ensure the earth's fertility.[7] "The resemblance of the name Ploutos to Plouton ...," it has been noted, "cannot be accidental. Plouton is lord of the dead, but as Persephone's husband he has serious claims to the powers of fertility."[8] Demeter's son Plutus merges in the narrative tradition with her son-in-law Pluto, redefining the implacable chariot-driver Hades whose horses trample the flowering earth.[9]
+
+That the underworld god was associated early on with success in agricultural activity is already evident in Hesiod's Works and Days, line 465-469: "Pray to Zeus of the Earth and to pure Demeter to make Demeter's holy grain sound and heavy, when first you begin ploughing, when you hold in your hand the end of the plough-tail and bring down your stick on the backs of the oxen as they draw on the pole-bar by the yoke-straps."[10]
+
+Plouton was one of several euphemistic names for Hades, described in the Iliad as the god most hateful to mortals.[11] Plato says that people prefer the name Plouton, "giver of wealth," because the name of Hades is fear-provoking.[12] The name was understood as referring to "the boundless riches of the earth, both the crops on its surface—he was originally a god of the land—and the mines hidden within it."[13] What is sometimes taken as "confusion" of the two gods Plouton and Ploutos ("Wealth") held or acquired a theological significance in antiquity. As a lord of abundance or riches, Pluto expresses the aspect of the underworld god that was positive, symbolized in art by the "horn of plenty" (cornucopia),[14] by means of which Plouton is distinguished from the gloomier Hades.[15]
+
+The Roman poet Ennius (ca. 239–169 BC), the leading figure in the Hellenization of Latin literature, considered Pluto a Greek god to be explained in terms of the Roman equivalents Dis Pater and Orcus.[16] It is unclear whether Pluto had a literary presence in Rome before Ennius. Some scholars think that rituals and beliefs pertaining to Pluto entered Roman culture with the establishment of the Saecular Games in 249 BC, and that Dis pater was only a translation of Plouton.[17] In the mid-1st century BC, Cicero identifies Pluto with Dis, explaining that "The earth in all its power and plenty is sacred to Father Dis, a name which is the same as Dives, 'The Wealthy One,' as is the Greek Plouton. This is because everything is born of the earth and returns to it again."[18]
+
+During the Roman Imperial era, the Greek geographer Strabo (1st century AD) makes a distinction between Pluto and Hades. In writing of the mineral wealth of ancient Iberia (Roman Spain), he says that among the Turdetani, it is "Pluto, and not Hades, who inhabits the region down below."[19] In the discourse On Mourning by the Greek author Lucian (2nd century AD), Pluto's "wealth" is the dead he rules over in the abyss (chasma); the name Hades is reserved for the underworld itself.[20]
+
+In Greek religious practice, Pluto is sometimes seen as the "chthonic Zeus" (Zeus Chthonios[21] or Zeus Catachthonios[22]), or at least as having functions or significance equivalent to those of Zeus but pertaining to the earth or underworld.[23] In ancient Roman and Hellenistic religion, Pluto was identified with a number of other deities, including Summanus, the Roman god of nocturnal thunder;[24] Februus, the Roman god from whose purification rites the month of February takes its name;[25] the syncretic god Serapis, regarded as Pluto's Egyptian equivalent;[26] and the Semitic god Muth (Μούθ). Muth was described by Philo of Byblos as the equivalent of both Thanatos (Death personified) and Pluto.[27] The ancient Greeks did not regard Pluto as "death" per se.[28]
+
+The best-known myth involving Pluto or Hades is the abduction of Persephone, also known as Kore ("the Maiden"). The earliest literary versions of the myth are a brief mention in Hesiod's Theogony and the extended narrative of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter; in both these works, the ruler of the underworld is named as Hades ("the Hidden One"). Hades is an unsympathetic figure, and Persephone's unwillingness is emphasized.[29] Increased usage of the name Plouton in religious inscriptions and literary texts reflects the influence of the Eleusinian Mysteries, which treated Pluto and Persephone as a divine couple who received initiates in the afterlife; as such, Pluto was disassociated from the "violent abductor" of Kore.[30] Two early works that give the abductor god's name as Pluto are the Greek mythography traditionally known as the Library of "Apollodorus" (1st century BC)[31] and the Latin Fables of Hyginus (ca. 64 BC–AD 17).[32]
+
+The most influential version of the abduction myth is that of Ovid (d. 17 or 18 AD), who tells the story in both the Metamorphoses (Book 5) and the Fasti (Book 4).[33] Another major retelling, also in Latin, is the long unfinished poem De raptu Proserpinae ("On the Abduction of Proserpina") by Claudian (d. 404 AD). Ovid uses the name Dis, not Pluto in these two passages,[34] and Claudian uses Pluto only once; translators and editors, however, sometimes supply the more familiar "Pluto" when other epithets appear in the source text.[35] The abduction myth was a popular subject for Greek and Roman art, and recurs throughout Western art and literature, where the name "Pluto" becomes common (see Pluto in Western art and literature below). Narrative details from Ovid and Claudian influence these later versions in which the abductor is named as Pluto, especially the role of Venus and Cupid in manipulating Pluto with love and desire.[36] Throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and certainly by the time of Natale Conti's influential Mythologiae (1567), the traditions pertaining to the various rulers of the classical underworld coalesced into a single mythology that made few if any distinctions among Hades, Pluto, Dis, and Orcus.
+
+Unlike his freely procreating brothers Zeus and Poseidon, Pluto is monogamous, and is rarely said to have children.[37] In Orphic texts,[38] the chthonic nymph Melinoe is the daughter of Persephone by Zeus disguised as Pluto,[39] and the Eumenides ("The Kindly Ones") are the offspring of Persephone and Zeus Chthonios, often identified as Pluto.[40] The Augustan poet Vergil says that Pluto is the father of Allecto the Fury, whom he hates.[41] The lack of a clear distinction between Pluto and "chthonic Zeus" confuses the question of whether in some traditions, now obscure, Persephone bore children to her husband. In the late 4th century AD, Claudian's epic on the abduction motivates Pluto with a desire for children. The poem is unfinished, however, and anything Claudian may have known of these traditions is lost.[42]
+
+Justin Martyr (2nd century AD) alludes to children of Pluto, but neither names nor enumerates them.[43] Hesychius (5th century AD) mentions a "son of Pluto."[44] In his 14th-century mythography, Boccaccio records a tradition in which Pluto was the father of the divine personification Veneratio ("Reverence"), noting that she had no mother because Proserpina (the Latin name of Persephone) was sterile.[45]
+
+In The Faerie Queene (1590s), Edmund Spenser invents a daughter for Pluto whom he calls Lucifera.[46] The character's name was taken from the 16th-century mythography of Natale Conti, who used it as the Latin translation of Greek phosphor, "light-bearer," a regular epithet of Hecate.[47] Spenser incorporated aspects of the mysteries into The Faerie Queene.[48]
+
+Orpheus was regarded as a founder and prophet of the mysteries called "Orphic," "Dionysiac," or "Bacchic." Mythologized for his ability to entrance even animals and trees with his music, he was also credited in antiquity with the authorship of the lyrics that have survived as the Orphic Hymns, among them a hymn to Pluto. Orpheus's voice and lyre-playing represented a medium of revelation or higher knowledge for the mystery cults.[49]
+
+In his central myth, Orpheus visits the underworld in the hope of retrieving his bride, Eurydice, relying on the power of his music to charm the king and queen of Hades. Greek narratives of Orpheus's descent and performance typically name the ruler of the underworld as Plouton, as for instance in the Bibliotheca.[50] The myth demonstrates the importance of Pluto "the Rich" as the possessor of a quest-object. Orpheus performing before Pluto and Persephone was a common subject of ancient and later Western literature and art, and one of the most significant mythological themes of the classical tradition.[51]
+
+The demonstration of Orpheus's power depends on the normal obduracy of Pluto; the Augustan poet Horace describes him as incapable of tears.[52] Claudian, however, portrays the steely god as succumbing to Orpheus's song so that "with iron cloak he wipes his tears" (ferrugineo lacrimas deterget amictu), an image renewed by Milton in Il Penseroso (106–107): "Such notes ... / Drew iron tears down Pluto's cheek."[53]
+
+The Greek writer Lucian (ca. 125–after 180 AD) suggests that Pluto's love for his wife gave the ruler of the underworld a special sympathy or insight into lovers parted by death.[54] In one of Lucian's Dialogues of the Dead, Pluto questions Protesilaus, the first Greek hero killed in the Trojan War, who wishes to return to the world of the living. "You are then in love with life?" Pluto asks. "Such lovers we have here in plenty; but they love an object, which none of them can obtain." Protesilaus explains, like an Orpheus in reverse, that he has left behind a young bride whose memory even the Lethe's waters of forgetting have not erased from him. Pluto assures him that death will reunite them someday, but Protesilaus argues that Pluto himself should understand love and its impatience, and reminds the king of his grant to Orpheus and to Alcestis, who took her husband's place in death and then was permitted at the insistence of Heracles to return to him. When Persephone intercedes for the dead warrior, Pluto grants the request at once, though allowing only one day for the reunion.[55]
+
+As Pluto gained importance as an embodiment of agricultural wealth within the Eleusinian Mysteries, from the 5th century BC onward the name Hades was increasingly reserved for the underworld as a place.[56] Neither Hades nor Pluto was one of the traditional Twelve Olympians, and Hades seems to have received limited cult,[57] perhaps only at Elis, where the temple was opened once a year.[58] During the time of Plato, the Athenians periodically honored the god called Plouton with the "strewing of a couch" (tên klinên strôsai).[59] At Eleusis, Plouton had his own priestess.[60] Pluto was worshipped with Persephone as a divine couple at Knidos, Ephesos, Mytilene, and Sparta as well as at Eleusis, where they were known simply as God (Theos) and Goddess (Thea).[61]
+
+In the ritual texts of the mystery religions preserved by the so-called Orphic or Bacchic gold tablets, from the late 5th century BC onward[62] the name Hades appears more frequently than Plouton, but in reference to the underground place:[63] Plouton is the ruler who presides over it in a harmonious partnership[64] with Persephone.[65] By the end of the 4th century BC, the name Plouton appears in Greek metrical inscriptions.[66] Two fragmentary tablets greet Pluto and Persephone jointly,[67] and the divine couple appear as welcoming figures in a metrical epitaph:
+
+I know that even below the earth, if there is indeed a reward for the worthy ones,the first and foremost honors, nurse,[68] shall be yours, next to Persephone and Pluto.[69]
+
+Hesychius identifies Pluto with Eubouleus,[70] but other ancient sources distinguish between these two underworld deities. In the Mysteries Eubouleus plays the role of a torchbearer, possibly a guide for the initiate's return.[71] In the view of Lewis Richard Farnell, Eubouleus was originally a title referring to the "good counsel" the ruler of the underworld was able to give and which was sought at Pluto's dream oracles; by the 2nd century BC, however, he had acquired a separate identity.[72]
+
+The Orphic Hymn to Pluto addresses the god as "strong-spirited" and the "All-Receiver" who commands death and is the master of mortals. His titles are given as Zeus Chthonios and Euboulos ("Good Counsel").[73] In the hymn's topography, Pluto's dwelling is in Tartarus, simultaneously a "meadow" and "thick-shaded and dark," where the Acheron encircles "the roots of the earth." Hades is again the name of the place, here described as "windless," and its gates, through which Pluto carried "pure Demeter's daughter" as his bride, are located in an Attic cave within the district of Eleusis. The route from Persephone's meadow to Hades crosses the sea. The hymn concludes:
+
+You alone were born to judge deeds obscure and conspicuous.Holiest and illustrious ruler of all, frenzied god,You delight in the worshiper's respect and reverence.Come with favor and joy to the initiates. I summon you.[74]
+
+The hymn is one of several examples of Greco-Roman prayer that express a desire for the presence of a deity, and has been compared to a similar epiclesis in the Acts of Thomas.[75]
+
+The names of both Hades and Pluto appear also in the Greek Magical Papyri and curse tablets, with Hades typically referring to the underworld as a place, and Pluto regularly invoked as the partner of Persephone.[76] Five Latin curse tablets from Rome, dating to the mid-1st century BC, promise Persephone and Pluto an offering of "dates, figs, and a black pig" if the curse is fulfilled by the desired deadline. The pig was a characteristic animal sacrifice to chthonic deities, whose victims were almost always black or dark in color.[77]
+
+A set of curse tablets written in Doric Greek and found in a tomb addresses a Pasianax, "Lord to All,"[78] sometimes taken as a title of Pluto,[79] but more recently thought to be a magical name for the corpse.[80] Pasianax is found elsewhere as an epithet of Zeus, or in the tablets may invoke a daimon like Abrasax.[81]
+
+A sanctuary dedicated to Pluto was called a ploutonion (Latin plutonium). The complex at Eleusis for the mysteries had a ploutonion regarded as the birthplace of the divine child Ploutos, in another instance of conflation or close association of the two gods.[82] Greek inscriptions record an altar of Pluto, which was to be "plastered", that is, resurfaced for a new round of sacrifices at Eleusis.[83] One of the known ploutonia was in the sacred grove between Tralleis and Nysa, where a temple of Pluto and Persephone was located. Visitors sought healing and dream oracles.[84] The ploutonion at Hierapolis, Phrygia, was connected to the rites of Cybele, but during the Roman Imperial era was subsumed by the cult of Apollo, as confirmed by archaeological investigations during the 1960s. It too was a dream oracle.[85] The sites often seem to have been chosen because the presence of naturally occurring mephitic vapors was thought to indicate an opening to the underworld.[86] In Italy, Avernus was considered an entrance to the underworld that produced toxic vapors, but Strabo seems not to think that it was a ploutonion.[87]
+
+Kevin Clinton attempted to distinguish the iconography of Hades, Plouton, Ploutos, and the Eleusinian Theos in 5th-century vase painting that depicts scenes from or relating to the mysteries. In Clinton's schema, Plouton is a mature man, sometimes even white-haired; Hades is also usually bearded and mature, but his darkness is emphasized in literary descriptions, represented in art by dark hair. Plouton's most common attribute is a sceptre, but he also often holds a full or overflowing cornucopia; Hades sometimes holds a horn, but it is depicted with no contents and should be understood as a drinking horn. Unlike Plouton, Hades never holds agrarian attributes such as stalks of grain. His chest is usually bare or only partly covered, whereas Plouton is fully robed (exceptions, however, are admitted by the author). Plouton stands, often in the company of both Demeter and Kore, or sometimes one of the goddesses, but Hades almost always sits or reclines, usually with Persephone facing him.[88] "Confusion and disagreement" about the interpretation of these images remain.[89]
+
+Attributes of Pluto mentioned in the Orphic Hymn to Pluto are his scepter, keys, throne, and horses. In the hymn, the keys are connected to his capacity for giving wealth to humanity, specifically the agricultural wealth of "the year's fruits."
+
+Pausanias explains the significance of Pluto's key in describing a wondrously carved cedar chest at the Temple of Hera in Elis. Numerous deities are depicted, with one panel grouping Dionysus, Persephone, the nymphs and Pluto. Pluto holds a key because "they say that what is called Hades has been locked up by Pluto, and that nobody will return back again therefrom."[91] Natale Conti cites Pausanias in noting that keys are an attribute of Pluto as the scepter is of Jove (Greek Zeus) and the trident of Neptune (Poseidon).[92]
+
+A golden key (chrusea klês) was laid on the tongue of initiates by priests at Eleusis[93] and was a symbol of the revelation they were obligated to keep secret.[94] A key is among the attributes of other infernal deities such as Hecate, Anubis, and Persephone, and those who act as guardians or timekeepers, such as Janus and Aion.[95] Aeacus (Aiakos), one of the three mortal kings who became judges in the afterlife, is also a kleidouchos (κλειδοῦχος), "holder of the keys," and a priestly doorkeeper in the court of Pluto and Persephone.[96]
+
+According to the Stoic philosopher Cornutus (1st century AD), Pluto wore a wreath of phasganion, more often called xiphion,[97] traditionally identified as a type of gladiolus.[98] Dioscorides recorded medical uses for the plant. For extracting stings and thorns, xiphion was mixed with wine and frankincense to make a cataplasm. The plant was also used as an aphrodisiac[99] and contraceptive.[100] It grew in humid places. In an obscure passage, Cornutus seems to connect Pluto's wearing of phasganion to an etymology for Avernus, which he derives from the word for "air," perhaps through some association with the color glaukos, "bluish grey," "greenish" or "sea-colored," which might describe the plant's leaves. Because the color could describe the sky, Cornutus regularly gives it divine connotations.[101] Pluto's twin sister was named Glauca.
+
+Ambiguity of color is characteristic of Pluto. Although both he and his realm are regularly described as dark, black, or gloomy, the god himself is sometimes seen as pale or having a pallor. Martianus Capella (5th century) describes him as both "growing pale in shadow, a fugitive from light" and actively "shedding darkness in the gloom of Tartarean night," crowned with a wreath made of ebony as suitable for the kingdom he governs.[102] The horses of Pluto are usually black, but Ovid describes them as "sky-colored" (caeruleus, from caelum, "sky"), which might be blue, greenish-blue, or dark blue.[103]
+
+The Renaissance mythographer Natale Conti says wreaths of narcissus, maidenhair fern (adianthus), and cypress were given to Pluto.[104] In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Gaia (Earth) produced the narcissus at Zeus's request as a snare for Persephone; when she grasps it, a chasm opens up and the "Host to Many" (Hades) seizes her.[105] Narcissus wreaths were used in early times to crown Demeter and Persephone, as well as the Furies (Eumenides).[106] The flower was associated with narcotic drugginess (narkê, "torpor"),[107] erotic fascination,[108] and imminent death;[109] to dream of crowning oneself with narcissus was a bad sign.[110] In the myth of Narcissus, the flower is created when a beautiful, self-absorbed youth rejects sexuality and is condemned to perpetual self-love along the Styx.[111]
+
+Conti's inclusion of adianthus (Adiantum in modern nomenclature) is less straightforward. The name, meaning "unmoistened" (Greek adianton), was taken in antiquity to refer to the fern's ability to repel water. The plant, which grew in wet places, was also called capillus veneris, "hair of Venus," divinely dry when she emerged from the sea.[112] Historian of medicine John M. Riddle has suggested that the adianthus was one of the ferns Dioscorides called asplenon and prescribed as a contraceptive (atokios).[113] The associations of Proserpine (Persephone) and the maidenhair are alluded to by Samuel Beckett in a 1946 poem, in which the self is a Platonic cave with capillaires, in French both "maidenhair fern" and "blood vessels".[114]
+
+The cypress (Greek cyparissus, Latin cupressus) has traditional associations with mourning.[115] In ancient Attica, households in mourning were garlanded with cypress,[116] and it was used to fumigate the air during cremations.[117] In the myth of Cyparissus, a youth was transformed into a cypress, consumed by grief over the accidental death of a pet stag.[118] A "white cypress" is part of the topography of the underworld that recurs in the Orphic gold tablets as a kind of beacon near the entrance, perhaps to be compared with the Tree of Life in various world mythologies. The description of the cypress as "white" (Greek leukē), since the botanical tree is dark, is symbolic, evoking the white garments worn by initiates or the clothing of a corpse, or the pallor of the dead. In Orphic funeral rites, it was forbidden to make coffins of cypress.[119]
+
+The tradition of the mystery religions favors Pluto as a loving and faithful partner to Persephone, in contrast to the violence of Hades in early myths, but one ancient myth that preserves a lover for him parallels the abduction and also has a vegetative aspect.[120] A Roman source says that Pluto fell in love with Leuca (Greek Leukē, "White"), the most beautiful of the nymphs, and abducted her to live with him in his realm. After the long span of her life came to its end, he memorialized their love by creating a white tree in the Elysian Fields. The tree was the white poplar (Greek leukē), the leaves of which are white on one side and dark on the other, representing the duality of upper and underworld.[121] A wreath of white poplar leaves was fashioned by Heracles to mark his ascent from the underworld, an aition for why it was worn by initiates[122] and by champion athletes participating in funeral games.[123] Like other plants associated with Pluto, white poplar was regarded as a contraceptive in antiquity.[124] The relation of this tree to the white cypress of the mysteries is debated.[125]
+
+The Bibliotheca of Pseudo-Apollodorus uses the name Plouton instead of Hades in relating the tripartite division of sovereignty, the abduction of Persephone, and the visit of Orpheus to the underworld. This version of the theogony for the most part follows Hesiod (see above), but adds that the three brothers were each given a gift by the Cyclopes to use in their battle against the Titans: Zeus thunder and lightning; Poseidon a trident; and Pluto a helmet (kyneê).[126]
+
+The helmet Pluto receives is presumably the magical Cap of Invisibility (aidos kyneê), but the Bibliotheca is the only ancient source that explicitly says it belonged to Pluto.[127] The verbal play of aidos, "invisible," and Hades is thought to account for this attribution of the helmet to the ruler of the underworld, since no ancient narratives record his use or possession of it. Later authors such as Rabelais (16th century) do attribute the helmet to Pluto.[128] Erasmus calls it the "helmet of Orcus"[129] and gives it as a figure of speech referring to those who conceal their true nature by a cunning device. Francis Bacon notes the proverbial usage: "the helmet of Pluto, which maketh the politic man go invisible, is secrecy in the counsel, and celerity in the execution."[130]
+
+No ancient image of the ruler of the underworld can be said with certainty to show him with a bident,[131] though the ornamented tip of his scepter may have been misunderstood at times as a bident.[132] In the Roman world, the bident (from bi-, "two" + dent-, "teeth") was an agricultural implement. It may also represent one of the three types of lightning wielded by Jupiter, the Roman counterpart of Zeus, and the Etruscan Tinia. The later notion that the ruler of the underworld wielded a trident or bident can perhaps be traced to a line in Seneca's Hercules Furens ("Hercules Enraged"), in which Father Dis, the Roman counterpart of Pluto, uses a three-pronged spear to drive off Hercules as he attempts to invade the underworld. Seneca calls Dis the "Infernal Jove"[133] or the "dire Jove"[134] (the Jove who gives dire or ill omens, dirae), just as in the Greek tradition, Plouton is sometimes identified as a "chthonic Zeus." That the trident and bident might be somewhat interchangeable is suggested by a Byzantine scholiast, who mentions Poseidon being armed with a bident.[135]
+
+In the Middle Ages, classical underworld figures began to be depicted with a pitchfork.[136] Early Christian writers had identified the classical underworld with Hell, and its denizens as demons or devils.[137] In the Renaissance, the bident became a conventional attribute of Pluto. In an influential ceiling mural depicting the wedding of Cupid and Psyche, painted by Raphael's workshop for the Villa Farnesina in 1517, Pluto is shown holding the bident, with Cerberus at his side, while Neptune holds the trident.[138] Perhaps influenced by this work, Agostino Carracci originally depicted Pluto with a bident in a preparatory drawing for his painting Pluto (1592), in which the god ended up holding his characteristic key.[139] In Caravaggio's Giove, Nettuno e Plutone (ca. 1597), a ceiling mural based on alchemical allegory, it is Neptune who holds the bident.[140]
+
+The name Plouton is first used in Greek literature by Athenian playwrights.[58] In Aristophanes' comedy The Frogs (Batrachoi, 405 BC), in which "the Eleusinian colouring is in fact so pervasive,"[143] the ruler of the underworld is one of the characters, under the name of Plouton. The play depicts a mock descent to the underworld by the god Dionysus to bring back one of the dead tragic playwrights in the hope of restoring Athenian theater to its former glory. Pluto is a silent presence onstage for about 600 lines presiding over a contest among the tragedians, then announces that the winner has the privilege of returning to the upper world.[144] The play also draws on beliefs and imagery from Orphic and Dionysiac cult, and rituals pertaining to Ploutos (Plutus, "wealth").[145] In a fragment from another play by Aristophanes, a character "is comically singing of the excellent aspects of being dead", asking in reference to the tripartition of sovereignty over the world:
+
+And where do you think Pluto gets his name [i.e. "rich"],
+if not because he took the best portion?
+...
+How much better are things below than what Zeus possesses! [146]
+
+To Plato, the god of the underworld was "an agent in [the] beneficent cycle of death and rebirth" meriting worship under the name of Plouton, a giver of spiritual wealth.[147] In the dialogue Cratylus, Plato has Socrates explain the etymology of Plouton, saying that Pluto gives wealth (ploutos), and his name means "giver of wealth, which comes out of the earth beneath". Because the name Hades is taken to mean "the invisible", people fear what they cannot see; although they are in error about the nature of this deity's power, Socrates says, "the office and name of the God really correspond":
+
+He is the perfect and accomplished Sophist, and the great benefactor of the inhabitants of the other world; and even to us who are upon earth he sends from below exceeding blessings. For he has much more than he wants down there; wherefore he is called Pluto (or the rich). Note also, that he will have nothing to do with men while they are in the body, but only when the soul is liberated from the desires and evils of the body. Now there is a great deal of philosophy and reflection in that; for in their liberated state he can bind them with the desire of virtue, but while they are flustered and maddened by the body, not even father Cronos himself would suffice to keep them with him in his own far-famed chains.[148]
+
+Since "the union of body and soul is not better than the loosing,"[149] death is not an evil. Walter Burkert thus sees Pluto as a "god of dissolution."[150] Among the titles of Pluto was Isodaitēs, "divider into equal portions," a title that connects him to the fate goddesses the Moirai.[151] Isodaitēs was also a cult title for Dionysus and Helios.[152]
+
+In ordering his ideal city, Plato proposed a calendar in which Pluto was honored as a benefactor in the twelfth month, implicitly ranking him as one of the twelve principal deities.[153] In the Attic calendar, the twelfth month, more or less equivalent to June, was Skirophorion; the name may be connected to the rape of Persephone.[154]
+
+In the theogony of Euhemerus (4th century BC), the gods were treated as mortal rulers whose deeds were immortalized by tradition. Ennius translated Euhemerus into Latin about a hundred years later, and a passage from his version was in turn preserved by the early Christian writer Lactantius.[155] Here the union of Saturn (the Roman equivalent of Cronus) and Ops, an Italic goddess of abundance, produces Jupiter (Greek Zeus), Juno (Hera), Neptune, Pluto, and Glauca:
+
+Then Saturn took Ops to wife. Titan, the elder brother, demanded the kingship for himself. Vesta their mother, with their sisters Ceres [Demeter] and Ops, persuaded Saturn not to give way to his brother in the matter. Titan was less good-looking than Saturn; for that reason, and also because he could see his mother and sisters working to have it so, he conceded the kingship to Saturn, and came to terms with him: if Saturn had a male child born to him, it would not be reared. This was done to secure reversion of the kingship to Titan's children. They then killed the first son that was born to Saturn. Next came twin children, Jupiter and Juno. Juno was given to Saturn to see while Jupiter was secretly removed and given to Vesta to be brought up without Saturn's knowledge. In the same way without Saturn knowing, Ops bore Neptune and hid him away. In her third labor Ops bore another set of twins, Pluto and Glauce. (Pluto in Latin is Diespiter;[156] some call him Orcus.) Saturn was shown his daughter Glauce but his son Pluto was hidden and removed. Glauce then died young. That is the pedigree, as written, of Jupiter and his brothers; that is how it has been passed down to us in holy scripture.
+
+In this theogony, which Ennius introduced into Latin literature, Saturn, "Titan,"[157] Vesta, Ceres, and Ops are siblings; Glauca is the twin of Pluto and dies mysteriously young. There are several mythological figures named Glauca; the sister of Pluto may be the Glauca who in Cicero's account of the three aspects of Diana conceived the third with the equally mysterious Upis.[158] This is the genealogy for Pluto that Boccaccio used in his Genealogia Deorum Gentilium and in his lectures explicating the Divine Comedy of Dante.[159]
+
+In Book 3 of the Sibylline Oracles, dating mostly to the 2nd century AD, Rhea gives birth to Pluto as she passes by Dodona, "where the watery paths of the River Europus flowed, and the water ran into the sea, merged with the Peneius. This is also called the Stygian river."[160]
+
+The Orphic theogonies are notoriously varied,[161] and Orphic cosmology influenced the varying Gnostic theogonies of late antiquity.[162] Clementine literature (4th century AD) preserves a theogony with explicit Orphic influence that also draws on Hesiod, yielding a distinctive role for Pluto. When the primordial elements came together by orderly cyclonic force, they produced a generative sphere, the "egg" from which the primeval Orphic entity Phanes is born and the world is formed. The release of Phanes and his ascent to the heavenly top of the world-egg causes the matter left in the sphere to settle in relation to weight, creating the tripartite world of the traditional theogonies:[163]
+
+Its lower part, the heaviest element, sinks downwards, and is called Pluto because of its gravity, weight, and great quantity (plêthos) of matter. After the separation of this heavy element in the middle part of the egg the waters flow together, which they call Poseidon. The purest and noblest element, the fire, is called Zeus, because its nature is glowing (ζέουσα, zeousa). It flies right up into the air, and draws up the spirit, now called Metis, that was left in the underlying moisture. And when this spirit has reached the summit of the ether, it is devoured by Zeus, who in his turn begets the intelligence (σύνεσις, sunesis), also called Pallas. And by this artistic intelligence the etherial artificer creates the whole world. This world is surrounded by the air, which extends from Zeus, the very hot ether, to the earth; this air is called Hera.[164]
+
+This cosmogony interprets Hesiod allegorically, and so the heaviest element is identified not as the Earth, but as the netherworld of Pluto.[165] (In modern geochemistry, plutonium is the heaviest primordial element.) Supposed etymologies are used to make sense of the relation of physical process to divine name; Plouton is here connected to plêthos (abundance).[166]
+
+In the Stoic system, Pluto represented the lower region of the air, where according to Seneca (1st century AD) the soul underwent a kind of purgatory before ascending to the ether.[167] Seneca's contemporary Cornutus made use of the traditional etymology of Pluto's name for Stoic theology. The Stoics believed that the form of a word contained the original truth of its meaning, which over time could become corrupted or obscured.[168] Plouton derived from ploutein, "to be wealthy," Cornutus said, because "all things are corruptible and therefore are 'ultimately consigned to him as his property.'"[169]
+
+Within the Pythagorean and Neoplatonic traditions, Pluto was allegorized as the region where souls are purified, located between the moon (as represented by Persephone) and the sun.[170] Neoplatonists sometimes interpreted the Eleusinian Mysteries as a fabula of celestial phenomena:
+
+Authors tell the fable that Ceres was Proserpina's mother, and that Proserpina while playing one day was kidnapped by Pluto. Her mother searched for her with lighted torches; and it was decreed by Jupiter that the mother should have her daughter for fifteen days in the month, but Pluto for the rest, the other fifteen. This is nothing but that the name Ceres is used to mean the earth, called Ceres on analogy with crees ('you may create'), for all things are created from her. By Proserpina is meant the moon, and her name is on analogy with prope serpens ('creeping near'), for she is moved nearer to the earth than the other planets. She is called earth's daughter, because her substance has more of earth in it than of the other elements. By Pluto is meant the shadow that sometimes obstructs the moon.[171]
+
+A dedicatory inscription from Smyrna describes a 1st–2nd century sanctuary to "God Himself" as the most exalted of a group of six deities, including clothed statues of Plouton Helios and Koure Selene, "Pluto the Sun" and "Kore the Moon."[172] The status of Pluto and Kore as a divine couple is marked by what the text describes as a "linen embroidered bridal curtain."[173] The two are placed as bride and groom within an enclosed temple, separately from the other deities cultivated at the sanctuary.
+
+Plouton Helios is mentioned in other literary sources in connection with Koure Selene and Helios Apollon; the sun on its nighttime course was sometimes envisioned as traveling through the underworld on its return to the east. Apuleius describes a rite in which the sun appears at midnight to the initiate at the gates of Proserpina; it has been suggested that this midnight sun could be Plouton Helios.[174]
+
+The Smyrna inscription also records the presence of Helios Apollon at the sanctuary. As two forms of Helios, Apollo and Pluto pose a dichotomy:
+
+It has been argued that the sanctuary was in the keeping of a Pythagorean sodality or "brotherhood". The relation of Orphic beliefs to the mystic strand of Pythagoreanism, or of these to Platonism and Neoplatonism, is complex and much debated.[176]
+
+In the Hellenistic era, the title or epithet Plutonius is sometimes affixed to the names of other deities. In the Hermetic Corpus,[177] Jupiter Plutonius "rules over earth and sea, and it is he who nourishes mortal things that have soul and bear fruit."[178]
+
+In Ptolemaic Alexandria, at the site of a dream oracle, Serapis was identified with Aion Plutonius.[179] Gilles Quispel conjectured that this figure results from the integration of the Orphic Phanes into Mithraic religion at Alexandria, and that he "assures the eternity of the city," where the birth of Aion was celebrated at the sanctuary of Kore on 6 January.[180] In Latin, Plutonius can be an adjective that simply means "of or pertaining to Pluto."[181]
+
+The Neoplatonist Proclus (5th century AD) considered Pluto the third demiurge, a sublunar demiurge who was also identified variously with Poseidon or Hephaestus. This idea is present in Renaissance Neoplatonism, as for instance in the cosmology of Marsilio Ficino (1433–99),[182] who translated Orphic texts into Latin for his own use.[183] Ficino saw the sublunar demiurge as "a daemonic 'many-headed' sophist, a magus, an enchanter, a fashioner of images and reflections, a shape-changer of himself and of others, a poet in a way of being and of not-being, a royal Pluto." This demiurgic figure identified with Pluto is also "'a purifier of souls' who presides over the magic of love and generation and who uses a fantastic counter-art to mock, but also ... to supplement, the divine icastic or truly imitative art of the sublime translunar Demiurge."[184]
+
+Christian writers of late antiquity sought to discredit the competing gods of Roman and Hellenistic religions, often adopting the euhemerizing approach in regarding them not as divinities, but as people glorified through stories and cultic practices and thus not true deities worthy of worship. The infernal gods, however, retained their potency, becoming identified with the Devil and treated as demonic forces by Christian apologists.[185]
+
+One source of Christian revulsion toward the chthonic gods was the arena. Attendants in divine costume, among them a "Pluto" who escorted corpses out, were part of the ceremonies of the gladiatorial games.[186] Tertullian calls the mallet-wielding figure usually identified as the Etruscan Charun the "brother of Jove,"[187] that is, Hades/Pluto/Dis, an indication that the distinctions among these denizens of the underworld were becoming blurred in a Christian context.[188] Prudentius, in his poetic polemic against the religious traditionalist Symmachus, describes the arena as a place where savage vows were fulfilled on an altar to Pluto (solvit ad aram / Plutonis fera vota), where fallen gladiators were human sacrifices to Dis and Charon received their souls as his payment, to the delight of the underworld Jove (Iovis infernalis).[189]
+
+Medieval mythographies, written in Latin, continue the conflation of Greek and Roman deities begun by the ancient Romans themselves. Perhaps because the name Pluto was used in both traditions, it appears widely in these Latin sources for the classical ruler of the underworld, who is also seen as the double, ally, or adjunct to the figure in Christian mythology known variously as the Devil, Satan, or Lucifer. The classical underworld deities became casually interchangeable with Satan as an embodiment of Hell.[190] For instance, in the 9th century, Abbo Cernuus, the only witness whose account of the Siege of Paris survives, called the invading Vikings the "spawn of Pluto."[191]
+
+In the Little Book on Images of the Gods, Pluto is described as
+
+an intimidating personage sitting on a throne of sulphur, holding the scepter of his realm in his right hand, and with his left strangling a soul. Under his feet three-headed Cerberus held a position, and beside him he had three Harpies. From his golden throne of sulphur flowed four rivers, which were called, as is known, Lethe, Cocytus, Phlegethon and Acheron, tributaries of the Stygian swamp.[192]
+
+This work derives from that of the Third Vatican Mythographer, possibly one Albricus or Alberic, who presents often extensive allegories and devotes his longest chapter, including an excursus on the nature of the soul, to Pluto.[193]
+
+In Dante's Divine Comedy (written 1308–1321), Pluto presides over the fourth circle of Hell, to which the greedy are condemned.[194] The Italian form of the name is Pluto, taken by some commentators[195] to refer specifically to Plutus as the god of wealth who would preside over the torment of those who hoarded or squandered it in life.[196] Dante's Pluto is greeted as "the great enemy"[197] and utters the famously impenetrable line Papé Satàn, papé Satàn aleppe. Much of this Canto is devoted to the power of Fortuna to give and take away. Entrance into the fourth circle has marked a downward turn in the poet's journey, and the next landmark after he and his guide cross from the circle is the Stygian swamp, through which they pass on their way to the city of Dis (Italian Dite). Dante's clear distinction between Pluto and Dis suggests that he had Plutus in mind in naming the former. The city of Dis is the "citadel of Lower Hell" where the walls are garrisoned by fallen angels and Furies.[198] Pluto is treated likewise as a purely Satanic figure by the 16th-century Italian poet Tasso throughout his epic Jerusalem Delivered,[199] in which "great Dis, great Pluto" is invoked in the company of "all ye devils that lie in deepest hell."[200]
+
+Influenced by Ovid and Claudian, Geoffrey Chaucer (1343–1400)[201] developed the myth of Pluto and Proserpina (the Latin name of Persephone) in English literature. Like earlier medieval writers, Chaucer identifies Pluto's realm with Hell as a place of condemnation and torment,[202] and describes it as "derk and lowe" ("dark and low").[203] But Pluto's major appearance in the works of Chaucer comes as a character in "The Merchant's Tale," where Pluto is identified as the "Kyng of Fayerye" (Fairy King).[204] As in the anonymous romance Sir Orfeo (ca. 1300), Pluto and Proserpina rule over a fantastical world that melds classical myth and fairyland.[205] Chaucer has the couple engage in a comic battle of the sexes that undermines the Christian imagery in the tale, which is Chaucer's most sexually explicit.[206] The Scottish poet William Dunbar ca. 1503 also described Pluto as a folkloric supernatural being, "the elrich incubus / in cloke of grene" ("the eldritch incubus in cloak of green"), who appears among the courtiers of Cupid.[207]
+
+The name Pluto for the classical ruler of the underworld was further established in English literature by Arthur Golding, whose translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses (1565) was of great influence on William Shakespeare,[208] Christopher Marlowe,[209] and Edmund Spenser.[210][211] Golding translates Ovid's Dis as Pluto,[212] a practice that prevails among English translators, despite John Milton's use of the Latin Dis in Paradise Lost.[213] The Christian perception of the classical underworld as Hell influenced Golding's translation practices; for instance, Ovid's tenebrosa sede tyrannus / exierat ("the tyrant [Dis] had gone out of his shadowy realm") becomes "the prince of fiends forsook his darksome hole".[214]
+
+Pluto's court as a literary setting could bring together a motley assortment of characters. In Huon de Méry's 13th-century poem "The Tournament of the Antichrist", Pluto rules over a congregation of "classical gods and demigods, biblical devils, and evil Christians."[215] In the 15th-century dream allegory The Assembly of Gods, the deities and personifications are "apparelled as medieval nobility"[216] basking in the "magnyfycence" of their "lord Pluto," who is clad in a "smoky net" and reeking of sulphur.[217]
+
+Throughout the Renaissance, images and ideas from classical antiquity entered popular culture through the new medium of print and through pageants and other public performances at festivals. The Fête-Dieu at Aix-en-Provence in 1462 featured characters costumed as a number of classical deities, including Pluto,[218] and Pluto was the subject of one of seven pageants presented as part of the 1521 Midsummer Eve festival in London.[219] During the 15th century, no mythological theme was brought to the stage more often than Orpheus's descent, with the court of Pluto inspiring fantastical stagecraft.[220] Leonardo da Vinci designed a set with a rotating mountain that opened up to reveal Pluto emerging from the underworld; the drawing survives and was the basis for a modern recreation.[221]
+
+The tragic descent of the hero-musician Orpheus to the underworld to retrieve his bride, and his performance at the court of Pluto and Proserpina, offered compelling material for librettists and composers of opera (see List of Orphean operas) and ballet. Pluto also appears in works based on other classical myths of the underworld. As a singing role, Pluto is almost always written for a bass voice, with the low vocal range representing the depths and weight of the underworld, as in Monteverdi and Rinuccini's L'Orfeo (1607) and Il ballo delle ingrate (1608). In their ballo, a form of ballet with vocal numbers, Cupid invokes Pluto from the underworld to lay claim to "ungrateful" women who were immune to love. Pluto's part is considered particularly virtuosic,[222] and a reviewer at the première described the character, who appeared as if from a blazing Inferno, as "formidable and awesome in sight, with garments as given him by poets, but burdened with gold and jewels."[223]
+
+The role of Pluto is written for a bass in Peri's Euridice (1600);[224] Caccini's Euridice (1602); Rossi's Orfeo (1647); Cesti's Il pomo d'oro (1668);[225] Sartoris's Orfeo (1672); Lully's Alceste, a tragédie en musique (1674);[226] Charpentier's chamber opera La descente d'Orphée aux enfers (1686);[227] Telemann's Orpheus (1726); and Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie (1733).[228] Pluto was a baritone in Lully's Proserpine (1680), which includes a duo dramatizing the conflict between the royal underworld couple that is notable for its early use of musical characterization.[229] Perhaps the most famous of the Orpheus operas is Offenbach's satiric Orpheus in the Underworld (1858),[230] in which a tenor sings the role of Pluton, disguised in the giddily convoluted plotting as Aristée (Aristaeus), a farmer.
+
+Scenes set in Pluto's realm were orchestrated with instrumentation that became conventionally "hellish", established in Monteverdi's L'Orfeo as two cornets, three trombones, a bassoon, and a régale.[231]
+
+Pluto has also been featured as a role in ballet. In Lully's "Ballet of Seven Planets'" interlude from Cavalli's opera Ercole amante ("Hercules in Love"), Louis XIV himself danced as Pluto and other characters; it was a spectacular flop.[232] Pluto appeared in Noverre's lost La descente d'Orphée aux Enfers (1760s). Gaétan Vestris danced the role of the god in Florian Deller's Orefeo ed Euridice (1763).[233] The Persephone choreographed by Robert Joffrey (1952) was based on André Gide's line "king of winters, the infernal Pluto."[234]
+
+The abduction of Proserpina by Pluto was the scene from the myth most often depicted by artists, who usually follow Ovid's version. The influential emblem book Iconologia of Cesare Ripa (1593, second edition 1603) presents the allegorical figure of Rape with a shield on which the abduction is painted.[235] Jacob Isaacsz. van Swanenburg, the first teacher of Rembrandt, echoed Ovid in showing Pluto as the target of Cupid's arrow while Venus watches her plan carried out (location of painting unknown). The treatment of the scene by Rubens is similar. Rembrandt incorporates Claudian's more passionate characterizations.[236] The performance of Orpheus in the court of Pluto and Proserpina was also a popular subject.
+
+Major artists who produced works depicting Pluto include:
+
+After the Renaissance, literary interest in the abduction myth waned until the revival of classical myth among the Romantics. The work of mythographers such as J.G. Frazer and Jane Ellen Harrison helped inspire the recasting of myths in modern terms by Victorian and Modernist writers. In Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), Thomas Hardy portrays Alec d'Urberville as "a grotesque parody of Pluto/Dis" exemplifying the late-Victorian culture of male domination, in which women were consigned to "an endless breaking ... on the wheel of biological reproduction."[243] A similar figure is found in The Lost Girl (1920) by D.H. Lawrence, where the character Ciccio[244] acts as Pluto to Alvina's Persephone, "the deathly-lost bride ... paradoxically obliterated and vitalised at the same time by contact with Pluto/Dis" in "a prelude to the grand design of rebirth." The darkness of Pluto is both a source of regeneration, and of "merciless annihilation."[245] Lawrence takes up the theme elsewhere in his work; in The First Lady Chatterley (1926, an early version of Lady Chatterley's Lover), Connie Chatterley sees herself as a Persephone and declares "she'd rather be married to Pluto than Plato," casting her earthy gamekeeper lover as the former and her philosophy-spouting husband as the latter.[246]
+
+In Rick Riordan's young adult fantasy series The Heroes of Olympus, the character Hazel Levesque is the daughter of Pluto, god of riches. She is one of seven characters with a parent from classical mythology.[247]
+
+Scientific terms derived from the name of Pluto include:

en/2363.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,125 @@
+
+
+George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel (/ˈhændəl/;[a] born Georg Friederich Händel[b] [ˈɡeːɔʁk ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈhɛndl̩] (listen); 23 February 1685 (O.S.) [(N.S.) 5 March] – 14 April 1759)[2][c] was a German, later British, Baroque composer who spent the bulk of his career in London, becoming well known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi and organ concertos. Handel received important training in Halle and worked as a composer in Hamburg and Italy before settling in London in 1712; he became a naturalised British subject in 1727.[5] He was strongly influenced both by the great composers of the Italian Baroque and by the middle-German polyphonic choral tradition. He would become a huge influence on classical composers such as Mozart and Beethoven.
+
+Within fifteen years, Handel had started three commercial opera companies to supply the English nobility with Italian opera. Musicologist Winton Dean writes that his operas show that "Handel was not only a great composer; he was a dramatic genius of the first order."[6] As Alexander's Feast (1736) was well received, Handel made a transition to English choral works. After his success with Messiah (1742) he never composed an Italian opera again. Almost blind, and having lived in England for nearly fifty years, he died in 1759, a respected and rich man. His funeral was given full state honours, and he was buried in Westminster Abbey in London.
+
+Handel is regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Baroque era, with works such as Messiah, Water Music, and Music for the Royal Fireworks remaining steadfastly popular.[7] One of his four coronation anthems, Zadok the Priest (1727), composed for the coronation of George II, has been performed at every subsequent British coronation, traditionally during the sovereign's anointing. Another of his English oratorios, Solomon (1748), has also remained popular, with the Sinfonia that opens act 3 (known more commonly as "The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba") featuring at the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony. Handel composed more than forty opera serias in over thirty years, and since the late 1960s, with the revival of baroque music and historically informed musical performance, interest in Handel's operas has grown.
+
+Handel was born in 1685 in Halle, Duchy of Magdeburg (then part of Brandenburg-Prussia), to Georg Händel and Dorothea Taust.[8] His father, aged sixty-three when George Frideric was born, was an eminent barber-surgeon who served the court of Saxe-Weissenfels and the Margraviate of Brandenburg.[9]
+
+Georg Händel (senior) was the son of a coppersmith, Valentin Händel (1582–1636), who had emigrated from Eisleben in 1608 with his first wife Anna Belching, the daughter of a master coppersmith. They were Protestants and chose reliably Protestant Saxony over Silesia, a Habsburg possession, as religious tensions mounted in the years before the Thirty Years War.[10] Halle was a relatively prosperous city, home of a salt-mining industry and center of trade (and member of the Hanseatic League).[11] The Margrave of Brandenburg became the administrator of the archiepiscopal territories of Mainz, including Magdeburg when they converted, and by the early 17th century held his court in Halle, which attracted renowned musicians.[d] Even the smaller churches all had "able organists and fair choirs",[e] and humanities and the letters thrived (Shakespeare was performed in the theaters early in the 17th century).[13] The Thirty Years War brought extensive destruction to Halle, and by the 1680s it was impoverished.[10] However, since the middle of the war the city had been under the administration of the Duke of Saxony, and soon after the end of the war he would bring musicians trained in Dresden to his court in Weissenfels.[14]
+
+The arts and music, however, flourished only among the higher strata (not only in Halle but throughout Germany),[15] of which Handel's family was not a member. Georg Händel (senior) was born at the beginning of the war, and was apprenticed to a barber in Halle at the age of 14, after his father died.[f] When he was 20, he married the widow of the official barber-surgeon of a suburb of Halle, inheriting his practice. With this, Georg determinedly began the process of becoming self-made; by dint of his "conservative, steady, thrifty, unadventurous" lifestyle,[16] he guided the five children he had with Anna who reached adulthood into the medical profession (except his youngest daughter, who married a government official).[17] Anna died in 1682. Within a year Georg married again, this time to the daughter of a Lutheran minister, Pastor Georg Taust of the Church of St. Bartholomew in Giebichenstein,[18] who himself came from a long line of Lutheran pastors.[16] Handel was the second child of this marriage; the first son was stillborn.[19] Two younger sisters were born after the birth of George Frideric: Dorthea Sophia, born 6 October 1687, and Johanna Christiana, born 10 January 1690.[20]
+
+Early in his life Handel is reported to have attended the Gymnasium in Halle,[21] where the headmaster, Johann Praetorius [de], was reputed to be an ardent musician.[22] Whether Handel remained there, and if he did for how long, is unknown, but many biographers suggest that he was withdrawn from school by his father, based on the characterization of him by Handel's first biographer, John Mainwaring. Mainwaring is the source for almost all information (little as it is) of Handel's childhood, and much of that information came from J.C. Smith, Jr., Handel's confidant and copyist.[23] Whether it came from Smith or elsewhere, Mainwaring frequently relates misinformation.[g] It is from Mainwaring that the portrait comes of Handel's father as implacably opposed to any musical education. Mainwaring writes that Georg Händel was "alarmed" at Handel's very early propensity for music,[h] "took every measure to oppose it", including forbidding any musical instrument in the house and preventing Handel from going to any house where they might be found.[25] This did nothing to dampen young Handel's inclination; in fact, it did the reverse. Mainwaring tells the story of Handel's secret attic spinet: Handel "found means to get a little clavichord privately convey'd to a room at the top of the house. To this room he constantly stole when the family was asleep".[26] Although both John Hawkins and Charles Burney credited this tale, Schoelcher found it nearly "incredible" and a feat of "poetic imagination"[27] and Lang considers it one of the unproven "romantic stories" that surrounded Handel's childhood.[28] But Handel had to have had some experience with the keyboard to have made the impression in Weissenfels that resulted in his receiving formal musical training.[29]
+
+Sometime between the ages of seven and nine, Handel accompanied his father to Weissenfels where he came under the notice of one whom Handel thereafter always regarded throughout life as his benefactor,[30] Duke Johann Adolf I.[i] Somehow Handel made his way to the court organ in the palace chapel of the Holy Trinity, where he surprised everyone with his playing.[33] Overhearing this performance and noting the youth of the performer caused the Duke, whose suggestions were not to be disregarded, to recommend to Georg Händel that Handel be given musical instruction.[34] Handel's father engaged the organist at the Halle parish church, the young Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow, to instruct Handel. Zachow would be the only teacher that Handel ever had.[28] Because of his church employment, Zachow was an organist "of the old school", reveling in fugues, canons and counterpoint.[30] But he was also familiar with developments in music across Europe and his own compositions "embraced the new concerted, dramatic style".[j] When Zachow discovered the talent of Handel, he introduced him "to a vast collection of German and Italian music, which he possessed, sacred and profane, vocal and instrumental compositions of different schools, different styles, and of every master".[30] Many traits considered "Handelian" can be traced back to Zachow's music.[36] At the same time Handel continued practice on the harpsichord, learned violin and organ, but according to Burney his special affection was for the hautbois (oboe).[37] Schoelcher speculates that his youthful devotion to the instrument explains the large number of pieces he composed for oboe.[38]
+
+With respect to instruction in composition, in addition to having Handel apply himself to traditional fugue and cantus firmus work, Zachow, recognizing Handel's precocious talents, systematically introduced Handel to the variety of styles and masterworks contained in his extensive library. He did this by requiring Handel to copy selected scores. "I used to write like the devil in those days", Handel recalled much later.[39] Much of this copying was entered into a notebook that Handel maintained for the rest of his life. Although it has since disappeared, the notebook has been sufficiently described to understand what pieces Zachow wished Handel to study. Among the chief composers represented in this exercise book were Johann Krieger, an "old master" in the fugue and prominent organ composer, Johann Caspar Kerll, a representative of the "southern style" after his teacher Frescobaldi and imitated later by Handel,[k] Johann Jakob Froberger, an "internationalist" also closely studied by Buxtehude and Bach, and Georg Muffat, whose amalgam of French and Italian styles and his synthesis of musical forms influenced Handel.[41]
+
+Mainwaring writes that during this time Zachow had begun to have Handel assume some of his church duties. Zachow, Mainwaring asserts, was "often" absent, "from his love of company, and a chearful glass", and Handel therefore performed on organ frequently.[42] What is more, according to Mainwaring, Handel began composing, at the age of nine, church services for voice and instruments "and from that time actually did compose a service every week for three years successively."[43] Mainwaring ends this chapter of Handel's life by concluding that three or four years had been enough to allow Handel to surpass Zachow, and Handel had become "impatient for another situation"; "Berlin was the place agreed upon."[44] Carelessness with dates or sequences (and possibly imaginative interpretation by Mainwaring) makes this period confused.[l]
+
+Handel's father died on 11 February 1697.[45] It was German custom for friends and family to compose funeral odes for a substantial burgher like Georg,[46] and young Handel discharged his duty with a poem dated 18 February and signed with his name and (in deference to his father's wishes) "dedicated to the liberal arts."[47] At the time Handel was studying either at Halle's Lutheran Gymnasium or the Latin School.[46]
+
+Mainwaring has Handel traveling to Berlin the next year, 1698.[44] The problem with Mainwaring as an authority for this date, however, is that he tells of how Handel's father communicated with the "king"[m] during Handel's stay, declining the Court's offer to send Handel to Italy on a stipend[49] and that his father died "after his return from Berlin."[50] But since Georg Händel died in 1697, either the date of the trip or Mainwaring's statements about Handel's father must be in error. Early biographers solved the problem by making the year of the trip 1696, then noting that at the age of 11 Handel would need a guardian, so they have Handel's father or a friend of the family accompany him, all the while puzzling over why the elder Handel, who wanted Handel to become a lawyer, would spend the sum to lead his son further into the temptation of music as a career.[51] Schoelcher for example has Handel traveling to Berlin at 11, meeting both Bononcini and Attilio Ariosti in Berlin and then returning at the direction of his father.[52] But Ariosti was not in Berlin before the death of Handel's father,[53] and Handel could not have met Bononcini in Berlin before 1702.[54] Modern biographers either accept the year as 1698, since most reliable older authorities agree with it,[n] and discount what Mainwaring says about what took place during the trip or assume that Mainwaring conflated two or more visits to Berlin, as he did with Handel's later trips to Venice.[55]
+
+Perhaps to fulfill a promise to his father or simply because he saw himself as "dedicated to the liberal arts," on 10 February 1702 Handel matriculated at the University of Halle.[56] That university had only recently been founded. In 1694 the Elector of Brandenburg Frederick III (later Prussian King Frederick I) created the school, largely to provide a lecture forum for the jurist Christian Thomasius who had been expelled from Leipzig for his liberal views.[13] Händel did not enroll in the faculty of law, although he almost certainly attended lectures.[57] Thomasius was an intellectual and academic crusader who was the first German academic to lecture in German and also denounced witch trials. Lang believes that Thomasius instilled in Händel a "respect for the dignity and freedom of man's mind and the solemn majesty of the law," principles that would have drawn him to and kept him in England for half a century.[58] Handel also there encountered theologian and professor of Oriental languages August Hermann Francke, who was particularly solicitous of children, particularly orphans. The orphanage he founded became a model for Germany, and undoubtedly influenced Handel's own charitable impulse, when he assigned the rights of Messiah to London's Foundling Hospital.[59]
+
+Shortly after commencing his university education, Handel (though Lutheran[o]) on 13 March 1702 accepted the position of organist at the Calvinist Cathedral in Halle, the Domkirche, replacing J.C. Leporin, for whom he had acted as assistant.[61] The position, which was a one-year probationary appointment showed the foundation he had received from Zachow, for a church organist and cantor was a highly prestigious office. From it he received 5 thalers a year and lodgings in the run-down castle of Moritzburg. [62]
+
+Around this same time Handel made the acquaintance of Telemann. Four years Handel's senior, Telemann was studying law and assisting cantor Johann Kuhnau (Bach's predecessor at the Thomaskirche there). Telemann recalled forty years later in an autobiography for Mattheson's Grundlage: "The writing of the excellent Johann Kuhnau served as a model for me in fugue and counterpoint; but in fashioning melodic movements and examining them Handel and I were constantly occupied, frequently visiting each other as well as writing letters."[63]
+
+Although Mainwaring records that Handel wrote weekly when assistant to Zachow and as probationary organist at Domkirche part of his duty was to provide suitable music,[p] no sacred compositions from his Halle period can now be identified.[65] Mattheson, however, summarized his opinion of Handel's church cantatas written in Halle: "Handel in those days set very, very long arias and sheerly unending cantatas which, while not possessing the proper knack or correct taste, were perfect so far as harmony is concerned."[66]
+
+Early chamber works do exist, but it is difficult to date any of them to Handel's time in Halle. Many historians until recently followed Chrysander and designated the six trio sonatas for two oboes and basso continuo as his first known composition, supposedly written in 1696 (when Handel was 11).[67] Lang doubts the dating based on a handwritten date of a copy (1700) and stylistic considerations. Lang writes that the works "show thorough acquaintance with the distilled sonata style of the Corelli school" and are notable for "the formal security and the cleanness of the texture."[68] Hogwood considers all of the oboe trio sonatas spurious and even suggests that some parts cannot be performed on oboe.[69]  That authentic manuscript sources do not exist and that Handel never recycled any material from these works make their authenticity doubtful.[70] Other early chamber works were printed in Amsterdam in 1724 as opus 1, but it is impossible to tell which are early works in their original form, rather than later re-workings by Handel, a frequent practice of his.[68]
+
+Handel's probationary appointment to Domkirche expired in March 1703. By July[q] Handel was in Hamburg. Since he left no explanation for the move[r] biographers have offered their own speculation. Burrows believes that the answer can be found by untangling Mainwaring's confused chronology of the trip to Berlin. Burrows dates this trip to 1702 or 1703 (after his father's death) and concluded that since Handel (through a "friend and relation" at the Berlin court) turned down Frederick's offer to subsidize his musical education in Italy (with the implicit understanding that he would become a court musician on his return), Handel was no longer able to expect preferment (whether as musician, lawyer or otherwise) within Brandenburg-Prussia. And since he was attracted to secular, dramatic music (by meeting the Italians Bononcini and Attilio Ariosti and through the influence of Telemann), Hamburg, a free city with an established opera company, was the logical choice.[74] The question remains, however, why Handel rejected the King's offer, given that Italy was the center of opera. Lang suggests that, influenced by the teachings of Thomasius, Handel's character was such that he was unable to make himself subservient to anyone, even a king. Lang sees Handel as someone who could not accept class distinctions that required him to regard himself as a social inferior. "What Handel craved was personal freedom to raise himself out of his provincial milieu to a life of culture."[75] Burrows notes that like his father, Handel was able to accept royal (and aristocratic) favors without considering himself a court servant.[76] And so given the embarrassed financial condition of his mother,[50] Handel set off for Hamburg to obtain experience while supporting himself.
+
+In 1703 he accepted a position as violinist and harpsichordist in the orchestra of the Hamburg Oper am Gänsemarkt.[77] There he met the composers Johann Mattheson, Christoph Graupner and Reinhard Keiser. His first two operas, Almira and Nero, were produced in 1705.[78] He produced two other operas, Daphne and Florindo, in 1708. It is unclear whether Handel directed these performances.
+
+According to Mainwaring, in 1706 Handel travelled to Italy at the invitation of Ferdinando de' Medici. Other sources say Handel was invited by Gian Gastone de' Medici, whom Handel had met in 1703–1704 in Hamburg.[79] De' Medici[which?], who had a keen interest in opera, was trying to make Florence Italy's musical capital by attracting the leading talents of his day. In Italy Handel met librettist Antonio Salvi, with whom he later collaborated. Handel left for Rome and, since opera was (temporarily) banned in the Papal States, composed sacred music for the Roman clergy. His famous Dixit Dominus (1707) is from this era. He also composed cantatas in pastoral style for musical gatherings in the palaces of duchess Aurora Sanseverino (whom Mainwaring called "Donna Laura")[80] one of the most influential patrons from the Kingdom of Naples, and cardinals Pietro Ottoboni, Benedetto Pamphili and Carlo Colonna. Two oratorios, La resurrezione and Il trionfo del tempo, were produced in a private setting for Ruspoli and Ottoboni in 1709 and 1710, respectively. Rodrigo, his first all-Italian opera, was produced in the Cocomero theatre in Florence in 1707.[81] Agrippina was first produced in 1709 at Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo in Venice, owned by the Grimanis. The opera, with a libretto by Cardinal Vincenzo Grimani, ran for 27 nights successively.[82] The audience, thunderstruck with the grandeur and sublimity of his style,[83] applauded for Il caro Sassone ("the dear Saxon" – referring to Handel's German origins).
+
+In 1710, Handel became Kapellmeister to German prince George, the Elector of Hanover, who in 1714 would become King George I of Great Britain and Ireland.[84] He visited Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici and her husband in Düsseldorf on his way to London in 1710. With his opera Rinaldo, based on La Gerusalemme Liberata by the Italian poet Torquato Tasso, Handel enjoyed great success, although it was composed quickly, with many borrowings from his older Italian works.[85] This work contains one of Handel's favourite arias, Cara sposa, amante cara, and the famous Lascia ch'io pianga.
+
+In 1712, Handel decided to settle permanently in England. In the summer of 1713 he lived at Mr Mathew Andrews' estate in Barn Elms, Surrey.[86][87] He received a yearly income of £200 from Queen Anne after composing for her the Utrecht Te Deum and Jubilate, first performed in 1713.[88][89]
+
+One of his most important patrons was The 3rd Earl of Burlington and 4th Earl of Cork, a young and extremely wealthy member of an Anglo-Irish aristocratic family.[90] While living in the mansion of Lord Burlington, Handel wrote Amadigi di Gaula, a "magic" opera, about a damsel in distress, based on the tragedy by Antoine Houdar de la Motte.
+
+The conception of an opera as a coherent structure was slow to capture Handel's imagination[91] and he composed no operas for five years. In July 1717 Handel's Water Music was performed more than three times on the River Thames for the King and his guests. It is said the compositions spurred reconciliation between Handel and the King, supposedly annoyed by the composer's abandonment of his Hanover post.[92]
+
+In 1717 Handel became house composer at Cannons in Middlesex, where he laid the cornerstone for his future choral compositions in the Chandos Anthems.[93] Romain Rolland wrote that these anthems (or Psalms) stood in relation to Handel's oratorios, much the same way that the Italian cantatas stood to his operas: "splendid sketches of the more monumental works."[94] Another work, which he wrote for The 1st Duke of Chandos, the owner of Cannons, was Acis and Galatea: during Handel's lifetime it was his most performed work. Winton Dean wrote, "the music catches breath and disturbs the memory".[95]
+
+In 1719 the Duke of Chandos became one of the composer's important patrons and main subscribers to his new opera company, the Royal Academy of Music, but his patronage declined after Chandos lost money in the South Sea bubble, which burst in 1720 in one of history's greatest financial cataclysms. Handel himself invested in South Sea stock in 1716, when prices were low[96] and sold before 1720.[97]
+
+In May 1719, The 1st Duke of Newcastle, the Lord Chamberlain, ordered Handel to look for new singers.[98] Handel travelled to Dresden to attend the newly built opera. He saw Teofane by Antonio Lotti, and engaged members of the cast for the Royal Academy of Music, founded by a group of aristocrats to assure themselves a constant supply of baroque opera or opera seria. Handel may have invited John Smith, his fellow student in Halle, and his son Johann Christoph Schmidt, to become his secretary and amanuensis.[99] By 1723 he had moved into a Georgian house at 25 Brook Street, which he rented for the rest of his life.[100] This house, where he rehearsed, copied music and sold tickets, is now the Handel House Museum.[s] During twelve months between 1724 and 1725, Handel wrote three outstanding and successful operas, Giulio Cesare, Tamerlano and Rodelinda. Handel's operas are filled with da capo arias, such as Svegliatevi nel core. After composing Silete venti, he concentrated on opera and stopped writing cantatas. Scipio, from which the regimental slow march of the British Grenadier Guards is derived,[101] was performed as a stopgap, waiting for the arrival of Faustina Bordoni.
+
+In 1727 Handel was commissioned to write four anthems for the Coronation ceremony of King George II. One of these, Zadok the Priest, has been played at every British coronation ceremony since.[102] In 1728 John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, which made fun of the type of Italian opera Handel had popularised in London, premiered at Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre and ran for 62 consecutive performances, the longest run in theatre history up to that time.[103] After nine years the Royal Academy of Music ceased to function but Handel soon started a new company.
+
+The Queen's Theatre at the Haymarket (now Her Majesty's Theatre), established in 1705 by architect and playwright John Vanbrugh, quickly became an opera house.[104] Between 1711 and 1739, more than 25 of Handel's operas premièred there.[105] In 1729 Handel became joint manager of the theatre with John James Heidegger.
+
+Handel travelled to Italy to engage new singers and also composed seven more operas, among them the comic masterpiece Partenope and the "magic" opera Orlando.[106] After two commercially successful English oratorios Esther and Deborah, he was able to invest again in the South Sea Company. Handel reworked his Acis and Galatea which then became his most successful work ever. Handel failed to compete with the Opera of the Nobility, who engaged musicians such as Johann Adolph Hasse, Nicolo Porpora and the famous castrato Farinelli. The strong support by Frederick, Prince of Wales caused conflicts in the royal family. In March 1734 Handel composed a wedding anthem This is the day which the Lord hath made, and a serenata Parnasso in Festa for Anne, Princess Royal.[107]
+
+Despite the problems the Opera of the Nobility was causing him at the time, Handel's neighbour in Brook Street, Mary Delany, reported on a party she invited Handel to at her house on 12 April 1734 where he was in good spirits:
+
+I had Lady Rich and her daughter, Lady Cath. Hanmer and her husband, Mr. and Mrs. Percival, Sir John Stanley and my brother, Mrs. Donellan, Strada [star soprano of Handel's operas]  and Mr. Coot.  Lord Shaftesbury begged of Mr. Percival to bring him, and being a profess'd friend of Mr. Handel (who was here also) was admitted; I never was so well entertained at an opera!  Mr. Handel was in the best humour in the world, and played lessons and accompanied Strada and all the ladies that sang from seven o'clock till eleven.  I gave them tea and coffee, and about half an hour after nine had a salver brought in of chocolate, mulled white wine and biscuits.  Everybody was easy and seemed pleased.[108]
+
+In 1733 the Earl of Essex received a letter with the following sentence: "Handel became so arbitrary a prince, that the Town murmurs." The board of chief investors expected Handel to retire when his contract ended, but Handel immediately looked for another theatre. In cooperation with John Rich he started his third company at Covent Garden Theatre. Rich was renowned for his spectacular productions. He suggested Handel use his small chorus and introduce the dancing of Marie Sallé, for whom Handel composed Terpsicore. In 1735 he introduced organ concertos between the acts. For the first time Handel allowed Gioacchino Conti, who had no time to learn his part, to substitute arias.[109] Financially, Ariodante was a failure, although he introduced ballet suites at the end of each act.[110] Alcina, his last opera with a magic content, and Alexander's Feast or the Power of Music based on John Dryden's Alexander's Feast starred Anna Maria Strada del Pò and John Beard.
+
+In April 1737, at age 52, Handel apparently suffered a stroke which disabled the use of four fingers on his right hand, preventing him from performing.[111] In summer the disorder seemed at times to affect his understanding. Nobody expected that Handel would ever be able to perform again. But whether the affliction was rheumatism, a stroke or a nervous breakdown, he recovered remarkably quickly .[112] To aid his recovery, Handel had travelled to Aachen, a spa in Germany. During six weeks he took long hot baths, and ended up playing the organ for a surprised audience.[113] He wrote  Faramondo in December 1737 and Serse in January 1738. Deidamia, his last opera, a co-production with the Earl of Holderness,[114] was performed three times in 1741. Handel gave up the opera business, while he enjoyed more success with his English oratorios.[115]
+
+In 1738 he composed music for a musical clock with a pipe organ built by Charles Clay; it was bought by Gerrit Braamcamp and was in 2016 acquired by the Museum Speelklok in Utrecht.[116][117]
+
+Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno, an allegory, Handel's first oratorio[118] was composed in Italy in 1707, followed by La resurrezione in 1708 which uses material from the Bible. The circumstances of Esther and its first performance, possibly in 1718, are obscure.[119] Another 12 years had passed when an act of piracy caused him to take up Esther once again.[120] Three earlier performances aroused such interest that they naturally prompted the idea of introducing it to a larger public. Next came Deborah, strongly coloured by the coronation anthems[121] and Athaliah, his first English Oratorio.[122] In these three oratorios Handel laid the foundation for the traditional use of the chorus which marks his later oratorios.[123] Handel became sure of himself, broader in his presentation, and more diverse in his composition.[124]
+
+It is evident how much he learned from Arcangelo Corelli about writing for instruments, and from Alessandro Scarlatti about writing for the solo voice; but there is no single composer who taught him how to write for chorus.[125] Handel tended more and more to replace Italian soloists by English ones. The most significant reason for this change was the dwindling financial returns from his operas.[126] Thus a tradition was created for oratorios which was to govern their future performance. The performances were given without costumes and action; the singers appeared in their own clothes.[127]
+
+In 1736 Handel produced Alexander's Feast. John Beard appeared for the first time as one of Handel's principal singers and became Handel's permanent tenor soloist for the rest of Handel's life.[128] The piece was a great success and it encouraged Handel to make the transition from writing Italian operas to English choral works. In Saul, Handel was collaborating with Charles Jennens and experimenting with three trombones, a carillon and extra-large military kettledrums (from the Tower of London), to be sure "...it will be most excessive noisy".[129] Saul and Israel in Egypt both from 1739 head the list of great, mature oratorios, in which the da capo aria became the exception and not the rule.[130] Israel in Egypt consists of little else but choruses, borrowing from the Funeral Anthem for Queen Caroline. In his next works Handel changed his course. In these works he laid greater stress on the effects of orchestra and soloists; the chorus retired into the background.[131] L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato has a rather diverting character; the work is light and fresh.
+
+During the summer of 1741, The 3rd Duke of Devonshire invited Handel to Dublin, capital of the Kingdom of Ireland, to give concerts for the benefit of local hospitals.[132] His Messiah was first performed at the New Music Hall in Fishamble Street on 13 April 1742, with 26 boys and five men from the combined choirs of St Patrick's and Christ Church cathedrals participating.[133] Handel secured a balance between soloists and chorus which he never surpassed.
+
+In 1747 Handel wrote his oratorio Alexander Balus. This work was produced at Covent Garden Theatre in London, on 23 March 1748, and to the aria Hark! hark! He strikes the golden lyre, Handel wrote the accompaniment for mandolin, harp, violin, viola, and violoncello.[134] Another of his English oratorios, Solomon, was first performed on 17 March 1749 at the Covent Garden Theatre.[135] Solomon contains a short and lively instrumental passage for two oboes and strings in act 3, known as "The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba".
+
+The use of English soloists reached its height at the first performance of Samson. The work is highly theatrical. The role of the chorus became increasingly important in his later oratorios. Jephtha was first performed on 26 February 1752; even though it was his last oratorio, it was no less a masterpiece than his earlier works.[136]
+
+In 1749 Handel composed Music for the Royal Fireworks; 12,000 people attended the first performance.[137] In 1750 he arranged a performance of Messiah to benefit the Foundling Hospital. The performance was considered a great success and was followed by annual concerts that continued throughout his life. In recognition of his patronage, Handel was made a governor of the Hospital the day after his initial concert. He bequeathed a copy of Messiah to the institution upon his death.[138] His involvement with the Foundling Hospital is today commemorated with a permanent exhibition in London's Foundling Museum, which also holds the Gerald Coke Handel Collection. In addition to the Foundling Hospital, Handel also gave to a charity that assisted impoverished musicians and their families.
+
+In August 1750, on a journey back from Germany to London, Handel was seriously injured in a carriage accident between The Hague and Haarlem in the Netherlands.[139] In 1751 one eye started to fail. The cause was a cataract which was operated on by the great charlatan Chevalier Taylor. This did not improve his eyesight, but possibly made it worse.[115] He was completely blind by 1752. He died in 1759 at home in Brook Street, at age 74. The last performance he attended was of Messiah. Handel was buried in Westminster Abbey.[140] More than three thousand mourners attended his funeral, which was given full state honours.
+
+Handel never married, and kept his personal life private. His initial will bequeathed the bulk of his estate to his niece Johanna, however four codicils distributed much of his estate to other relations, servants, friends and charities.[141]
+
+Handel owned an art collection that was auctioned posthumously in 1760.[142] The auction catalogue listed approximately seventy paintings and ten prints (other paintings were bequeathed).[142]
+
+Handel's compositions include 42 operas, 25 oratorios, more than 120 cantatas, trios and duets, numerous arias, chamber music, a large number of ecumenical pieces, odes and serenatas, 18 concerti grossi and 12 organ concertos. His most famous work, the oratorio Messiah with its "Hallelujah" chorus, is among the most popular works in choral music and has become the centrepiece of the Christmas season. The Lobkowicz Palace in Prague holds Mozart's copy of Messiah, complete with handwritten annotations. Among the works with opus numbers published and popularised in his lifetime are the Organ concertos Op. 4 and Op. 7, together with the Opus 3 and Opus 6 Concerti grossi; the latter incorporate an earlier organ concerto The Cuckoo and the Nightingale in which birdsong is imitated in the upper registers of the organ. Also notable are his 16 keyboard suites, especially The Harmonious Blacksmith.
+
+Handel introduced previously uncommon musical instruments in his works: the viola d'amore and violetta marina (Orlando), the lute (Ode for St. Cecilia's Day), three trombones (Saul), clarinets or small high cornetts (Tamerlano), theorbo, French horn (Water Music), lyrichord, double bassoon, viola da gamba, carillon (bell chimes), positive organ, and harp (Giulio Cesare, Alexander's Feast).[143]
+
+The first published catalogue of Handel's works appeared as an appendix to Mainwaring's Memoirs.[144] Between 1787 and 1797 Samuel Arnold compiled a 180-volume collection of Handel's works—however, it was far from complete.[145] Also incomplete was the collection produced between 1843 and 1858 by the English Handel Society (founded by Sir George Macfarren).[146]
+
+The 105-volume Händel-Gesellschaft ("Handel Society") edition was published between 1858 and 1902 – mainly due to the efforts of Friedrich Chrysander. For modern performance, the realisation of the basso continuo reflects 19th century practice. Vocal scores drawn from the edition were published by Novello in London, but some scores, such as the vocal score to Samson, are incomplete.
+
+The continuing Hallische Händel-Ausgabe edition was first inaugurated in 1955 in the Halle region in Saxony-Anhalt, Eastern Germany. It did not start as a critical edition, but after heavy criticism of the first volumes, which were performing editions without a critical apparatus (for example, the opera Serse was published with the title character recast as a tenor, reflecting pre-war German practice), it repositioned itself as a critical edition. Influenced in part by cold-war realities, editorial work was inconsistent: misprints are found in abundance and editors failed to consult important sources. In 1985 a committee was formed to establish better standards for the edition. The unification of Germany in 1990 removed communication problems, and the volumes issued have since shown a significant improvement in standards.[115]
+
+Between 1978 and 1986 the German academic Bernd Baselt catalogued Handel's works in his Händel-Werke-Verzeichnis publication. The catalogue has achieved wide acceptance and is used as the modern numbering system, with each of Handel's works designated an "HWV" number, for example Messiah is catalogued as "HWV 56".
+
+Handel's works were collected and preserved by two men: Sir Samuel Hellier, a country squire whose musical acquisitions form the nucleus of the Shaw-Hellier Collection,[147] and the abolitionist Granville Sharp.[148] The catalogue accompanying the National Portrait Gallery exhibition marking the tercentenary of the composer's birth calls them two men of the late eighteenth century "who have left us solid evidence of the means by which they indulged their enthusiasm".[149] With his English oratorios, such as Messiah and Solomon, the coronation anthems, and other works including Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks, Handel became a national icon in Britain, and featured in the BBC series, The Birth of British Music: Handel – The Conquering Hero.[150]
+
+After his death, Handel's Italian operas fell into obscurity, except for selections such as the aria from Serse, "Ombra mai fu". The oratorios continued to be performed but not long after Handel's death they were thought to need some modernisation, and Mozart orchestrated German versions of Messiah and other works. Throughout the 19th century and first half of the 20th century, particularly in the Anglophone countries, his reputation rested primarily on his English oratorios, which were customarily performed by choruses of amateur singers on solemn occasions.  The centenary of his death, in 1859, was celebrated by a performance of Messiah at The Crystal Palace, involving 2,765 singers and 460 instrumentalists, who played for an audience of about 10,000 people.[151]
+
+Recent decades have revived his secular cantatas and what one might call 'secular oratorios' or 'concert operas'. Of the former, Ode for St. Cecilia's Day (1739) (set to texts by John Dryden) and Ode for the Birthday of Queen Anne (1713) are noteworthy. For his secular oratorios, Handel turned to classical mythology for subjects, producing such works as Acis and Galatea (1719), Hercules (1745) and Semele (1744). These works have a close kinship with the sacred oratorios, particularly in the vocal writing for the English-language texts. They also share the lyrical and dramatic qualities of Handel's Italian operas. As such, they are sometimes fully staged as operas. With the rediscovery of his theatrical works, Handel, in addition to his renown as instrumentalist, orchestral writer, and melodist, is now perceived as being one of opera's great musical dramatists.
+
+The original form of his name, Georg Friedrich Händel, is generally used in Germany and elsewhere, but he is known as "Haendel" in France. A different composer, Jacob Handl or Händl (1550–1591) is usually known by the Latin form Jacobus Gallus that appears in his publications.
+
+Handel has generally been accorded high esteem by fellow composers, both in his own time and since.[152] Johann Sebastian Bach  attempted, unsuccessfully, to meet Handel while he was visiting Halle.[153] (Handel was born in the same year as Bach and Domenico Scarlatti.) Mozart is reputed to have said of him, "Handel understands affect better than any of us. When he chooses, he strikes like a thunder bolt."[154] To Beethoven he was "the master of us all... the greatest composer that ever lived. I would uncover my head and kneel before his tomb."[154] Beethoven emphasised above all the simplicity and popular appeal of Handel's music when he said, "Go to him to learn how to achieve great effects, by such simple means."
+
+Since 1831, when William Crotch raised the issue in his Substance of Several Lectures on Music, scholars have extensively studied Handel's "borrowing" of music from other composers. Summarising the field in 2005, Richard Taruskin wrote that Handel "seems to have been the champion of all parodists, adapting both his own works and those of other composers in unparalleled numbers and with unparalleled exactitude."[155] Among the composers whose music has been shown to have been re-used by Handel are Alessandro Stradella, Gottlieb Muffat, Alessandro Scarlatti, Domenico Scarlatti[156] Giacomo Carissimi, Georg Philipp Telemann, Carl Heinrich Graun, Leonardo Vinci, Jacobus Gallus, Francesco Antonio Urio, Reinhard Keiser, Francesco Gasparini, Giovanni Bononcini, William Boyce, Henry Lawes, Michael Wise, Agostino Steffani, Franz Johann Habermann, and numerous others.[157]
+
+In an essay published in 1985, John H. Roberts demonstrated that Handel's borrowings were unusually frequent even for his own era, enough to have been criticised by contemporaries (notably Johann Mattheson); Roberts suggested several reasons for Handel's practice, including Handel's attempts to make certain works sound more up-to-date and more radically, his "basic lack of facility in inventing original ideas" – though Roberts took care to argue that this does not "diminish Handel's stature", which should be "judged not by his methods, still less by his motives in employing them, but solely by the effects he achieves."[158]
+
+After Handel's death, many composers wrote works based on or inspired by his music. The first movement from Louis Spohr's Symphony No. 6, Op. 116, "The Age of Bach and Handel", resembles two melodies from Handel's Messiah. In 1797 Ludwig van Beethoven published the 12 Variations in G major on ‘See the conqu’ring hero comes’ from Judas Maccabaeus by Handel, for cello and piano. In 1822 Beethoven composed The Consecration of the House overture, which also bears the influence of Handel. Guitar virtuoso Mauro Giuliani composed his Variations on a Theme by Handel, Op. 107 for guitar, based on Handel's Suite No. 5 in E major, HWV 430, for harpsichord.
+
+In 1861, using a theme from the second of Handel's harpsichord suites, Johannes Brahms wrote the Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24, one of his most successful works (praised by Richard Wagner).  Several works by the French composer Félix-Alexandre Guilmant use Handel's themes, for example his March on a Theme by Handel uses a theme from Messiah. French composer and flautist Philippe Gaubert wrote his Petite marche for flute and piano based on the fourth movement of Handel's Trio Sonata, Op. 5, No. 2, HWV 397. Argentine composer Luis Gianneo composed his Variations on a Theme by Handel for piano. In 1911, Australian-born composer and pianist Percy Grainger based one of his most famous works on the final movement of Handel's Suite No. 5 in E major (just like Giuliani). He first wrote some variations on the theme, which he titled Variations on Handel's 'The Harmonious Blacksmith' . Then he used the first sixteen bars of his set of variations to create Handel in the Strand, one of his most beloved pieces, of which he made several versions (for example, the piano solo version from 1930). Arnold Schoenberg's Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra in B-flat major (1933) was composed after Handel's Concerto Grosso, Op. 6/7.[159]
+
+Handel is honoured with a feast day on 28 July in the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church, with Johann Sebastian Bach and Henry Purcell. In the Lutheran Calendar of Saints Handel and Bach share that date with Heinrich Schütz, and Handel and Bach are commemorated in the calendar of saints prepared by the Order of Saint Luke for the use of the United Methodist Church.[160] The Book of Common Worship of the Presbyterian Church (USA) (Westminster John Knox Press, 2018) commemorates him on April 20.
+
+In 1942, Handel was the subject of the British biopic The Great Mr. Handel directed by Norman Walker and starring Wilfrid Lawson. It was made at Denham Studios by the Rank Organisation, and shot in Technicolor. He is also the central character in the television films God Rot Tunbridge Wells! (1985) and Handel's Last Chance (1996) and the stage play All the Angels (2015). Handel was portrayed by Jeroen Krabbé as the antagonist in the film Farinelli (1994).

en/2364.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,396 @@
+
+
+www.fatih.gov.tr/dunya-mimarlik-tarihinin-onemli-anitlarindan-ayasofya
+
+Hagia Sophia (/ˈhɑːɡiə soʊˈfiːə/; from Koinē Greek: Ἁγία Σοφία, romanized: Hagía Sophía; Latin: Sancta Sophia, lit. 'Holy Wisdom'), officially the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque (Turkish: Ayasofya-i Kebir Camii Şerifi)[2] and formerly the Church of Hagia Sophia,[3] is a Late Antique place of worship in Istanbul. Built in 537 as the patriarchal cathedral of the imperial capital of Constantinople, it was the largest Christian church of the eastern Roman Empire (the Byzantine Empire), except during the Latin Empire from 1204 to 1261, when it became the Roman Catholic cathedral. In 1453, after the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire, it was converted into a Muslim mosque. In 1935 the secular Turkish Republic established it as a museum. In 2020, it was re-opened as a mosque.
+
+Built by the eastern Roman emperor Justinian I as the Christian cathedral of Constantinople for the state church of the Roman Empire between 532 and 537, the church was then the world's largest interior space and among the first to employ a fully pendentive dome. It is considered the epitome of Byzantine architecture[4] and is said to have "changed the history of architecture".[5] The building was designed by the Greek geometers Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles.[6] The present Justinianic building was the third church of the same name to occupy the site, the prior one having been destroyed in the Nika riots. Being the episcopal see of the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople, it remained the world's largest cathedral for nearly a thousand years, until Seville Cathedral was completed in 1520. Beginning with subsequent Byzantine architecture, Hagia Sophia became the paradigmatic Orthodox church form and its architectural style was emulated by Ottoman mosques a thousand years later.[7] It has been described as "holding a unique position in the Christian world",[7] and architectural and cultural icon of Byzantine and Eastern Orthodox civilization.[8][9][10][7]
+
+The church was dedicated to the Holy Wisdom, the Logos, the second person of the Trinity.[11] Its patronal feast falls on 25 December (Christmas), the commemoration of the incarnation of the Logos in Christ.[11] Sophia is the Latin transliteration of the Greek word for wisdom and, although sometimes referred to as Sancta Sophia, 'Saint Sophia', it is not connected with Sophia the Martyr.[12][13] The centre of the Eastern Orthodox Church for nearly one thousand years, the building witnessed the excommunication of Patriarch Michael I Cerularius officially delivered by Humbert of Silva Candida, the papal envoy of Pope Leo IX in 1054, an act that is commonly considered the start of the East–West Schism. In 1204, it was converted by the Fourth Crusaders to a Roman Catholic cathedral under the Latin Empire, before being restored to the Eastern Orthodox Church upon the return of the Byzantine Empire in 1261. The doge of Venice who led the Fourth Crusade and the 1204 Sack of Constantinople, Enrico Dandolo, was buried in the church.
+
+After the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453,[14] it was converted to a mosque by Mehmed the Conqueror. The patriarchate moved to the Church of the Holy Apostles, which became the city's cathedral. Although some parts of the city had fallen into disrepair, the cathedral had been maintained with funds set aside for this purpose, and the Christian cathedral made a strong impression on the new Ottoman rulers who conceived its conversion.[15][16] The bells, altar, iconostasis, ambo and baptistery were removed and relics destroyed. The mosaics depicting Jesus, his mother Mary, Christian saints, and angels were eventually destroyed or plastered over.[17] Islamic architectural features were added, such as a minbar (pulpit), four minarets, and a mihrab – a niche indicating the direction of prayer (qibla). From its initial conversion until the construction in 1616 of the nearby Sultan Ahmed Mosque, aka the Blue Mosque, it was the principal mosque of Istanbul. The Byzantine architecture of the Hagia Sophia served as inspiration for many other religious buildings from the Hagia Sophia, Thessaloniki and Panagia Ekatontapiliani to the Blue Mosque, the Şehzade Mosque, the Süleymaniye Mosque, the Rüstem Pasha Mosque and the Kılıç Ali Pasha Complex.
+
+The complex remained a mosque until 1931, when it was closed to the public for four years. It was re-opened in 1935 as a museum by the secular Republic of Turkey.[18] According to data released by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Hagia Sophia was Turkey's most visited tourist attraction in 2015[19] and 2019.[20][21]
+
+In early July 2020, the Council of State annulled the Cabinet's 1934 decision to establish the museum, revoking the monument's status, and a subsequent decree by Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan ordered the reclassification of Hagia Sophia as a mosque.[22][23][24] The 1934 decree was ruled to be unlawful under both Ottoman and Turkish law as Hagia Sophia's waqf, endowed by Sultan Mehmed, had designated the site a mosque; proponents of the decision argued the Hagia Sophia was the personal property of the sultan.[25][26][27] This redesignation is controversial, invoking condemnation from the Turkish opposition, UNESCO, the World Council of Churches, the International Association of Byzantine Studies, and many international leaders.[28][29][30][31][32]
+
+The first church on the site was known as the Magna Ecclesia (Μεγάλη Ἐκκλησία, Megálē Ekklēsíā, 'Great Church'),[33][34] because of its larger dimensions in comparison to the contemporary churches in the city.[11] According to the Chronicon Paschale, the church was consecrated on 15 February 360, during the reign of the emperor Constantius II (r. 337–361), by the Arian bishop Eudoxius of Antioch,[35][36] it was built next to the area where the Great Palace was being developed. According to the 5th-century ecclesiastical historian Socrates of Constantinople, the emperor Constantius had around 346 "constructed the Great Church alongside that called Irene which because it was too small, the emperor's father [Constantine] had enlarged and beautified".[37][35] A tradition which is not older than the 7th or 8th century, reports that the edifice was built by Constantius' father, Constantine the Great (r. 306–337).[35] The 12th century chronicler Joannes Zonaras reconciles the two opinions, writing that Constantius had repaired the edifice consecrated by Eusebius of Nicomedia, after it had collapsed.[35] Since Eusebius was bishop of Constantinople 339 to 341, and Constantine died in 337, it seems that the first church was erected by Constantius.[35]
+
+The nearby Hagia Irene ("Holy Peace") church was completed earlier and served as cathedral until the Great Church was completed. Besides Hagia Irene, there is no record of any major churches in the city-centre before the late 4th century.[36] Rowland Mainstone argued the 4th-century church was not yet known as Hagia Sophia.[38] Though its name as the 'Great Church' implies it was larger than other Constantinopolitan churches, the only other major churches of the 4th century were the Church of St Mocius, which lay outside the Constantinian walls and was perhaps attached to a cemetery, and the Church of the Holy Apostles.[36]
+
+The church itself is known to have had a timber roof, curtains, columns, and an entrance that faced west.[36] It probably had a narthex, and is described as being shaped like a Roman circus.[39] This may mean that it had a U-shaped plan like the basilicas of San Marcellino e Pietro and Sant'Agnese fuori le mura in Rome.[36] However, it may also have been a more conventional three-, four-, or five-aisled basilica, perhaps resembling the original Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem or the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.[36] The building was likely preceded by an atrium, as in the later churches on the site.
+
+According to Ken Dark and Jan Kostenec, a further remnant of the 4th century basilica may exist in a wall of alternating brick and stone banded masonry immediately to the west of the Justinianic church.[40] The top part of the wall is constructed with bricks stamped with brick-stamps dating from the 5th century, but the lower part is of constructed of bricks typical of the 4th century.[40] This wall was probably part of the propylaeum at the west front of both the Constantinian and Theodosian Great Church.[40]
+
+The building was accompanied by a baptistery and a skeuophylakion.[36] A hypogeum, perhaps with an martyrium above it, was discovered before 1946 and the surviving parts of a brick wall with traces of marble revetment were identified in 2004.[40] The hypogeum was a tomb which may have been part of the 4th-century church or may have dated from the pre-Constantinian city of Byzantium.[40] The skeuophylakion is said by Palladius to have circular plan, and because some U-shaped basilicas in Rome were funerary churches with attached circular mausolea (the Mausoleum of Constantina and the Mausoleum of Helena) it is possible it originally had a funerary function, though by 405 its use had changed.[40] One much later account credited a woman called Anna with donating the land on which the church was built in return for the right to be buried there.[40]
+
+Excavations on the western side of the site of the first church under the propylaeum wall reveal that the first church was built atop a road some 8 metres (26 ft) broad.[40] According to early accounts, the first Hagia Sophia was built on the site of an ancient pagan temple,[41][42][43] although there are no artefacts to confirm this.[44]
+
+The Patriarch of Constantinople John Chrysostom came into a conflict with Empress Aelia Eudoxia, wife of the emperor Arcadius (r. 395–408), and was sent into exile on 20 June 404. During the subsequent riots, this first church was largely burnt down.[35] Palladius noted that the 4th-century skeuophylakion survived the fire.[45] According to Dark and Kostenec, the fire may only have affected the main basilica, leaving the surrounding ancillary buildings intact.[45]
+
+A second church on the site was ordered by Theodosius II (r. 401–450), who inaugurated it on 10 October 415.[citation needed] The Notitia Urbis Constantinopolitanae describes the Hagia Sophia as the Magna Ecclesia, 'Great Church', while the former cathedral Hagia Irene is named the Ecclesia Antiqua, 'Old Church'. At the time of Socrates of Constantinople around 440, "both churches are enclosed by a single wall and served by the same clergy".[37] The complex would thus have encompassed a large area including the site of the later Hospital of Samson.[45] If the fire of 404 destroyed only the 4th-century main basilica church, then the 5th century Theodosian basilica could have been built surrounded by a mainly 4th-century complex.[45]
+
+The area of the western entrance to the Justinianic Hagia Sophia revealed the western remains of its Theodosian predecessor, as well as some fragments of the Constantinian church.[45] German archaeologist Alfons Maria Schneider began conducting archaeological excavations during the mid-1930s, publishing his final report in 1941.[45] Excavations in the area that had once been the 6th-century atrium of the Justinianic church revealed the monumental western entrance and atrium, along with columns and sculptural fragments from both 4th- and 5th-century churches.[45] Further digging was abandoned for fear of impinging on the integrity of the Justinianic building, but parts of the excavation trenches remain uncovered, laying bare the foundations of the Theodosian building.
+
+The basilica was built by architect Rufinus.[citation needed] The church's main entrance faced west, perhaps with gilded doors, and with an additional entrance to the east.[46] There was a central pulpit, and probably there was an upper gallery, possibly employed as a matroneum (women's section).[46] The exterior was decorated with elaborate carvings with rich Theodosian-era designs, of which fragments survive, while the floor just inside the portico was embellished with polychrome mosaics.[45] The surviving carved gable end from the centre of the western facade is decorated with a cross-roundel.[45] Fragments of a frieze of reliefs with 12 lambs representing the 12 apostles also remain; unlike Justinian's 6th-century church the Theodosian Hagia Sophia had both colourful floor mosaics and external decorative sculpture.[45]
+
+At the western end, surviving stone fragments of the show there was vaulting, at least at the western end.[45] The Theodosian building had a monumental propylaeum hall with a portico, which may account for this vaulting, which was thought by the original excavators in the 1930s to be part of the western entrance of the church itself.[45] The propylaeum opened onto an atrium which lay in front of the basilica church itself. Preceding the propylaeum was a steep monumental staircase following the contours of the ground as it sloped away westwards in the direction of the Strategion, the Basilica, and the harbours of the Golden Horn.[45] This arrangement would have recalled the steps outside the atrium of the Constantinian Old St Peter's Basilica in Rome.[45] Nearby was a cistern, perhaps to supply a fountain in the atrium or for worshippers to wash with before entering.[45]
+
+The 4th-century skeuophylakion was replaced in the 5th century by the present-day structure, a rotunda constructed of banded masonry in the lower two levels and of plain brick masonry in the third.[45] Originally this rotunda, probably employed as a treasury for liturgical objects, had an second-storey internal gallery accessed by an external spiral staircase and two levels of niches for storage.[45] A further row, of windows with marble window frames on the third level remain bricked up.[45] The gallery was supported on monumental consoles with carved acanthus designs, similar to those used on the late 5th-century Column of Leo.[45] A large lintel of the skeuophylakion's western entrance – bricked up in the Ottoman era – was discovered inside the rotunda when it was archaeologically cleared to its foundations in 1979, during which time the brickwork was also repointed.[45] The skeuophylakion was again restored in 2014 by the Vakıflar.[45]
+
+A fire started during the tumult of the Nika Revolt, which had begun nearby in the Hippodrome of Constantinople, and the second Hagia Sophia was burnt to the ground on 13–14 January 532. The court historian Procopius wrote:[47]
+
+And by way of shewing that it was not against the Emperor alone that they [the rioters] had taken up arms, but no less against God himself, unholy wretches that they were, they had the hardihood to fire the Church of the Christians, which the people of Byzantium call "Sophia", an epithet which they have most appropriately invented for God, by which they call His temple; and God permitted them to accomplish this impiety, foreseeing into what an object of beauty this shrine was destined to be transformed. So the whole church at that time lay a charred mass of ruins.
+
+Column and capital with a Greek cross
+
+Porphyry column; column capital; impost block
+
+Soffits and cornice
+
+Columns and other fragments
+
+Frieze with lambs
+
+Frieze with lambs
+
+Theodosian capital for a pilaster
+
+Theodosian capital
+
+Theodosian capital for a column
+
+Soffits
+
+On 23 February 532, only a few weeks after the destruction of the second basilica, Emperor Justinian I decided to build a third and entirely different basilica, larger and more majestic than its predecessors. It was designed by Anthemius of Tralles, and Isidore of Miletus.
+
+Construction of the church began in 532 during the short term of Phocas as praetorian prefect.[48] Phocas replaced John the Cappadocian after the Nika Riots saw the destruction of the Theodosian church, although he had previously been arrrested in 529 on suspicion of paganism.[48] According to John the Lydian, Phocas was responsible for funding the initial construction of the building with 4,000 Roman pounds of gold, although he was dismissed from office in October 532.[49][48] John the Lydian, writing in the 550s, was careful to say Phocas had acquired the funds by moral means; Evagrius Scholasticus later wrote that he had obtained the money unjustly.[50][48]
+
+According to Aristotle Kaldellis, both of Hagia Sophia's architects named by Procopius  were associated with to the school of the pagan philosopher Ammonius of Alexandria.[48] It is possible that both they and John the Lydian envisaged Hagia Sophia as a great temple of the supreme Neoplantonist deity whose visible manifestation was light and the sun. John the Lydian describes the church as the "temenos of the Great God" (Greek: τὸ τοῦ μεγάλου θεοῦ Τέμενος, romanized: tò toû meglou theoû Témenos).[49][48]
+
+Originally the exterior was covered with marble veneer, as indicated by remaining pieces of marble and surviving attachments for lost panels on the building's western face.[51] The white marble cladding of much of the church, together with gilding of some parts, would have given Hagia Sophia a shimmering appearance quite different to the brick- and plaster-work of the modern period, and would greatly have increased its visibility from the sea.[51] The cathedral's interior surfaces were sheathed with polychrome marbles, green and white with purple porphyry, and gold mosaics. The exterior was clad in stucco tinted yellow and red during restorations in the 19th century at the direction of the Fossati architects.[citation needed]
+
+Justinian chose geometer and engineer Isidore of Miletus and mathematician Anthemius of Tralles as architects. The construction is described by Procopius's On Buildings (Greek: Περὶ κτισμάτων, romanized: Peri ktismatōn, Latin: De aedificiis).[47] Columns and other marbles were brought from all over the empire, throughout the Mediterranean. The idea of these columns being spoils from cities such as Rome and Ephesus is a later invention.[52] Even though they were made specifically for Hagia Sophia, the columns show variations in size.[53] More than ten thousand people were employed. This new church was contemporaneously recognized as a major work of architecture. Outside the church was an elaborate array of monuments around the bronze-plated Column of Justinian, topped by an equestrian statue of the emperor which dominated the Augustaeum, the open square outside the church which connected it with the Great Palace complex through the Chalke Gate. At the edge of the Augustaeum was the Milion and the Regia, the first stretch of Constantinople's main thoroughfare, the Mese. Also facing the Augustaeum were the enormous Constantinian thermae, the Baths of Zeuxippus, and the Justinianic civic basilica under which was the vast cistern known as the Basilica Cistern. On the opposite side of Hagia Sophia was the former cathedral, Hagia Irene.
+
+Referring to the destruction of the Theodosian Hagia Sophia and comparing the new church with the old, Procopius lauded the Justinianic building, writing in De aedificiis:[47]
+
+... the Emperor Justinian built not long afterwards a church so finely shaped, that if anyone had enquired of the Christians before the burning if it would be their wish that the church should be destroyed and one like this should take its place, shewing them some sort of model of the building we now see, it seems to me that they would have prayed that they might see their church destroyed forthwith, in order that the building might be converted into its present form.
+
+The Justinian and Patriarch Menas, inaugurated the new basilica on 27 December 537 – 5 years and 10 months after construction started – with much pomp.[54][55][56] Hagia Sophia was the seat of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and a principal setting for Byzantine imperial ceremonies, such as coronations. Like other churches throughout Christendom, the basilica offered sanctuary from persecution to outlaws.[citation needed]
+
+Earthquakes in August 553 and on 14 December 557 caused cracks in the main dome and eastern semi-dome. According to the Chronicle of John Malalas, during a subsequent earthquake on 7 May 558,[57] the eastern semi-dome fell down, destroying the ambon, altar, and ciborium. The collapse was due mainly to the unfeasibly high bearing load and to the enormous shear load of the dome, which was too flat.[54] These caused the deformation of the piers which sustained the dome.[54] Justinian ordered an immediate restoration. He entrusted it to Isidorus the Younger, nephew of Isidore of Miletus, who used lighter materials. The entire vault had to be taken down and rebuilt 20 Byzantine feet (6.25 meters or 20.5 feet) higher than before, giving the building its current interior height of 55.6 meters (182 ft).[58] Moreover, Isidorus changed the dome type, erecting a ribbed dome with pendentives whose diameter was between 32.7 and 33.5 m.[54] Under Justinian's orders, eight Corinthian columns were disassembled from Baalbek, Lebanon, and shipped to Constantinople around 560.[59] This reconstruction, giving the church its present 6th-century form, was completed in 562. The poet Paul the Silentiary composed a long Greek poem, an ekphrasis, for the re-dedication of the basilica presided over by Patriarch Eutychius on 23 December 562. Paul the Silentiary's poem is conventionally known under the Latin title Descriptio Sanctae Sophiae, and he was also author of another ekphrasis on the ambon of the church, the Descripto Ambonis.[60][61] The mosaics were completed in the reign of Emperor Justin II (r. 565–578), Justinian I's successor.[citation needed]
+
+In 726, the emperor Leo the Isaurian issued a series of edicts against the veneration of images, ordering the army to destroy all icons – ushering in the period of Byzantine iconoclasm. At that time, all religious pictures and statues were removed from the Hagia Sophia. After a brief reprieve under Empress Irene (797–802), the iconoclasts made a comeback. The Emperor Theophilus (r. 829–842) had two-winged bronze doors with his monograms installed at the southern entrance of the church.[citation needed]
+
+The basilica suffered damage, first in a great fire in 859, and again in an earthquake on 8 January 869, that made one of the half-domes collapse. Emperor Basil I ordered the church repaired.[citation needed]
+
+In his book De caerimoniis aulae Byzantinae ("Book of Ceremonies"), Emperor Constantine VII (r. 913–959) wrote a detailed account of the ceremonies held in the Hagia Sophia by the emperor and the patriarch.
+
+After the great earthquake of 25 October 989, which collapsed the western dome arch, Emperor Basil II asked for the Armenian architect Trdat, creator of the Cathedral of Ani, to direct the repairs.[62] He erected again and reinforced the fallen dome arch, and rebuilt the west side of the dome with 15 dome ribs.[63] The extent of the damage required six years of repair and reconstruction; the church was re-opened on 13 May 994. At the end of the reconstruction, the church's decorations were renovated, including the addition of four immense paintings of cherubs; a new depiction of Christ on the dome; a burial cloth of Christ shown on Fridays, and on the apse a new depiction of the Virgin Mary holding Jesus, between the apostles Peter and Paul.[64] On the great side arches were painted the prophets and the teachers of the church.[64]
+
+According to the Greek historian Niketas Choniates, in 1203 during the Fourth Crusade, the emperors Isaac II Angelos and Alexios IV Angelos stripped Hagia Sophia of all the gold ornaments and all the silver oil-lamps in order to pay off the Crusaders who had ousted Alexios III Angelos and helped Isaac return to the throne.[65] Upon the subsequent Sack of Constantinople in 1204, the church was further ransacked and desecrated by the Crusaders, as described by Niketas, though he did not witness the events in person. According to his account, composed at the court of the rump Empire of Nicaea, Hagia Sophia was stripped of its remaining metal ornaments, its altar was smashed into pieces, and a "woman laden with sins" sang and danced on the synthronon.[66][67][68] He adds that mules and donkeys were brought into the cathedral's sanctuary to carry away the gilded silver plating of the bema, the ambo, and the doors and other furnishings, and that one of these slipped on the marble floor and was accidentally disembowelled, further contaminating the place.[66] According to Ali ibn al-Athir, whose treatment of the Sack of Constantinople was probably dependent on a Christian source, the Crusaders massacred some clerics who had surrendered to them.[69] Much of the interior was damaged and would not be repaired until its return to Orthodox control in 1261.[44] The sack of Hagia Sophia, and Constantinople in general, remained a sore point in Catholic–Eastern Orthodox relations.[70]
+
+During the Latin occupation of Constantinople (1204–1261) the church became a Roman Catholic cathedral. Baldwin I of Constantinople (r. 1204–1205) was crowned emperor on 16 May 1204 in Hagia Sophia, at a ceremony which closely followed Byzantine practices. Enrico Dandolo, the Doge of Venice who commanded the sack and invasion of the city by the Latin Crusaders in 1204, is buried inside the church, probably in the upper eastern gallery. In the 19th century, an Italian restoration team placed a cenotaph marker, frequently mistaken as being a medieval, near the probable location and still visible today. The original tomb was destroyed by the Ottomans during the conversion of the church into a mosque.[71]
+
+At the capture of Constantinople in 1261 by the Empire of Nicaea and the emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus, (r. 1261–1282) the church was in a dilapidated state. In 1317, emperor Andronicus II Palaeologus (r. 1282–1328) ordered four new buttresses (Byzantine Greek: Πυραμίδας, romanized: Pyramídas) to be built in the eastern and northern parts of the church, financing them with the inheritance of his late wife, Irene of Montferrat (d.1314).[17] New cracks developed in the dome after the earthquake of October 1344, and several parts of the building collapsed on 19 May 1346; consequently, the church was closed until 1354, when repairs were undertaken by architects Astras and Peralta.[citation needed]
+
+On 12 December 1452, Isidore of Kiev proclaimed in Hagia Sophia the long-anticipated and short-lived ecclesiastical union between the western Catholic and eastern Orthodox Churches as decided at the Council of Florence and the papal bull Laetentur Caeli. The union was unpopular among the Byzantines, who had already expelled the Partiarch of Constantinople, Gregory III, for his pro-union stance. A new patriarch was not installed until after the Ottoman conquest. According to the Greek historian Doukas, the Hagia Sophia was tainted by these Catholic associations, and the anti-union Orthodox faithful avoided the cathedral, considering it to be a haunt of demons and a "Hellenic" temple of Roman paganism.[72]
+
+According to Nestor Iskander's Tale on the Taking of Tsargrad, the Hagia Sophia was the focus of an alarming omen interpreted as the Holy Spirit abandoning Constantinople on 21 May 1453, in the final days of the Siege of Constantinople.[73] The sky lit up, illuminating the city, and "many people gathered and saw on the Church of the Wisdom, at the top of the window, a large flame of fire issuing forth. It encircled the entire neck of the church for a long time. The flame gathered into one; its flame altered, and there was an indescribable light. At once it took to the sky. ... The light itself has gone up to heaven; the gates of heaven were opened; the light was received; and again they were closed."[73] This phenomenon was perhaps St Elmo's fire induced by gunpowder smoke and unusual weather.[73] In Niccolò Barbaro's account, the statue on the Column of Justinian in the Augustaion beside Hagia Sophia, which gestured towards Asia, was interpreted in the last days of the siege as indicating "this is the way my conqueror will come".[73]
+
+Constantinople fell to the attacking Ottoman forces on 29 May 1453. Sultan Mehmed entered the city and performed the Friday prayer and kutbah (sermon) in Hagia Sophia, this action marked the official conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque.[74]
+
+In accordance with the traditional custom at the time, Sultan Mehmed II allowed his troops and his entourage three full days of unbridled pillage and looting in the city shortly after it was captured. Once the three days passed, he would then claim its remaining contents for himself.[75][76] However, by the end of the first day, he proclaimed that the looting should cease as he felt profound sadness when he toured the looted and enslaved city.[77][75]
+
+Hagia Sophia was not exempted from the pillage and looting and specifically became its focal point as the invaders believed it to contain the greatest treasures and valuables of the city.[78] Shortly after the defence of the Walls of Constantinople collapsed and the Ottoman troops entered the city victoriously, the pillagers and looters made their way to the Hagia Sophia and battered down its doors before storming in.[79]
+
+Throughout the period of the siege of Constantinople, the trapped worshippers of the city participated in the Divine Liturgy and the Prayer of the Hours at the Hagia Sophia and the church formed a safe-haven and a refuge for many of those who were unable to contribute to the city's defence, which comprised women, children, elderly, the sick and the wounded.[80][81] Being trapped in the church, the many congregants and yet more refugees inside became spoils-of-war to be divided amongst the triumphant invaders. The building was desecrated and looted, with the helpless occupants who sought shelter within the church being enslaved.[78] While most of the elderly and the infirm/wounded and sick were killed, and the remainder (mainly teenage males and young boys) were chained up and sold into slavery.[82]
+
+In an apocryphal story described by Matthias Döring, Leonardo Benvoglienti, Filippo da Rimini, and Mathieu d'Escouchy, Mehmed perpetrated the rape of a girl inside the church.[83] Two Greek refugees, Thomas Eparkhos and Joseph Diplovatazes, appear to be the source of the narrative; their accounts were translated into German and Italian.[83] According to Filippo da Rimini, who compared the girl's fate to that of Cassandra at the Fall of Troy, Mehmed claimed it was his revenge for Cassandra's rape by Ajax the Lesser in Troy's Temple of Athena.[83] In the account to Mathieu d'Escouchy, the victim was a daughter of Constantine XI whom Mehmed had tried to convert to Islam, decapitating her and sending her head to her uncle when she refused.[83] As told by Matthias Döring, Mehmed raped the girl on the church's altar, while her father and brother were made to watch, and then dismembered them all the following day.[83] Leonardo Benvoglienti added that her brother was raped as well, before father, daughter and son were all killed on the altar itself.[83] The claim of the girl being the emperor's daughter is fictitious; Constantine XI did not have a daughter, and this detail was apparently invented to closer match the tragic fate of the Trojan king Priam and his daughter Cassandra.[83]
+
+The church's priests and religious personnel continued to perform Christian rites, prayers and ceremonies until finally being forced to stop by the invaders.[82] When Sultan Mehmed and his entourage entered the church, he ordered that it be converted into a mosque at once. One of the ʿulamāʾ (Islamic scholars) present climbed onto the church's ambo and recited the shahada ("There is no god but God, and Muhammed is his messenger"), thus marking the beginning of the conversion of the church into a mosque.[17][84] Mehmed is reported to have taken a sword to a soldier who tried to prise up one of the paving slabs of the Proconnesian marble floor.[85]
+
+As described by Western visitors before 1453, such as the Córdoban nobleman Pero Tafur[86] and the Florentine geographer Cristoforo Buondelmonti,[87] the church was in a dilapidated state, with several of its doors fallen from their hinges; Mehmed II ordered a renovation of the building. Mehmed attended the first Friday prayer in the mosque on 1 June 1453.[88] Aya Sofya became the first imperial mosque of Istanbul.[89] To the corresponding waqf were endowed most of the existing houses in the city and the area of the future Topkapı Palace.[17] From 1478, 2,360 shops, 1,300 houses, 4 caravanserais, 30 boza shops, and 23 shops of sheep heads and trotters gave their income to the foundation.[90] Through the imperial charters of 1520 (AH 926) and 1547 (AH 954) shops and parts of the Grand Bazaar and other markets were added to the foundation.[17]
+
+Before 1481, a small minaret was erected on the southwest corner of the building, above the stair tower.[17] Later, Mehmed's successor Bayezid II (r. 1481–1512) built another minaret at the northeast corner.[17] One of these collapsed after the earthquake of 1509,[17] and around the middle of the 16th century they were both replaced by two diagonally opposite minarets built at the east and west corners of the edifice.[17] In 1498, Bernardo Bonsignori was the last Western visitor to Hagia Sophia to report seeing the ancient Justinianic floor; shortly afterwards the floor was covered over with carpet and not seen again until the 19th-century.[85]
+
+In the 16th century, Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent (r. 1520–1566) brought two colossal candlesticks from his conquest of the Kingdom of Hungary and placed them on either side of the mihrab. During Suleiman's reign, the mosaics above the narthex and imperial gates depicting Jesus, Mary and various Byzantine emperors were covered by whitewash and plaster, which was removed in 1930 under the Turkish Republic.[91]
+
+During the reign of Selim II (r. 1566–1574), the building started showing signs of fatigue and was extensively strengthened with the addition of structural supports to its exterior by Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan, who was also an earthquake engineer.[92] In addition to strengthening the historic Byzantine structure, Sinan built the two additional large minarets at the western end of the building, the original sultan's lodge and the türbe (mausoleum) of Selim II to the southeast of the building in 1576–1577 / AH 984. In order to do that, parts of the Patriarchate at the south corner of the building were pulled down the previous year.[17] Moreover, the golden crescent was mounted on the top of the dome,[17] while a respect zone 35 arşin (about 24 m) wide was imposed around the building, pulling down all the houses which in the meantime had nested around it.[17] Later his türbe hosted also 43 tombs of Ottoman princes.[17] Murad III (r. 1574–1595) had two large alabaster Hellenistic urns transported from Pergamon (Bergama) and placed on two sides of the nave.[17]
+
+In 1594 / AH 1004 Mimar (court architect) Davud Ağa built the türbe of Murad III, where the Sultan and his valide, Safiye Sultan were later buried.[17] The octagonal mausoleum of their son Mehmed III (r. 1595–1603) and his valide was built next to it in 1608 (AH 1017) by royal architect Dalgiç Mehmet Aĝa.[93] His son Mustafa I (r. 1617–1618, 1622–1623) converted the baptistery into his türbe.[93]
+
+In 1717, under Sultan Ahmed III (r. 1703–1730), the crumbling plaster of the interior was renovated, contributing indirectly to the preservation of many mosaics, which otherwise would have been destroyed by mosque workers.[93] In fact, it was usual for them to sell the mosaic's tesserae—believed to be talismans—to the visitors.[93] Sultan Mahmud I ordered the restoration of the building in 1739 and added a medrese (a Koranic school, subsequently the library of the museum), an imaret (soup kitchen for distribution to the poor) and a library, and in 1740 a Şadirvan (fountain for ritual ablutions), thus transforming it into a külliye, i.e. a social complex. At the same time, a new sultan's lodge and a new mihrab were built inside.
+
+Restoration of the Hagia Sophia was ordered by Sultan Abdulmejid I (r. 1823–1861) and completed by eight hundred workers between 1847 and 1849, under the supervision of the Swiss-Italian architect brothers Gaspare and Giuseppe Fossati. The brothers consolidated the dome with a restraining iron chain and strengthened the vaults, straightened the columns, and revised the decoration of the exterior and the interior of the building.[94] The mosaics in the upper gallery were exposed and cleaned, although many were recovered "for protection against further damage".[citation needed]
+
+Eight new gigantic circular-framed discs or medallions were hung from the cornice, on each of the four piers and at either side of the apse and the west doors. These were painted, to designs by the calligrapher Kazasker Mustafa Izzet Efendi (1801–1877), with the names of Allah, Muhammad, the Rashidun (the first four caliphs: Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali), and the two grandsons of Muhammad: Hasan and Husayn, the sons of Ali. The old chandeliers were replaced by new pendant ones.[citation needed]
+
+In 1850 the architects Fossati built a new maqsura or caliphal loge in Neo-Byzantine columns and an Ottoman–Rococo style marble grille, connecting to the royal pavilion behind the mosque.[94] The new maqsura was built at the extreme east end of the northern aisle, next to the north-eastern pier. The existing maqsura in the apse, near the mihrab, was demolished.[94] A new entrance was constructed for the sultan: the Hünkar Mahfili.[94] The Fossati brothers also renovated the minbar and mihrab.
+
+Outside the main building, the minarets were repaired and altered so that they were of equal height.[95] A clock building, the Muvakkithanesi was built by the Fossatis for the use of the muwaqqit (the mosque timekeeper), and a new madrasa (Islamic school) was constructed. The Kasr-ı Hümayun was also built under their direction When the restoration was finished, the mosque was re-opened with ceremonial pomp on 13 July 1849.[citation needed] An edition of lithographs from drawings made during the Fossatis' work on Hagia Sophia was published in London in 1852, entitled: Aya Sophia of Constantinople as Recently Restored by Order of H.M. The Sultan Abdulmedjid.[94]
+
+Nave before restoration, looking east.
+
+Nave and apse after restoration, looking east.
+
+Nave and entrance after restoration, looking west.
+
+Narthex, looking north.
+
+Exonarthex, looking north
+
+North aisle from the entrance looking east
+
+North aisle, looking west.
+
+Nave and south aisle from the north aisle.
+
+Northern gallery and entrance to the matroneum from the north-west.
+
+Southern gallery from the south-west
+
+Southern gallery from the Marble Door looking west.
+
+Southern gallery from the Marble Door looking east.
+
+In 1935, the first Turkish President and founder of the Republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, transformed the building into a museum. The carpet and the layer of mortar underneath them were removed and marble floor decorations such as the omphalion appeared for the first time since the Fossatis' restoration,[96] while the white plaster covering many of the mosaics was removed. Nevertheless, the condition of the structure deteriorated, and the World Monuments Fund (WMF) placed Hagia Sophia on 1996 World Monuments Watch, and again in 1998. The building's copper roof had cracked, causing water to leak down over the fragile frescoes and mosaics. Moisture entered from below as well. Rising ground water had raised the level of humidity within the monument, creating an unstable environment for stone and paint. The WMF secured a series of grants from 1997 to 2002 for the restoration of the dome. The first stage of work involved the structural stabilization and repair of the cracked roof, which was undertaken with the participation of the Turkish Ministry of Culture. The second phase, the preservation of the dome's interior, afforded the opportunity to employ and train young Turkish conservators in the care of mosaics. By 2006, the WMF project was complete, though many other areas of Hagia Sophia continue to require significant stability improvement, restoration and conservation.[97] Hagia Sophia is currently (2014) the second most visited museum in Turkey, attracting almost 3.3 million visitors annually.[98]
+
+While use of the complex as a place of worship (mosque or church) was strictly prohibited,[99] in 1991 the Turkish government allowed the allocation of a pavilion in the museum complex (Ayasofya Müzesi Hünkar Kasrı'nda) to be used as a prayer room, and since 2013, two of the museum′s minarets had been used for voicing the call to prayer (the ezan) regularly.[100][101]
+
+In 2007, Greek American politician Chris Spirou launched an international organization "Free Agia Sophia Council" championing the cause of restoring the building to its original function as a Christian church.[102][103][104] Since the early 2010s, several campaigns and government high officials, notably Turkey's deputy prime minister Bülent Arınç in November 2013, have been demanding that Hagia Sophia be converted into a mosque again.[105][106][107] In 2015, in response to the acknowledgement by Pope Francis of the Armenian Genocide, which is officially denied in Turkey, the mufti of Ankara, Mefail Hızlı, said that he believed that the Pope′s remarks would accelerate the conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque.[108]
+
+On 1 July 2016, Muslim prayers were held again in the Hagia Sophia for the first time in 85 years.[109] On November, the Turkish non-governmental organization, the Association for the Protection of Historic Monuments and the Environment filed a lawsuit for converting the museum into a mosque.[110] The court decided it should stay as a 'monument museum'.[111] In October 2016, Turkey's Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) appointed, for the first time in 81 years, a designated imam, Önder Soy, to the Hagia Sofia mosque (Ayasofya Camii Hünkar Kasrı'nda), located at the Hünkâr Kasrı, a pavilion for the sultans' private ablutions. Since then, the adhan has been regularly called out from the Hagia Sophia′s all four minarets five times a day.[100][101][112]
+
+On 13 May 2017 a large group of people, organized by the Anatolia Youth Association (AGD), gathered in front of Hagia Sophia and prayed the morning prayer with a call for the re-conversion of the museum into a mosque.[113] On 21 June 2017 the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) organized a special programme, broadcast live by state-run television TRT, which included the recitation of the Quran and prayers in Hagia Sofia, to mark the Laylat al-Qadr.[114]
+
+Since 2018, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has spoken of reverting the status of the Hagia Sophia back to a mosque, a move seen to be very popularly accepted by the religious populace whom Erdoğan is attempting to persuade.[115] On 31 March 2018 Erdoğan recited the first verse of the Quran in the Hagia Sophia, dedicating the prayer to the "souls of all who left us this work as inheritance, especially Istanbul's conqueror," strengthening the political movement to make the Hagia Sophia a mosque once again, which would reverse Atatürk's measure of turning the Hagia Sophia into a secular museum.[116] In March 2019 Erdoğan said that he would change the status of Hagia Sophia from a museum to a mosque,[117] adding that it had been a "very big mistake" to turn it into a museum.[118] As a UNESCO World Heritage site, this change would require approval from UNESCO's World Heritage Committee.[119]
+
+In 2020, Turkey's government is set to celebrate the 567th anniversary of the Fall of Constantinople with an Islamic prayer in Hagia Sophia. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said during a televised broadcast "Al-Fath surah will be recited and prayers will be done at Hagia Sophia as part of conquest festival".[120] In May, during the anniversary events, passages from the Quran was read in the Hagia Sophia. Greece condemned this action, while Turkey in response accused Greece of making “futile and ineffective statements”.[121]
+In June, the head of the Turkey's Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) said that "we would be very happy to open Hagia Sophia for worship" and if this happens "we will provide our religious services as we do in all our mosques”.[110] On 25 June, John Haldon, president of the International Association of Byzantine Studies, wrote an open letter to Erdoğan asking that he "consider the value of keeping the Aya Sofya as a museum".[32]
+
+On 10 July 2020, the decision of the Council of Ministers to transform the Hagia Sophia into a museum was cancelled by the Council of State, decreeing that Hagia Sophia can be used only as a mosque and not “for any other purpose”.[122] Despite secular and global criticism, Erdoğan signed a decree annulling the Hagia Sophia's museum status, reverting it to a mosque.[123][124] The call to prayer was broadcast from the minarets shortly after the announcement of the change and rebroadcast by major Turkish news networks.[124] The Hagia Sophia Museum's social media channels were taken down the same day, with Erdoğan announcing at a press conference that prayers themselves would be held there from 24 July.[124] A presidential spokesperson said it would become a working mosque, open to anyone similar to the Parisian churches Sacré-Cœur and Notre-Dame. The spokesperson also said that the change would not affect the status of the Hagia Sophia as a UNESCO World Heritage site, and that "Christian icons" within it would continue to be protected.[115] Earlier the same day, before the final decision, the Turkish Finance and Treasury Minister Berat Albayrak and the Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gül expressed their expectations of opening the Hagia Sophia to worship for Muslims.[125][126] Mustafa Şentop, Speaker of Turkey's Grand National Assembly, said "a longing in the heart of our nation has ended".[125] A presidential spokesperson claimed that all political parties in Turkey supported Erdoğan's decision;[127] however, the Peoples' Democratic Party had previously released a statement denouncing the decision, saying "decisions on human heritage cannot be made on the basis of political games played by the government".[128] The mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem İmamoğlu, said that he supports the conversion "as long as it benefits Turkey", adding that he always said that Hagia Sophia is a mosque and for him it has remained a mosque since 1453.[129] Ali Babacan attacked the policy of his former ally Erdoğan, saying the Hagia Sophia issue "has come to the agenda now only to cover up other problems".[130] Orhan Pamuk, Turkish novelist and Nobel laureate, publicly denounced the move, saying "Kemal Atatürk changed ... Hagia Sophia from a mosque to a museum, honouring all previous Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic history, making it as a sign of Turkish modern secularism".[124][131]
+
+On 17 July, Erdoğan announced that the first prayers in the Hagia Sophia would be open to between 1,000 and 1,500 worshippers, and reiterated that the issue was a matter of Turkey's sovereignty and international reaction would not deter him.[132] Turkey invited foreign leaders and officials, including Pope Francis,[133] for the first prayers which was held on Friday on July 24 2020, in the Hagia Sophia.[134]
+
+On 22 July, a turquoise-coloured carpet was laid to prepare the mosque for worshippers; Ali Erbaş, head of the Diyanet, attended its laying.[130] The omphalion was left exposed. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic in Turkey, Erbaş said Hagia Sophia would accommodate up to 1,000 worshippers at a time and asked that they bring "masks, a prayer rug, patience and understanding".[130] The mosque opened for Friday prayers on 24 July, the 97th anniversary of the signature of the Treaty of Lausanne, which after the victory of the Republic in the Turkish War of Independence reversed the territorial losses of the World War I's Treaty of Sèvres.[135][130] White drapes covered the mosaics of the Virgin and Child in the apse.[131] Erbaş leaned on a sword while delivering his sermon, he also said "Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror dedicated this magnificent construction to believers to remain a mosque until the Day of Resurrection".[131] Erdoğan attended the midday prayers as many worshippers prayed outside; at one point the security cordon was breached and dozens of people broke through police lines.[131] It is the fourth Byzantine church converted from museum to a mosque during Erdoğan's rule.[136]
+
+Days before the final decision on the conversion was made, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople stated in a sermon that "the conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque w[ould] disappoint millions of Christians around the world”, he also said that Hagia Sophia, which was "a vital center where East is embraced with the West", would "fracture these two worlds" in the event of conversion.[137][138]  The proposed conversion was decried by other Orthodox Christian leaders, the Russian Orthodox Church's Patriarch Kirill of Moscow stating that "a threat to Hagia Sophia [is] a threat to all of Christian civilization".[139][140]
+
+Following the Turkish government′s decision, UNESCO announced it "deeply regret[ed]" the conversion "made without prior discussion", and asked Turkey to "open a dialogue without delay", stating that the lack of negotiation was "regrettable".[28][124] UNESCO further announced that the "state of conservation" of Hagia Sophia would be "examined" at the next session of the World Heritage Committee, urging Turkey "to initiate dialogue without delay, in order to prevent any detrimental effect on the universal value of this exceptional heritage".[28] Ernesto Ottone, UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Culture said "It is important to avoid any implementing measure, without prior discussion with UNESCO, that would affect physical access to the site, the structure of the buildings, the site’s moveable property, or the site’s management".[28] UNESCO's statement of 10 July said "these concerns were shared with the Republic of Turkey in several letters, and again yesterday evening with the representative of the Turkish Delegation" without a response.[28]
+
+The World Council of Churches, which claims to represent 500 million Christians of 350 denominations, condemned the decision to convert the building into a mosque, saying that would "inevitably create uncertainties, suspicions and mistrust"; the World Council of Churches urged Turkey′s president Erdoğan "to reconsider and reverse" his decision "in the interests of promoting mutual understanding, respect, dialogue and cooperation, and avoiding cultivating old animosities and divisions".[141][29][142] At the recitation of the Sunday Angelus prayer at St Peter's Square on 12 July Pope Francis said, "My thoughts go to Istanbul. I think of Santa Sophia and I am very pained" (Italian: Penso a Santa Sofia, a Istanbul, e sono molto addolorato).[a][144][30] The International Association of Byzantine Studies announced that its 21st International Congress, due to be held in Istanbul in 2021, will no longer be held there and is postponed to 2022.[32]
+
+Josep Borrell, the European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Vice-President of the European Commission, released a statement calling the decisions by the Council of State and Erdoğan "regrettable" and pointing out that "as a founding member of the Alliance of Civilisations, Turkey has committed to the promotion of inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue and to fostering of tolerance and co-existence."[145] According to Borrell, the European Union member states' twenty-seven foreign ministers "condemned the Turkish decision to convert such an emblematic monument as the Hagia Sophia" at meeting on 13 July, saying it "will inevitably fuel the mistrust, promote renewed division between religious communities and undermine our efforts at dialog and cooperation" and that "there was a broad support to call on the Turkish authorities to urgently reconsider and reverse this decision".[146][147] Greece denounced the conversion and considered it a breach of the UNESCO World Heritage titling.[115] Greek culture minister Lina Mendoni called it an "open provocation to the civilised world" which "absolutely confirms that there is no independent justice" in Erdoğan's Turkey, and that his Turkish nationalism "takes his country back six centuries".[31] Greece and Cyprus called for EU sanctions on Turkey.[148] Morgan Ortagus, the spokesperson for the United States Department of State noted that "We are disappointed by the decision by the government of Turkey to change the status of the Hagia Sophia."[31] Jean-Yves Le Drian, foreign minister of France, said his country "deplores" the move, saying "these decisions cast doubt on one of the most symbolic acts of modern and secular Turkey".[142] Vladimir Dzhabarov, deputy head of the foreign affairs committee of the Russian Federation Council, said that it "will not do anything for the Muslim world. It does not bring nations together, but on the contrary brings them into collision" and calling the move a "mistake".[31] The former deputy prime minister of Italy, Matteo Salvini held a demonstration in protest outside the Turkish consulate in Milan, calling for all plans for accession of Turkey to the European Union to be terminated "once and for all".[149]  In East Jerusalem, a protest was held outside the Turkish consulate on the 13 July, with the burning of a Turkish flag and the display of the Greek flag and flag of the Greek Orthodox Church.[150] In a statement the Turkish foreign ministry condemned the burning of the flag, saying "nobody can disrespect or encroach our glorious flag".[151]
+
+Ersin Tatar, prime minister of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus which is recognized only by Turkey, welcomed the decision, calling it "sound" and "pleasing".[152][31] He further criticized the government of Cyprus, claiming that "the Greek Cypriot administration, who burned down our mosques, should not have a say in this".[152] Through a spokesman the Foreign Ministry of Iran welcomed the change, saying the decision was an "issue that should be considered as part of Turkey's national sovereignty" and "Turkey's internal affair".[153] Sergei Vershinin, deputy foreign minister of Russia, said that the matter was of one  of "internal affairs, in which, of course, neither we nor others should interfere."[154] The Arab Maghreb Union was supportive.[155] Ekrema Sabri, imam of the al-Aqsa Mosque, and Ahmed bin Hamad al-Khalili, grand mufti of Oman, both congratulated Turkey on the move.[155] The Muslim Brotherhood was also in favour of the news.[155] A spokesman for the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas called the verdict a "a proud moment for all Muslims".[156] Pakistani politician Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi of the Pakistan Muslim League (Q) welcomed the ruling, claiming it was "not only in accordance with the wishes of the people of Turkey but the entire Muslim world".[157] The Muslim Judicial Council group in South Africa praised the move, calling it "a historic turning point".[158] In Nouakchott, capital of Mauritania, there were prayers and celebrations topped by the sacrifice of a camel.[159] On the other hand, Shawki Allam, grand mufti of Egypt, ruled that conversion of the Hagia Sophia to a mosque is "impermissible".[160]
+
+When President Erdoğan announced that the first Muslim prayers would be held inside the building on 24 July, he added that "like all our mosques, the doors of Hagia Sophia will be wide open to locals and foreigners, Muslims and non-Muslims." Presidential spokesman İbrahim Kalın said that the icons and mosaics of the building would be preserved, and that "in regards to the arguments of secularism, religious tolerance and coexistence, there are more than four hundred churches and synagogues open in Turkey today."[161] Ömer Çelik, spokesman for the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), announced on 13 July that entry to Hagia Sophia would be free of charge and open to all visitors outside prayer times, during which Christian imagery in the building's mosaics would be covered by curtains or lasers.[149] In response to the criticisms of Pope Francis, Çelik said that the papacy was responsible for the greatest disrespect done to the site, during the 13th-century Roman Catholic Fourth Crusade's sack of Constantinople and the Latin Empire, during which the cathedral was pillaged.[149] The Turkish foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu told TRT Haber on 13 July that the government was surprised at the reaction of UNESCO, saying that "We have to protect our ancestors’ heritage. The function can be this way or that way – it does not matter".[162]
+
+On 14 July the prime minister of Greece, Kyriakos Mitsotakis said his government was "considering its response at all levels" to what he called Turkey's "unnecessary, petty initiative", and that "with this backward action, Turkey is opting to sever links with western world and its values".[163] In relation to both Hagia Sophia and the Cyprus–Turkey maritime zones dispute, Mitsotakis called for European sanctions against Turkey, referring to it as "a regional troublemaker, and which is evolving into a threat to the stability of the whole south-east Mediterranean region".[163] Dora Bakoyannis, Greek former foreign minister, said Turkey's actions had "crossed the Rubicon", distancing itself from the West.[164] On the day of the building's re-opening, Mitsotakis called it not a show of power but evidence of Turkey's weakness.[131]
+
+Hagia Sophia is one of the greatest surviving examples of Byzantine architecture.[4] Its interior is decorated with mosaics and marble pillars and coverings of great artistic value. The temple itself was so richly and artistically decorated that according to much later legend, Justinian proclaimed, "Solomon, I have outdone thee!" (Byzantine Greek: Νενίκηκά σε Σολομών). Justinian himself had overseen the completion of the greatest cathedral ever built up to that time, and it was to remain the largest cathedral for 1,000 years up until the completion of the cathedral in Seville in Spain.[165]
+
+The Hagia Sophia is of masonry construction. The structure has brick and mortar joints that are 1.5 times the width of the bricks. The mortar joints are composed of a combination of sand and minute ceramic pieces distributed evenly throughout the mortar joints. This combination of sand and potsherds was often used in Roman concrete, predecessor of modern concrete.[166]
+
+Justinian's basilica was at once the culminating architectural achievement of late antiquity and the first masterpiece of Byzantine architecture. Its influence, both architecturally and liturgically, was widespread and enduring in the Eastern Christianity, Western Christianity, and Islam alike.
+
+The vast interior has a complex structure. The nave is covered by a central dome which at its maximum is 55.6 m (182 ft 5 in) from floor level and rests on an arcade of 40 arched windows. Repairs to its structure have left the dome somewhat elliptical, with the diameter varying between 31.24 and 30.86 m (102 ft 6 in and 101 ft 3 in).[citation needed]
+
+At the western entrance side and eastern liturgical side, there are arched openings extended by half domes of identical diameter to the central dome, carried on smaller semi-domed exedrae; a hierarchy of dome-headed elements built up to create a vast oblong interior crowned by the central dome, with a clear span of 76.2 m (250 ft).[4]
+
+The theories of Hero of Alexandria, a Hellenistic mathematician of the 1st century AD, may have been utilized to address the challenges presented by building such an expansive dome over so large a space.[167] The idea is that 
+
+
+
+π
+
+
+{\displaystyle \pi }
+
+, which is not expressible as a rational number, was approximated and deliberately used as a less accurate rational value that approximates the irrational number 
+
+
+
+π
+
+
+{\displaystyle \pi }
+
+. This is appropriate for 22/7 which was used for solving circle problems in construction. When it is ascertained that the circle circumference is U=D*22/7, several elegant solutions are produced, among them those which use a diameter which is cancelling the denominator. As thus Svenshon and Stiffel proposed that the architects used Heron's proposed values for constructing vaults. Central for the erection of the dome of the Hagia Sophia was that the central square corresponds to a diagonal, which is expressible as a rational number approximating 
+
+
+
+
+
+2
+
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle {\sqrt {2}}}
+
+. If this was not rightly done, all related measures to the square would not be manageable by the instruments of the surveyors of those times. As thus for the calculation of the square measurements derived from the so-called side-and-diagonal number progression were used. With its help, approximations for 
+
+
+
+
+
+2
+
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle {\sqrt {2}}}
+
+ can be produced, which is essential for measuring all types of square or square-related objects and surfaces (i.e. 1/1, 3/2, 7/5, 17/12, 41/29, 99/70). With this method, the squares defined by the numbers 12 and 17, whereas 12 defines the side of the square and 17 its diagonal, has been used as a standard value as early as in cuneiform Babylonian texts.[168]
+
+As the great square in Hagia Sophia is 31 m long, it was previously thought, without any reassurance,[clarification needed] that this length corresponded to 100 Byzantine feet.[citation needed] Yet such a round figure for the square side would lead to a diagonal with the irrational length of 141.421... because of the factor 
+
+
+
+
+
+2
+
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle {\sqrt {2}}}
+
+. This would mean that the square and all dimensions related to it would not be manageable. It has now been realised that in this context, the diagonal is nothing else but the diameter of the circle defined by the vault's circumference, while at the same time, as Heron's circle calculations, in which the practical diameter-values 7 and 14 were used, that the diagonal of the square, or diameter of the circle has been calculated with the tenfold of the exemplary value of 14 or else 140 Byzantine feet. If the dimension of the dome diameter of the Hagia Sophia is constructed with a value that fits to the approximation of 
+
+
+
+π
+
+
+{\displaystyle \pi }
+
+ (22/7) all derived values become rational: 70*22/7=220; 105*22/7=330; 140*22/7=440, ... 210*22/7=660.[citation needed]
+
+Therefore, Svenshon suggested that the size of the side of the central square of Hagia Sophia is not 100 Byzantine feet, but instead 99. This measurement is not only rational, but is also embedded in the system of the side-and-diagonal number progression (70/99) and therefore a usable value by the applied mathematics of antiquity. It gives a diagonal of 140 which is manageable for constructing a huge dome as was done in the Hagia Sophia.[169]
+
+The Imperial Gate was the main entrance between the exo- and esonarthex. It was reserved exclusively for the Emperor. The Byzantine mosaic above the portal depicts Christ and an unnamed emperor. A long ramp from the northern part of the outer narthex leads up to the upper gallery.
+
+The upper gallery, the matroneum, is laid out in a horseshoe shape that encloses the nave on three sides and is interrupted by the apse. Several mosaics are preserved in the upper gallery, an area traditionally reserved for the Empress and her court. The best-preserved mosaics are located in the southern part of the gallery.
+
+The upper gallery contains runic graffiti presumed to be left by members of the Varangian Guard.
+
+Throughout history the Hagia Sophia has been a victim to natural disasters, such as earthquakes, and has also fallen victim to vandalism. Structural damage can easily be seen on its exterior surface. To ensure that the Hagia Sophia did not sustain any damage on the interior of the building, studies have been conducted using ground penetrating radar within the gallery of the Hagia Sophia. With the use of GPR (ground penetrating radar), teams discovered weak zones within the Hagia Sophia's gallery and also concluded that the curvature of the vault dome has been shifted out of proportion, compared to its original angular orientation.[170]
+
+The dome of Hagia Sophia has spurred particular interest for many art historians, architects and engineers because of the innovative way the original architects envisioned it. The dome is carried on four spherical triangular pendentives, one of the first large-scale uses of them. The pendentives are the corners of the square base of the dome, which curve upwards into the dome to support it, restraining the lateral forces of the dome and allowing its weight to flow downwards.[171][172] It was the largest pendentive dome in the world until the completion of St Peter's Basilica, and has a much lower height than any other dome of such a large diameter.
+
+The great dome at the Hagia Sophia is one hundred and seven feet in diameter and is only two feet thick. The main building material for the Hagia Sophia composed of brick and mortar. Brick aggregate was used to make roofs easier to construct. The aggregate weighs one hundred and fifty pounds per cubic foot, an average weight of masonry construction at the time. Due to the materials plasticity it was chosen over cut stone due to the fact that aggregate can be used over a longer distance.[173] According to Rowland Mainstone, "it is unlikely that the vaulting-shell is anywhere more than one normal brick in thickness".[174]
+
+The weight of the dome remained a problem for most of the building's existence. The original cupola collapsed entirely after the earthquake of 558; in 563 a new dome was built by Isidore the younger, a nephew of Isidore of Miletus. Unlike the original, this included 40 ribs and was raised 20 feet, in order to lower the lateral forces on the church walls. A larger section of the second dome collapsed as well, in two episodes, so that today only two sections of the present dome, in the north and south side, still date from the 562 reconstructions. Of the whole dome's 40 ribs, the surviving north section contains eight ribs, while the south section includes six ribs.[175]
+
+Although this design stabilizes the dome and the surrounding walls and arches, the actual construction of the walls of Hagia Sophia weakened the overall structure. The bricklayers used more mortar than brick, which is more effective if the mortar was allowed to settle as the building would have been more flexible; however, the builders raced to complete the building and left no time for the mortar to cure before they began the next layer. When the dome was erected, its weight caused the walls to lean outward because of the wet mortar underneath. When Isidore the Younger rebuilt the fallen cupola, he had first to build up the interior of the walls to make them vertical again. Additionally, the architect raised the height of the rebuilt dome by approximately 6 metres (20 ft) so that the lateral forces would not be as strong and its weight would be transmitted more effectively down into the walls. Moreover, he shaped the new cupola like a scalloped shell or the inside of an umbrella, with ribs that extend from the top down to the base. These ribs allow the weight of the dome to flow between the windows, down the pendentives, and ultimately to the foundation.[176]
+
+Hagia Sophia is famous for the light that reflects everywhere in the interior of the nave, giving the dome the appearance of hovering above. This effect was achieved by inserting forty windows around the base of the original structure. Moreover, the insertion of the windows in the dome structure reduced its weight.[176]
+
+Numerous buttresses have been added throughout the centuries. The flying buttresses to the west of the building, although thought to have been constructed by the Crusaders upon their visit to Constantinople, are actually built during the Byzantine era. This shows that the Romans had prior knowledge of flying buttresses which can also be seen at in Greece, at the Rotunda of Galerius in Thessaloniki and at the monastery of Hosios Loukas in Boeotia, and in Italy at the octagonal basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna.[176] Other buttresses were constructed during the Ottoman times under the guidance of the architect Sinan. A total of 24 buttresses were added.[177]
+
+The minarets were an Ottoman addition and not part of the original church's Byzantine design. They were built for notification of invitations for prayers (adhan) and announcements. Mehmed had built a wooden minaret over one of the half domes soon after Hagia Sophia's conversion from a cathedral to a mosque. This minaret does not exist today. One of the minarets (at southeast) was built from red brick and can be dated back from the reign of Mehmed or his successor Beyazıd II. The other three were built from white limestone and sandstone, of which the slender northeast column was erected by Bayezid II and the two identical larger minarets to the west were erected by Selim II and designed by the famous Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan. Both are 60 metres (200 ft) in height, and their thick and massive patterns complete Hagia Sophia's main structure. Many ornaments and details were added to these minarets on repairs during the 15th, 16th, and 19th centuries, which reflect each period's characteristics and ideals.[178][179]
+
+Originally, under Justinian's reign, the interior decorations consisted of abstract designs on marble slabs on the walls and floors, as well as mosaics on the curving vaults. Of these mosaics, one can still see the two archangels Gabriel and Michael in the spandrels (corners) of the bema. There were already a few figurative decorations, as attested by the late 6th-century ekphrasis of Paul the Silentiary, the Description of Hagia Sophia. The spandrels of the gallery are faced in inlaid thin slabs (opus sectile), showing patterns and figures of flowers and birds in precisely cut pieces of white marble set against a background of black marble. In later stages, figurative mosaics were added, which were destroyed during the iconoclastic controversy (726–843). Present mosaics are from the post-iconoclastic period.
+
+Apart from the mosaics, many figurative decorations were added during the second half of the 9th century: an image of Christ in the central dome; Eastern Orthodox saints, prophets and Church Fathers in the tympana below; historical figures connected with this church, such as Patriarch Ignatius; and some scenes from the Gospels in the galleries.Basil II let artists paint on each of the four pendentives a giant six-winged seraph.[64] The Ottomans covered their faces with a golden star,[64] but in 2009 one of them was restored to the original state.[180]
+
+The loggia of the empress is located in the centre of the gallery of the Hagia Sophia, above the Imperial Door and directly opposite the apse. From this matroneum (women's gallery), the empress and the court-ladies would watch the proceedings down below. A green stone disc of verd antique marks the spot where the throne of the empress stood.[181][182]
+
+Two huge marble lustration (ritual purification) urns were brought from Pergamon during the reign of Sultan Murad III. From the Hellenistic period, they are carved from single blocks of marble.[17]
+
+The Marble Door inside the Hagia Sophia is located in the southern upper enclosure or gallery. It was used by the participants in synods, who entered and left the meeting chamber through this door. It is said[by whom?] that each side is symbolic and that one side represents heaven while the other represents hell. Its panels are covered in fruits and fish motives. The door opens into a space that was used as a venue for solemn meetings and important resolutions of patriarchate officials.[183]
+
+The Nice Door is the oldest architectural element found in the Hagia Sophia dating back to the 2nd century BC. The decorations are of reliefs of geometric shapes as well as plants that are believed to have come from a pagan temple in Tarsus in Cilicia, part of the Cibyrrhaeot Theme in modern-day Mersin Province in southeastern Turkey. It was incorporated into the building by Emperor Theophilos in 838 where it is placed in the south exit in the inner narthex.[184]
+
+The Imperial Door is the door that would be used solely by the Emperor as well as his personal bodyguard and retinue. It is the largest door in the Hagia Sophia and has been dated to the 6th century. It is about 7 meters long and Byzantine sources say it was made with wood from Noah's Ark.[185]
+
+At the northwest of the building, there is a column with a hole in the middle covered by bronze plates. This column goes by different names; the "perspiring" or "sweating column", the "crying column", or the "wishing column". The column is said to be damp when touched and have supernatural powers.[186] The legend states that since Gregory the Wonderworker appeared near the column in the year 1200, it has been moist. It is believed that touching the moisture cures many illnesses.[187][188]
+
+The first mosaics which adorned the church were completed during the reign of Justin II.[189] Many of the non-figurative mosaics in the church come from this period. Most of the mosaics, however, were created in the 10th and 12th centuries,[190] following the periods of Byzantine Iconoclasm.
+
+During the Sack of Constantinople in 1204, the Latin Crusaders vandalized valuable items in every important Byzantine structure of the city, including the golden mosaics of the Hagia Sophia. Many of these items were shipped to Venice, whose Doge, Enrico Dandolo, had organized the invasion and sack of Constantinople after an agreement with Prince Alexios Angelos, the son of a deposed Byzantine emperor.
+
+Following the building's conversion into a mosque in 1453, many of its mosaics were covered with plaster, due to Islam's ban on representational imagery. This process was not completed at once, and reports exist from the 17th century in which travellers note that they could still see Christian images in the former church. In 1847–1849, the building was restored by two Swiss-Italian Fossati brothers, Gaspare and Giuseppe, and Sultan Abdulmejid I allowed them to also document any mosaics they might discover during this process, which were later archived in Swiss libraries.[191] This work did not include repairing the mosaics and after recording the details about an image, the Fossatis painted it over again. The Fossatis restored the mosaics of the two hexapteryga (singular Greek: ἑξαπτέρυγον, pr. hexapterygon, six-winged angel; it is uncertain whether they are seraphim or cherubim) located on the two east pendentives, covering their faces again before the end of the restoration.[192] The other two placed on the west pendentives are copies in paint created by the Fossatis since they could find no surviving remains of them.[192] As in this case, the architects reproduced in paint damaged decorative mosaic patterns, sometimes redesigning them in the process. The Fossati records are the primary sources about a number of mosaic images now believed to have been completely or partially destroyed in the 1894 Istanbul earthquake. These include a mosaic over a now-unidentified Door of the Poor, a large image of a jewel-encrusted cross, and many images of angels, saints, patriarchs, and church fathers. Most of the missing images were located in the building's two tympana.
+
+One mosaic they documented is Christ Pantocrator in a circle, which would indicate it to be a ceiling mosaic, possibly even of the main dome which was later covered and painted over with Islamic calligraphy that expounds God as the light of the universe. The Fossatis' drawings of the Hagia Sophia mosaics are today kept in the Archive of the Canton of Ticino.[193]
+
+Many mosaics were uncovered in the 1930s by a team from the Byzantine Institute of America led by Thomas Whittemore. The team chose to let a number of simple cross images remain covered by plaster but uncovered all major mosaics found.
+
+Because of its long history as both a church and a mosque, a particular challenge arises in the restoration process. Christian iconographic mosaics can be uncovered, but often at the expense of important and historic Islamic art. Restorers have attempted to maintain a balance between both Christian and Islamic cultures. In particular, much controversy rests upon whether the Islamic calligraphy on the dome of the cathedral should be removed, in order to permit the underlying Pantocrator mosaic of Christ as Master of the World, to be exhibited (assuming the mosaic still exists).[194]
+
+The Hagia Sophia has been a victim to natural disasters that have caused deterioration to the buildings structure and walls. The deterioration of the Hagia Sophia's walls can be directly relate to salt crystallization. The crystallization of salt is due to an intrusion of rainwater that is at fault for the Hagia Sophia's deteriorating inner and outer walls. Diverting excess rainwater is the main solution to solve the deteriorating walls at the Hagia Sophia.[195]
+
+Built between 532–537 a subsurface structure under the Hagia Sophia has been under investigation, using LaCoste-Romberg gravimeters to determine the depth of the subsurface structure and to discover other hidden cavities beneath the Hagia Sophia. The hidden cavities have also acted as a support system against earthquakes. With these findings using the LaCoste-Romberg gravimeters, it was also discovered that the Hagia Sophia's foundation is built on a slope of natural rock.[196]
+
+The Imperial Gate mosaic is located in the tympanum above that gate, which was used only by the emperors when entering the church. Based on style analysis, it has been dated to the late 9th or early 10th century. The emperor with a nimbus or halo could possibly represent emperor Leo VI the Wise or his son Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus bowing down before Christ Pantocrator, seated on a jewelled throne, giving his blessing and holding in his left hand an open book.[197] The text on the book reads: "Peace be with you" (John 20:19, 20:26) and "I am the light of the world" (John 8:12). On each side of Christ's shoulders is a circular medallion with busts: on his left the Archangel Gabriel, holding a staff, on his right his mother Mary.[198]
+
+The southwestern entrance mosaic, situated in the tympanum of the southwestern entrance, dates from the reign of Basil II.[199] It was rediscovered during the restorations of 1849 by the Fossatis. The Virgin sits on a throne without a back, her feet resting on a pedestal, embellished with precious stones. The Christ Child sits on her lap, giving his blessing and holding a scroll in his left hand. On her left side stands emperor Constantine in ceremonial attire, presenting a model of the city to Mary. The inscription next to him says: "Great emperor Constantine of the Saints". On her right side stands emperor Justinian I, offering a model of the Hagia Sophia. The medallions on both sides of the Virgin's head carry the nomina sacra MP and ΘΥ, abbreviations of the Greek: Μήτηρ του Θεοῦ, romanized: Mētēr Theou, lit. 'Mother of God'.[200]
+
+The Virgin and Child mosaic was the first of the post-iconoclastic mosaics. It was inaugurated on 29 March 867 by Patriarch Photius and the emperors Michael III and Basil I. This mosaic is situated in a high location on the half dome of the apse. Mary is sitting on a throne without a back, holding the Child Jesus on her lap. Her feet rest on a pedestal. Both the pedestal and the throne are adorned with precious stones. The portraits of the archangels Gabriel and Michael (largely destroyed) in the bema of the arch also date from the 9th century. The mosaics are set against the original golden background of the 6th century. These mosaics were believed to be a reconstruction of the mosaics of the 6th century that were previously destroyed during the iconoclastic era by the Byzantines of that time, as represented in the inaugural sermon by the patriarch Photios. However, no record of figurative decoration of Hagia Sophia exists before this time.[201]
+
+The Emperor Alexander mosaic is not easy to find for the first-time visitor, located on the second floor in a dark corner of the ceiling. It depicts the emperor Alexander in full regalia, holding a scroll in his right hand and a globus cruciger in his left. A drawing by the Fossatis showed that the mosaic survived until 1849 and that Thomas Whittemore, founder of the Byzantine Institute of America who was granted permission to preserve the mosaics, assumed that it had been destroyed in the earthquake of 1894. Eight years after his death, the mosaic was discovered in 1958 largely through the researches of Robert Van Nice. Unlike most of the other mosaics in Hagia Sophia, which had been covered over by ordinary plaster, the Alexander mosaic was simply painted over and reflected the surrounding mosaic patterns and thus was well hidden. It was duly cleaned by the Byzantine Institute's successor to Whittemore, Paul A. Underwood.[202][203]
+
+The Empress Zoe mosaic on the eastern wall of the southern gallery date from the 11th century. Christ Pantocrator, clad in the dark blue robe (as is the custom in Byzantine art), is seated in the middle against a golden background, giving his blessing with the right hand and holding the Bible in his left hand. On either side of his head are the nomina sacra IC and XC, meaning Iēsous Christos. He is flanked by Constantine IX Monomachus and Empress Zoe, both in ceremonial costumes. He is offering a purse, as a symbol of donation, he made to the church, while she is holding a scroll, symbol of the donations she made. The inscription over the head of the emperor says: "Constantine, pious emperor in Christ the God, king of the Romans, Monomachus". The inscription over the head of the empress reads as follows: "Zoë, the very pious Augusta". The previous heads have been scraped off and replaced by the three present ones. Perhaps the earlier mosaic showed her first husband Romanus III Argyrus or her second husband Michael IV. Another theory is that this mosaic was made for an earlier emperor and empress, with their heads changed into the present ones.[204]
+
+The Comnenus mosaic, also located on the eastern wall of the southern gallery, dates from 1122. The Virgin Mary is standing in the middle, depicted, as usual in Byzantine art, in a dark blue gown. She holds the Christ Child on her lap. He gives his blessing with his right hand while holding a scroll in his left hand. On her right side stands emperor John II Comnenus, represented in a garb embellished with precious stones. He holds a purse, symbol of an imperial donation to the church. his wife, the empress Irene of Hungary stands on the left side of the Virgin, wearing ceremonial garments and offering a document. Their eldest son Alexius Comnenus is represented on an adjacent pilaster. He is shown as a beardless youth, probably representing his appearance at his coronation aged seventeen. In this panel, one can already see a difference with the Empress Zoe mosaic that is one century older. There is a more realistic expression in the portraits instead of an idealized representation. The Empress Irene (born Piroska), daughter of Ladislaus I of Hungary, is shown with plaited blond hair, rosy cheeks, and grey eyes, revealing her Hungarian descent. The emperor is depicted in a dignified manner.[205]
+
+The Deësis mosaic (Δέησις, "Entreaty") probably dates from 1261. It was commissioned to mark the end of 57 years of Roman Catholic use and the return to the Eastern Orthodox faith. It is the third panel situated in the imperial enclosure of the upper galleries. It is widely considered the finest in Hagia Sophia, because of the softness of the features, the humane expressions and the tones of the mosaic. The style is close to that of the Italian painters of the late 13th or early 14th century, such as Duccio. In this panel the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist (Ioannes Prodromos), both shown in three-quarters profile, are imploring the intercession of Christ Pantocrator for humanity on Judgment Day. The bottom part of this mosaic is badly deteriorated.[206] This mosaic is considered as the beginning of a renaissance in Byzantine pictorial art.[207]
+
+The northern tympanum mosaics feature various saints. They have been able to survive due to their high and inaccessible location. They depict Patriarchs of Constantinople John Chrysostom and Ignatius standing, clothed in white robes with crosses, and holding richly jewelled Bibles. The figures of each patriarch, revered as saints, are identifiable by labels in Greek. The other mosaics in the other tympana have not survived probably due to the frequent earthquakes, as opposed to any deliberate destruction by the Ottoman conquerors.[208]
+
+The dome was decorated with four non-identical figures of the six-winged angels which protect the Throne of God; it is uncertain whether they are seraphim or cherubim. The mosaics survive in the eastern part of the dome, but since the ones on the western side were damaged during the Byzantine period, they have been renewed as frescoes. During the Ottoman period each seraph's (or cherub's) face was covered with metallic lids in the shape of stars, but these were removed to reveal the faces during renovations in 2009.[209]
+
+Mosaic in the northern tympanum depicting Saint John Chrysostom
+
+Six patriarchs mosaic in the southern tympanum as drawn by the Fossati brothers
+
+Moasics as drawn by the Fossati brothers
+
+Interior of the Hagia Sophia by John Singer Sargent, 1891
+
+Photograph by Sébah & Joaillier, c.1900–10
+
+Watercolour of the interior by Philippe Chaperon, 1893
+
+Detail of relief on the Marble Door.
+
+Imperial Gate from the nave
+
+19th-century centotaph of Enrico Dandolo, Doge of Venice, and commander of the 1204 Sack of Constantinople
+
+Ambigram ΝΙΨΟΝ��ΝΟΜΗΜΑΤΑΜΗΜΟΝΑΝΟΨΙΝ ("Wash your sins, not only the face") inscribed upon a holy water font
+
+Gate of the külliye, by John Frederick Lewis, 1838
+
+Fountain of Ahmed III from the gate of the külliye, by John Frederick Lewis, 1838
+
+Southern side of Hagia Sophia, looking east, by John Frederick Lewis, 1838
+
+From Verhandeling van de godsdienst der Mahometaanen, by Adriaan Reland, 1719
+
+Hagia Sophia from the south-west, 1914
+
+Hagia Sophia in the snow, December 2015
+
+Maschinengewehr 08 mounted on a minaret during World War II
+
+Many religious buildings have been modeled on the Hagia Sophia's core structure of a large central dome resting on pendentives and buttressed by two semi-domes.
+
+Many Byzantine churches were modeled on the Hagia Sophia including the namesake Hagia Sophia in Thessaloniki, Greece. Under Justinian, the Hagia Irene was remodeled to have a dome similar to the Hagia Sophia.
+
+Several mosques commissioned by the Ottoman dynasty closely mimic the geometry of the Hagia Sophia, including the Süleymaniye Mosque and the Bayezid II Mosque. In many cases, Ottoman architects preferred to surround the central dome with four semi-domes rather than two.[210] This is true in the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, the New Mosque (Istanbul), and the Fatih Mosque. Like the original plan of the Hagia Sophia, many of these mosques are also entered through a colonnaded courtyard. However, the courtyard of the Hagia Sophia no longer exists.
+
+Neo-Byzantine churches modeled on the Hagia Sophia include the Kronstadt Naval Cathedral and Poti Cathedral which closely replicate the internal geometry of the Hagia Sophia. The interior of the Kronstadt Naval Cathedral is a nearly 1-to-1 copy of the Hagia Sophia. The marble revetment also closely mimics the source work. Like Ottoman mosques, many churches based on the Hagia Sophia include four semi-domes rather than two, such as the Church of Saint Sava in Belgrade.
+
+Several churches combine the layout of the Hagia Sophia with a Latin cross plan. For instance, the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Louis (St. Louis), where the transept is formed by two semi-domes surrounding the main dome. This church also closely emulates the column capitals and mosaic styles of the Hagia Sophia. Other similar examples include the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Sofia, St Sophia's Cathedral, London, Saint Clement Catholic Church, Chicago, and Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.
+
+The Catedral Metropolitana Ortodoxa in São Paulo and the Église du Saint-Esprit (Paris) closely follow the interior layout of the Hagia Sophia. Both include four semi-domes, but the two lateral semi-domes are very shallow. In terms of size, the Église du Saint-Esprit is about two-thirds the scale of the Hagia Sophia.
+
+Synagogues based on the Hagia Sophia include the Congregation Emanu-El (San Francisco), Great Synagogue of Florence, and Hurva Synagogue.
+
+Articles
+
+Mosaics

en/2365.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,38 @@
+Hatred is a feeling. It can cause an angry, or resentful emotional response, which can be used against certain people, or ideas.[1]
+
+Hatred is often associated with feelings of anger, disgust and a disposition towards the source of hostility.
+
+As an emotion, hatred can be short-lived or long-lasting.[2] It can be of low intensity - 'I hate broccoli' - or high intensity: 'I hate the whole world'.[3]
+
+Robert Sternberg saw three main elements in hatred:
+
+The important self-protective function, to be found in hatred,[5] can be illustrated by Steinberg's analysis of 'mutinous' hatred, whereby a dependent relationship is repudiated in a quest for autonomy.[6]
+
+Sigmund Freud defined hate as an ego state that wishes to destroy the source of its unhappiness, stressing that it was linked to the question of self-preservation.[7] Donald Winnicott highlighted the developmental step involved in hatred, with its recognition of an outside object: "As compared to magical destruction, aggressive ideas and behaviour take on a positive value, and hate becomes a sign of civilization".[8]
+
+In his wake, Object relations theory has emphasised the importance of recognising hate in the analytic setting: the analyst acknowledges his own hate (as revealed in the strict time-limits and the fee charged),[9] which in turn may make it possible for the patient to acknowledge and contain their previously concealed hate for the analyst.[10]
+
+Adam Phillips went so far as to suggest that true kindness is impossible in a relationship without hating and being hated, so that an unsentimental acknowledgement of interpersonal frustrations and their associated hostilities can allow real fellow-feeling to emerge.[11]
+
+In the English language, a hate crime (also known as a "bias-motivated crime") generally refers to criminal acts which are seen to have been motivated by hate. Those who commit hate crimes target victims because of their perceived membership in a certain social group, usually defined by race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, mental disorder, disability, class, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender identity, or political affiliation.[12] Incidents may involve physical assault, destruction of property, bullying, harassment, verbal abuse or insults, or offensive graffiti or letters (hate mail).[13]
+
+Hate speech is speech perceived to disparage a person or group of people based on their social or ethnic group,[14] such as race, sex, age, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, mental disorder, disability, language ability, ideology, social class, occupation, appearance (height, weight, skin color, etc.), mental capacity, and any other distinction that might be considered a liability. The term covers written as well as oral communication and some forms of behaviors in a public setting. It is also sometimes called antilocution and is the first point on Allport's scale which measures prejudice in a society. In many countries, deliberate use of hate speech is a criminal offence prohibited under incitement to hatred legislation.  It is often alleged that the criminalization of hate speech is sometimes used to discourage legitimate discussion of negative aspects of voluntary behavior (such as political persuasion, religious adherence and philosophical allegiance). There is also some question as to whether or not hate speech falls under the protection of freedom of speech in some countries.
+
+Both of these classifications have sparked debate, with counter-arguments such as, but not limited to, a difficulty in distinguishing motive and intent for crimes, as well as philosophical debate on the validity of valuing targeted hatred as a greater crime than general misanthropy and contempt for humanity being a potentially equal crime in and of itself.
+
+The neural correlates of hate have been investigated with an fMRI procedure. In this experiment, people had their brains scanned while viewing pictures of people they hated. The results showed increased activity in the middle frontal gyrus, right putamen, bilaterally in the premotor cortex, in the frontal pole, and bilaterally in the medial insular cortex of the human brain.[15]
+
+Hate, like love, takes different shapes and forms in different languages.[16] While it may be fair to say that one single emotion exists in English, French (haine), and German (Hass), hate is historically situated and culturally constructed: it varies in the forms in which it is manifested. Thus a certain relationless hatred is expressed in the French expression J'ai la haine, which has no precise equivalent in English; while for English-speakers, loving and hating invariably involve an object, or a person, and therefore, a relationship with something or someone, J'ai la haine (literally, I have hate) precludes the idea of an emotion directed at a person.[17] This is a form of frustration, apathy and animosity which churns within the subject but establishes no relationship with the world, other than an aimless desire for destruction.
+
+French forms of anti-Americanism have been seen as a specific form of cultural resentment, registering joy-in-hate.[18]
+
+A United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom and religion cited the concept of collective hatred based on religion, which he described as a man-made phenomenon caused by deliberate actions and omissions of hate-mongers.[19]
+
+Hatred can also be sanctioned by religion. The Hebrew word describing David's "perfect hatred" (KJV) means that it "brings a process to completion".[20] There also sources that explain how Islam developed around hatred for unbelief since it is considered the source of evil and that adherents endeavor to spread the Qur'anic faith as the vehicle for its eradication.[21] A specific example is hate speech. It is explained that religion aims to convert new adherents and that extreme speech made against other religion or its adherents is considered a tool so that changing other's beliefs is effective.[22]
+
+Philosophers from the ancient time sought to describe hatred and today, there are different definitions available. Aristotle, for instance, viewed it as distinct from anger and rage, describing hate as a desire to annihilate an object and is incurable by time.[23] David Hume also offered his own conceptualization, maintaining that hatred is an irreducible feeling that is not definable at all.[24]
+
+I study hatred with great diligence,
+For that's a passion in my own control,
+A sort of besom that can clear the soul
+Of everything that is not mind or sense."[25]

en/2366.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,371 @@
+
+
+Coordinates: 19°00′N 72°25′W / 19.000°N 72.417°W / 19.000; -72.417
+
+Haiti (/ˈheɪti/ (listen); French: Haïti [a.iti]; Haitian Creole: Ayiti [ajiti]), officially the Republic of Haiti (French: République d'Haïti; Haitian Creole: Repiblik d Ayiti)[10] formerly founded as Hayti,[note 1] is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, to the east of Cuba and Jamaica and south of The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island which it shares with the Dominican Republic.[16][17] To its south-west lies the small island of Navassa Island, which is claimed by Haiti but is disputed as a United States territory under federal administration.[18][19] Haiti is 27,750 square kilometers (10,714 sq mi) in size and has an estimated population of 11.1 million,[5][6] making it the most populous country in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the second-most populous country in the Caribbean after Cuba.
+
+The island was originally inhabited by the indigenous Taíno people, who migrated from South America. The first Europeans arrived on 5 December 1492 during the first voyage of Christopher Columbus, who initially believed he had found India or China.[20] Columbus subsequently founded the first European settlement in the Americas, La Navidad, on what is now the northeastern coast of Haiti.[21][22][23][24] The island was claimed by Spain and named La Española, forming part of the Spanish Empire until the early 17th century. However, competing claims and settlements by the French led to the western portion of the island being ceded to France in 1697, which was subsequently named Saint-Domingue. French colonists established lucrative sugarcane plantations, worked by vast numbers of slaves brought from Africa, which made the colony one of the richest in the world.
+
+In the midst of the French Revolution (1789–99), slaves and free people of color launched the Haitian Revolution (1791–1804), led by a former slave and the first black general of the French Army, Toussaint Louverture. After 12 years of conflict, Napoleon Bonaparte's forces were defeated by Louverture's successor, Jean-Jacques Dessalines (later Emperor Jacques I), who declared Haiti's sovereignty on 1 January 1804—the first independent nation of Latin America and the Caribbean, the second republic in the Americas, the first country to abolish slavery, and the only state in history established by a successful slave revolt.[25][26] Apart from Alexandre Pétion, the first President of the Republic, all of Haiti's first leaders were former slaves.[27] After a brief period in which the country was split in two, President Jean-Pierre Boyer united the country and then attempted to bring the whole of Hispaniola under Haitian control, precipitating a long series of wars that ended in the 1870s when Haiti formally recognized the independence of the Dominican Republic. Haiti's first century of independence was characterised by political instability, ostracism by the international community and the payment of a crippling debt to France. Political volatility and foreign economic influence in the country prompted the U.S. to occupy the country from 1915 to 1934. Following a series of short-lived presidencies, François 'Papa Doc' Duvalier took power in 1956, ushering in a long period of autocratic rule that was continued by his son Jean-Claude 'Baby Doc' Duvalier that lasted until 1986; the period was characterised by state-sanctioned violence against the opposition and civilians, corruption and economic stagnation. Since 1986 Haiti has been attempting to establish a more democratic political system.
+
+Haiti is a founding member of the United Nations, Organization of American States (OAS),[28] Association of Caribbean States,[29] and the International Francophonie Organisation. In addition to CARICOM, it is a member of the International Monetary Fund,[30] World Trade Organization,[31] and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States. Historically poor and politically unstable, Haiti has the lowest Human Development Index in the Americas. Since the turn of the 21st century, the country has endured a coup d'état, which prompted a U.N. intervention, as well as a deadly earthquake that killed over 250,000.
+
+The name Haiti (or Hayti) comes from the indigenous Taíno language which was the native name[note 2] given to the entire island of Hispaniola to mean, "land of high mountains."[35] The h is silent in French and the ï in Haïti has a diacritical mark used to show that the second vowel is pronounced separately, as in the word naïve.[36] In English, this rule for the pronunciation is often disregarded, thus the spelling Haiti is used. There are different anglicizations for its pronunciation such as HIGH-ti, high-EE-ti and haa-EE-ti, which are still in use, but HAY-ti is the most widespread and best-established.[37] The name was restored by Haitian revolutionary Jean-Jacques Dessalines as the official name of independent Saint-Domingue, as a tribute to the Amerindian predecessors.[38]
+
+In French, Haiti's nickname is the "Pearl of the Antilles" (La Perle des Antilles) because of both its natural beauty,[39] and the amount of wealth it accumulated for the Kingdom of France; during the 18th century the colony was the world's leading producer of sugar and coffee.[40]
+
+The island of Hispaniola, of which Haiti occupies the western three-eighths,[16][17] has been inhabited since about 5000 BC by groups of Native Americans thought to have arrived from Central or South America.[19] Genetic studies show that some of these groups were related to the Yanomami of the Amazon Basin.LALUEZA-FOX, C.; CALDERÓN, F. LUNA (2001). "MtDNA from extinct Tainos and the peopling of the Caribbean". Annals of Human Genetics. 2001 (65): 137–151. Retrieved 8 July 2020. Amongst these early settlers were the Ciboney peoples, followed by the Taíno, speakers of an Arawakan language, elements of which have been preserved in Haitian Creole. The Taíno name for the entire island was Haiti, or alternatively Quisqeya.[41]
+
+In Taíno society the largest unit of political organisation was led by a cacique, or chief, as the Europeans understood them. The island of Hipaniola was divided among five 'caciquedoms': the Magua in the north east, the Marien in the north west, the Jaragua in the south west, the Maguana in the central regions of Cibao, and the Higüey in the south east.[42][43]
+
+Taíno cultural artifacts include cave paintings in several locations in the country. These have become national symbols of Haiti and tourist attractions. Modern-day Léogâne, started as a French colonial town in the southwest, is beside the former capital of the caciquedom of Xaragua.[44]
+
+Navigator Christopher Columbus landed in Haiti on 6 December 1492, in an area that he named Môle-Saint-Nicolas,[45] and claimed the island for the Crown of Castile. Nineteen days later, his ship the Santa María ran aground near the present site of Cap-Haïtien. Columbus left 39 men on the island, who founded the settlement of La Navidad on 25 December 1492.[19] Relations with the native peoples, initially good, broke down and the settlers were later killed by the Taíno.[46]
+
+The sailors carried endemic Eurasian infectious diseases to which the native peoples lacked immunity, causing them to die in great numbers in epidemics.[47][48] The first recorded smallpox epidemic in the Americas erupted on Hispaniola in 1507.[49] Their numbers were further reduced by the harshness of the encomienda system, in which the Spanish forced natives to work in gold mines and plantations.[50][46]
+
+The Spanish passed the Laws of Burgos, 1512–13, which forbade the maltreatment of natives, endorsed their conversion to Catholicism,[51] and gave legal framework to encomiendas. The natives were brought to these sites to work in specific plantations or industries.[52]
+
+As the Spanish re-focused their colonization efforts on the greater riches of mainland Central and South America, Hispaniola became reduced largely to a trading and refuelling post. As a result piracy became widespread, encouraged by European powers hostile to Spain such as France (based on Île de la Tortue) and England.[46] The Spanish largely abandoned the western third of the island, focusing their colonization effort on the eastern two-thirds.[53][19] The western part of the island was thus gradually settled by French buccaneers; among them was Bertrand d'Ogeron, who succeeded in growing tobacco and recruited many French colonial families from Martinique and Guadeloupe.[citation needed] In 1697 France and Spain settled their hostilities on the island by way of the Treaty of Ryswick of 1697, which divided Hispaniola between them.[54][19]
+
+France received the western third and subsequently named it Saint-Domingue, the French equivalent of Santo Domingo, the Spanish colony on Hispaniola.[55] The French set about creating sugar and coffee plantations, worked by vast numbers of slaves imported from Africa, and Saint-Domingue grew to become their richest colonial possession.[54][19]
+
+The French settlers were outnumbered by slaves by almost 10 to 1.[54] According to the 1788 Census, Haiti's population consisted of nearly 25,000 Europeans, 22,000 free coloreds and 700,000 African slaves.[56] In contrast, by 1763 the white population of French Canada, a far larger territory, had numbered only 65,000.[57] In the north of the island, slaves were able to retain many ties to African cultures, religion and language; these ties were continually being renewed by newly imported Africans. Some West African slaves held on to their traditional Vodou beliefs by secretly syncretizing it with Catholicism.[19]
+
+The French enacted the Code Noir ("Black Code"), prepared by Jean-Baptiste Colbert and ratified by Louis XIV, which established rules on slave treatment and permissible freedoms.[58] Saint-Domingue has been described as one of the most brutally efficient slave colonies; one-third of newly imported Africans died within a few years.[59] Many slaves died from diseases such as smallpox and typhoid fever.[60] They had low birth rates,[61] and there is evidence that some women aborted fetuses rather than give birth to children within the bonds of slavery.[62] The colony's environment also suffered, as forests were cleared to make way for plantations and the land was overworked so as to extract maximum profit for French plantation owners.[19]
+
+As in its Louisiana colony, the French colonial government allowed some rights to free people of color (gens de couleur), the mixed-race descendants of European male colonists and African female slaves (and later, mixed-race women).[54] Over time, many were released from slavery and they established a separate social class. White French Creole fathers frequently sent their mixed-race sons to France for their education. Some men of color were admitted into the military. More of the free people of color lived in the south of the island, near Port-au-Prince, and many intermarried within their community.[54] They frequently worked as artisans and tradesmen, and began to own some property, including slaves of their own.[19][54] The free people of color petitioned the colonial government to expand their rights.[54]
+
+The brutality of slave life led many slaves to escape to mountainous regions, where they set up their own autonomous communities and became known as Maroons.[19] One Maroon leader, François Mackandal, led a rebellion in the 1750s, however he was later captured and executed by the French.[54]
+
+Inspired by the French Revolution of 1789 and principles of the rights of man, the French settlers and free people of color pressed for greater political freedom and more civil rights.[58] Tensions between these two groups led to conflict, as a militia of free-coloreds was set up in 1790 by Vincent Ogé, resulting in his capture, torture and execution.[19] Sensing an opportunity, in August 1791 the first slave armies were established in northern Haiti under the leadership of Toussaint Louverture inspired by the Vodou houngan (priest) Boukman, and backed by the Spanish in Santo Domingo – soon a full-blown slave rebellion had broken out across the entire colony.[19]
+
+In 1792, the French government sent three commissioners with troops to re-establish control; to build an alliance with the gens de couleur and slaves commissioners Léger-Félicité Sonthonax and Étienne Polverel abolished slavery in the colony.[58] Six months later, the National Convention, led by Maximilien de Robespierre and the Jacobins, endorsed abolition and extended it to all the French colonies.[63]
+
+Political leaders in the United States, which was a new republic itself, reacted with ambivalence, at times providing aid to enable planters to put down the revolt. Later in the revolution, the US provided support to native Haitian military forces, with the goal of reducing French influence in North America and the Caribbean.[64][65]
+
+With slavery abolished, Toussaint Louverture pledged allegiance to France, and he fought off the British and Spanish forces who had taken advantage of the situation and invaded Saint-Domingue.[66][67] The Spanish were later forced to cede their part of the island to France under the terms of the Peace of Basel in 1795, uniting the island under one government. However an insurgency against French rule broke out in the east, and in the west there was fighting between Louverture's forces and the free people of color led by André Rigaud in the War of the Knives (1799–1800).[68][69] Many surviving free people of color left the island as refugees.[citation needed]
+
+After Louverture created a separatist constitution and proclaimed himself governor-general for life, Napoléon Bonaparte in 1802 sent an expedition of 20,000 soldiers and as many sailors[70] under the command of his brother-in-law, Charles Leclerc, to reassert French control. The French achieved some victories, but within a few months most of their army had died from yellow fever.[71] Ultimately more than 50,000 French troops died in an attempt to retake the colony, including 18 generals.[72] The French managed to capture Louverture, transporting him to France for trial. He was imprisoned at Fort de Joux, where he died in 1803 of exposure and possibly tuberculosis.[59][73]
+
+The slaves, along with free gens de couleur and allies, continued their fight for independence, led by generals Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Alexandre Pétion and Henry Christophe.[73] The rebels finally managed to decisively defeat the French troops at the Battle of Vertières on 18 November 1803, leading the first ever nation to successfully gain independence through a slave revolt.[74] Under the overall command of Dessalines, the Haitian armies avoided open battle, and instead conducted a successful guerrilla campaign against the Napoleonic forces, working with diseases such as yellow fever to reduce the numbers of French soldiers.[75] Later that year France withdrew its remaining 7,000 troops from the island and Napoleon gave up his idea of re-establishing a North American empire, selling Louisiana (New France) to the United States, in the Louisiana Purchase.[73] It has been estimated that between 24,000 and 100,000 Europeans, and between 100,000 and 350,000 Haitian ex-slaves, died in the revolution.[76] In the process, Dessalines became arguably the most successful military commander in the struggle against Napoleonic France.[77]
+
+The independence of Saint-Domingue was proclaimed under the native name 'Haiti' by Dessalines on 1 January 1804 in Gonaïves[78][79] and he was proclaimed "Emperor for Life" as Emperor Jacques I by his troops.[80] Dessalines at first offered protection to the white planters and others.[81] However, once in power, he ordered the massacre of nearly all white men, women, children; between January and April 1804, 3,000 to 5,000 whites were killed, including those who had been friendly and sympathetic to the black population.[82] Only three categories of white people were selected out as exceptions and spared: Polish soldiers, the majority of whom had deserted from the French army and fought alongside the Haitian rebels; the small group of German colonists invited to the north-west region; and a group of medical doctors and professionals.[83] Reportedly, people with connections to officers in the Haitian army were also spared, as well as the women who agreed to marry non-white men.[84]
+
+Fearful of the potential impact the slave rebellion could have in the slave states, U.S. President Thomas Jefferson refused to recognize the new republic. The Southern politicians who were a powerful voting block in the American Congress prevented U.S. recognition for decades until they withdrew in 1861 to form the Confederacy.[85]
+
+The revolution led to a wave of emigration.[86] In 1809, 9,000 refugees from Saint-Domingue, both white planters and people of color, settled en masse in New Orleans, doubling the city's population, having been expelled from their initial refuge in Cuba by Spanish authorities.[87] In addition, the newly arrived slaves added to the city's African population.[88]
+
+The plantation system was reestablished in Haiti, albeit for wages, however many Haitians were marginalized and resented the heavy-handed manner in which this was enforced in the new nation's politics.[73] The rebel movement splintered, and Dessalines was assassinated by rivals on 17 October 1806.[89][73]
+
+After Dessalines' death Haiti became split into two, with the Kingdom of Haiti in the north directed by Henri Christophe, later declaring himself Henri I, and a republic in the south centred on Port-au-Prince, directed by Alexandre Pétion, an homme de couleur.[91][92][93][94][73] Christophe established a semi-feudal corvée system, with a rigid education and economic code.[95] Pétion's republic was less absolutist, and he initiated a series of land reforms which benefited the peasant class.[73] President Pétion also gave military and financial assistance to the revolutionary leader Simón Bolívar, which were critical in enabling him to liberate the Viceroyalty of New Granada.[96] Meanwhile the French, who had managed to maintain a precarious control of eastern Hispaniola, were defeated by insurgents led by Juan Sánchez Ramírez, with the area returning to Spanish rule in 1809 following the Battle of Palo Hincado.[97]
+
+Beginning in 1821, President Jean-Pierre Boyer, also an homme de couleur and successor to Pétion, reunified the island following the suicide of Henry Christophe.[19][98] After Santo Domingo declared its independence from Spain on 30 November 1821, Boyer invaded, seeking to unite the entire island by force and ending slavery in Santo Domingo.[99]
+
+Struggling to revive the agricultural economy to produce commodity crops, Boyer passed the Code Rural, which denied peasant laborers the right to leave the land, enter the towns, or start farms or shops of their own, causing much resentment as most peasants wished to have their own farms rather than work on plantations.[100][101]
+
+The American Colonization Society (ACS) encouraged free blacks in the United States to emigrate to Haiti. Starting in September 1824, more than 6,000 African Americans migrated to Haiti, with transportation paid by the ACS.[102] Many found the conditions too harsh and returned to the United States.
+
+In July 1825, King Charles X of France, during a period of restoration of the French monarchy, sent a fleet to reconquer the island. Under pressure, President Boyer agreed to a treaty by which France formally recognized the independence of the nation in exchange for a payment of 150 million francs.[19] By an order of 17 April 1826, the King of France renounced his rights of sovereignty and formally recognized the independence of Haiti.[103][104][105] The enforced payments to France hampered Haiti's economic growth for years, exacerbated by the fact that many Western nations continued to refuse formal diplomatic recognition to Haiti; Britain recognized Haitian independence in 1833, and the United States not until 1862.[19] Haiti borrowed heavily from Western banks at extremely high interest rates to repay the debt. Although the amount of the reparations was reduced to 90 million in 1838, by 1900 80% of the country's gross domestic product was being spent on debt repayment[106][107] and the country did not finish repaying it until 1947.[citation needed]
+
+After losing the support of Haiti's elite, Boyer was ousted in 1843, with Charles Rivière-Hérard replacing him as president.[19] Nationalist Dominican forces in eastern Hispaniola led by Juan Pablo Duarte seized control of Santo Domingo on 27 February 1844.[19] The Haitian forces, unprepared for a significant uprising, capitulated to the rebels, effectively ending Haitian rule of eastern Hispaniola. In March Rivière-Hérard attempted to reimpose his authority, but the Dominicans put up stiff opposition and inflicted heavy losses.[108] Rivière-Hérard was removed from office by the mulatto hierarchy and replaced with the aged general Philippe Guerrier, who assumed the presidency on 3 May 1844.
+
+Guerrier died in April 1845, and was succeeded by General Jean-Louis Pierrot.[109] Pierrot's most pressing duty as the new president was to check the incursions of the Dominicans, who were harassing the Haitian troops.[109] Dominican gunboats were also making depredations on Haiti's coasts.[109]  President Pierrot decided to open a campaign against the Dominicans, whom he considered merely as insurgents, however the Haitian offensive of 1845 was stopped on the frontier.[108]
+
+On 1 January 1846 Pierrot announced a fresh campaign to re-imposed Haitian suzerainty over eastern Hispaniola, but his officers and men greeted this fresh summons with contempt.[108] Thus, a month later – February 1846 – when Pierrot ordered his troops to march against the Dominicans, the Haitian army mutinied, and its soldiers proclaimed his overthrow as president of the republic.[108] With the war against the Dominicans having become very unpopular in Haiti, it was beyond the power of the new president, General Jean-Baptiste Riché, to stage another invasion.[108]
+
+On 27 February 1847, President Riché died after only a year in power and was replaced by an obscure officer, General Faustin Soulouque.[19] During the first two years of Soulouque's administration the conspiracies and opposition he faced in retaining power were so manifold that the Dominicans were given a further breathing space in which to consolidate their independence.[108] But, when in 1848 France finally recognized the Dominican Republic as a free and independent state and provisionally signed a treaty of peace, friendship, commerce and navigation, Haiti immediately protested, claiming the treaty was an attack upon their own security.[108] Soulouque decided to invade the new Republic before the French Government could ratify the treaty.[108]
+
+On 21 March 1849, Haitian soldiers attacked the Dominican garrison at Las Matas. The demoralized defenders offered almost no resistance before abandoning their weapons. Soulouque pressed on, capturing San Juan. This left only the town of Azua as the remaining Dominican stronghold between the Haitian army and the capital. On 6 April, Azua fell to the 18,000-strong Haitian army, with a 5,000-man Dominican counterattack failing to oust them.[66] The way to Santo Domingo was now clear. But the news of discontent existing at Port-au-Prince, which reached Soulouque, arrested his further progress and caused him to return with the army to his capital.[110]
+
+Emboldened by the sudden retreat of the Haitian army, the Dominicans counter-attacked. Their flotilla went as far as Dame-Marie, which they plundered and set on fire.[110] Soulouque, now self-proclaimed as Emperor Faustin I, decided to start a new campaign against them. In 1855, he again invaded the territory of the Dominican Republic. But owing to insufficient preparation, the army was soon in want of victuals and ammunition.[110] In spite of the bravery of the soldiers, the Emperor had once more to give up the idea of a unified island under Haitian control.[110] After this campaign, Britain and France interfered and obtained an armistice on behalf of the Dominicans, who declared independence as the Dominican Republic.[110]
+
+The sufferings endured by the soldiers during the campaign of 1855, and the losses and sacrifices inflicted on the country without yielding any compensation or any practical results provoked great discontent.[110] In 1858 a revolution began, led by General Fabre Geffrard, Duke of Tabara. In December of that year, Geffrard defeated the Imperial Army and seized control of most of the country.[19] As a result, the Emperor abdicated his throne on 15 January 1859. Refused aid by the French Legation, Faustin was taken into exile aboard a British warship on 22 January 1859, and General Geffrard succeeded him as President.
+
+The period following Soulouque's overthrow down to the turn of the century was a turbulent one for Haiti, with repeated bouts of political instability. President Geffrard was overthrown in a coup in 1867,[111] as was his successor, Sylvain Salnave, in 1869.[112] Under the Presidency of Michel Domingue (1874–76) relations with the Dominican Republic were dramatically improved by the signing of a treaty, in which both parties acknowledged the independence of the other, bringing an end to Haitian dreams of bringing the entirety of Hispaniola under their control. Some modernisation of the economy and infrastructure also occurred in this period, especially under the Presidencies of Lysius Salomon (1879–88) and Florvil Hyppolite (1889–96).[113]
+
+Haiti's relations with outside powers were often strained. In 1889 the United States attempted to force Haiti to permit the building of a naval base at Môle Saint-Nicolas, which was firmly resisted by President Hyppolite.[114] In 1892 the German government supported suppression of the reform movement of Anténor Firmin, and in 1897, the Germans used gunboat diplomacy to intimidate and then humiliate the Haitian government of President Tirésias Simon Sam (1896–1902) during the Lüders Affair.[115]
+
+In the first decades of the 20th century, Haiti experienced great political instability and was heavily in debt to France, Germany and the United States. A series of short lived presidencies came and went: President Pierre Nord Alexis was forced from power in 1908,[116][117] as was his successor François C. Antoine Simon in 1911;[118] President Cincinnatus Leconte (1911–12) was killed in a (possibly deliberate) explosion at the National Palace;[119] Michel Oreste (1913–14) was ousted in a coup, as was his successor Oreste Zamor in 1914.[120]
+
+Germany increased its influence in Haiti in this period, with a small community of German settlers wielding disproportionate influence in Haiti's economy.[121][122] The German influence prompted anxieties in the United States, who had also invested heavily in the country, and whose government defended their right to oppose foreign interference in the Americas under the Monroe Doctrine.[19][122] In December 1914, the Americans removed $500,000 from the Haitian National Bank, but rather than seize it to help pay the debt, it was removed for safe-keeping in New York, thus giving the United States control of the bank and preventing other powers from doing so. This gave a stable financial base on which to build the economy, and so enable the debt to be repaid.[123]
+
+In 1915, Haiti's new President Vilbrun Guillaume Sam sought to strengthen his tenuous rule by a mass execution of 167 political prisoners. Outrage at the killings led to riots, and Sam was captured and killed by a lynch mob.[122][124] Fearing possible foreign intervention, or the emergence of a new government led by the anti-American Haitian politician Rosalvo Bobo, President Woodrow Wilson sent U.S. Marines into Haiti in July 1915. The USS Washington, under Rear Admiral Caperton, arrived in Port-au-Prince in an attempt to restore order and protect U.S. interests. Within days, the Marines had taken control of the capital city and its banks and customs house. The Marines declared martial law and severely censored the press. Within weeks, a new pro-U.S. Haitian president, Philippe Sudré Dartiguenave, was installed and a new constitution written that was favorable to the interests of the United States. The constitution (written by future US President Franklin D. Roosevelt) included a clause that allowed, for the first time, foreign ownership of land in Haiti, which was bitterly opposed by the Haitian legislature and citizenry.[122][125]
+
+The occupation greatly improved some of Haiti's infrastructure and centralized power in Port-au-Prince.[122] Infrastructure improvements were particularly impressive: 1700 km of roads were made usable, 189 bridges were built, many irrigation canals were rehabilitated, hospitals, schools, and public buildings were constructed, and drinking water was brought to the main cities.[citation needed] Port-au-Prince became the first Caribbean city to have a phone service with automatic dialling.[citation needed] Agricultural education was organized, with a central school of agriculture and 69 farms in the country.[126] However many infrastructure projects were built using the corvée system that allowed the government/occupying forces to take people from their homes and farms, at gunpoint if necessary, to build roads, bridges etc. by force, a process that was deeply resented by ordinary Haitians.[127][122] Sisal was also introduced to Haiti, and sugarcane and cotton became significant exports, boosting prosperity.[128] Haitian traditionalists, based in rural areas, were highly resistant to U.S.-backed changes, while the urban elites, typically mixed-race, welcomed the growing economy, but wanted more political control.[19] Together they helped secure an end to the occupation in 1934, under the Presidency of Sténio Vincent (1930–41).[19][129] The debts were still outstanding, though less due to increased prosperity, and the U.S. financial advisor-general receiver handled the budget until 1941.[130][19]
+
+The U.S. Marines were instilled with a special brand of paternalism towards Haitians "expressed in the metaphor of a father's relationship with his children."[131] Armed opposition to the US presence was led by the cacos under the command of Charlemagne Péralte; his capture and execution in 1919 earned him the status of a national martyr.[132][19][122] During Senate hearings in 1921, the commandant of the Marine Corps reported that, in the 20 months of active unrest, 2,250 Haitians had been killed. However, in a report to the Secretary of the Navy, he reported the death toll as being 3,250.[133] Haitian historians have claimed the true number was much higher. One went so far as to say, "the total number of battle victims and casualties of repression and consequences of the war might have reached, by the end of the pacification period, four or five times that – somewhere in the neighborhood of 15,000 persons." This is not supported by most historians outside Haiti.[134]
+
+Recognition of the distinctive traditionalism of the Haitian people had an influence on American writers, including Eugene O'Neill, James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston and Orson Welles.[135]
+
+After US forces left in 1934, Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo used anti-Haitian sentiment as a nationalist tool. In an event that became known as the Parsley Massacre, he ordered his army to kill Haitians living on the Dominican side of the border.[136][137] Few bullets were used – instead, 20,000–30,000 Haitians were bludgeoned and bayonetted, then herded into the sea, where sharks finished what Trujillo had begun.[138] Congressman Hamilton Fish, ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee,  called the Parsley Massacre "the most outrageous atrocity that has ever been perpetrated on the American continent."[139]
+
+President Vincent became increasingly dictatorial, and resigned under US pressure in 1941, being replaced by Élie Lescot (1941–46).[140] In 1941, during the Second World War, Lescot declared war on Japan (8 December), Germany (12 December), Italy (12 December), Bulgaria (24 December), Hungary (24 December) and Romania (24 December).[141] Out of these six Axis countries, only Romania reciprocated, declaring war on Haiti on the same day (24 December 1941).[142] On 27 September 1945,[143] Haiti became a founding member of the United Nations (the successor to the League of Nations, of which Haiti was also a founding member).[144][145]
+
+In 1946 Lescot was overthrown by the military, with Dumarsais Estimé later becoming the new president (1946–50).[19] He sought to improve the economy and education, and to boost the role of black Haitians, however as he sought to consolidate his rule he too was overthrown in a coup led by Paul Magloire, who replaced him as president (1950–56).[19][146] Firmly anti-Communist, he was supported by the United States; with greater political stability tourists started to visit Haiti.[147] The waterfront area of Port-au-Prince was redeveloped to allow cruise ship passengers to walk from the docks to cultural attractions. Celebrities such as Truman Capote and Noël Coward visited Haiti; the era is captured in Graham Greene's 1966 novel The Comedians.[148]
+
+In 1956–57 Haiti underwent severe political turmoil; Magloire was forced to resign and leave the country in 1956 and he was followed by four short-lived presidencies.[19] In the  September 1957 election Dr. François Duvalier was elected President of Haiti. Known as 'Papa Doc' and initially popular, Duvalier remained President until his death in 1971.[149] He advanced black interests in the public sector, where over time, people of color had predominated as the educated urban elite.[19][150] Not trusting the army, despite his frequent purges of officers deemed disloyal, Duvalier created a private militia known as Tontons Macoutes ("Bogeymen"), which maintained order by terrorizing the populace and political opponents.[149][151] In 1964 Duvalier proclaimed himself 'President for Life'; an uprising against his rule that year in Jérémie was violently suppressed, with the ringleaders publicly executed and hundreds of mixed-raced citizens in the town killed.[149] The bulk of the educated and professional class began leaving the country, and corruption became widespread.[19][149] Duvalier sought to create a personality cult, identifying himself with Baron Samedi, one of the loa, or spirits, of Haitian Vodou. Despite the well-publicized abuses under his rule, Duvalier's firm anti-Communism earned him the support of the Americans, who burnished the country with aid.[149][152]
+
+In 1971 Duvalier died, and he was succeeded by his son Jean-Claude Duvalier, nicknamed 'Baby Doc', who ruled until 1986.[153][149] He largely continued his father's policies, though curbed some of the worst excesses in order to court international respectability.[19] Tourism, which had nosedived in Papa Doc's time, again became a growing industry.[148] However as the economy continued to decline Baby Doc's grip on power began to weaken. Haiti's pig population was slaughtered following an outbreak of swine fever in the late 1970s, causing hardship to rural communities who used them as an investment.[19][154] The opposition became more vocal, bolstered by a visit to the country by Pope John Paul II in 1983, who publicly lambasted the president.[155] Demonstrations occurred in Gonaïves in 1985 which then spread across the country; under pressure from the United States, Duvalier left the country for France in February 1986.
+
+In total, roughly 40,000 to 60,000 Haitians are estimated to have been killed during the reign of the Duvaliers.[156] Through the use of his intimidation tactics and executions, many intellectual Haitians had fled, leaving the country with a massive brain-drain that it has yet to recover from.[157]
+
+Following Duvalier's departure, army leader General Henri Namphy headed a new National Governing Council.[19] Elections scheduled for November 1987 were aborted after dozens of inhabitants were shot in the capital by soldiers and Tontons Macoutes.[158][19] Fraudulent elections followed in 1988, in which only 4% of the citizenry voted.[159][19] The newly elected President, Leslie Manigat, was then overthrown some months later in the June 1988 Haitian coup d'état.[19][160] Another coup followed in September 1988, after the St. Jean Bosco massacre in which 13–50 people (estimates vary) attending a mass led by prominent government critic and Catholic priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide were killed.[160][161] General Prosper Avril subsequently led a military regime until March 1990.[19][162][163]
+
+In December 1990 Jean-Bertrand Aristide was elected President in the Haitian general election. However his ambitious reformist agenda worried the elites, and in September of the following year he was overthrown by the military, led by Raoul Cédras, in the 1991 Haitian coup d'état.[19][164] Amidst the continuing turmoil many Haitians attempted to flee the country.[149][19]
+
+In September 1994, the United States negotiated the departure of Haiti's military leaders and the peaceful entry of 20,000 US troops under Operation Uphold Democracy.[149] This enabled the restoration of the democratically elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide as president, who returned to Haiti in October to complete his term.[165][166] As part of the deal Aristide had to implement free market reforms in an attempt to improve the Haitian economy, with mixed results, some sources stating that these reforms had a negative impact on native Haitian industry.[167][19] In November 1994, Hurricane Gordon brushed Haiti, dumping heavy rain and creating flash flooding that triggered mudslides. Gordon killed an estimated 1,122 people, although some estimates go as high as 2,200.[168][169]
+
+Elections were held in 1995 which were won by René Préval, gaining 88% of the popular vote, albeit on a low turnout.[170][171][19] Aristide subsequently formed his own party, Fanmi Lavalas, and political deadlock ensued; the November 2000 election returned Aristide to the presidency with 92% of the vote.[172] The election had been boycotted by the opposition, then organized into the Convergence Démocratique, over a dispute in the May legislative elections. In subsequent years, there was increasing violence between rival political faction and human rights abuses.[173][174] Aristide spent years negotiating with the Convergence Démocratique on new elections, but the Convergence's inability to develop a sufficient electoral base made elections unattractive.[citation needed]
+
+In 2004 an anti-Aristide revolt began in northern Haiti. The rebellion eventually reached the capital, and Aristide was forced into exile.[173][19] The precise nature of the events are disputed; some, including Aristide and his bodyguard, Franz Gabriel, stated that he was the victim of a "new coup d'état or modern kidnapping" by U.S. forces.[173] Mrs. Aristide stated that the kidnappers wore U.S. Special Forces uniforms, but changed into civilian clothes upon boarding the aircraft that was used to remove Aristide from Haiti.[175][176] These charges were denied by the US government.[177][173] As political violence and crime continued to grow, a United Nations Stabilisation Mission (MINUSTAH) was brought in to maintain order.[178] Howeever MINUSTAH proved controversial, as their at times heavy-handed approach to maintaining law and order and several instances of abuses, including the alleged sexual abuse of civilians, provoked resentment and distrust amongst ordinary Haitians.[179][180][19] Boniface Alexandre assumed interim authority until 2006, when René Préval was re-elected President following elections.[178][19][181]
+
+Amidst the continuing political chaos, a series of natural disasters hit Haiti. In 2004 Tropical Storm Jeanne skimmed the north coast, leaving 3,006 people dead in flooding and mudslides, mostly in the city of Gonaïves.[182] In 2008 Haiti was again struck by tropical storms; Tropical Storm Fay, Hurricane Gustav, Hurricane Hanna and Hurricane Ike all produced heavy winds and rain, resulting in 331 deaths and about 800,000 in need of humanitarian aid.[183] The state of affairs produced by these storms was intensified by already high food and fuel prices that had caused a food crisis and political unrest in April 2008.[184][185][19]
+
+On 12 January 2010, at 4:53pm local time, Haiti was struck by a magnitude-7.0 earthquake. This was the country's most severe earthquake in over 200 years.[186] The earthquake was reported to have left between 220,000 and 300,000 people dead and up to 1.6 million homeless.[187]
+[188] The situation was exacerbated by a subsequent massive cholera outbreak that was triggered when cholera-infected waste from a United Nations peacekeeping station contaminated the country's main river, the Artibonite.[178][189][190] In 2017, it was reported that roughly 10,000 Haitians had died and nearly a million had been made ill. After years of denial the United Nations apologized in 2016, but as of 2017[update], they have refused to acknowledge fault, thus avoiding financial responsibility.[191]
+
+General elections had been planned for January 2010 but were postponed due to the earthquake.[19] Elections were held on 28 November 2010 for the senate, the parliament and the first round of the presidential elections. The run-off between Michel Martelly and Mirlande Manigat took place on 20 March 2011, and preliminary results, released on 4 April, named Michel Martelly the winner.[192][193] In 2011 both former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier and Jean-Bertrand Aristide returned to Haiti; attempts to try Duvalier for crimes committed under his rule were shelved following his death in 2014.[194][195][196][192] In 2013, Haiti called for European nations to pay reparations for slavery and establish an official commission for the settlement of past wrongdoings.[197][198] Meanwhile, after continuing political wrangling with the opposition and allegations of electoral fraud, Martelly agreed to step down in 2016 without having a successor in place.[192][199] An interim president, Jocelerme Privert, then took office.[19] After numerous postponements, partly owing to the effects of another devastating hurricane, elections were eventually held in November 2016.[200][201] The victor, Jovenel Moïse of the Haitian Tèt Kale Party, was subsequently sworn in as president in 2017.[202][203] The 2018 and 2019 Haitian protests are demonstrations in cities throughout Haiti that began on 7 July 2018, in response to increased fuel prices. Over time these protests evolved into demands for the resignation of president Moïse.[204]
+
+Haiti forms the western three-eighths of Hispaniola, the second largest island in the Greater Antilles. At 27,750 sq km Haiti is the third largest country in the Caribbean behind Cuba and the Dominican Republic, the latter sharing a 360-kilometre (224 mi) border with Haiti. The country has a roughly horseshoe shape and because of this it has a disproportionately long coastline, second in length (1,771 km or 1,100 mi) behind Cuba in the Greater Antilles.[205][206]
+
+Haiti is the most mountainous nation in the Caribbean, its terrain consists of mountains interspersed with small coastal plains and river valleys.[18] The climate is tropical, with some variation depending on altitude. The highest point is Pic la Selle, at 2,680 metres (8,793 ft).[20][18][19]
+
+The northern region consists of the Massif du Nord (Northern Massif) and the Plaine du Nord (Northern Plain). The Massif du Nord is an extension of the Cordillera Central in the Dominican Republic.[19] It begins at Haiti's eastern border, north of the Guayamouc River, and extends to the northwest through the northern peninsula. The lowlands of the Plaine du Nord lie along the northern border with the Dominican Republic, between the Massif du Nord and the North Atlantic Ocean.
+
+The central region consists of two plains and two sets of mountain ranges. The Plateau Central (Central Plateau) extends along both sides of the Guayamouc River, south of the Massif du Nord. It runs from the southeast to the northwest. To the southwest of the Plateau Central are the Montagnes Noires, whose most northwestern part merges with the Massif du Nord. Haiti's most important valley in terms of crops is the Plaine de l'Artibonite, which lies between the Montagnes Noires and the Chaîne des Matheux.[19] This region supports the country's (also Hispaniola's) longest river, the Riviere l'Artibonite, which begins in the western region of the Dominican Republic and continues for most of its length through central Haiti, where it then empties into the Golfe de la Gonâve.[19] Also in this valley lies Haiti's second largest lake, Lac de Péligre, formed as a result of the construction of the Péligre Dam in the mid-1950s.[207]
+
+The southern region consists of the Plaine du Cul-de-Sac (the southeast) and the mountainous southern peninsula (also known as the Tiburon Peninsula). The Plaine du Cul-de-Sac is a natural depression that harbors the country's saline lakes, such as Trou Caïman and Haiti's largest lake, Étang Saumatre. The Chaîne de la Selle mountain range – an extension of the southern mountain chain of the Dominican Republic (the Sierra de Baoruco) – extends from the Massif de la Selle in the east to the Massif de la Hotte in the west.[19]
+
+Haiti also includes several offshore islands. The island of Tortuga (Île de la Tortue) is located off the coast of northern Haiti. The arrondissement of La Gonâve is located on the island of the same name, in the Golfe de la Gonâve; Haiti's largest island, Gonâve is moderately populated by rural villagers. Île à Vache (Cow Island) is located off the southwest coast; also part of Haiti are the Cayemites, located in the Gulf of Gonâve north of Pestel. La Navasse (Navassa Island), located 40 nautical miles (46 mi; 74 km) west of Jérémie on the south west peninsula of Haiti,[208] is subject to an ongoing territorial dispute with the United States, who currently administer the island via the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.[209]
+
+Haiti's climate is tropical with some variation depending on altitude.[18] Port-au-Prince ranges in January from an average minimum of 23 °C (73.4 °F) to an average maximum of 31 °C (87.8 °F); in July, from 25–35 °C (77–95 °F). The rainfall pattern is varied, with rain heavier in some of the lowlands and the northern and eastern slopes of the mountains. Haiti's dry season occurs from November to January.
+
+Port-au-Prince receives an average annual rainfall of 1,370 mm (53.9 in). There are two rainy seasons, April–June and October–November. Haiti is subject to periodic droughts and floods, made more severe by deforestation. Hurricanes are a menace, and the country is also prone to drought, flooding and earthquakes.[18]
+
+There are blind thrust faults associated with the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault system over which Haiti lies.[210] After the earthquake of 2010, there was no evidence of surface rupture and geologists' findings were based on seismological, geological and ground deformation data.[211]
+
+The northern boundary of the fault is where the Caribbean tectonic plate shifts eastwards by about 20 mm (0.79 inches) per year in relation to the North American plate. The strike-slip fault system in the region has two branches in Haiti, the Septentrional-Oriente fault in the north and the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault in the south.
+
+A 2007 earthquake hazard study, noted that the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault zone could be at the end of its seismic cycle and concluded that a worst-case forecast would involve a 7.2 Mw earthquake, similar in size to the 1692 Jamaica earthquake.[212] A study team presented a hazard assessment of the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault system to the 18th Caribbean Geologic Conference in March 2008, noting the large strain. The team recommended "high priority" historical geologic rupture studies, as the fault was fully locked and had recorded few earthquakes in the preceding 40 years.[213] An article published in Haiti's Le Matin newspaper in September 2008 cited comments by geologist Patrick Charles to the effect that there was a high risk of major seismic activity in Port-au-Prince;[214] and duly the magnitude 7.0 2010 Haiti earthquake happened on this fault zone on 12 January 2010.
+
+Haiti also has rare elements such as gold, which can be found at The Mont Organisé gold mine.[215]
+
+The soil erosion released from the upper catchments and deforestation have caused periodic and severe flooding in Haiti, as experienced, for example, on 17 September 2004. Earlier in May that year, floods had killed over 3,000 people on Haiti's southern border with the Dominican Republic.[216]
+
+Haiti's forests covered 60% of the country as recently as 50 years ago, but that has been halved to a current estimate of 30% tree cover, according to more recent environmental analysis. This estimate poses a stark difference from the erroneous figure of 2% which has been oft-cited in discourse concerning the country's environmental condition.[217]
+
+Scientists at the Columbia University's Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN)  and the United Nations Environment Programme are working on the Haiti Regenerative Initiative an initiative aiming to reduce poverty and natural disaster vulnerability in Haiti through ecosystem restoration and sustainable resource management.[218]
+
+Despite its small size, Haiti's mountainous terrain and resultant multiple climactic zones has resulted in a wide variety of plant life.[219] Notable tree species include the breadfruit tree, mango tree, acacia, mahogany, coconut palm, royal palm and West Indian cedar.[219] The forests were formerly much more extensive, but have been subject to severe deforestation.[19]
+
+Most mammal species are not native, having being brought to the island since colonial times.[219] However there are various native bat species, as well as the endemic Hispaniolan hutia and Hispaniolan solenodon.[219] Various whale and dolphin species can also be found off Haiti's coast.
+
+There are over 260 species of bird, 31 of these being endemic to Hispaniola.[220] Notable endemic species include the Hispaniola trogon, Hispaniola parakeet, grey-crowned tanager and the Hispaniola Amazon.[220] There are also several raptor species, as well as pelicans, ibis, hummingbirds and ducks.
+
+Reptiles are common, with species such as the rhinoceros iguana, Haitian boa, American crocodile and gecko.[221]
+
+The government of Haiti is a semi-presidential republic, a multiparty system wherein the president of Haiti is head of state elected directly by popular elections held every five years.[19][222] The prime minister of Haiti acts as head of government and is appointed by the president, chosen from the majority party in the National Assembly.[19] Executive power is exercised by the president and prime minister who together constitute the government.
+
+Legislative power is vested in both the government and the two chambers of the National Assembly of Haiti, the Senate (Sénat) and the Chamber of Deputies (Chambre des Députés).[19][18] The government is organized unitarily, thus the central government delegates powers to the departments without a constitutional need for consent. The current structure of Haiti's political system was set forth in the Constitution of Haiti on 29 March 1987.[18]
+
+Haitian politics have been contentious: since independence, Haiti has suffered 32 coups.[223] Haiti is the only country in the Western Hemisphere to undergo a successful slave revolution; however, a long history of oppression by dictators such as François Duvalier and his son Jean-Claude Duvalier has markedly affected the nation. Since the end of the Duvalier era Haiti has been transitioning to a democratic system.[19]
+
+Administratively, Haiti is divided into ten departments.[18] The departments are listed below, with the departmental capital cities in parentheses.
+
+The departments are further divided into 42 arrondissements, 145 communes and 571 communal sections. These serve as, respectively, second- and third-level administrative divisions.[224][225][226]
+
+Haiti is a member of a wide range of international and regional organizations, such as the United Nations, Caricom, Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, International Monetary Fund, Organisation of American States, Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, OPANAL and the World Trade Organization.[18]
+
+In February 2012, Haiti signaled it would seek to upgrade its observer status to full associate member status of the African Union (AU).[227] The AU was reported to be planning to upgrade Haiti's status from observer to associate at its June 2013 summit[228] but the application had still not been ratified by May 2016.[229]
+
+Haiti's Ministry of Defense is the main body of the armed forces.[230] The former Haitian Armed Forces were demobilized in 1995, however efforts to reconstitute it are currently underway.[231] The current defense force for Haiti is the Haitian National Police, which has a highly trained SWAT team, and works alongside the Haitian Coast Guard. In 2010, the Haitian National Police force numbered 7,000.[232]
+
+The legal system is based on a modified version of the Napoleonic Code.[233][19]
+
+Haiti has consistently ranked among the most corrupt countries in the world on the Corruption Perceptions Index.[234] According to a 2006 report by the Corruption Perceptions Index, there is a strong correlation between corruption and poverty in Haiti. The nation ranked first of all countries surveyed for of levels of perceived domestic corruption.[235] It is estimated that President "Baby Doc" Duvalier, his wife Michelle, and their agents stole US $504 million from the country's treasury between 1971 and 1986.[236] Similarly, after the Haitian Army folded in 1995, the Haitian National Police (HNP) gained sole power of authority on the Haitian citizens. Many Haitians as well as observers of the Haitian society believe that this monopolized power could have given way to a corrupt police force.[237]
+
+Similarly, some media outlets alleged that millions were stolen by former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.[238][239][240][241] In March 2004, at the time of Aristide's kidnapping, a BBC article wrote that the Bush administration State Department stated that Aristide had been involved in drug trafficking.[242] The BBC also described pyramid schemes, in which Haitians lost hundreds of millions in 2002, as the "only real economic initiative" of the Aristide years.[243]
+
+Conversely, according to the 2013 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report, murder rates in Haiti (10.2 per 100,000) are far below the regional average (26 per 100,000); less than 1/4 that of Jamaica (39.3 per 100,000) and nearly 1/2 that of the Dominican Republic (22.1 per 100,000), making it among the safer countries in the region.[244][245] In large part, this is due to the country's ability to fulfil a pledge by increasing its national police yearly by 50%, a four-year initiative that was started in 2012. In addition to the yearly recruits, the Haitian National Police (HNP) has been using innovative technologies to crack down on crime. A notable bust in recent years[when?] led to the dismantlement of the largest kidnapping ring in the country with the use of an advanced software program developed by a West Point-trained Haitian official that proved to be so effective that it has led to its foreign advisers to make inquiries.[246][247]
+
+In 2010, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) sent a team of veteran officers to Haiti to assist in the rebuilding of its police force with special training in investigative techniques, strategies to improve the anti-kidnapping personnel and community outreach to build stronger relationships with the public especially among the youth. It has also helped the HNP set up a police unit in the center of Delmas, a neighborhood of Port-au-Prince.[248][249][250]
+
+In 2012 and 2013, 150 HNP officers received specialized training funded by the US government, which also contributed to the infrastructure and communications support by upgrading radio capacity and constructing new police stations from the most violent-prone neighborhoods of Cité Soleil and Grande Ravine in Port-au-Prince to the new northern industrial park at Caracol.[250]
+
+Port-au-Prince penitentiary is home to half of Haiti's prisoners. The prison has a capacity of 1,200 detainees but as of November 2017[update] the penitentiary was obliged to keep 4,359 detainees, a 454% occupancy level.[251] This leads to severe consequences for the inmates.
+
+One cell could hold up to 60 inmates which was originally designed for only 18, therefore creating tight and uncomfortable living conditions. The inmates are forced to create makeshift hammocks from the wall and ceilings. The men are on a 22/ 23 hour lock up in the cells so the risk of diseases is very high.[251] Unable to receive sufficient funds from the government as Haiti endures severe natural disasters which takes up their attention and resources, such as the 2010 earthquake, has caused deadly cases of malnutrition, combined with the tight living conditions, increases the risk of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis which has led to 21 deaths in January 2017 alone at the Port-au-Prince penitentiary.[251]
+
+Haitian law states that once arrested, one must go before a judge within 48 hours; however, this is very rare. In an interview with Unreported World, the prison governor stated that around 529 detainees were never sentenced, there are 3,830 detainees who are in prolonged detained trial detention. Therefore, 80% are not convicted.[252]
+
+Unless families are able to provide the necessary funds for inmates to appear before a judge there is a very slim chance the inmate would have a trial, on average, within 10 years. Brian Concannon, the director of the non-profit Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, claims that without a substantial bribe to persuade judges, prosecutors and lawyers to undergo their case, there is no prospect for getting a trial for years.[253]
+
+Families may send food to the penitentiary; however, most inmates depend on the meals served twice a day. However, the majority of the meals consists of ration supplies of rice, oats or cornmeal, which has led to deadly cases of malnutrition-related ailments such as beriberi and anaemia. Prisoners too weak are crammed in the penitentiary infirmary.[254]
+
+In the confined living spaces for 22/ 23 hours a day, inmates are not provided with latrines and are forced to defecate into plastic bags and leave them outside their cells. These conditions are considered in-humane by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in 2008.[254]
+
+Haiti has a predominantly free market economy, with a GDP of $19.97 billion and per capita GDP of $1,800 (2017 estimates).[18] The country uses the Haitian gourde as its currency. Despite its tourism industry, Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the Americas, with poverty, corruption, political instability, poor infrastructure, lack of health care and lack of education cited as the main causes.[18] Unemployment is high and many Haitians seek to emigrate. Trade declined dramatically after the 2010 earthquake and subsequent outbreak of cholera, with the country's purchasing power parity GDP falling by 8% (from US$12.15 billion to US$11.18 billion).[4] Haiti ranked 145 of 182 countries in the 2010 United Nations Human Development Index, with 57.3% of the population being deprived in at least three of the HDI's poverty measures.[255]
+
+Following the disputed 2000 election and accusations about President Aristide's rule,[256] US aid to the Haitian government was cut off between 2001 and 2004.[257] After Aristide's departure in 2004, aid was restored and the Brazilian army led a United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti peacekeeping operation. After almost four years of recession, the economy grew by 1.5% in 2005.[258] In September 2009, Haiti met the conditions set out by the IMF and World Bank's Heavily Indebted Poor Countries program to qualify for cancellation of its external debt.[259]
+
+More than 90 percent of the government's budget comes from an agreement with Petrocaribe, a Venezuela-led oil alliance.[260]
+
+Haiti received more than US$4 billion in aid from 1990 to 2003, including US$1.5 billion from the United States.[261] The largest donor is the US, followed by Canada and the European Union.[262] In January 2010, following the earthquake, US President Barack Obama promised US$1.15 billion in assistance.[263] European Union nations pledged more than €400 million (US$616 million).[264] Neighboring Dominican Republic has also provided extensive humanitarian aid to Haiti, including the funding and construction of a public university,[265] human capital, free healthcare services in the border region, and logistical support after the 2010 earthquake.[266]
+
+According to the UN Office of the Special Envoy for Haiti, as of March 2012[update], of humanitarian funding committed or disbursed by bilateral and multilateral donors in 2010 and 2011, only 1% has been pledged to the Haitian government.[267]
+
+The United Nations states that in total US$13.34 billion has been earmarked for post-earthquake reconstruction through 2020, though two years after the 2010 quake, less than half of that amount had actually been released, according to UN documents. As of 2015[update], the US government has allocated US$4 billion, US$3 billion has already been spent, and the rest is dedicated to longer-term projects.[268]
+
+Former US President Bill Clinton's foundation contributed US$250,000 to a recycling initiative for a sister-program of "Ranmase Lajan" or "Picking Up Money" by use of reverse vending machines.[269]
+
+According to the 2015 CIA World Factbook, Haiti's main import partners are: Dominican Republic 35%, US 26.8%, Netherlands Antilles 8.7%, China 7% (est. 2013).  Haiti's main export partner is the US 83.5% (est. 2013).[270] Haiti had a trade deficit of US$3 billion in 2011, or 41% of GDP.[271]
+
+In 1925, the city of Jacmel was the first area in the Caribbean to have electricity and was subsequently dubbed the City of Light.[272]
+
+Today, Haiti relies heavily on an oil alliance with Petrocaribe for much of its energy requirements. In recent years, hydroelectric, solar and wind energy have been explored as possible sustainable energy sources.[273]
+
+As of 2017, among all the countries in the Americas, Haiti is producing the least amount of energy. Less than a quarter of the country has electric coverage.[274] Most regions of Haiti that do have energy are powered by generators. These generators are often expensive and produce a lot of pollution. The areas that do get electricity experience power cuts on a daily basis, and some areas are limited to 12 hours of electricity a day. Electricity is provided by a small number of independent companies: Sogener, E-power, and Haytrac.[275] There is no national electricity grid within the country.[276] The most common source of energy used is wood, along with charcoal. In Haiti, about 4 million metric tons of wood products are consumed yearly.[277] Like charcoal and wood, petroleum is also an important source of energy for Haiti. Since Haiti cannot produce its own fuel, all fuel is imported. Yearly, around 691,000 tons of oil is imported into the country.[276]
+
+On 31 October 2018, Evenson Calixte, the General Director of energy regulation (ANARSE) announced the 24 hour electricity project. To meet this objective, 236 Megawatt needs to installed in Port-au-Prince alone, with an additional 75 Megawatt needed in all other regions in the country. Presently only 27,5% of the population has access to electricity; moreover, the national energy agency l'Électricité d'Haïti (Ed'H) is only able to meet 62% of overall electricity demand said Fritz Caillot, the Minister of Public Works, Transportation and Communication (Travaux publics, transport et communication (TPTC)).[278]
+
+The World Factbook reports a shortage of skilled labor, widespread unemployment and underemployment, saying "more than two-thirds of the labor force do not have formal jobs."   It is also often stated that three-quarters of the population lives on US$2 or less per day.[279]
+
+The CIA World Factbook also states that "remittances are the primary source of foreign exchange, equalling one-fifth (20%) of GDP and representing more than five times the earnings from exports in 2012".[280] The World Bank estimates that over 80% of college graduates from Haiti were living abroad in 2004.[281]
+
+Occasionally, families who are unable to care for children financially may send them to live with a wealthier family as a restavek, or house servant. In return the family are supposed to ensure that the child is educated and provided with food and shelter, however the system is open to abuse and has proved controversial, with some likening it to child slavery.[282][283]
+
+In rural areas, people often live in wooden huts with corrugated iron roofs. Outhouses are located in back of the huts. In Port-au-Prince colorful shantytowns surround the central city and go up the mountainsides.[284]
+
+The middle and upper classes live in suburbs, or in the central part of the bigger cities in apartments, where there is urban planning. Many of the houses they live in are like miniature fortresses, located behind walls embedded with metal spikes, barbed wire, broken glass, and sometimes all three. The gates to these houses are barred at night, the house is locked; guard dogs patrol the yard. These houses are often self-sufficient as well. The houses have backup generators, because the electrical grid in Haiti is unreliable. Some even have rooftop reservoirs for water, as the water supply is also unreliable.[284]
+
+Haiti is the world's leading producer of vetiver, a root plant used to make luxury perfumes, essential oils and fragrances, providing for half the world's supply.[285][286][287] Roughly 40–50% of Haitians work in the agricultural sector.[18][288] Haiti relies upon imports for half its food needs and 80% of its rice.[288]
+
+Haiti exports crops such as mangoes, cacao, coffee, papayas, mahogany nuts, spinach, and watercress.[289] Agricultural products comprise 6% of all exports.[271] In addition, local agricultural products include maize, beans, cassava, sweet potato, peanuts, pistachios, bananas, millet, pigeon peas, sugarcane, rice, sorghum, and wood.[289][290]
+
+The Haitian gourde (HTG) is the national currency. The "Haitian dollar" equates to 5 gourdes (goud), which is a fixed exchange rate that exists in concept only, but are commonly used as informal prices.[citation needed] The vast majority of the business sector and individuals in Haiti will also accept US dollars, though at the outdoor markets gourdes may be preferred. Locals may refer to the USD as "dollar américain" (dola ameriken) or "dollar US" (pronounced oo-es).[291]
+
+The tourism market in Haiti is undeveloped and the government is heavily promoting this sector. Haiti has many of the features that attract tourists to other Caribbean destinations, such as white sand beaches, mountainous scenery and a year-round warm climate, however the country's poor image overseas, at times exaggerated, has hampered the development of this sector.[19] In 2014, the country received 1,250,000 tourists (mostly from cruise ships), and the industry generated US$200 million in 2014.[citation needed]
+
+Several hotels were opened in 2014, including an upscale Best Western Premier,[292][293] a five-star Royal Oasis hotel by Occidental Hotel and Resorts in Pétion-Ville,[294][295][296] a four-star Marriott Hotel in the Turgeau area of Port-au-Prince[297] and other new hotel developments in Port-au-Prince, Les Cayes, Cap-Haïtien and Jacmel.[citation needed]
+
+The Haitian Carnival has been one of the most popular carnivals in the Caribbean. In 2010, the government decided to stage the event in a different city outside Port-au-Prince every year in an attempt to decentralize the country.[298][299] The National Carnival –  usually held in one of the country's largest cities (i.e., Port-au-Prince, Cap-Haïtien or Les Cayes) –  follows the also very popular Jacmel Carnival, which takes place a week earlier in February or March.[298]
+
+On 21 October 2012, Haitian President Michel Martelly, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Richard Branson, Ben Stiller and Sean Penn inaugurated the 600 acres (240 ha) Caracol industrial park, the largest in the Caribbean.[300] Costing US$300 million, the project, which includes a 10-megawatt power plant, a water-treatment plant and worker housing, is intended to transform the northern part of the country by creating 65,000 jobs.[300]
+
+The park is part of a "master plan" for Haiti's North and North-East departments, including the expansion of the Cap-Haïtien International Airport to accommodate large international flights, the construction of an international Seaport in Fort-Liberté and the opening of the $50 million Roi Henri Christophe Campus of a new university in Limonade (near Cap-Haïtien) on 12 January 2012.[301]
+
+South Korean clothing manufacturer Sae-A Trading Co. Ltd, one of the park's main tenants, has created 5,000 permanent jobs out of the 20,000 projected and has built 8,600 houses in the surrounding area for its workers. The industrial park ultimately has the potential to create as many as 65,000 jobs once fully developed.[302][303]
+
+Haiti has two main highways that run from one end of the country to the other. The northern highway, Route Nationale No. 1 (National Highway One), originates in Port-au-Prince, winding through the coastal towns of Montrouis and Gonaïves, before reaching its terminus at the northern port Cap-Haïtien. The southern highway, Route Nationale No. 2, links Port-au-Prince with Les Cayes via Léogâne and Petit-Goâve. The state of Haiti's roads are generally poor, many being potholed and becoming impassable in rough weather.[19]
+
+According to the Washington Post, "Officials from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Saturday [23 January 2010] that they assessed the damage from the [12 January] quake in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and found that many of the roads aren't any worse than they were before because they've always been in poor condition."[304]
+
+The port at Port-au-Prince, Port international de Port-au-Prince,  has more registered shipping than any of the other dozen ports in the country. The port's facilities include cranes, large berths, and warehouses, but these facilities are not in good condition. The port is underused, possibly due to the substantially high port fees. The port of Saint-Marc is currently the preferred port of entry for consumer goods coming into Haiti. Reasons for this may include its location away from volatile and congested Port-au-Prince, as well as its central location relative to numerous Haitian cities.
+
+In the past, Haiti used rail transport, however the rail infrastructure was poorly maintained when in use and cost of rehabilitation is beyond the means of the Haitian economy. In 2018 the Regional Development Council of the Dominican Republic proposed a "trans-Hispaniola" railway between both countries.[305]
+
+Toussaint Louverture International Airport, located 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) North/North East of Port-au-Prince proper in the commune of Tabarre, is the primary transportation hub regarding entry and exit into the country. It has Haiti's main jetway, and along with Cap-Haïtien International Airport located near the northern city of Cap-Haïtien, handles the vast majority of the country's international flights. Cities such as Jacmel, Jérémie, Les Cayes, and Port-de-Paix have smaller, less accessible airports that are serviced by regional airlines and private aircraft. Such companies include: Caribintair  (defunct), Sunrise Airways and Tortug' Air (defunct).
+
+In 2013, plans for the development of an international airport on Île-à-Vache were introduced by the Prime Minister.[306]
+
+Tap tap buses are colorfully painted buses or pick-up trucks that serve as share taxis. The "tap tap" name comes from the sound of passengers tapping on the metal bus body to indicate they want off.[307] These vehicles for hire are often privately owned and extensively decorated. They follow fixed routes, do not leave until filled with passengers, and riders can usually disembark at any point. The decorations are a typically Haitian form of art.[308]
+
+In August 2013, the first coach bus prototype was made in Haiti.[309]
+
+In Haiti, communications include the radio, television, fixed and mobile telephones, and the Internet. Haiti ranked last among North American countries in the World Economic Forum's Network Readiness Index (NRI) –  an indicator for determining the development level of a country's information and communication technologies. Haiti ranked number 143 out of 148 overall in the 2014 NRI ranking, down from 141 in 2013.[310]
+
+Haiti faces key challenges in the water supply and sanitation
+sector:
+Notably, access to public services is very low, their quality is inadequate and public institutions remain very weak despite foreign aid and the government's declared intent to strengthen the sector's institutions. Foreign and Haitian NGOs play an important role in the sector, especially in rural and urban slum areas.
+
+Haiti's population is about 10,788,000 (July 2018 est.)[18] with half of the population younger than age 20.[311] In 1950, the first formal census gave a total population of 3.1 million.[312] Haiti averages approximately 350 people per square kilometer (~900 per sq mi.), with its population concentrated most heavily in urban areas, coastal plains, and valleys.
+
+Most Haitians are descendants of former black African slaves, including Mulattoes who are mixed-race.[18] The remainder are of European or Arab descent, the descendants of settlers (colonial remnants and contemporary immigration during World War I and World War II).[313][314] Haitians of East Asian descent or East Indian origin number approximately more than 400.[citation needed]
+
+Millions of Haitians live abroad in the United States, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Canada (primarily Montreal), Bahamas, France, French Antilles, the Turks and Caicos, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Brazil, Suriname and French Guiana. There are an estimated 881,500 Haitians in the United States,[315] 800,000 in the Dominican Republic,[316] 300,000 in Cuba,[317] 100,000 in Canada,[318] 80,000 in France,[319] and up to 80,000 in the Bahamas.[320] There are also smaller Haitian communities in many other countries, including Chile, Switzerland, Japan and Australia.
+
+In 2017, the life expectancy at birth was 64 years.[321]
+
+The gene pool of Haiti is about 95.5% Sub-Saharan African, 4.3% European, with the rest showing some traces of East Asian genes;[322] according to a 2010 autosomal genealogical DNA testing.
+
+A 2012 genetic study on Haitian and Jamaican Y-chromosomal ancestry has revealed that both populations "exhibit a predominantly Sub-Saharan paternal component, with haplogroups A1b-V152, A3-M32, B2-M182, E1a-M33, E1b1a-M2, E2b-M98, and R1b2-V88" comprising (77.2%) of the Haitian and (66.7%) of Jamaican paternal gene pools.[323] Y-chromosomes indicative of European ancestry "(i.e., haplogroups G2a*-P15, I-M258, R1b1b-M269, and T-M184) were detected at commensurate levels in Haiti (20.3%) and Jamaica (18.9%)".[323]
+While Y-haplogroups indicative of Chinese O-M175 (3.8%) and Indian H-M69 (0.6%) and L-M20 (0.6%) ancestry were found at significant levels in Jamaica,[323] Levantine Y-haplogroups were found in Haiti.
+
+According to a 2008 study examining the frequency of the Duffy antigen receptor for Chemokines (DARC) Single Nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), (75%) of Haitian women sampled exhibited the CC genotype (absent among women of European ancestry) at levels comparable to US African-Americans (73%), but more than Jamaican females (63%).[324][325]
+
+Under colonial rule, Haitian mulattoes were generally privileged above the black majority, though they possessed fewer rights than the white population. Following the country's independence, they became the nation's social elite. Numerous leaders throughout Haiti's history have been mulattoes. During this time, the slaves and the affranchis were given limited opportunities toward education, income, and occupations, but even after gaining independence, the social structure remains a legacy today as the disparity between the upper and lower classes have not been reformed significantly since the colonial days.[326] Comprising 5% of the nation's population, mulattoes have retained their preeminence, evident in the political, economic, social and cultural hierarchy in Haiti.[327] As a result, the elite class today consists of a small group of influential people who are generally light in color and continue to establish themselves in high, prestigious positions.[328]
+
+Religion in Haiti according to the Pew Research Center (2010)[329]
+
+The 2017 CIA Factbook reported that around 54.7% of Haitians profess to being Catholics while Protestants made up about 28.5% of the population (Baptist 15.4%, Pentecostal 7.9%, Seventh-day Adventist 3%, Methodist 1.5%, other 0.7%). Other sources put the Protestant population higher than this, suggesting that it might have formed one-third of the population in 2001.[330] Like other countries in Latin America, Haiti has witnessed a general Protestant expansion, which is largely Evangelical and Pentecostal in nature.[331][332][333] Haitian Cardinal Chibly Langlois is president of the National Bishops Conference of the Catholic Church.
+
+Vodou, a religion with West African roots similar to those of Cuba and Brazil, originated during colonial times in which slaves were obliged to disguise their loa, or spirits, as Roman Catholic saints, an element of a process called syncretism and is still practiced by some Haitians today. Due to the religious syncretism between Catholicism and Vodou, it is difficult to estimate the number of Vodouists in Haiti.[334][335] The religion has historically been persecuted and misrepresented in popular media, however in 2003 the Government recognized the faith as an official religion of the nation.[18]
+
+Minority religions in Haiti include Islam, Bahá'í Faith, Judaism, and Buddhism.[4]
+
+The two official languages of Haiti are French and Haitian Creole. French is the principal written and administratively authorized language (as well as the main language of the press) and is spoken by 42% of Haitians.[336][337] It is spoken by all educated Haitians, is the medium of instruction in most schools, and is used in the business sector. It is also used in ceremonial events such as weddings, graduations and church Masses. Haiti is one of two independent nations in the Americas (along with Canada) to designate French as an official language; the other French-speaking areas are all overseas départements, or collectivités, of France.
+
+Haitian Creole,[338] which has recently undergone a standardization, is spoken by virtually the entire population of Haiti.[339] Haitian Creole is one of the French-based creole languages. Its vocabulary is 90% derived from French, but its grammar resembles that of some West African languages. It also has influences from Taino, Spanish, and Portuguese.[340] Haitian Creole is related to the other French creoles, but most closely to the Antillean Creole and Louisiana Creole variants.
+
+There is a large Haitian diaspora community, predominantly based in the US and Canada, France, and the wealthier Caribbean islands.
+
+Emigrants from Haiti have constituted a segment of American and Canadian society since before the independence of Haiti from France in 1804.[341][342] Many influential early American settlers and black freemen, including Jean Baptiste Point du Sable and W. E. B. Du Bois, were of Haitian origin.[343][344][345][346]
+
+Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, an immigrant from Saint-Domingue (now the Republic of Haiti), founded the first nonindigenous settlement in what is now Chicago, Illinois, the third largest city in the United States. The state of Illinois and city of Chicago declared du Sable the founder of Chicago on 26 October 1968.[343][344][345]
+
+Haiti has a rich and unique cultural identity, consisting of a blend of traditional French and African customs, mixed with sizeable contributions from the Spanish and indigenous Taíno cultures.[347] Haiti's culture is greatly reflected in its paintings, music, and literature. Galleries and museums in the United States and France have exhibited the works of the better-known artists to have come out of Haiti.[348]
+
+Haitian art is distinctive, particularly through its paintings and sculptures.[347][349][350] Brilliant colors, naïve perspectives, and sly humor characterize Haitian art. Frequent subjects in Haitian art include big, delectable foods, lush landscapes, market activities, jungle animals, rituals, dances, and gods. As a result of a deep history and strong African ties, symbols take on great meaning within Haitian society. For example, a rooster often represents Aristide and the red and blue colors of the Haitian flag often represent his Lavalas party.[citation needed] Many artists cluster in 'schools' of painting, such as the Cap-Haïtien school, which features depictions of daily life in the city, the Jacmel School, which reflects the steep mountains and bays of that coastal town, or the Saint-Soleil School, which is characterised by abstracted human forms and is heavily influenced by Vodou symbolism.[citation needed]
+
+In the 1920s the indigéniste movement gained international acclaim, with its expressionist paintings inspired by Haiti's culture and African roots. Notable painters of this movement include Hector Hyppolite, Philomé Oban and Préfète Duffaut.[351] Some notable artists of more recent times include Edouard Duval-Carrié, Frantz Zéphirin, Leroy Exil, Prosper Pierre Louis and Louisiane Saint Fleurant.[351] Sculpture is also practised in Haiti; noted artists in this form include George Liautaud and Serge Jolimeau.[352]
+
+Haitian music combines a wide range of influences drawn from the many people who have settled here. It reflects French, African and Spanish elements and others who have inhabited the island of Hispaniola, and minor native Taino influences. Styles of music unique to the nation of Haiti include music derived from Vodou ceremonial traditions, Rara parading music, Twoubadou ballads, mini-jazz rock bands, Rasin movement, Hip hop kreyòl, méringue,[353] and compas. Youth attend parties at nightclubs called discos, (pronounced "deece-ko"), and attend Bal. This term is the French word for ball, as in a formal dance.
+
+Compas (konpa) (also known as compas direct in French, or konpa dirèk in creole)[354] is a complex, ever-changing music that arose from African rhythms and European ballroom dancing, mixed with Haiti's bourgeois culture. It is a refined music, with méringue as its basic rhythm. Haiti had no recorded music until 1937 when Jazz Guignard was recorded non-commercially.[355]
+
+Haiti has always been a literary nation that has produced poetry, novels, and plays of international recognition. The French colonial experience established the French language as the venue of culture and prestige, and since then it has dominated the literary circles and the literary production. However, since the 18th century there has been a sustained effort to write in Haitian Creole. The recognition of Creole as an official language has led to an expansion of novels, poems, and plays in Creole.[356] In 1975, Franketienne was the first to break with the French tradition in fiction with the publication of Dezafi, the first novel written entirely in Haitian Creole; the work offers a poetic picture of Haitian life.[357] Other well known Haitian authors include Jean Price-Mars, Jacques Roumain, Marie Vieux-Chauvet, Pierre Clitandre, René Depestre, Edwidge Danticat, Lyonel Trouillot and Dany Laferrière.
+
+Haiti has a small though growing cinema industry. Well-known directors working primarily in documentary film-making include Raoul Peck and Arnold Antonin. Directors producing fictional films include Patricia Benoît, Wilkenson Bruna and Richard Senecal.
+
+Haiti is famous for its creole cuisine (which related to Cajun cuisine), and its soup joumou.[358]
+
+Monuments include the Sans-Souci Palace and the Citadelle Laferrière, inscribed as a World Heritage site in 1982.[359] Situated in the Northern Massif du Nord, in one of Haiti's National Parks, the structures date from the early 19th century.[360] The buildings were among the first built after Haiti's independence from France.
+The Citadelle Laferrière, is the largest fortress in the Americas, is located in northern Haiti. It was built between 1805 and 1820 and is today referred to by some Haitians as the eighth wonder of the world.[90]
+
+The Institute for the Protection of National Heritage has preserved 33 historical monuments and the historic center of Cap-Haïtien.[361]
+
+Jacmel, a colonial city that was tentatively accepted as a World Heritage site, was extensively damaged by the 2010 Haiti earthquake.[360]
+
+The anchor of Christopher Columbus's largest ship, the Santa María now rests in the Musée du Panthéon National Haïtien (MUPANAH), in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.[362]
+
+Haiti is known for its folklore traditions.[363] Much of this is rooted in Haitian Vodou tradition. Belief in zombies is also common.[364] Other folkloric creatures include the lougarou.[364]
+
+The most festive time of the year in Haiti is during Carnival (referred to as Kanaval in Haitian Creole or Mardi Gras) in February.[citation needed] There is music, parade floats, and dancing and singing in the streets. Carnival week is traditionally a time of all-night parties.
+
+Rara is a festival celebrated before Easter. The festival has generated a style of Carnival music.[365][366]
+
+Football is the most popular sport in Haiti with hundreds of small football clubs competing at the local level. Basketball is growing in popularity.[367] Stade Sylvio Cator is the multi-purpose stadium in Port-au-Prince, where it is currently used mostly for association football matches that fits a capacity of 10,000 people. In 1974, the Haiti national football team were only the second Caribbean team to make the World Cup (after Cuba's entry in 1938). They lost in the opening qualifying stages against three of the pre-tournament favorites; Italy, Poland, and Argentina. The national team won the 2007 Caribbean Nations Cup.[368]
+
+Haiti has participated in the Olympic Games since the year 1900 and won a number of medals. Haitian footballer Joe Gaetjens played for the United States national team in the 1950 FIFA World Cup, scoring the winning goal in the 1–0 upset of England.[369]
+
+The educational system of Haiti is based on the French system. Higher education, under the responsibility of the Ministry of Education,[374] is provided by universities and other public and private institutions.[375]
+
+More than 80% of primary schools are privately managed by nongovernmental organizations, churches, communities, and for-profit operators, with minimal government oversight.[376] According to the 2013 Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Report, Haiti has steadily boosted net enrollment rate in primary education from 47% in 1993 to 88% in 2011, achieving equal participation of boys and girls in education.[377] Charity organizations, including Food for the Poor and Haitian Health Foundation, are building schools for children and providing necessary school supplies.
+According to CIA 2015 World Factbook, Haiti's literacy rate is now 60.7% (est. 2015).
+
+The January 2010 earthquake, was a major setback for education reform in Haiti as it diverted limited resources to survival.[378]
+
+Many reformers have advocated the creation of a free, public and universal education system for all primary school-age students in Haiti. The Inter-American Development Bank estimates that the government will need at least US$3 billion to create an adequately funded system.[379]
+
+Upon successful graduation of secondary school, students may continue into higher education. The higher education schools in Haiti include the University of Haiti. There are also medical schools and law schools offered at both the University of Haiti and abroad. Presently, Brown University is cooperating with L'Hôpital Saint-Damien in Haiti to coordinate a pediatric health care curriculum.[380]
+
+In the past, children's vaccination rates have been low –  as of 2012[update], 60% of the children in Haiti under the age of 10 were vaccinated,[381][382] compared to rates of childhood vaccination in other countries in the 93–95% range.[383] Recently there have been mass vaccination campaigns claiming to vaccinate as many as 91% of a target population against specific diseases (measles and rubella in this case).[384] Most people have no transportation or access to Haitian hospitals.[385]
+
+The World Health Organization cites diarrheal diseases, HIV/AIDS, meningitis, and respiratory infections as common causes of death in Haiti.[386] Ninety percent of Haiti's children suffer from waterborne diseases and intestinal parasites.[387]  HIV infection is found in 1.71% of Haiti's population (est. 2015).[388] The incidence of tuberculosis (TB) in Haiti is more than ten times as high as in the rest of Latin America.[389] Approximately 30,000 Haitians fall ill with malaria each year.[390]
+
+Most people living in Haiti are at high risk for major infectious diseases. Food or water-borne diseases include bacterial and protozoal diarrhea, typhoid fever and hepatitis A and E; common vector-borne diseases are dengue fever and malaria; water-contact diseases include leptospirosis. Roughly 75% of Haitian households lack running water. Unsafe water, along with inadequate housing and unsanitary living conditions, contributes to the high incidence of infectious diseases. There is a chronic shortage of health care personnel and hospitals lack resources, a situation that became readily apparent after the January 2010 earthquake.[391] The infant mortality rate in Haiti in 2013 was 55 deaths per 1,000 live births, compared to a rate of 6 per 1,000 in other countries.[392]
+
+After the 2010 earthquake, Partners In Health founded the Hôpital Universitaire de Mirebalais, the largest solar-powered hospital in the world.[393][394]
+
+Wikimedia Atlas of Haiti

en/2367.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,371 @@
+
+
+Coordinates: 19°00′N 72°25′W / 19.000°N 72.417°W / 19.000; -72.417
+
+Haiti (/ˈheɪti/ (listen); French: Haïti [a.iti]; Haitian Creole: Ayiti [ajiti]), officially the Republic of Haiti (French: République d'Haïti; Haitian Creole: Repiblik d Ayiti)[10] formerly founded as Hayti,[note 1] is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, to the east of Cuba and Jamaica and south of The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island which it shares with the Dominican Republic.[16][17] To its south-west lies the small island of Navassa Island, which is claimed by Haiti but is disputed as a United States territory under federal administration.[18][19] Haiti is 27,750 square kilometers (10,714 sq mi) in size and has an estimated population of 11.1 million,[5][6] making it the most populous country in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the second-most populous country in the Caribbean after Cuba.
+
+The island was originally inhabited by the indigenous Taíno people, who migrated from South America. The first Europeans arrived on 5 December 1492 during the first voyage of Christopher Columbus, who initially believed he had found India or China.[20] Columbus subsequently founded the first European settlement in the Americas, La Navidad, on what is now the northeastern coast of Haiti.[21][22][23][24] The island was claimed by Spain and named La Española, forming part of the Spanish Empire until the early 17th century. However, competing claims and settlements by the French led to the western portion of the island being ceded to France in 1697, which was subsequently named Saint-Domingue. French colonists established lucrative sugarcane plantations, worked by vast numbers of slaves brought from Africa, which made the colony one of the richest in the world.
+
+In the midst of the French Revolution (1789–99), slaves and free people of color launched the Haitian Revolution (1791–1804), led by a former slave and the first black general of the French Army, Toussaint Louverture. After 12 years of conflict, Napoleon Bonaparte's forces were defeated by Louverture's successor, Jean-Jacques Dessalines (later Emperor Jacques I), who declared Haiti's sovereignty on 1 January 1804—the first independent nation of Latin America and the Caribbean, the second republic in the Americas, the first country to abolish slavery, and the only state in history established by a successful slave revolt.[25][26] Apart from Alexandre Pétion, the first President of the Republic, all of Haiti's first leaders were former slaves.[27] After a brief period in which the country was split in two, President Jean-Pierre Boyer united the country and then attempted to bring the whole of Hispaniola under Haitian control, precipitating a long series of wars that ended in the 1870s when Haiti formally recognized the independence of the Dominican Republic. Haiti's first century of independence was characterised by political instability, ostracism by the international community and the payment of a crippling debt to France. Political volatility and foreign economic influence in the country prompted the U.S. to occupy the country from 1915 to 1934. Following a series of short-lived presidencies, François 'Papa Doc' Duvalier took power in 1956, ushering in a long period of autocratic rule that was continued by his son Jean-Claude 'Baby Doc' Duvalier that lasted until 1986; the period was characterised by state-sanctioned violence against the opposition and civilians, corruption and economic stagnation. Since 1986 Haiti has been attempting to establish a more democratic political system.
+
+Haiti is a founding member of the United Nations, Organization of American States (OAS),[28] Association of Caribbean States,[29] and the International Francophonie Organisation. In addition to CARICOM, it is a member of the International Monetary Fund,[30] World Trade Organization,[31] and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States. Historically poor and politically unstable, Haiti has the lowest Human Development Index in the Americas. Since the turn of the 21st century, the country has endured a coup d'état, which prompted a U.N. intervention, as well as a deadly earthquake that killed over 250,000.
+
+The name Haiti (or Hayti) comes from the indigenous Taíno language which was the native name[note 2] given to the entire island of Hispaniola to mean, "land of high mountains."[35] The h is silent in French and the ï in Haïti has a diacritical mark used to show that the second vowel is pronounced separately, as in the word naïve.[36] In English, this rule for the pronunciation is often disregarded, thus the spelling Haiti is used. There are different anglicizations for its pronunciation such as HIGH-ti, high-EE-ti and haa-EE-ti, which are still in use, but HAY-ti is the most widespread and best-established.[37] The name was restored by Haitian revolutionary Jean-Jacques Dessalines as the official name of independent Saint-Domingue, as a tribute to the Amerindian predecessors.[38]
+
+In French, Haiti's nickname is the "Pearl of the Antilles" (La Perle des Antilles) because of both its natural beauty,[39] and the amount of wealth it accumulated for the Kingdom of France; during the 18th century the colony was the world's leading producer of sugar and coffee.[40]
+
+The island of Hispaniola, of which Haiti occupies the western three-eighths,[16][17] has been inhabited since about 5000 BC by groups of Native Americans thought to have arrived from Central or South America.[19] Genetic studies show that some of these groups were related to the Yanomami of the Amazon Basin.LALUEZA-FOX, C.; CALDERÓN, F. LUNA (2001). "MtDNA from extinct Tainos and the peopling of the Caribbean". Annals of Human Genetics. 2001 (65): 137–151. Retrieved 8 July 2020. Amongst these early settlers were the Ciboney peoples, followed by the Taíno, speakers of an Arawakan language, elements of which have been preserved in Haitian Creole. The Taíno name for the entire island was Haiti, or alternatively Quisqeya.[41]
+
+In Taíno society the largest unit of political organisation was led by a cacique, or chief, as the Europeans understood them. The island of Hipaniola was divided among five 'caciquedoms': the Magua in the north east, the Marien in the north west, the Jaragua in the south west, the Maguana in the central regions of Cibao, and the Higüey in the south east.[42][43]
+
+Taíno cultural artifacts include cave paintings in several locations in the country. These have become national symbols of Haiti and tourist attractions. Modern-day Léogâne, started as a French colonial town in the southwest, is beside the former capital of the caciquedom of Xaragua.[44]
+
+Navigator Christopher Columbus landed in Haiti on 6 December 1492, in an area that he named Môle-Saint-Nicolas,[45] and claimed the island for the Crown of Castile. Nineteen days later, his ship the Santa María ran aground near the present site of Cap-Haïtien. Columbus left 39 men on the island, who founded the settlement of La Navidad on 25 December 1492.[19] Relations with the native peoples, initially good, broke down and the settlers were later killed by the Taíno.[46]
+
+The sailors carried endemic Eurasian infectious diseases to which the native peoples lacked immunity, causing them to die in great numbers in epidemics.[47][48] The first recorded smallpox epidemic in the Americas erupted on Hispaniola in 1507.[49] Their numbers were further reduced by the harshness of the encomienda system, in which the Spanish forced natives to work in gold mines and plantations.[50][46]
+
+The Spanish passed the Laws of Burgos, 1512–13, which forbade the maltreatment of natives, endorsed their conversion to Catholicism,[51] and gave legal framework to encomiendas. The natives were brought to these sites to work in specific plantations or industries.[52]
+
+As the Spanish re-focused their colonization efforts on the greater riches of mainland Central and South America, Hispaniola became reduced largely to a trading and refuelling post. As a result piracy became widespread, encouraged by European powers hostile to Spain such as France (based on Île de la Tortue) and England.[46] The Spanish largely abandoned the western third of the island, focusing their colonization effort on the eastern two-thirds.[53][19] The western part of the island was thus gradually settled by French buccaneers; among them was Bertrand d'Ogeron, who succeeded in growing tobacco and recruited many French colonial families from Martinique and Guadeloupe.[citation needed] In 1697 France and Spain settled their hostilities on the island by way of the Treaty of Ryswick of 1697, which divided Hispaniola between them.[54][19]
+
+France received the western third and subsequently named it Saint-Domingue, the French equivalent of Santo Domingo, the Spanish colony on Hispaniola.[55] The French set about creating sugar and coffee plantations, worked by vast numbers of slaves imported from Africa, and Saint-Domingue grew to become their richest colonial possession.[54][19]
+
+The French settlers were outnumbered by slaves by almost 10 to 1.[54] According to the 1788 Census, Haiti's population consisted of nearly 25,000 Europeans, 22,000 free coloreds and 700,000 African slaves.[56] In contrast, by 1763 the white population of French Canada, a far larger territory, had numbered only 65,000.[57] In the north of the island, slaves were able to retain many ties to African cultures, religion and language; these ties were continually being renewed by newly imported Africans. Some West African slaves held on to their traditional Vodou beliefs by secretly syncretizing it with Catholicism.[19]
+
+The French enacted the Code Noir ("Black Code"), prepared by Jean-Baptiste Colbert and ratified by Louis XIV, which established rules on slave treatment and permissible freedoms.[58] Saint-Domingue has been described as one of the most brutally efficient slave colonies; one-third of newly imported Africans died within a few years.[59] Many slaves died from diseases such as smallpox and typhoid fever.[60] They had low birth rates,[61] and there is evidence that some women aborted fetuses rather than give birth to children within the bonds of slavery.[62] The colony's environment also suffered, as forests were cleared to make way for plantations and the land was overworked so as to extract maximum profit for French plantation owners.[19]
+
+As in its Louisiana colony, the French colonial government allowed some rights to free people of color (gens de couleur), the mixed-race descendants of European male colonists and African female slaves (and later, mixed-race women).[54] Over time, many were released from slavery and they established a separate social class. White French Creole fathers frequently sent their mixed-race sons to France for their education. Some men of color were admitted into the military. More of the free people of color lived in the south of the island, near Port-au-Prince, and many intermarried within their community.[54] They frequently worked as artisans and tradesmen, and began to own some property, including slaves of their own.[19][54] The free people of color petitioned the colonial government to expand their rights.[54]
+
+The brutality of slave life led many slaves to escape to mountainous regions, where they set up their own autonomous communities and became known as Maroons.[19] One Maroon leader, François Mackandal, led a rebellion in the 1750s, however he was later captured and executed by the French.[54]
+
+Inspired by the French Revolution of 1789 and principles of the rights of man, the French settlers and free people of color pressed for greater political freedom and more civil rights.[58] Tensions between these two groups led to conflict, as a militia of free-coloreds was set up in 1790 by Vincent Ogé, resulting in his capture, torture and execution.[19] Sensing an opportunity, in August 1791 the first slave armies were established in northern Haiti under the leadership of Toussaint Louverture inspired by the Vodou houngan (priest) Boukman, and backed by the Spanish in Santo Domingo – soon a full-blown slave rebellion had broken out across the entire colony.[19]
+
+In 1792, the French government sent three commissioners with troops to re-establish control; to build an alliance with the gens de couleur and slaves commissioners Léger-Félicité Sonthonax and Étienne Polverel abolished slavery in the colony.[58] Six months later, the National Convention, led by Maximilien de Robespierre and the Jacobins, endorsed abolition and extended it to all the French colonies.[63]
+
+Political leaders in the United States, which was a new republic itself, reacted with ambivalence, at times providing aid to enable planters to put down the revolt. Later in the revolution, the US provided support to native Haitian military forces, with the goal of reducing French influence in North America and the Caribbean.[64][65]
+
+With slavery abolished, Toussaint Louverture pledged allegiance to France, and he fought off the British and Spanish forces who had taken advantage of the situation and invaded Saint-Domingue.[66][67] The Spanish were later forced to cede their part of the island to France under the terms of the Peace of Basel in 1795, uniting the island under one government. However an insurgency against French rule broke out in the east, and in the west there was fighting between Louverture's forces and the free people of color led by André Rigaud in the War of the Knives (1799–1800).[68][69] Many surviving free people of color left the island as refugees.[citation needed]
+
+After Louverture created a separatist constitution and proclaimed himself governor-general for life, Napoléon Bonaparte in 1802 sent an expedition of 20,000 soldiers and as many sailors[70] under the command of his brother-in-law, Charles Leclerc, to reassert French control. The French achieved some victories, but within a few months most of their army had died from yellow fever.[71] Ultimately more than 50,000 French troops died in an attempt to retake the colony, including 18 generals.[72] The French managed to capture Louverture, transporting him to France for trial. He was imprisoned at Fort de Joux, where he died in 1803 of exposure and possibly tuberculosis.[59][73]
+
+The slaves, along with free gens de couleur and allies, continued their fight for independence, led by generals Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Alexandre Pétion and Henry Christophe.[73] The rebels finally managed to decisively defeat the French troops at the Battle of Vertières on 18 November 1803, leading the first ever nation to successfully gain independence through a slave revolt.[74] Under the overall command of Dessalines, the Haitian armies avoided open battle, and instead conducted a successful guerrilla campaign against the Napoleonic forces, working with diseases such as yellow fever to reduce the numbers of French soldiers.[75] Later that year France withdrew its remaining 7,000 troops from the island and Napoleon gave up his idea of re-establishing a North American empire, selling Louisiana (New France) to the United States, in the Louisiana Purchase.[73] It has been estimated that between 24,000 and 100,000 Europeans, and between 100,000 and 350,000 Haitian ex-slaves, died in the revolution.[76] In the process, Dessalines became arguably the most successful military commander in the struggle against Napoleonic France.[77]
+
+The independence of Saint-Domingue was proclaimed under the native name 'Haiti' by Dessalines on 1 January 1804 in Gonaïves[78][79] and he was proclaimed "Emperor for Life" as Emperor Jacques I by his troops.[80] Dessalines at first offered protection to the white planters and others.[81] However, once in power, he ordered the massacre of nearly all white men, women, children; between January and April 1804, 3,000 to 5,000 whites were killed, including those who had been friendly and sympathetic to the black population.[82] Only three categories of white people were selected out as exceptions and spared: Polish soldiers, the majority of whom had deserted from the French army and fought alongside the Haitian rebels; the small group of German colonists invited to the north-west region; and a group of medical doctors and professionals.[83] Reportedly, people with connections to officers in the Haitian army were also spared, as well as the women who agreed to marry non-white men.[84]
+
+Fearful of the potential impact the slave rebellion could have in the slave states, U.S. President Thomas Jefferson refused to recognize the new republic. The Southern politicians who were a powerful voting block in the American Congress prevented U.S. recognition for decades until they withdrew in 1861 to form the Confederacy.[85]
+
+The revolution led to a wave of emigration.[86] In 1809, 9,000 refugees from Saint-Domingue, both white planters and people of color, settled en masse in New Orleans, doubling the city's population, having been expelled from their initial refuge in Cuba by Spanish authorities.[87] In addition, the newly arrived slaves added to the city's African population.[88]
+
+The plantation system was reestablished in Haiti, albeit for wages, however many Haitians were marginalized and resented the heavy-handed manner in which this was enforced in the new nation's politics.[73] The rebel movement splintered, and Dessalines was assassinated by rivals on 17 October 1806.[89][73]
+
+After Dessalines' death Haiti became split into two, with the Kingdom of Haiti in the north directed by Henri Christophe, later declaring himself Henri I, and a republic in the south centred on Port-au-Prince, directed by Alexandre Pétion, an homme de couleur.[91][92][93][94][73] Christophe established a semi-feudal corvée system, with a rigid education and economic code.[95] Pétion's republic was less absolutist, and he initiated a series of land reforms which benefited the peasant class.[73] President Pétion also gave military and financial assistance to the revolutionary leader Simón Bolívar, which were critical in enabling him to liberate the Viceroyalty of New Granada.[96] Meanwhile the French, who had managed to maintain a precarious control of eastern Hispaniola, were defeated by insurgents led by Juan Sánchez Ramírez, with the area returning to Spanish rule in 1809 following the Battle of Palo Hincado.[97]
+
+Beginning in 1821, President Jean-Pierre Boyer, also an homme de couleur and successor to Pétion, reunified the island following the suicide of Henry Christophe.[19][98] After Santo Domingo declared its independence from Spain on 30 November 1821, Boyer invaded, seeking to unite the entire island by force and ending slavery in Santo Domingo.[99]
+
+Struggling to revive the agricultural economy to produce commodity crops, Boyer passed the Code Rural, which denied peasant laborers the right to leave the land, enter the towns, or start farms or shops of their own, causing much resentment as most peasants wished to have their own farms rather than work on plantations.[100][101]
+
+The American Colonization Society (ACS) encouraged free blacks in the United States to emigrate to Haiti. Starting in September 1824, more than 6,000 African Americans migrated to Haiti, with transportation paid by the ACS.[102] Many found the conditions too harsh and returned to the United States.
+
+In July 1825, King Charles X of France, during a period of restoration of the French monarchy, sent a fleet to reconquer the island. Under pressure, President Boyer agreed to a treaty by which France formally recognized the independence of the nation in exchange for a payment of 150 million francs.[19] By an order of 17 April 1826, the King of France renounced his rights of sovereignty and formally recognized the independence of Haiti.[103][104][105] The enforced payments to France hampered Haiti's economic growth for years, exacerbated by the fact that many Western nations continued to refuse formal diplomatic recognition to Haiti; Britain recognized Haitian independence in 1833, and the United States not until 1862.[19] Haiti borrowed heavily from Western banks at extremely high interest rates to repay the debt. Although the amount of the reparations was reduced to 90 million in 1838, by 1900 80% of the country's gross domestic product was being spent on debt repayment[106][107] and the country did not finish repaying it until 1947.[citation needed]
+
+After losing the support of Haiti's elite, Boyer was ousted in 1843, with Charles Rivière-Hérard replacing him as president.[19] Nationalist Dominican forces in eastern Hispaniola led by Juan Pablo Duarte seized control of Santo Domingo on 27 February 1844.[19] The Haitian forces, unprepared for a significant uprising, capitulated to the rebels, effectively ending Haitian rule of eastern Hispaniola. In March Rivière-Hérard attempted to reimpose his authority, but the Dominicans put up stiff opposition and inflicted heavy losses.[108] Rivière-Hérard was removed from office by the mulatto hierarchy and replaced with the aged general Philippe Guerrier, who assumed the presidency on 3 May 1844.
+
+Guerrier died in April 1845, and was succeeded by General Jean-Louis Pierrot.[109] Pierrot's most pressing duty as the new president was to check the incursions of the Dominicans, who were harassing the Haitian troops.[109] Dominican gunboats were also making depredations on Haiti's coasts.[109]  President Pierrot decided to open a campaign against the Dominicans, whom he considered merely as insurgents, however the Haitian offensive of 1845 was stopped on the frontier.[108]
+
+On 1 January 1846 Pierrot announced a fresh campaign to re-imposed Haitian suzerainty over eastern Hispaniola, but his officers and men greeted this fresh summons with contempt.[108] Thus, a month later – February 1846 – when Pierrot ordered his troops to march against the Dominicans, the Haitian army mutinied, and its soldiers proclaimed his overthrow as president of the republic.[108] With the war against the Dominicans having become very unpopular in Haiti, it was beyond the power of the new president, General Jean-Baptiste Riché, to stage another invasion.[108]
+
+On 27 February 1847, President Riché died after only a year in power and was replaced by an obscure officer, General Faustin Soulouque.[19] During the first two years of Soulouque's administration the conspiracies and opposition he faced in retaining power were so manifold that the Dominicans were given a further breathing space in which to consolidate their independence.[108] But, when in 1848 France finally recognized the Dominican Republic as a free and independent state and provisionally signed a treaty of peace, friendship, commerce and navigation, Haiti immediately protested, claiming the treaty was an attack upon their own security.[108] Soulouque decided to invade the new Republic before the French Government could ratify the treaty.[108]
+
+On 21 March 1849, Haitian soldiers attacked the Dominican garrison at Las Matas. The demoralized defenders offered almost no resistance before abandoning their weapons. Soulouque pressed on, capturing San Juan. This left only the town of Azua as the remaining Dominican stronghold between the Haitian army and the capital. On 6 April, Azua fell to the 18,000-strong Haitian army, with a 5,000-man Dominican counterattack failing to oust them.[66] The way to Santo Domingo was now clear. But the news of discontent existing at Port-au-Prince, which reached Soulouque, arrested his further progress and caused him to return with the army to his capital.[110]
+
+Emboldened by the sudden retreat of the Haitian army, the Dominicans counter-attacked. Their flotilla went as far as Dame-Marie, which they plundered and set on fire.[110] Soulouque, now self-proclaimed as Emperor Faustin I, decided to start a new campaign against them. In 1855, he again invaded the territory of the Dominican Republic. But owing to insufficient preparation, the army was soon in want of victuals and ammunition.[110] In spite of the bravery of the soldiers, the Emperor had once more to give up the idea of a unified island under Haitian control.[110] After this campaign, Britain and France interfered and obtained an armistice on behalf of the Dominicans, who declared independence as the Dominican Republic.[110]
+
+The sufferings endured by the soldiers during the campaign of 1855, and the losses and sacrifices inflicted on the country without yielding any compensation or any practical results provoked great discontent.[110] In 1858 a revolution began, led by General Fabre Geffrard, Duke of Tabara. In December of that year, Geffrard defeated the Imperial Army and seized control of most of the country.[19] As a result, the Emperor abdicated his throne on 15 January 1859. Refused aid by the French Legation, Faustin was taken into exile aboard a British warship on 22 January 1859, and General Geffrard succeeded him as President.
+
+The period following Soulouque's overthrow down to the turn of the century was a turbulent one for Haiti, with repeated bouts of political instability. President Geffrard was overthrown in a coup in 1867,[111] as was his successor, Sylvain Salnave, in 1869.[112] Under the Presidency of Michel Domingue (1874–76) relations with the Dominican Republic were dramatically improved by the signing of a treaty, in which both parties acknowledged the independence of the other, bringing an end to Haitian dreams of bringing the entirety of Hispaniola under their control. Some modernisation of the economy and infrastructure also occurred in this period, especially under the Presidencies of Lysius Salomon (1879–88) and Florvil Hyppolite (1889–96).[113]
+
+Haiti's relations with outside powers were often strained. In 1889 the United States attempted to force Haiti to permit the building of a naval base at Môle Saint-Nicolas, which was firmly resisted by President Hyppolite.[114] In 1892 the German government supported suppression of the reform movement of Anténor Firmin, and in 1897, the Germans used gunboat diplomacy to intimidate and then humiliate the Haitian government of President Tirésias Simon Sam (1896–1902) during the Lüders Affair.[115]
+
+In the first decades of the 20th century, Haiti experienced great political instability and was heavily in debt to France, Germany and the United States. A series of short lived presidencies came and went: President Pierre Nord Alexis was forced from power in 1908,[116][117] as was his successor François C. Antoine Simon in 1911;[118] President Cincinnatus Leconte (1911–12) was killed in a (possibly deliberate) explosion at the National Palace;[119] Michel Oreste (1913–14) was ousted in a coup, as was his successor Oreste Zamor in 1914.[120]
+
+Germany increased its influence in Haiti in this period, with a small community of German settlers wielding disproportionate influence in Haiti's economy.[121][122] The German influence prompted anxieties in the United States, who had also invested heavily in the country, and whose government defended their right to oppose foreign interference in the Americas under the Monroe Doctrine.[19][122] In December 1914, the Americans removed $500,000 from the Haitian National Bank, but rather than seize it to help pay the debt, it was removed for safe-keeping in New York, thus giving the United States control of the bank and preventing other powers from doing so. This gave a stable financial base on which to build the economy, and so enable the debt to be repaid.[123]
+
+In 1915, Haiti's new President Vilbrun Guillaume Sam sought to strengthen his tenuous rule by a mass execution of 167 political prisoners. Outrage at the killings led to riots, and Sam was captured and killed by a lynch mob.[122][124] Fearing possible foreign intervention, or the emergence of a new government led by the anti-American Haitian politician Rosalvo Bobo, President Woodrow Wilson sent U.S. Marines into Haiti in July 1915. The USS Washington, under Rear Admiral Caperton, arrived in Port-au-Prince in an attempt to restore order and protect U.S. interests. Within days, the Marines had taken control of the capital city and its banks and customs house. The Marines declared martial law and severely censored the press. Within weeks, a new pro-U.S. Haitian president, Philippe Sudré Dartiguenave, was installed and a new constitution written that was favorable to the interests of the United States. The constitution (written by future US President Franklin D. Roosevelt) included a clause that allowed, for the first time, foreign ownership of land in Haiti, which was bitterly opposed by the Haitian legislature and citizenry.[122][125]
+
+The occupation greatly improved some of Haiti's infrastructure and centralized power in Port-au-Prince.[122] Infrastructure improvements were particularly impressive: 1700 km of roads were made usable, 189 bridges were built, many irrigation canals were rehabilitated, hospitals, schools, and public buildings were constructed, and drinking water was brought to the main cities.[citation needed] Port-au-Prince became the first Caribbean city to have a phone service with automatic dialling.[citation needed] Agricultural education was organized, with a central school of agriculture and 69 farms in the country.[126] However many infrastructure projects were built using the corvée system that allowed the government/occupying forces to take people from their homes and farms, at gunpoint if necessary, to build roads, bridges etc. by force, a process that was deeply resented by ordinary Haitians.[127][122] Sisal was also introduced to Haiti, and sugarcane and cotton became significant exports, boosting prosperity.[128] Haitian traditionalists, based in rural areas, were highly resistant to U.S.-backed changes, while the urban elites, typically mixed-race, welcomed the growing economy, but wanted more political control.[19] Together they helped secure an end to the occupation in 1934, under the Presidency of Sténio Vincent (1930–41).[19][129] The debts were still outstanding, though less due to increased prosperity, and the U.S. financial advisor-general receiver handled the budget until 1941.[130][19]
+
+The U.S. Marines were instilled with a special brand of paternalism towards Haitians "expressed in the metaphor of a father's relationship with his children."[131] Armed opposition to the US presence was led by the cacos under the command of Charlemagne Péralte; his capture and execution in 1919 earned him the status of a national martyr.[132][19][122] During Senate hearings in 1921, the commandant of the Marine Corps reported that, in the 20 months of active unrest, 2,250 Haitians had been killed. However, in a report to the Secretary of the Navy, he reported the death toll as being 3,250.[133] Haitian historians have claimed the true number was much higher. One went so far as to say, "the total number of battle victims and casualties of repression and consequences of the war might have reached, by the end of the pacification period, four or five times that – somewhere in the neighborhood of 15,000 persons." This is not supported by most historians outside Haiti.[134]
+
+Recognition of the distinctive traditionalism of the Haitian people had an influence on American writers, including Eugene O'Neill, James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston and Orson Welles.[135]
+
+After US forces left in 1934, Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo used anti-Haitian sentiment as a nationalist tool. In an event that became known as the Parsley Massacre, he ordered his army to kill Haitians living on the Dominican side of the border.[136][137] Few bullets were used – instead, 20,000–30,000 Haitians were bludgeoned and bayonetted, then herded into the sea, where sharks finished what Trujillo had begun.[138] Congressman Hamilton Fish, ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee,  called the Parsley Massacre "the most outrageous atrocity that has ever been perpetrated on the American continent."[139]
+
+President Vincent became increasingly dictatorial, and resigned under US pressure in 1941, being replaced by Élie Lescot (1941–46).[140] In 1941, during the Second World War, Lescot declared war on Japan (8 December), Germany (12 December), Italy (12 December), Bulgaria (24 December), Hungary (24 December) and Romania (24 December).[141] Out of these six Axis countries, only Romania reciprocated, declaring war on Haiti on the same day (24 December 1941).[142] On 27 September 1945,[143] Haiti became a founding member of the United Nations (the successor to the League of Nations, of which Haiti was also a founding member).[144][145]
+
+In 1946 Lescot was overthrown by the military, with Dumarsais Estimé later becoming the new president (1946–50).[19] He sought to improve the economy and education, and to boost the role of black Haitians, however as he sought to consolidate his rule he too was overthrown in a coup led by Paul Magloire, who replaced him as president (1950–56).[19][146] Firmly anti-Communist, he was supported by the United States; with greater political stability tourists started to visit Haiti.[147] The waterfront area of Port-au-Prince was redeveloped to allow cruise ship passengers to walk from the docks to cultural attractions. Celebrities such as Truman Capote and Noël Coward visited Haiti; the era is captured in Graham Greene's 1966 novel The Comedians.[148]
+
+In 1956–57 Haiti underwent severe political turmoil; Magloire was forced to resign and leave the country in 1956 and he was followed by four short-lived presidencies.[19] In the  September 1957 election Dr. François Duvalier was elected President of Haiti. Known as 'Papa Doc' and initially popular, Duvalier remained President until his death in 1971.[149] He advanced black interests in the public sector, where over time, people of color had predominated as the educated urban elite.[19][150] Not trusting the army, despite his frequent purges of officers deemed disloyal, Duvalier created a private militia known as Tontons Macoutes ("Bogeymen"), which maintained order by terrorizing the populace and political opponents.[149][151] In 1964 Duvalier proclaimed himself 'President for Life'; an uprising against his rule that year in Jérémie was violently suppressed, with the ringleaders publicly executed and hundreds of mixed-raced citizens in the town killed.[149] The bulk of the educated and professional class began leaving the country, and corruption became widespread.[19][149] Duvalier sought to create a personality cult, identifying himself with Baron Samedi, one of the loa, or spirits, of Haitian Vodou. Despite the well-publicized abuses under his rule, Duvalier's firm anti-Communism earned him the support of the Americans, who burnished the country with aid.[149][152]
+
+In 1971 Duvalier died, and he was succeeded by his son Jean-Claude Duvalier, nicknamed 'Baby Doc', who ruled until 1986.[153][149] He largely continued his father's policies, though curbed some of the worst excesses in order to court international respectability.[19] Tourism, which had nosedived in Papa Doc's time, again became a growing industry.[148] However as the economy continued to decline Baby Doc's grip on power began to weaken. Haiti's pig population was slaughtered following an outbreak of swine fever in the late 1970s, causing hardship to rural communities who used them as an investment.[19][154] The opposition became more vocal, bolstered by a visit to the country by Pope John Paul II in 1983, who publicly lambasted the president.[155] Demonstrations occurred in Gonaïves in 1985 which then spread across the country; under pressure from the United States, Duvalier left the country for France in February 1986.
+
+In total, roughly 40,000 to 60,000 Haitians are estimated to have been killed during the reign of the Duvaliers.[156] Through the use of his intimidation tactics and executions, many intellectual Haitians had fled, leaving the country with a massive brain-drain that it has yet to recover from.[157]
+
+Following Duvalier's departure, army leader General Henri Namphy headed a new National Governing Council.[19] Elections scheduled for November 1987 were aborted after dozens of inhabitants were shot in the capital by soldiers and Tontons Macoutes.[158][19] Fraudulent elections followed in 1988, in which only 4% of the citizenry voted.[159][19] The newly elected President, Leslie Manigat, was then overthrown some months later in the June 1988 Haitian coup d'état.[19][160] Another coup followed in September 1988, after the St. Jean Bosco massacre in which 13–50 people (estimates vary) attending a mass led by prominent government critic and Catholic priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide were killed.[160][161] General Prosper Avril subsequently led a military regime until March 1990.[19][162][163]
+
+In December 1990 Jean-Bertrand Aristide was elected President in the Haitian general election. However his ambitious reformist agenda worried the elites, and in September of the following year he was overthrown by the military, led by Raoul Cédras, in the 1991 Haitian coup d'état.[19][164] Amidst the continuing turmoil many Haitians attempted to flee the country.[149][19]
+
+In September 1994, the United States negotiated the departure of Haiti's military leaders and the peaceful entry of 20,000 US troops under Operation Uphold Democracy.[149] This enabled the restoration of the democratically elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide as president, who returned to Haiti in October to complete his term.[165][166] As part of the deal Aristide had to implement free market reforms in an attempt to improve the Haitian economy, with mixed results, some sources stating that these reforms had a negative impact on native Haitian industry.[167][19] In November 1994, Hurricane Gordon brushed Haiti, dumping heavy rain and creating flash flooding that triggered mudslides. Gordon killed an estimated 1,122 people, although some estimates go as high as 2,200.[168][169]
+
+Elections were held in 1995 which were won by René Préval, gaining 88% of the popular vote, albeit on a low turnout.[170][171][19] Aristide subsequently formed his own party, Fanmi Lavalas, and political deadlock ensued; the November 2000 election returned Aristide to the presidency with 92% of the vote.[172] The election had been boycotted by the opposition, then organized into the Convergence Démocratique, over a dispute in the May legislative elections. In subsequent years, there was increasing violence between rival political faction and human rights abuses.[173][174] Aristide spent years negotiating with the Convergence Démocratique on new elections, but the Convergence's inability to develop a sufficient electoral base made elections unattractive.[citation needed]
+
+In 2004 an anti-Aristide revolt began in northern Haiti. The rebellion eventually reached the capital, and Aristide was forced into exile.[173][19] The precise nature of the events are disputed; some, including Aristide and his bodyguard, Franz Gabriel, stated that he was the victim of a "new coup d'état or modern kidnapping" by U.S. forces.[173] Mrs. Aristide stated that the kidnappers wore U.S. Special Forces uniforms, but changed into civilian clothes upon boarding the aircraft that was used to remove Aristide from Haiti.[175][176] These charges were denied by the US government.[177][173] As political violence and crime continued to grow, a United Nations Stabilisation Mission (MINUSTAH) was brought in to maintain order.[178] Howeever MINUSTAH proved controversial, as their at times heavy-handed approach to maintaining law and order and several instances of abuses, including the alleged sexual abuse of civilians, provoked resentment and distrust amongst ordinary Haitians.[179][180][19] Boniface Alexandre assumed interim authority until 2006, when René Préval was re-elected President following elections.[178][19][181]
+
+Amidst the continuing political chaos, a series of natural disasters hit Haiti. In 2004 Tropical Storm Jeanne skimmed the north coast, leaving 3,006 people dead in flooding and mudslides, mostly in the city of Gonaïves.[182] In 2008 Haiti was again struck by tropical storms; Tropical Storm Fay, Hurricane Gustav, Hurricane Hanna and Hurricane Ike all produced heavy winds and rain, resulting in 331 deaths and about 800,000 in need of humanitarian aid.[183] The state of affairs produced by these storms was intensified by already high food and fuel prices that had caused a food crisis and political unrest in April 2008.[184][185][19]
+
+On 12 January 2010, at 4:53pm local time, Haiti was struck by a magnitude-7.0 earthquake. This was the country's most severe earthquake in over 200 years.[186] The earthquake was reported to have left between 220,000 and 300,000 people dead and up to 1.6 million homeless.[187]
+[188] The situation was exacerbated by a subsequent massive cholera outbreak that was triggered when cholera-infected waste from a United Nations peacekeeping station contaminated the country's main river, the Artibonite.[178][189][190] In 2017, it was reported that roughly 10,000 Haitians had died and nearly a million had been made ill. After years of denial the United Nations apologized in 2016, but as of 2017[update], they have refused to acknowledge fault, thus avoiding financial responsibility.[191]
+
+General elections had been planned for January 2010 but were postponed due to the earthquake.[19] Elections were held on 28 November 2010 for the senate, the parliament and the first round of the presidential elections. The run-off between Michel Martelly and Mirlande Manigat took place on 20 March 2011, and preliminary results, released on 4 April, named Michel Martelly the winner.[192][193] In 2011 both former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier and Jean-Bertrand Aristide returned to Haiti; attempts to try Duvalier for crimes committed under his rule were shelved following his death in 2014.[194][195][196][192] In 2013, Haiti called for European nations to pay reparations for slavery and establish an official commission for the settlement of past wrongdoings.[197][198] Meanwhile, after continuing political wrangling with the opposition and allegations of electoral fraud, Martelly agreed to step down in 2016 without having a successor in place.[192][199] An interim president, Jocelerme Privert, then took office.[19] After numerous postponements, partly owing to the effects of another devastating hurricane, elections were eventually held in November 2016.[200][201] The victor, Jovenel Moïse of the Haitian Tèt Kale Party, was subsequently sworn in as president in 2017.[202][203] The 2018 and 2019 Haitian protests are demonstrations in cities throughout Haiti that began on 7 July 2018, in response to increased fuel prices. Over time these protests evolved into demands for the resignation of president Moïse.[204]
+
+Haiti forms the western three-eighths of Hispaniola, the second largest island in the Greater Antilles. At 27,750 sq km Haiti is the third largest country in the Caribbean behind Cuba and the Dominican Republic, the latter sharing a 360-kilometre (224 mi) border with Haiti. The country has a roughly horseshoe shape and because of this it has a disproportionately long coastline, second in length (1,771 km or 1,100 mi) behind Cuba in the Greater Antilles.[205][206]
+
+Haiti is the most mountainous nation in the Caribbean, its terrain consists of mountains interspersed with small coastal plains and river valleys.[18] The climate is tropical, with some variation depending on altitude. The highest point is Pic la Selle, at 2,680 metres (8,793 ft).[20][18][19]
+
+The northern region consists of the Massif du Nord (Northern Massif) and the Plaine du Nord (Northern Plain). The Massif du Nord is an extension of the Cordillera Central in the Dominican Republic.[19] It begins at Haiti's eastern border, north of the Guayamouc River, and extends to the northwest through the northern peninsula. The lowlands of the Plaine du Nord lie along the northern border with the Dominican Republic, between the Massif du Nord and the North Atlantic Ocean.
+
+The central region consists of two plains and two sets of mountain ranges. The Plateau Central (Central Plateau) extends along both sides of the Guayamouc River, south of the Massif du Nord. It runs from the southeast to the northwest. To the southwest of the Plateau Central are the Montagnes Noires, whose most northwestern part merges with the Massif du Nord. Haiti's most important valley in terms of crops is the Plaine de l'Artibonite, which lies between the Montagnes Noires and the Chaîne des Matheux.[19] This region supports the country's (also Hispaniola's) longest river, the Riviere l'Artibonite, which begins in the western region of the Dominican Republic and continues for most of its length through central Haiti, where it then empties into the Golfe de la Gonâve.[19] Also in this valley lies Haiti's second largest lake, Lac de Péligre, formed as a result of the construction of the Péligre Dam in the mid-1950s.[207]
+
+The southern region consists of the Plaine du Cul-de-Sac (the southeast) and the mountainous southern peninsula (also known as the Tiburon Peninsula). The Plaine du Cul-de-Sac is a natural depression that harbors the country's saline lakes, such as Trou Caïman and Haiti's largest lake, Étang Saumatre. The Chaîne de la Selle mountain range – an extension of the southern mountain chain of the Dominican Republic (the Sierra de Baoruco) – extends from the Massif de la Selle in the east to the Massif de la Hotte in the west.[19]
+
+Haiti also includes several offshore islands. The island of Tortuga (Île de la Tortue) is located off the coast of northern Haiti. The arrondissement of La Gonâve is located on the island of the same name, in the Golfe de la Gonâve; Haiti's largest island, Gonâve is moderately populated by rural villagers. Île à Vache (Cow Island) is located off the southwest coast; also part of Haiti are the Cayemites, located in the Gulf of Gonâve north of Pestel. La Navasse (Navassa Island), located 40 nautical miles (46 mi; 74 km) west of Jérémie on the south west peninsula of Haiti,[208] is subject to an ongoing territorial dispute with the United States, who currently administer the island via the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.[209]
+
+Haiti's climate is tropical with some variation depending on altitude.[18] Port-au-Prince ranges in January from an average minimum of 23 °C (73.4 °F) to an average maximum of 31 °C (87.8 °F); in July, from 25–35 °C (77–95 °F). The rainfall pattern is varied, with rain heavier in some of the lowlands and the northern and eastern slopes of the mountains. Haiti's dry season occurs from November to January.
+
+Port-au-Prince receives an average annual rainfall of 1,370 mm (53.9 in). There are two rainy seasons, April–June and October–November. Haiti is subject to periodic droughts and floods, made more severe by deforestation. Hurricanes are a menace, and the country is also prone to drought, flooding and earthquakes.[18]
+
+There are blind thrust faults associated with the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault system over which Haiti lies.[210] After the earthquake of 2010, there was no evidence of surface rupture and geologists' findings were based on seismological, geological and ground deformation data.[211]
+
+The northern boundary of the fault is where the Caribbean tectonic plate shifts eastwards by about 20 mm (0.79 inches) per year in relation to the North American plate. The strike-slip fault system in the region has two branches in Haiti, the Septentrional-Oriente fault in the north and the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault in the south.
+
+A 2007 earthquake hazard study, noted that the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault zone could be at the end of its seismic cycle and concluded that a worst-case forecast would involve a 7.2 Mw earthquake, similar in size to the 1692 Jamaica earthquake.[212] A study team presented a hazard assessment of the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault system to the 18th Caribbean Geologic Conference in March 2008, noting the large strain. The team recommended "high priority" historical geologic rupture studies, as the fault was fully locked and had recorded few earthquakes in the preceding 40 years.[213] An article published in Haiti's Le Matin newspaper in September 2008 cited comments by geologist Patrick Charles to the effect that there was a high risk of major seismic activity in Port-au-Prince;[214] and duly the magnitude 7.0 2010 Haiti earthquake happened on this fault zone on 12 January 2010.
+
+Haiti also has rare elements such as gold, which can be found at The Mont Organisé gold mine.[215]
+
+The soil erosion released from the upper catchments and deforestation have caused periodic and severe flooding in Haiti, as experienced, for example, on 17 September 2004. Earlier in May that year, floods had killed over 3,000 people on Haiti's southern border with the Dominican Republic.[216]
+
+Haiti's forests covered 60% of the country as recently as 50 years ago, but that has been halved to a current estimate of 30% tree cover, according to more recent environmental analysis. This estimate poses a stark difference from the erroneous figure of 2% which has been oft-cited in discourse concerning the country's environmental condition.[217]
+
+Scientists at the Columbia University's Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN)  and the United Nations Environment Programme are working on the Haiti Regenerative Initiative an initiative aiming to reduce poverty and natural disaster vulnerability in Haiti through ecosystem restoration and sustainable resource management.[218]
+
+Despite its small size, Haiti's mountainous terrain and resultant multiple climactic zones has resulted in a wide variety of plant life.[219] Notable tree species include the breadfruit tree, mango tree, acacia, mahogany, coconut palm, royal palm and West Indian cedar.[219] The forests were formerly much more extensive, but have been subject to severe deforestation.[19]
+
+Most mammal species are not native, having being brought to the island since colonial times.[219] However there are various native bat species, as well as the endemic Hispaniolan hutia and Hispaniolan solenodon.[219] Various whale and dolphin species can also be found off Haiti's coast.
+
+There are over 260 species of bird, 31 of these being endemic to Hispaniola.[220] Notable endemic species include the Hispaniola trogon, Hispaniola parakeet, grey-crowned tanager and the Hispaniola Amazon.[220] There are also several raptor species, as well as pelicans, ibis, hummingbirds and ducks.
+
+Reptiles are common, with species such as the rhinoceros iguana, Haitian boa, American crocodile and gecko.[221]
+
+The government of Haiti is a semi-presidential republic, a multiparty system wherein the president of Haiti is head of state elected directly by popular elections held every five years.[19][222] The prime minister of Haiti acts as head of government and is appointed by the president, chosen from the majority party in the National Assembly.[19] Executive power is exercised by the president and prime minister who together constitute the government.
+
+Legislative power is vested in both the government and the two chambers of the National Assembly of Haiti, the Senate (Sénat) and the Chamber of Deputies (Chambre des Députés).[19][18] The government is organized unitarily, thus the central government delegates powers to the departments without a constitutional need for consent. The current structure of Haiti's political system was set forth in the Constitution of Haiti on 29 March 1987.[18]
+
+Haitian politics have been contentious: since independence, Haiti has suffered 32 coups.[223] Haiti is the only country in the Western Hemisphere to undergo a successful slave revolution; however, a long history of oppression by dictators such as François Duvalier and his son Jean-Claude Duvalier has markedly affected the nation. Since the end of the Duvalier era Haiti has been transitioning to a democratic system.[19]
+
+Administratively, Haiti is divided into ten departments.[18] The departments are listed below, with the departmental capital cities in parentheses.
+
+The departments are further divided into 42 arrondissements, 145 communes and 571 communal sections. These serve as, respectively, second- and third-level administrative divisions.[224][225][226]
+
+Haiti is a member of a wide range of international and regional organizations, such as the United Nations, Caricom, Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, International Monetary Fund, Organisation of American States, Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, OPANAL and the World Trade Organization.[18]
+
+In February 2012, Haiti signaled it would seek to upgrade its observer status to full associate member status of the African Union (AU).[227] The AU was reported to be planning to upgrade Haiti's status from observer to associate at its June 2013 summit[228] but the application had still not been ratified by May 2016.[229]
+
+Haiti's Ministry of Defense is the main body of the armed forces.[230] The former Haitian Armed Forces were demobilized in 1995, however efforts to reconstitute it are currently underway.[231] The current defense force for Haiti is the Haitian National Police, which has a highly trained SWAT team, and works alongside the Haitian Coast Guard. In 2010, the Haitian National Police force numbered 7,000.[232]
+
+The legal system is based on a modified version of the Napoleonic Code.[233][19]
+
+Haiti has consistently ranked among the most corrupt countries in the world on the Corruption Perceptions Index.[234] According to a 2006 report by the Corruption Perceptions Index, there is a strong correlation between corruption and poverty in Haiti. The nation ranked first of all countries surveyed for of levels of perceived domestic corruption.[235] It is estimated that President "Baby Doc" Duvalier, his wife Michelle, and their agents stole US $504 million from the country's treasury between 1971 and 1986.[236] Similarly, after the Haitian Army folded in 1995, the Haitian National Police (HNP) gained sole power of authority on the Haitian citizens. Many Haitians as well as observers of the Haitian society believe that this monopolized power could have given way to a corrupt police force.[237]
+
+Similarly, some media outlets alleged that millions were stolen by former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.[238][239][240][241] In March 2004, at the time of Aristide's kidnapping, a BBC article wrote that the Bush administration State Department stated that Aristide had been involved in drug trafficking.[242] The BBC also described pyramid schemes, in which Haitians lost hundreds of millions in 2002, as the "only real economic initiative" of the Aristide years.[243]
+
+Conversely, according to the 2013 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report, murder rates in Haiti (10.2 per 100,000) are far below the regional average (26 per 100,000); less than 1/4 that of Jamaica (39.3 per 100,000) and nearly 1/2 that of the Dominican Republic (22.1 per 100,000), making it among the safer countries in the region.[244][245] In large part, this is due to the country's ability to fulfil a pledge by increasing its national police yearly by 50%, a four-year initiative that was started in 2012. In addition to the yearly recruits, the Haitian National Police (HNP) has been using innovative technologies to crack down on crime. A notable bust in recent years[when?] led to the dismantlement of the largest kidnapping ring in the country with the use of an advanced software program developed by a West Point-trained Haitian official that proved to be so effective that it has led to its foreign advisers to make inquiries.[246][247]
+
+In 2010, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) sent a team of veteran officers to Haiti to assist in the rebuilding of its police force with special training in investigative techniques, strategies to improve the anti-kidnapping personnel and community outreach to build stronger relationships with the public especially among the youth. It has also helped the HNP set up a police unit in the center of Delmas, a neighborhood of Port-au-Prince.[248][249][250]
+
+In 2012 and 2013, 150 HNP officers received specialized training funded by the US government, which also contributed to the infrastructure and communications support by upgrading radio capacity and constructing new police stations from the most violent-prone neighborhoods of Cité Soleil and Grande Ravine in Port-au-Prince to the new northern industrial park at Caracol.[250]
+
+Port-au-Prince penitentiary is home to half of Haiti's prisoners. The prison has a capacity of 1,200 detainees but as of November 2017[update] the penitentiary was obliged to keep 4,359 detainees, a 454% occupancy level.[251] This leads to severe consequences for the inmates.
+
+One cell could hold up to 60 inmates which was originally designed for only 18, therefore creating tight and uncomfortable living conditions. The inmates are forced to create makeshift hammocks from the wall and ceilings. The men are on a 22/ 23 hour lock up in the cells so the risk of diseases is very high.[251] Unable to receive sufficient funds from the government as Haiti endures severe natural disasters which takes up their attention and resources, such as the 2010 earthquake, has caused deadly cases of malnutrition, combined with the tight living conditions, increases the risk of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis which has led to 21 deaths in January 2017 alone at the Port-au-Prince penitentiary.[251]
+
+Haitian law states that once arrested, one must go before a judge within 48 hours; however, this is very rare. In an interview with Unreported World, the prison governor stated that around 529 detainees were never sentenced, there are 3,830 detainees who are in prolonged detained trial detention. Therefore, 80% are not convicted.[252]
+
+Unless families are able to provide the necessary funds for inmates to appear before a judge there is a very slim chance the inmate would have a trial, on average, within 10 years. Brian Concannon, the director of the non-profit Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, claims that without a substantial bribe to persuade judges, prosecutors and lawyers to undergo their case, there is no prospect for getting a trial for years.[253]
+
+Families may send food to the penitentiary; however, most inmates depend on the meals served twice a day. However, the majority of the meals consists of ration supplies of rice, oats or cornmeal, which has led to deadly cases of malnutrition-related ailments such as beriberi and anaemia. Prisoners too weak are crammed in the penitentiary infirmary.[254]
+
+In the confined living spaces for 22/ 23 hours a day, inmates are not provided with latrines and are forced to defecate into plastic bags and leave them outside their cells. These conditions are considered in-humane by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in 2008.[254]
+
+Haiti has a predominantly free market economy, with a GDP of $19.97 billion and per capita GDP of $1,800 (2017 estimates).[18] The country uses the Haitian gourde as its currency. Despite its tourism industry, Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the Americas, with poverty, corruption, political instability, poor infrastructure, lack of health care and lack of education cited as the main causes.[18] Unemployment is high and many Haitians seek to emigrate. Trade declined dramatically after the 2010 earthquake and subsequent outbreak of cholera, with the country's purchasing power parity GDP falling by 8% (from US$12.15 billion to US$11.18 billion).[4] Haiti ranked 145 of 182 countries in the 2010 United Nations Human Development Index, with 57.3% of the population being deprived in at least three of the HDI's poverty measures.[255]
+
+Following the disputed 2000 election and accusations about President Aristide's rule,[256] US aid to the Haitian government was cut off between 2001 and 2004.[257] After Aristide's departure in 2004, aid was restored and the Brazilian army led a United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti peacekeeping operation. After almost four years of recession, the economy grew by 1.5% in 2005.[258] In September 2009, Haiti met the conditions set out by the IMF and World Bank's Heavily Indebted Poor Countries program to qualify for cancellation of its external debt.[259]
+
+More than 90 percent of the government's budget comes from an agreement with Petrocaribe, a Venezuela-led oil alliance.[260]
+
+Haiti received more than US$4 billion in aid from 1990 to 2003, including US$1.5 billion from the United States.[261] The largest donor is the US, followed by Canada and the European Union.[262] In January 2010, following the earthquake, US President Barack Obama promised US$1.15 billion in assistance.[263] European Union nations pledged more than €400 million (US$616 million).[264] Neighboring Dominican Republic has also provided extensive humanitarian aid to Haiti, including the funding and construction of a public university,[265] human capital, free healthcare services in the border region, and logistical support after the 2010 earthquake.[266]
+
+According to the UN Office of the Special Envoy for Haiti, as of March 2012[update], of humanitarian funding committed or disbursed by bilateral and multilateral donors in 2010 and 2011, only 1% has been pledged to the Haitian government.[267]
+
+The United Nations states that in total US$13.34 billion has been earmarked for post-earthquake reconstruction through 2020, though two years after the 2010 quake, less than half of that amount had actually been released, according to UN documents. As of 2015[update], the US government has allocated US$4 billion, US$3 billion has already been spent, and the rest is dedicated to longer-term projects.[268]
+
+Former US President Bill Clinton's foundation contributed US$250,000 to a recycling initiative for a sister-program of "Ranmase Lajan" or "Picking Up Money" by use of reverse vending machines.[269]
+
+According to the 2015 CIA World Factbook, Haiti's main import partners are: Dominican Republic 35%, US 26.8%, Netherlands Antilles 8.7%, China 7% (est. 2013).  Haiti's main export partner is the US 83.5% (est. 2013).[270] Haiti had a trade deficit of US$3 billion in 2011, or 41% of GDP.[271]
+
+In 1925, the city of Jacmel was the first area in the Caribbean to have electricity and was subsequently dubbed the City of Light.[272]
+
+Today, Haiti relies heavily on an oil alliance with Petrocaribe for much of its energy requirements. In recent years, hydroelectric, solar and wind energy have been explored as possible sustainable energy sources.[273]
+
+As of 2017, among all the countries in the Americas, Haiti is producing the least amount of energy. Less than a quarter of the country has electric coverage.[274] Most regions of Haiti that do have energy are powered by generators. These generators are often expensive and produce a lot of pollution. The areas that do get electricity experience power cuts on a daily basis, and some areas are limited to 12 hours of electricity a day. Electricity is provided by a small number of independent companies: Sogener, E-power, and Haytrac.[275] There is no national electricity grid within the country.[276] The most common source of energy used is wood, along with charcoal. In Haiti, about 4 million metric tons of wood products are consumed yearly.[277] Like charcoal and wood, petroleum is also an important source of energy for Haiti. Since Haiti cannot produce its own fuel, all fuel is imported. Yearly, around 691,000 tons of oil is imported into the country.[276]
+
+On 31 October 2018, Evenson Calixte, the General Director of energy regulation (ANARSE) announced the 24 hour electricity project. To meet this objective, 236 Megawatt needs to installed in Port-au-Prince alone, with an additional 75 Megawatt needed in all other regions in the country. Presently only 27,5% of the population has access to electricity; moreover, the national energy agency l'Électricité d'Haïti (Ed'H) is only able to meet 62% of overall electricity demand said Fritz Caillot, the Minister of Public Works, Transportation and Communication (Travaux publics, transport et communication (TPTC)).[278]
+
+The World Factbook reports a shortage of skilled labor, widespread unemployment and underemployment, saying "more than two-thirds of the labor force do not have formal jobs."   It is also often stated that three-quarters of the population lives on US$2 or less per day.[279]
+
+The CIA World Factbook also states that "remittances are the primary source of foreign exchange, equalling one-fifth (20%) of GDP and representing more than five times the earnings from exports in 2012".[280] The World Bank estimates that over 80% of college graduates from Haiti were living abroad in 2004.[281]
+
+Occasionally, families who are unable to care for children financially may send them to live with a wealthier family as a restavek, or house servant. In return the family are supposed to ensure that the child is educated and provided with food and shelter, however the system is open to abuse and has proved controversial, with some likening it to child slavery.[282][283]
+
+In rural areas, people often live in wooden huts with corrugated iron roofs. Outhouses are located in back of the huts. In Port-au-Prince colorful shantytowns surround the central city and go up the mountainsides.[284]
+
+The middle and upper classes live in suburbs, or in the central part of the bigger cities in apartments, where there is urban planning. Many of the houses they live in are like miniature fortresses, located behind walls embedded with metal spikes, barbed wire, broken glass, and sometimes all three. The gates to these houses are barred at night, the house is locked; guard dogs patrol the yard. These houses are often self-sufficient as well. The houses have backup generators, because the electrical grid in Haiti is unreliable. Some even have rooftop reservoirs for water, as the water supply is also unreliable.[284]
+
+Haiti is the world's leading producer of vetiver, a root plant used to make luxury perfumes, essential oils and fragrances, providing for half the world's supply.[285][286][287] Roughly 40–50% of Haitians work in the agricultural sector.[18][288] Haiti relies upon imports for half its food needs and 80% of its rice.[288]
+
+Haiti exports crops such as mangoes, cacao, coffee, papayas, mahogany nuts, spinach, and watercress.[289] Agricultural products comprise 6% of all exports.[271] In addition, local agricultural products include maize, beans, cassava, sweet potato, peanuts, pistachios, bananas, millet, pigeon peas, sugarcane, rice, sorghum, and wood.[289][290]
+
+The Haitian gourde (HTG) is the national currency. The "Haitian dollar" equates to 5 gourdes (goud), which is a fixed exchange rate that exists in concept only, but are commonly used as informal prices.[citation needed] The vast majority of the business sector and individuals in Haiti will also accept US dollars, though at the outdoor markets gourdes may be preferred. Locals may refer to the USD as "dollar américain" (dola ameriken) or "dollar US" (pronounced oo-es).[291]
+
+The tourism market in Haiti is undeveloped and the government is heavily promoting this sector. Haiti has many of the features that attract tourists to other Caribbean destinations, such as white sand beaches, mountainous scenery and a year-round warm climate, however the country's poor image overseas, at times exaggerated, has hampered the development of this sector.[19] In 2014, the country received 1,250,000 tourists (mostly from cruise ships), and the industry generated US$200 million in 2014.[citation needed]
+
+Several hotels were opened in 2014, including an upscale Best Western Premier,[292][293] a five-star Royal Oasis hotel by Occidental Hotel and Resorts in Pétion-Ville,[294][295][296] a four-star Marriott Hotel in the Turgeau area of Port-au-Prince[297] and other new hotel developments in Port-au-Prince, Les Cayes, Cap-Haïtien and Jacmel.[citation needed]
+
+The Haitian Carnival has been one of the most popular carnivals in the Caribbean. In 2010, the government decided to stage the event in a different city outside Port-au-Prince every year in an attempt to decentralize the country.[298][299] The National Carnival –  usually held in one of the country's largest cities (i.e., Port-au-Prince, Cap-Haïtien or Les Cayes) –  follows the also very popular Jacmel Carnival, which takes place a week earlier in February or March.[298]
+
+On 21 October 2012, Haitian President Michel Martelly, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Richard Branson, Ben Stiller and Sean Penn inaugurated the 600 acres (240 ha) Caracol industrial park, the largest in the Caribbean.[300] Costing US$300 million, the project, which includes a 10-megawatt power plant, a water-treatment plant and worker housing, is intended to transform the northern part of the country by creating 65,000 jobs.[300]
+
+The park is part of a "master plan" for Haiti's North and North-East departments, including the expansion of the Cap-Haïtien International Airport to accommodate large international flights, the construction of an international Seaport in Fort-Liberté and the opening of the $50 million Roi Henri Christophe Campus of a new university in Limonade (near Cap-Haïtien) on 12 January 2012.[301]
+
+South Korean clothing manufacturer Sae-A Trading Co. Ltd, one of the park's main tenants, has created 5,000 permanent jobs out of the 20,000 projected and has built 8,600 houses in the surrounding area for its workers. The industrial park ultimately has the potential to create as many as 65,000 jobs once fully developed.[302][303]
+
+Haiti has two main highways that run from one end of the country to the other. The northern highway, Route Nationale No. 1 (National Highway One), originates in Port-au-Prince, winding through the coastal towns of Montrouis and Gonaïves, before reaching its terminus at the northern port Cap-Haïtien. The southern highway, Route Nationale No. 2, links Port-au-Prince with Les Cayes via Léogâne and Petit-Goâve. The state of Haiti's roads are generally poor, many being potholed and becoming impassable in rough weather.[19]
+
+According to the Washington Post, "Officials from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Saturday [23 January 2010] that they assessed the damage from the [12 January] quake in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and found that many of the roads aren't any worse than they were before because they've always been in poor condition."[304]
+
+The port at Port-au-Prince, Port international de Port-au-Prince,  has more registered shipping than any of the other dozen ports in the country. The port's facilities include cranes, large berths, and warehouses, but these facilities are not in good condition. The port is underused, possibly due to the substantially high port fees. The port of Saint-Marc is currently the preferred port of entry for consumer goods coming into Haiti. Reasons for this may include its location away from volatile and congested Port-au-Prince, as well as its central location relative to numerous Haitian cities.
+
+In the past, Haiti used rail transport, however the rail infrastructure was poorly maintained when in use and cost of rehabilitation is beyond the means of the Haitian economy. In 2018 the Regional Development Council of the Dominican Republic proposed a "trans-Hispaniola" railway between both countries.[305]
+
+Toussaint Louverture International Airport, located 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) North/North East of Port-au-Prince proper in the commune of Tabarre, is the primary transportation hub regarding entry and exit into the country. It has Haiti's main jetway, and along with Cap-Haïtien International Airport located near the northern city of Cap-Haïtien, handles the vast majority of the country's international flights. Cities such as Jacmel, Jérémie, Les Cayes, and Port-de-Paix have smaller, less accessible airports that are serviced by regional airlines and private aircraft. Such companies include: Caribintair  (defunct), Sunrise Airways and Tortug' Air (defunct).
+
+In 2013, plans for the development of an international airport on Île-à-Vache were introduced by the Prime Minister.[306]
+
+Tap tap buses are colorfully painted buses or pick-up trucks that serve as share taxis. The "tap tap" name comes from the sound of passengers tapping on the metal bus body to indicate they want off.[307] These vehicles for hire are often privately owned and extensively decorated. They follow fixed routes, do not leave until filled with passengers, and riders can usually disembark at any point. The decorations are a typically Haitian form of art.[308]
+
+In August 2013, the first coach bus prototype was made in Haiti.[309]
+
+In Haiti, communications include the radio, television, fixed and mobile telephones, and the Internet. Haiti ranked last among North American countries in the World Economic Forum's Network Readiness Index (NRI) –  an indicator for determining the development level of a country's information and communication technologies. Haiti ranked number 143 out of 148 overall in the 2014 NRI ranking, down from 141 in 2013.[310]
+
+Haiti faces key challenges in the water supply and sanitation
+sector:
+Notably, access to public services is very low, their quality is inadequate and public institutions remain very weak despite foreign aid and the government's declared intent to strengthen the sector's institutions. Foreign and Haitian NGOs play an important role in the sector, especially in rural and urban slum areas.
+
+Haiti's population is about 10,788,000 (July 2018 est.)[18] with half of the population younger than age 20.[311] In 1950, the first formal census gave a total population of 3.1 million.[312] Haiti averages approximately 350 people per square kilometer (~900 per sq mi.), with its population concentrated most heavily in urban areas, coastal plains, and valleys.
+
+Most Haitians are descendants of former black African slaves, including Mulattoes who are mixed-race.[18] The remainder are of European or Arab descent, the descendants of settlers (colonial remnants and contemporary immigration during World War I and World War II).[313][314] Haitians of East Asian descent or East Indian origin number approximately more than 400.[citation needed]
+
+Millions of Haitians live abroad in the United States, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Canada (primarily Montreal), Bahamas, France, French Antilles, the Turks and Caicos, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Brazil, Suriname and French Guiana. There are an estimated 881,500 Haitians in the United States,[315] 800,000 in the Dominican Republic,[316] 300,000 in Cuba,[317] 100,000 in Canada,[318] 80,000 in France,[319] and up to 80,000 in the Bahamas.[320] There are also smaller Haitian communities in many other countries, including Chile, Switzerland, Japan and Australia.
+
+In 2017, the life expectancy at birth was 64 years.[321]
+
+The gene pool of Haiti is about 95.5% Sub-Saharan African, 4.3% European, with the rest showing some traces of East Asian genes;[322] according to a 2010 autosomal genealogical DNA testing.
+
+A 2012 genetic study on Haitian and Jamaican Y-chromosomal ancestry has revealed that both populations "exhibit a predominantly Sub-Saharan paternal component, with haplogroups A1b-V152, A3-M32, B2-M182, E1a-M33, E1b1a-M2, E2b-M98, and R1b2-V88" comprising (77.2%) of the Haitian and (66.7%) of Jamaican paternal gene pools.[323] Y-chromosomes indicative of European ancestry "(i.e., haplogroups G2a*-P15, I-M258, R1b1b-M269, and T-M184) were detected at commensurate levels in Haiti (20.3%) and Jamaica (18.9%)".[323]
+While Y-haplogroups indicative of Chinese O-M175 (3.8%) and Indian H-M69 (0.6%) and L-M20 (0.6%) ancestry were found at significant levels in Jamaica,[323] Levantine Y-haplogroups were found in Haiti.
+
+According to a 2008 study examining the frequency of the Duffy antigen receptor for Chemokines (DARC) Single Nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), (75%) of Haitian women sampled exhibited the CC genotype (absent among women of European ancestry) at levels comparable to US African-Americans (73%), but more than Jamaican females (63%).[324][325]
+
+Under colonial rule, Haitian mulattoes were generally privileged above the black majority, though they possessed fewer rights than the white population. Following the country's independence, they became the nation's social elite. Numerous leaders throughout Haiti's history have been mulattoes. During this time, the slaves and the affranchis were given limited opportunities toward education, income, and occupations, but even after gaining independence, the social structure remains a legacy today as the disparity between the upper and lower classes have not been reformed significantly since the colonial days.[326] Comprising 5% of the nation's population, mulattoes have retained their preeminence, evident in the political, economic, social and cultural hierarchy in Haiti.[327] As a result, the elite class today consists of a small group of influential people who are generally light in color and continue to establish themselves in high, prestigious positions.[328]
+
+Religion in Haiti according to the Pew Research Center (2010)[329]
+
+The 2017 CIA Factbook reported that around 54.7% of Haitians profess to being Catholics while Protestants made up about 28.5% of the population (Baptist 15.4%, Pentecostal 7.9%, Seventh-day Adventist 3%, Methodist 1.5%, other 0.7%). Other sources put the Protestant population higher than this, suggesting that it might have formed one-third of the population in 2001.[330] Like other countries in Latin America, Haiti has witnessed a general Protestant expansion, which is largely Evangelical and Pentecostal in nature.[331][332][333] Haitian Cardinal Chibly Langlois is president of the National Bishops Conference of the Catholic Church.
+
+Vodou, a religion with West African roots similar to those of Cuba and Brazil, originated during colonial times in which slaves were obliged to disguise their loa, or spirits, as Roman Catholic saints, an element of a process called syncretism and is still practiced by some Haitians today. Due to the religious syncretism between Catholicism and Vodou, it is difficult to estimate the number of Vodouists in Haiti.[334][335] The religion has historically been persecuted and misrepresented in popular media, however in 2003 the Government recognized the faith as an official religion of the nation.[18]
+
+Minority religions in Haiti include Islam, Bahá'í Faith, Judaism, and Buddhism.[4]
+
+The two official languages of Haiti are French and Haitian Creole. French is the principal written and administratively authorized language (as well as the main language of the press) and is spoken by 42% of Haitians.[336][337] It is spoken by all educated Haitians, is the medium of instruction in most schools, and is used in the business sector. It is also used in ceremonial events such as weddings, graduations and church Masses. Haiti is one of two independent nations in the Americas (along with Canada) to designate French as an official language; the other French-speaking areas are all overseas départements, or collectivités, of France.
+
+Haitian Creole,[338] which has recently undergone a standardization, is spoken by virtually the entire population of Haiti.[339] Haitian Creole is one of the French-based creole languages. Its vocabulary is 90% derived from French, but its grammar resembles that of some West African languages. It also has influences from Taino, Spanish, and Portuguese.[340] Haitian Creole is related to the other French creoles, but most closely to the Antillean Creole and Louisiana Creole variants.
+
+There is a large Haitian diaspora community, predominantly based in the US and Canada, France, and the wealthier Caribbean islands.
+
+Emigrants from Haiti have constituted a segment of American and Canadian society since before the independence of Haiti from France in 1804.[341][342] Many influential early American settlers and black freemen, including Jean Baptiste Point du Sable and W. E. B. Du Bois, were of Haitian origin.[343][344][345][346]
+
+Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, an immigrant from Saint-Domingue (now the Republic of Haiti), founded the first nonindigenous settlement in what is now Chicago, Illinois, the third largest city in the United States. The state of Illinois and city of Chicago declared du Sable the founder of Chicago on 26 October 1968.[343][344][345]
+
+Haiti has a rich and unique cultural identity, consisting of a blend of traditional French and African customs, mixed with sizeable contributions from the Spanish and indigenous Taíno cultures.[347] Haiti's culture is greatly reflected in its paintings, music, and literature. Galleries and museums in the United States and France have exhibited the works of the better-known artists to have come out of Haiti.[348]
+
+Haitian art is distinctive, particularly through its paintings and sculptures.[347][349][350] Brilliant colors, naïve perspectives, and sly humor characterize Haitian art. Frequent subjects in Haitian art include big, delectable foods, lush landscapes, market activities, jungle animals, rituals, dances, and gods. As a result of a deep history and strong African ties, symbols take on great meaning within Haitian society. For example, a rooster often represents Aristide and the red and blue colors of the Haitian flag often represent his Lavalas party.[citation needed] Many artists cluster in 'schools' of painting, such as the Cap-Haïtien school, which features depictions of daily life in the city, the Jacmel School, which reflects the steep mountains and bays of that coastal town, or the Saint-Soleil School, which is characterised by abstracted human forms and is heavily influenced by Vodou symbolism.[citation needed]
+
+In the 1920s the indigéniste movement gained international acclaim, with its expressionist paintings inspired by Haiti's culture and African roots. Notable painters of this movement include Hector Hyppolite, Philomé Oban and Préfète Duffaut.[351] Some notable artists of more recent times include Edouard Duval-Carrié, Frantz Zéphirin, Leroy Exil, Prosper Pierre Louis and Louisiane Saint Fleurant.[351] Sculpture is also practised in Haiti; noted artists in this form include George Liautaud and Serge Jolimeau.[352]
+
+Haitian music combines a wide range of influences drawn from the many people who have settled here. It reflects French, African and Spanish elements and others who have inhabited the island of Hispaniola, and minor native Taino influences. Styles of music unique to the nation of Haiti include music derived from Vodou ceremonial traditions, Rara parading music, Twoubadou ballads, mini-jazz rock bands, Rasin movement, Hip hop kreyòl, méringue,[353] and compas. Youth attend parties at nightclubs called discos, (pronounced "deece-ko"), and attend Bal. This term is the French word for ball, as in a formal dance.
+
+Compas (konpa) (also known as compas direct in French, or konpa dirèk in creole)[354] is a complex, ever-changing music that arose from African rhythms and European ballroom dancing, mixed with Haiti's bourgeois culture. It is a refined music, with méringue as its basic rhythm. Haiti had no recorded music until 1937 when Jazz Guignard was recorded non-commercially.[355]
+
+Haiti has always been a literary nation that has produced poetry, novels, and plays of international recognition. The French colonial experience established the French language as the venue of culture and prestige, and since then it has dominated the literary circles and the literary production. However, since the 18th century there has been a sustained effort to write in Haitian Creole. The recognition of Creole as an official language has led to an expansion of novels, poems, and plays in Creole.[356] In 1975, Franketienne was the first to break with the French tradition in fiction with the publication of Dezafi, the first novel written entirely in Haitian Creole; the work offers a poetic picture of Haitian life.[357] Other well known Haitian authors include Jean Price-Mars, Jacques Roumain, Marie Vieux-Chauvet, Pierre Clitandre, René Depestre, Edwidge Danticat, Lyonel Trouillot and Dany Laferrière.
+
+Haiti has a small though growing cinema industry. Well-known directors working primarily in documentary film-making include Raoul Peck and Arnold Antonin. Directors producing fictional films include Patricia Benoît, Wilkenson Bruna and Richard Senecal.
+
+Haiti is famous for its creole cuisine (which related to Cajun cuisine), and its soup joumou.[358]
+
+Monuments include the Sans-Souci Palace and the Citadelle Laferrière, inscribed as a World Heritage site in 1982.[359] Situated in the Northern Massif du Nord, in one of Haiti's National Parks, the structures date from the early 19th century.[360] The buildings were among the first built after Haiti's independence from France.
+The Citadelle Laferrière, is the largest fortress in the Americas, is located in northern Haiti. It was built between 1805 and 1820 and is today referred to by some Haitians as the eighth wonder of the world.[90]
+
+The Institute for the Protection of National Heritage has preserved 33 historical monuments and the historic center of Cap-Haïtien.[361]
+
+Jacmel, a colonial city that was tentatively accepted as a World Heritage site, was extensively damaged by the 2010 Haiti earthquake.[360]
+
+The anchor of Christopher Columbus's largest ship, the Santa María now rests in the Musée du Panthéon National Haïtien (MUPANAH), in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.[362]
+
+Haiti is known for its folklore traditions.[363] Much of this is rooted in Haitian Vodou tradition. Belief in zombies is also common.[364] Other folkloric creatures include the lougarou.[364]
+
+The most festive time of the year in Haiti is during Carnival (referred to as Kanaval in Haitian Creole or Mardi Gras) in February.[citation needed] There is music, parade floats, and dancing and singing in the streets. Carnival week is traditionally a time of all-night parties.
+
+Rara is a festival celebrated before Easter. The festival has generated a style of Carnival music.[365][366]
+
+Football is the most popular sport in Haiti with hundreds of small football clubs competing at the local level. Basketball is growing in popularity.[367] Stade Sylvio Cator is the multi-purpose stadium in Port-au-Prince, where it is currently used mostly for association football matches that fits a capacity of 10,000 people. In 1974, the Haiti national football team were only the second Caribbean team to make the World Cup (after Cuba's entry in 1938). They lost in the opening qualifying stages against three of the pre-tournament favorites; Italy, Poland, and Argentina. The national team won the 2007 Caribbean Nations Cup.[368]
+
+Haiti has participated in the Olympic Games since the year 1900 and won a number of medals. Haitian footballer Joe Gaetjens played for the United States national team in the 1950 FIFA World Cup, scoring the winning goal in the 1–0 upset of England.[369]
+
+The educational system of Haiti is based on the French system. Higher education, under the responsibility of the Ministry of Education,[374] is provided by universities and other public and private institutions.[375]
+
+More than 80% of primary schools are privately managed by nongovernmental organizations, churches, communities, and for-profit operators, with minimal government oversight.[376] According to the 2013 Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Report, Haiti has steadily boosted net enrollment rate in primary education from 47% in 1993 to 88% in 2011, achieving equal participation of boys and girls in education.[377] Charity organizations, including Food for the Poor and Haitian Health Foundation, are building schools for children and providing necessary school supplies.
+According to CIA 2015 World Factbook, Haiti's literacy rate is now 60.7% (est. 2015).
+
+The January 2010 earthquake, was a major setback for education reform in Haiti as it diverted limited resources to survival.[378]
+
+Many reformers have advocated the creation of a free, public and universal education system for all primary school-age students in Haiti. The Inter-American Development Bank estimates that the government will need at least US$3 billion to create an adequately funded system.[379]
+
+Upon successful graduation of secondary school, students may continue into higher education. The higher education schools in Haiti include the University of Haiti. There are also medical schools and law schools offered at both the University of Haiti and abroad. Presently, Brown University is cooperating with L'Hôpital Saint-Damien in Haiti to coordinate a pediatric health care curriculum.[380]
+
+In the past, children's vaccination rates have been low –  as of 2012[update], 60% of the children in Haiti under the age of 10 were vaccinated,[381][382] compared to rates of childhood vaccination in other countries in the 93–95% range.[383] Recently there have been mass vaccination campaigns claiming to vaccinate as many as 91% of a target population against specific diseases (measles and rubella in this case).[384] Most people have no transportation or access to Haitian hospitals.[385]
+
+The World Health Organization cites diarrheal diseases, HIV/AIDS, meningitis, and respiratory infections as common causes of death in Haiti.[386] Ninety percent of Haiti's children suffer from waterborne diseases and intestinal parasites.[387]  HIV infection is found in 1.71% of Haiti's population (est. 2015).[388] The incidence of tuberculosis (TB) in Haiti is more than ten times as high as in the rest of Latin America.[389] Approximately 30,000 Haitians fall ill with malaria each year.[390]
+
+Most people living in Haiti are at high risk for major infectious diseases. Food or water-borne diseases include bacterial and protozoal diarrhea, typhoid fever and hepatitis A and E; common vector-borne diseases are dengue fever and malaria; water-contact diseases include leptospirosis. Roughly 75% of Haitian households lack running water. Unsafe water, along with inadequate housing and unsanitary living conditions, contributes to the high incidence of infectious diseases. There is a chronic shortage of health care personnel and hospitals lack resources, a situation that became readily apparent after the January 2010 earthquake.[391] The infant mortality rate in Haiti in 2013 was 55 deaths per 1,000 live births, compared to a rate of 6 per 1,000 in other countries.[392]
+
+After the 2010 earthquake, Partners In Health founded the Hôpital Universitaire de Mirebalais, the largest solar-powered hospital in the world.[393][394]
+
+Wikimedia Atlas of Haiti

en/2368.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,41 @@
+The haka (/ˈhɑːkə/;[1] plural haka, in both Te Reo Māori and English) is a ceremonial dance or challenge in Māori culture.[2] It is performed by a group, with vigorous movements and stamping of the feet with rhythmically shouted accompaniment. Although commonly associated with the traditional battle preparations of male warriors, haka have long been performed by both men and women,[3] and several varieties of the haka fulfill social functions within Māori culture.[4][5] Haka are performed to welcome distinguished guests, or to acknowledge great achievements, occasions or funerals.
+
+Kapa haka groups are very common in schools.[6] The main Māori performing arts competition, Te Matatini, takes place every two years.[7]
+
+New Zealand sports teams' practice of performing a haka before their international matches has made the haka more widely known around the world. This tradition began with the 1888–89 New Zealand Native football team tour and has been carried on by the New Zealand rugby union team (known as the All Blacks) since 1905.[8] This is considered by some Māori to be a form of cultural appropriation.[9][10]
+
+The group of people performing a haka is referred to as a kapa haka (kapa meaning row or rank). The Māori word haka has cognates in other Polynesian languages, for example: Samoan saʻa (saʻasaʻa), Tokelauan haka, Rarotongan ʻaka, Hawaiian haʻa, Marquesan haka, meaning 'to be short-legged' or 'dance'; all from Proto-Polynesian saka, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian sakaŋ, meaning 'bowlegged'.[11]
+
+According to Tīmoti Kāretu, the haka has been "erroneously defined by generations of uninformed as 'war dances'",[13] whereas Māori mythology places haka as the dance "about the celebration of life".[14] According to its creation story, the sun god, Tama-nui-te-rā, had two wives, the Summer Maid, Hine-raumati, and the Winter Maid, Hine-takurua. Haka originated in the coming of Hine-raumati, whose presence on still, hot days was revealed in a quivering appearance in the air. This was the haka of Tāne-rore, the son of Hine-raumati and Tama-nui-te-rā.[15][16] Hyland comments that "[t]he haka is (and also represents) a natural phenomena [sic]; on hot summer days, the 'shimmering' atmospheric distortion of air emanating from the ground is personified as 'Te Haka a Tānerore'".[17]
+
+Jackson and Hokowhitu state, "haka is the generic name for all types of dance or ceremonial performance that involve movement."[2] The various types of haka include whakatū waewae, tūtū ngārahu and peruperu.[15] The tūtū ngārahu involves jumping from side to side, while in the whakatū waewae no jumping occurs. Another kind of haka performed without weapons is the ngeri, the purpose of which was to motivate a warrior psychologically. The movements are very free, and each performer is expected to be expressive of their feelings. Manawa wera haka were generally associated with funerals or other occasions involving death. Like the ngeri they were performed without weapons, and there was little or no choreographed movement.[15]
+
+War haka (peruperu) were originally performed by warriors before a battle, proclaiming their strength and prowess in order to intimidate the opposition.[9]  Various actions are employed in the course of a performance, including facial contortions such as showing the whites of the eyes (pūkana), and poking out the tongue (whetero, performed by men only[3]), and a wide variety of vigorous body actions such as slapping the hands against the body and stomping of the feet. As well as chanted words, a variety of cries and grunts are used. Haka may be understood as a kind of symphony in which the different parts of the body represent many instruments. The hands, arms, legs, feet, voice, eyes, tongue and the body as a whole combine to express courage, annoyance, joy or other feelings relevant to the purpose of the occasion.[15]
+
+The earliest Europeans to witness the haka were invariably struck by its vigour and ferocity.[18] Joseph Banks, who accompanied James Cook on his first voyage to New Zealand in 1769, later recorded:
+
+From their arrival in the early 19th century, Christian missionaries strove unsuccessfully to eradicate the haka, along with other forms of Māori culture that they saw as conflicting with Christian beliefs and practice. Henry Williams, the leader of the Church Missionary Society mission in New Zealand, aimed to replace the haka and traditional Māori chants (waiata) with hymns. Missionaries also encouraged European harmonic singing as part of the process of conversion.[18]
+
+The use of the haka in welcoming ceremonies for members of British royal family helped to improve its standing among Europeans. Prince Alfred, the Duke of Edinburgh, was the first royal to visit New Zealand, in 1869.[20] Upon the Duke's arrival at the wharf in Wellington, he was greeted by a vigorous haka. The Wellington Independent reported, "The excitement of the Maoris becomes uncontrollable. They gesticulate, they dance, they throw their weapons wildly in the air, while they yell like fiends let loose. But all this fierce yelling is of the most friendly character. They are bidding the Duke welcome."[21]
+
+In modern times, various haka have been composed to be performed by women and even children.[3] Haka are performed for various reasons: for welcoming distinguished guests, or to acknowledge great achievements, occasions or funerals.
+
+The 1888–89 New Zealand Native football team began a tradition by performing the haka during an international tour.[22] The common use of haka by the national rugby union teambefore matches, beginning with The Original All Blacks in 1905,[8] has made one type of haka familiar.[23]
+
+Some events have caused controversy. The 1979 annual "haka party" parade at the University of Auckland – in which engineering students persisted in parodying the haka by painting male genitals on their body and performing with sexually obscene gestures – was disrupted by a collection of Māori and Pacific Island students (He Taua, or The War Party) headed by Ngā Tamatoa, a prominent Māori activist group. The protesters included Hone Harawira, later a Member of Parliament.[24] Several of the engineering students were assaulted, and members of He Taua were arrested.[25] Their court case in Auckland sparked anti-racism protests outside the courthouse.[citation needed]
+
+The choreographed dance and chant popularised around the world by the All Blacks and kiwis derives from "Ka Mate",[26] a brief haka previously intended for extemporaneous, non-synchronized performance, whose composition is attributed to Te Rauparaha (1760s–1849), a war leader of the Ngāti Toa tribe.[27] The "Ka Mate" haka is classified as a haka taparahi – a ceremonial haka. "Ka Mate" is about the cunning ruse Te Rauparaha used to outwit his enemies, and may be interpreted as "a celebration of the triumph of life over death".[26] Concerns were expressed that the authorship and significance of this haka to the Ngāti Toa were being lost and that it had "become the most performed, the most maligned, the most abused of all haka",[28] and was now "the most globally recognised form of cultural appropriation".[10] Specific legal challenges regarding the rights of the Ngāti Toa to be acknowledged as the authors and owners of "Ka Mate" were eventually settled in agreements between Ngāti Toa and the New Zealand Government and New Zealand Rugby Union, as published in 2009.[29][30]
+
+In the 21st century, kapa haka is offered as a subject in universities, including the study of haka, and is practised in schools and military institutions.[31]
+
+In addition to the national Te Matatini competition,[7] local and regional competitions attract dozens of teams and thousands of spectators.[31]
+
+The All Blacks' use of the haka has become the most widely known, but several other New Zealand sports teams now perform the haka before commencing a game. These include the national rugby league team ("the Kiwis"),[32] and the men's national basketball team ("Tall Blacks").[33] In the lead up to the Rugby World Cup in 2011, flashmob haka became a popular way of expressing support for the All Blacks. Some Māori leaders thought it was "inappropriate" and a "bastardisation" of haka.[34] Sizeable flashmob haka were performed in Wellington[35] and Auckland,[36] as well as London, which has a large New Zealander immigrant community.[37]
+
+In November 2012, a Māori kapa haka group from Rotorua performed a version of the "Gangnam Style" dance mixed with a traditional haka in Seoul, celebrating 50 years of diplomatic relations between South Korea and New Zealand.[38]
+
+On 7 December 2014, at the 2014 Roller Derby World Cup in Dallas, Texas, Team New Zealand performed a haka on roller skates to the Australian Roller Derby team before their bout in the quarter-finals.[39] Team New Zealand performed a haka before their debut game against Team USA at the 2011 Roller Derby World Cup, on 1 December 2011; however, it was unexpected and the arena music was still playing. It has since become an expected tradition.[40]
+
+In March 2019, following the Christchurch mosque shootings, school pupils and other groups performed haka to honour those killed in the attacks.[41]
+
+Three or four American football teams are known to perform the haka as a pregame ritual. This appears to have begun at Kahuku High School where both the student body and local community includes many Polynesian Hawaiians, Māori, Samoans, Tahitians, and Tongans. The University of Hawaii Rainbow Warriors football team also adopted the haka as a pregame ritual during the 2006 season,[42] and the practice has spread to a number of other teams overseas; there has, however, been some criticism of this as inappropriate and disrespectful.[43][44]

en/2369.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,135 @@
+
+
+
+
+Halloween or Hallowe'en (a contraction of Hallows' Even or Hallows' Evening),[5] also known as Allhalloween,[6] All Hallows' Eve,[7] or All Saints' Eve,[8] is a celebration observed in many countries  on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows' Day. It begins the three-day observance of Allhallowtide,[9] the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the faithful departed.[10][11]
+
+It is widely believed that many Halloween traditions originated from ancient Celtic harvest festivals, particularly the Gaelic festival Samhain; that such festivals may have had pagan roots; and that Samhain itself was Christianized as Halloween by the early Church.[12][13][14][15][16] Some believe, however, that Halloween began solely as a Christian holiday, separate from ancient festivals like Samhain.[17][18][19][20]
+
+Halloween activities include trick-or-treating (or the related guising and souling), attending Halloween costume parties, carving pumpkins into jack-o'-lanterns, lighting bonfires, apple bobbing, divination games, playing pranks, visiting haunted attractions, telling scary stories, as well as watching horror films.[21] In many parts of the world, the Christian religious observances of All Hallows' Eve, including attending church services and lighting candles on the graves of the dead, remain popular,[22][23][24] although elsewhere it is a more commercial and secular celebration.[25][26][27] Some Christians historically abstained from meat on All Hallows' Eve, a tradition reflected in the eating of certain vegetarian foods on this vigil day, including apples, potato pancakes, and soul cakes.[28][29][30][31]
+
+The word Halloween or Hallowe'en dates to about 1745[32] and is of Christian origin.[33] The word "Hallowe'en" means "Saints' evening".[34] It comes from a Scottish term for All Hallows' Eve (the evening before All Hallows' Day).[35] In Scots, the word "eve" is even, and this is contracted to e'en or een. Over time, (All) Hallow(s) E(v)en evolved into Hallowe'en. Although the phrase "All Hallows'" is found in Old English "All Hallows' Eve" is itself not seen until 1556.[35][36]
+
+Today's Halloween customs are thought to have been influenced by folk customs and beliefs from the Celtic-speaking countries, some of which are believed to have pagan roots.[37] Jack Santino, a folklorist, writes that "there was throughout Ireland an uneasy truce existing between customs and beliefs associated with Christianity and those associated with religions that were Irish before Christianity arrived".[38] Historian Nicholas Rogers, exploring the origins of Halloween, notes that while "some folklorists have detected its origins in the Roman feast of Pomona, the goddess of fruits and seeds, or in the festival of the dead called Parentalia, it is more typically linked to the Celtic festival of Samhain, which comes from the Old Irish for 'summer's end'."[39]
+
+Samhain (/ˈsɑːwɪn, ˈsaʊɪn/) was the first and most important of the four quarter days in the medieval Gaelic calendar and was celebrated on 31 October – 1 November[40] in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man.[41][42] A kindred festival was held at the same time of year by the Brittonic Celts, called Calan Gaeaf in Wales, Kalan Gwav in Cornwall and Kalan Goañv in Brittany; a name meaning "first day of winter". For the Celts, the day ended and began at sunset; thus the festival began on the evening before 7 November by modern reckoning (the half point between equinox and solstice).[43] Samhain and Calan Gaeaf are mentioned in some of the earliest Irish and Welsh literature. The names have been used by historians to refer to Celtic Halloween customs up until the 19th century,[44] and are still the Gaelic and Welsh names for Halloween.
+
+Samhain/Calan Gaeaf marked the end of the harvest season and beginning of winter or the 'darker half' of the year.[45][46] Like Beltane/Calan Mai, it was seen as a liminal time, when the boundary between this world and the Otherworld thinned. This meant the Aos Sí (Connacht pronunciation /iːsˈʃiː/ eess-SHEE, Munster /e:s ʃi:/), the 'spirits' or 'fairies', could more easily come into this world and were particularly active.[47][48] Most scholars see the Aos Sí as "degraded versions of ancient gods [...] whose power remained active in the people's minds even after they had been officially replaced by later religious beliefs".[49] The Aos Sí were both respected and feared, with individuals often invoking the protection of God when approaching their dwellings.[50][51] At Samhain, it was believed that the Aos Sí needed to be propitiated to ensure that the people and their livestock survived the winter. Offerings of food and drink, or portions of the crops, were left outside for the Aos Sí.[52][53][54] The souls of the dead were also said to revisit their homes seeking hospitality.[55] Places were set at the dinner table and by the fire to welcome them.[56] The belief that the souls of the dead return home on one night of the year and must be appeased seems to have ancient origins and is found in many cultures throughout the world.[57] In 19th century Ireland, "candles would be lit and prayers formally offered for the souls of the dead. After this the eating, drinking, and games would begin".[58]
+
+Throughout Ireland and Britain, the household festivities included rituals and games intended to foretell one's future, especially regarding death and marriage.[59] Apples and nuts were often used in these divination rituals. They included apple bobbing, nut roasting, scrying or mirror-gazing, pouring molten lead or egg whites into water, dream interpretation, and others.[60] Special bonfires were lit and there were rituals involving them. Their flames, smoke and ashes were deemed to have protective and cleansing powers, and were also used for divination.[45] In some places, torches lit from the bonfire were carried sunwise around homes and fields to protect them.[44] It is suggested that the fires were a kind of imitative or sympathetic magic – they mimicked the Sun, helping the "powers of growth" and holding back the decay and darkness of winter.[56][61][62] In Scotland, these bonfires and divination games were banned by the church elders in some parishes.[63] In Wales, bonfires were lit to "prevent the souls of the dead from falling to earth".[64] Later, these bonfires served to keep "away the devil".[65]
+
+From at least the 16th century,[66] the festival included mumming and guising in Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man and Wales.[67] This involved people going house-to-house in costume (or in disguise), usually reciting verses or songs in exchange for food. It may have originally been a tradition whereby people impersonated the Aos Sí, or the souls of the dead, and received offerings on their behalf, similar to the custom of souling (see below). Impersonating these beings, or wearing a disguise, was also believed to protect oneself from them.[68] It is suggested that the mummers and guisers "personify the old spirits of the winter, who demanded reward in exchange for good fortune".[69] In parts of southern Ireland, the guisers included a hobby horse. A man dressed as a Láir Bhán (white mare) led youths house-to-house reciting verses – some of which had pagan overtones – in exchange for food. If the household donated food it could expect good fortune from the 'Muck Olla'; not doing so would bring misfortune.[70] In Scotland, youths went house-to-house with masked, painted or blackened faces, often threatening to do mischief if they were not welcomed.[67] F. Marian McNeill suggests the ancient festival included people in costume representing the spirits, and that faces were marked (or blackened) with ashes taken from the sacred bonfire.[66] In parts of Wales, men went about dressed as fearsome beings called gwrachod.[67] In the late 19th and early 20th century, young people in Glamorgan and Orkney cross-dressed.[67]
+
+Elsewhere in Europe, mumming and hobby horses were part of other yearly festivals. However, in the Celtic-speaking regions they were "particularly appropriate to a night upon which supernatural beings were said to be abroad and could be imitated or warded off by human wanderers".[67] From at least the 18th century, "imitating malignant spirits" led to playing pranks in Ireland and the Scottish Highlands. Wearing costumes and playing pranks at Halloween spread to England in the 20th century.[67] Traditionally, pranksters used hollowed out turnips or mangel wurzels often carved with grotesque faces as lanterns.[67] By those who made them, the lanterns were variously said to represent the spirits,[67] or were used to ward off evil spirits.[71][72] They were common in parts of Ireland and the Scottish Highlands in the 19th century,[67] as well as in Somerset (see Punkie Night). In the 20th century they spread to other parts of England and became generally known as jack-o'-lanterns.[67]
+
+Today's Halloween customs are thought to have been influenced by Christian dogma and practices derived from it.[73] Halloween is the evening before the Christian holy days of All Hallows' Day (also known as All Saints' or Hallowmas) on 1 November and All Souls' Day on 2 November, thus giving the holiday on 31 October the full name of All Hallows' Eve (meaning the evening before All Hallows' Day).[74] Since the time of the early Church,[75] major feasts in Christianity (such as Christmas, Easter and Pentecost) had vigils that began the night before, as did the feast of All Hallows'.[76] These three days are collectively called Allhallowtide and are a time for honoring the saints and praying for the recently departed souls who have yet to reach Heaven. Commemorations of all saints and martyrs were held by several churches on various dates, mostly in springtime.[77] In 609, Pope Boniface IV re-dedicated the Pantheon in Rome to "St Mary and all martyrs" on 13 May. This was the same date as Lemuria, an ancient Roman festival of the dead, and the same date as the commemoration of all saints in Edessa in the time of Ephrem.[78]
+
+The feast of All Hallows', on its current date in the Western Church, may be traced to Pope Gregory III's (731–741) founding of an oratory in St Peter's for the relics "of the holy apostles and of all saints, martyrs and confessors".[79][80] In 835, All Hallows' Day was officially switched to 1 November, the same date as Samhain, at the behest of Pope Gregory IV.[81] Some suggest this was due to Celtic influence, while others suggest it was a Germanic idea,[81] although it is claimed that both Germanic and Celtic-speaking peoples commemorated the dead at the beginning of winter.[82] They may have seen it as the most fitting time to do so, as it is a time of 'dying' in nature.[81][82] It is also suggested that the change was made on the "practical grounds that Rome in summer could not accommodate the great number of pilgrims who flocked to it", and perhaps because of public health considerations regarding Roman Fever – a disease that claimed a number of lives during the sultry summers of the region.[83]
+
+By the end of the 12th century they had become holy days of obligation across Europe and involved such traditions as ringing church bells for the souls in purgatory. In addition, "it was customary for criers dressed in black to parade the streets, ringing a bell of mournful sound and calling on all good Christians to remember the poor souls."[85] "Souling", the custom of baking and sharing soul cakes for all christened souls,[86] has been suggested as the origin of trick-or-treating.[87] The custom dates back at least as far as the 15th century[88] and was found in parts of England, Flanders, Germany and Austria.[57] Groups of poor people, often children, would go door-to-door during Allhallowtide, collecting soul cakes, in exchange for praying for the dead, especially the souls of the givers' friends and relatives.[88][89][90] Soul cakes would also be offered for the souls themselves to eat,[57] or the 'soulers' would act as their representatives.[91] As with the Lenten tradition of hot cross buns, Allhallowtide soul cakes were often marked with a cross, indicating that they were baked as alms.[92] Shakespeare mentions souling in his comedy The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1593).[93] On the custom of wearing costumes, Christian minister Prince Sorie Conteh wrote: "It was traditionally believed that the souls of the departed wandered the earth until All Saints' Day, and All Hallows' Eve provided one last chance for the dead to gain vengeance on their enemies before moving to the next world. In order to avoid being recognized by any soul that might be seeking such vengeance, people would don masks or costumes to disguise their identities".[94]
+
+It is claimed that in the Middle Ages, churches that were too poor to display the relics of martyred saints at Allhallowtide let parishioners dress up as saints instead.[95][96] Some Christians continue to observe this custom at Halloween today.[97] Lesley Bannatyne believes this could have been a Christianization of an earlier pagan custom.[98] While souling, Christians would carry with them "lanterns made of hollowed-out turnips".[99] It has been suggested that the carved jack-o'-lantern, a popular symbol of Halloween, originally represented the souls of the dead.[100] On Halloween, in medieval Europe, fires served a dual purpose, being lit to guide returning souls to the homes of their families, as well as to deflect demons from haunting sincere Christian folk.[101][102] Households in Austria, England and Ireland often had "candles burning in every room to guide the souls back to visit their earthly homes". These were known as "soul lights".[103][104][105] Many Christians in mainland Europe, especially in France, believed "that once a year, on Hallowe'en, the dead of the churchyards rose for one wild, hideous carnival" known as the danse macabre, which has often been depicted in church decoration.[106] Christopher Allmand and Rosamond McKitterick write in The New Cambridge Medieval History that "Christians were moved by the sight of the Infant Jesus playing on his mother's knee; their hearts were touched by the Pietà; and patron saints reassured them by their presence. But, all the while, the danse macabre urged them not to forget the end of all earthly things."[107] This danse macabre was enacted at village pageants and at court masques, with people "dressing up as corpses from various strata of society", and may have been the origin of modern-day Halloween costume parties.[99][108][96][109]
+
+In parts of Britain, these customs came under attack during the Reformation as some Protestants berated purgatory as a "popish" doctrine incompatible with their notion of predestination. Thus, for some Nonconformist Protestants, the theology of All Hallows' Eve was redefined; without the doctrine of purgatory, "the returning souls cannot be journeying from Purgatory on their way to Heaven, as Catholics frequently believe and assert. Instead, the so-called ghosts are thought to be in actuality evil spirits. As such they are threatening."[104] Other Protestants maintained belief in an intermediate state, known as Hades (Bosom of Abraham),[110] and continued to observe the original customs, especially souling, candlelit processions and the ringing of church bells in memory of the dead.[74][111] Mark Donnelly, a professor of medieval archaeology, and historian Daniel Diehl, with regard to the evil spirits, on Halloween, write that "barns and homes were blessed to protect people and livestock from the effect of witches, who were believed to accompany the malignant spirits as they traveled the earth."[112] In the 19th century, in some rural parts of England, families gathered on hills on the night of All Hallows' Eve. One held a bunch of burning straw on a pitchfork while the rest knelt around him in a circle, praying for the souls of relatives and friends until the flames went out. This was known as teen'lay.[113] Other customs included the tindle fires in Derbyshire and all-night vigil bonfires in Hertfordshire which were lit to pray for the departed.[114] The rising popularity of Guy Fawkes Night (5 November) from 1605 onward, saw many Halloween traditions appropriated by that holiday instead, and Halloween's popularity waned in Britain, with the noteworthy exception of Scotland.[115] There and in Ireland, they had been celebrating Samhain and Halloween since at least the early Middle Ages, and the Scottish kirk took a more pragmatic approach to Halloween, seeing it as important to the life cycle and rites of passage of communities and thus ensuring its survival in the country.[115]
+
+In France, some Christian families, on the night of All Hallows' Eve, prayed beside the graves of their loved ones, setting down dishes full of milk for them.[103] On Halloween, in Italy, some families left a large meal out for ghosts of their passed relatives, before they departed for church services.[116] In Spain, on this night, special pastries are baked, known as "bones of the holy" (Spanish: Huesos de Santo) and put them on the graves of the churchyard, a practice that continues to this day.[117]
+
+Lesley Bannatyne and Cindy Ott both wrote that Anglican colonists in the southern United States and Catholic colonists in Maryland "recognized All Hallow's Eve in their church calendars",[118][119] although the Puritans of New England maintained strong opposition to the holiday, along with other traditional celebrations of the established Church, including Christmas.[120] Almanacs of the late 18th and early 19th century give no indication that Halloween was widely celebrated in North America.[121] It was not until mass Irish and Scottish immigration in the 19th century that Halloween became a major holiday in North America.[121] Confined to the immigrant communities during the mid-19th century, it was gradually assimilated into mainstream society and by the first decade of the 20th century it was being celebrated coast to coast by people of all social, racial and religious backgrounds.[122] "In Cajun areas, a nocturnal Mass was said in cemeteries on Halloween night. Candles that had been blessed were placed on graves, and families sometimes spent the entire night at the graveside".[123] The yearly New York Halloween Parade, begun in 1974 by puppeteer and mask maker Ralph Lee of Greenwich Village, is the world's largest Halloween parade and America's only major nighttime parade, attracting more than 60,000 costumed participants, two million spectators, and a worldwide television audience of over 100 million.[124]
+
+Development of artifacts and symbols associated with Halloween formed over time. Jack-o'-lanterns are traditionally carried by guisers on All Hallows' Eve in order to frighten evil spirits.[100][125] There is a popular Irish Christian folktale associated with the jack-o'-lantern,[126] which in folklore is said to represent a "soul who has been denied entry into both heaven and hell":[127]
+
+On route home after a night's drinking, Jack encounters the Devil and tricks him into climbing a tree. A quick-thinking Jack etches the sign of the cross into the bark, thus trapping the Devil. Jack strikes a bargain that Satan can never claim his soul. After a life of sin, drink, and mendacity, Jack is refused entry to heaven when he dies. Keeping his promise, the Devil refuses to let Jack into hell and throws a live coal straight from the fires of hell at him. It was a cold night, so Jack places the coal in a hollowed out turnip to stop it from going out, since which time Jack and his lantern have been roaming looking for a place to rest.[128]
+
+In Ireland and Scotland, the turnip has traditionally been carved during Halloween,[129][130] but immigrants to North America used the native pumpkin, which is both much softer and much larger – making it easier to carve than a turnip.[129] The American tradition of carving pumpkins is recorded in 1837[131] and was originally associated with harvest time in general, not becoming specifically associated with Halloween until the mid-to-late 19th century.[132]
+
+The modern imagery of Halloween comes from many sources, including Christian eschatology, national customs, works of Gothic and horror literature (such as the novels Frankenstein and Dracula) and classic horror films (such as Frankenstein and The Mummy).[133][134] Imagery of the skull, a reference to Golgotha in the Christian tradition, serves as "a reminder of death and the transitory quality of human life" and is consequently found in memento mori and vanitas compositions;[135] skulls have therefore been commonplace in Halloween, which touches on this theme.[136] Traditionally, the back walls of churches are "decorated with a depiction of the Last Judgment, complete with graves opening and the dead rising, with a heaven filled with angels and a hell filled with devils", a motif that has permeated the observance of this triduum.[137] One of the earliest works on the subject of Halloween is from Scottish poet John Mayne, who, in 1780, made note of pranks at Halloween; "What fearfu' pranks ensue!", as well as the supernatural associated with the night, "Bogies" (ghosts), influencing Robert Burns' "Halloween" (1785).[138] Elements of the autumn season, such as pumpkins, corn husks, and scarecrows, are also prevalent. Homes are often decorated with these types of symbols around Halloween. Halloween imagery includes themes of death, evil, and mythical monsters.[139] Black, orange, and sometimes purple are Halloween's traditional colors.
+
+Trick-or-treating is a customary celebration for children on Halloween. Children go in costume from house to house, asking for treats such as candy or sometimes money, with the question, "Trick or treat?" The word "trick" implies a "threat" to perform mischief on the homeowners or their property if no treat is given.[87] The practice is said to have roots in the medieval practice of mumming, which is closely related to souling.[140] John Pymm wrote that "many of the feast days associated with the presentation of mumming plays were celebrated by the Christian Church."[141] These feast days included All Hallows' Eve, Christmas, Twelfth Night and Shrove Tuesday.[142][143] Mumming practiced in Germany, Scandinavia and other parts of Europe,[144] involved masked persons in fancy dress who "paraded the streets and entered houses to dance or play dice in silence".[145]
+
+In England, from the medieval period,[146] up until the 1930s,[147] people practiced the Christian custom of souling on Halloween, which involved groups of soulers, both Protestant and Catholic,[111] going from parish to parish, begging the rich for soul cakes, in exchange for praying for the souls of the givers and their friends.[89] In the Philippines, the practice of souling is called Pangangaluwa and is practiced on All Hallow's Eve among children in rural areas.[21] People drape themselves in white cloths to represent souls and then visit houses, where they sing in return for prayers and sweets.[21]
+
+In Scotland and Ireland, guising – children disguised in costume going from door to door for food or coins  – is a traditional Halloween custom, and is recorded in Scotland at Halloween in 1895 where masqueraders in disguise carrying lanterns made out of scooped out turnips, visit homes to be rewarded with cakes, fruit, and money.[130][148] The practice of guising at Halloween in North America is first recorded in 1911, where a newspaper in Kingston, Ontario, Canada reported children going "guising" around the neighborhood.[149]
+
+American historian and author Ruth Edna Kelley of Massachusetts wrote the first book-length history of Halloween in the US; The Book of Hallowe'en (1919), and references souling in the chapter "Hallowe'en in America".[150] In her book, Kelley touches on customs that arrived from across the Atlantic;  "Americans have fostered them, and are making this an occasion something like what it must have been in its best days overseas. All Halloween customs in the United States are borrowed directly or adapted from those of other countries".[151]
+
+While the first reference to "guising" in North America occurs in 1911, another reference to ritual begging on Halloween appears, place unknown, in 1915, with a third reference in Chicago in 1920.[152] The earliest known use in print of the term "trick or treat" appears in 1927, in the Blackie Herald Alberta, Canada.[153]
+
+The thousands of Halloween postcards produced between the turn of the 20th century and the 1920s commonly show children but not trick-or-treating.[154] Trick-or-treating does not seem to have become a widespread practice until the 1930s, with the first US appearances of the term in 1934,[155] and the first use in a national publication occurring in 1939.[156]
+
+A popular variant of trick-or-treating, known as trunk-or-treating (or Halloween tailgating), occurs when "children are offered treats from the trunks of cars parked in a church parking lot", or sometimes, a school parking lot.[117][157] In a trunk-or-treat event, the trunk (boot) of each automobile is decorated with a certain theme,[158] such as those of children's literature, movies, scripture, and job roles.[159] Trunk-or-treating has grown in popularity due to its perception as being more safe than going door to door, a point that resonates well with parents, as well as the fact that it "solves the rural conundrum in which homes [are] built a half-mile apart".[160][161]
+
+Halloween costumes are traditionally modeled after supernatural figures such as vampires, monsters, ghosts, skeletons, witches, and devils.[87] Over time, the costume selection extended to include popular characters from fiction, celebrities, and generic archetypes such as ninjas and princesses.
+
+Dressing up in costumes and going "guising" was prevalent in Scotland and Ireland at Halloween by the late 19th century.[130] A Scottish term, the tradition is called "guising" because of the disguises or costumes worn by the children.[148] In Ireland the masks are known as 'false faces'.[162] Costuming became popular for Halloween parties in the US in the early 20th century, as often for adults as for children, and when trick-or-treating was becoming popular in Canada and the US in the 1920s and 1930s.[153][163]
+
+Eddie J. Smith, in his book Halloween, Hallowed is Thy Name, offers a religious perspective to the wearing of costumes on All Hallows' Eve, suggesting that by dressing up as creatures "who at one time caused us to fear and tremble", people are able to poke fun at Satan "whose kingdom has been plundered by our Saviour". Images of skeletons and the dead are traditional decorations used as memento mori.[164][165]
+
+"Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF" is a fundraising program to support UNICEF,[87] a United Nations Programme that provides humanitarian aid to children in developing countries. Started as a local event in a Northeast Philadelphia neighborhood in 1950 and expanded nationally in 1952, the program involves the distribution of small boxes by schools (or in modern times, corporate sponsors like Hallmark, at their licensed stores) to trick-or-treaters, in which they can solicit small-change donations from the houses they visit. It is estimated that children have collected more than $118 million for UNICEF since its inception. In Canada, in 2006, UNICEF decided to discontinue their Halloween collection boxes, citing safety and administrative concerns; after consultation with schools, they instead redesigned the program.[166][167]
+
+According to a 2018 report from the National Retail Federation, 30 million Americans will spend an estimated $480 million on Halloween costumes for their pets in 2018. This is up from an estimated $200 million in 2010. The most popular costumes for pets are the pumpkin, followed by the hot dog, and the bumble bee in third place.[168]
+
+There are several games traditionally associated with Halloween. Some of these games originated as divination rituals or ways of foretelling one's future, especially regarding death, marriage and children. During the Middle Ages, these rituals were done by a "rare few" in rural communities as they were considered to be "deadly serious" practices.[169] In recent centuries, these divination games have been "a common feature of the household festivities" in Ireland and Britain.[59] They often involve apples and hazelnuts. In Celtic mythology, apples were strongly associated with the Otherworld and immortality, while hazelnuts were associated with divine wisdom.[170] Some also suggest that they derive from Roman practices in celebration of Pomona.[87]
+
+The following activities were a common feature of Halloween in Ireland and Britain during the 17th–20th centuries. Some have become more widespread and continue to be popular today.
+One common game is apple bobbing or dunking (which may be called "dooking" in Scotland)[171] in which apples float in a tub or a large basin of water and the participants must use only their teeth to remove an apple from the basin. A variant of dunking involves kneeling on a chair, holding a fork between the teeth and trying to drive the fork into an apple. Another common game involves hanging up treacle or syrup-coated scones by strings; these must be eaten without using hands while they remain attached to the string, an activity that inevitably leads to a sticky face. Another once-popular game involves hanging a small wooden rod from the ceiling at head height, with a lit candle on one end and an apple hanging from the other. The rod is spun round and everyone takes turns to try to catch the apple with their teeth.[172]
+
+Several of the traditional activities from Ireland and Britain involve foretelling one's future partner or spouse. An apple would be peeled in one long strip, then the peel tossed over the shoulder. The peel is believed to land in the shape of the first letter of the future spouse's name.[173][174] Two hazelnuts would be roasted near a fire; one named for the person roasting them and the other for the person they desire. If the nuts jump away from the heat, it is a bad sign, but if the nuts roast quietly it foretells a good match.[175][176] A salty oatmeal bannock would be baked; the person would eat it in three bites and then go to bed in silence without anything to drink. This is said to result in a dream in which their future spouse offers them a drink to quench their thirst.[177] Unmarried women were told that if they sat in a darkened room and gazed into a mirror on Halloween night, the face of their future husband would appear in the mirror.[178] However, if they were destined to die before marriage, a skull would appear. The custom was widespread enough to be commemorated on greeting cards[179] from the late 19th century and early 20th century.
+
+In Ireland and Scotland, items would be hidden in food – usually a cake, barmbrack, cranachan, champ or colcannon – and portions of it served out at random. A person's future would be foretold by the item they happened to find; for example, a ring meant marriage and a coin meant wealth.[180]
+
+Up until the 19th century, the Halloween bonfires were also used for divination in parts of Scotland, Wales and Brittany. When the fire died down, a ring of stones would be laid in the ashes, one for each person. In the morning, if any stone was mislaid it was said that the person it represented would not live out the year.[44]
+
+Telling ghost stories and watching horror films are common fixtures of Halloween parties. Episodes of television series and Halloween-themed specials (with the specials usually aimed at children) are commonly aired on or before Halloween, while new horror films are often released before Halloween to take advantage of the holiday.
+
+Haunted attractions are entertainment venues designed to thrill and scare patrons. Most attractions are seasonal Halloween businesses that may include haunted houses, corn mazes, and hayrides,[181] and the level of sophistication of the effects has risen as the industry has grown.
+
+The first recorded purpose-built haunted attraction was the Orton and Spooner Ghost House, which opened in 1915 in Liphook, England. This attraction actually most closely resembles a carnival fun house, powered by steam.[182][183] The House still exists, in the Hollycombe Steam Collection.
+
+It was during the 1930s, about the same time as trick-or-treating, that Halloween-themed haunted houses first began to appear in America. It was in the late 1950s that haunted houses as a major attraction began to appear, focusing first on California. Sponsored by the Children's Health Home Junior Auxiliary, the San Mateo Haunted House opened in 1957. The San Bernardino Assistance League Haunted House opened in 1958. Home haunts began appearing across the country during 1962 and 1963. In 1964, the San Manteo Haunted House opened, as well as the Children's Museum Haunted House in Indianapolis.[184]
+
+The haunted house as an American cultural icon can be attributed to the opening of the Haunted Mansion in Disneyland on 12 August 1969.[185] Knott's Berry Farm began hosting its own Halloween night attraction, Knott's Scary Farm, which opened in 1973.[186] Evangelical Christians adopted a form of these attractions by opening one of the first "hell houses" in 1972.[187]
+
+The first Halloween haunted house run by a nonprofit organization was produced in 1970 by the Sycamore-Deer Park Jaycees in Clifton, Ohio. It was cosponsored by WSAI, an AM radio station broadcasting out of Cincinnati, Ohio. It was last produced in 1982.[188] Other Jaycees followed suit with their own versions after the success of the Ohio house. The March of Dimes copyrighted a "Mini haunted house for the March of Dimes" in 1976 and began fundraising through their local chapters by conducting haunted houses soon after. Although they apparently quit supporting this type of event nationally sometime in the 1980s, some March of Dimes haunted houses have persisted until today.[189]
+
+On the evening of 11 May 1984, in Jackson Township, New Jersey, the Haunted Castle (Six Flags Great Adventure) caught fire. As a result of the fire, eight teenagers perished.[190] The backlash to the tragedy was a tightening of regulations relating to safety, building codes and the frequency of inspections of attractions nationwide. The smaller venues, especially the nonprofit attractions, were unable to compete financially, and the better funded commercial enterprises filled the vacuum.[191][192] Facilities that were once able to avoid regulation because they were considered to be temporary installations now had to adhere to the stricter codes required of permanent attractions.[193][194][195]
+
+In the late 1980s and early 1990s, theme parks entered the business seriously. Six Flags Fright Fest began in 1986 and Universal Studios Florida began Halloween Horror Nights in 1991. Knott's Scary Farm experienced a surge in attendance in the 1990s as a result of America's obsession with Halloween as a cultural event. Theme parks have played a major role in globalizing the holiday. Universal Studios Singapore and Universal Studios Japan both participate, while Disney now mounts Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party events at its parks in Paris, Hong Kong and Tokyo, as well as in the United States.[196] The theme park haunts are by far the largest, both in scale and attendance.[197]
+
+On All Hallows' Eve, many Western Christian denominations encourage abstinence from meat, giving rise to a variety of vegetarian foods associated with this day.[198]
+
+Because in the Northern Hemisphere Halloween comes in the wake of the yearly apple harvest, candy apples (known as toffee apples outside North America), caramel apples or taffy apples are common Halloween treats made by rolling whole apples in a sticky sugar syrup, sometimes followed by rolling them in nuts.
+
+At one time, candy apples were commonly given to trick-or-treating children, but the practice rapidly waned in the wake of widespread rumors that some individuals were embedding items like pins and razor blades in the apples in the United States.[199] While there is evidence of such incidents,[200] relative to the degree of reporting of such cases, actual cases involving malicious acts are extremely rare and have never resulted in serious injury. Nonetheless, many parents assumed that such heinous practices were rampant because of the mass media. At the peak of the hysteria, some hospitals offered free X-rays of children's Halloween hauls in order to find evidence of tampering. Virtually all of the few known candy poisoning incidents involved parents who poisoned their own children's candy.[201]
+
+One custom that persists in modern-day Ireland is the baking (or more often nowadays, the purchase) of a barmbrack (Irish: báirín breac), which is a light fruitcake, into which a plain ring, a coin, and other charms are placed before baking.[202] It is considered fortunate to be the lucky one who finds it.[202] It has also been said that those who get a ring will find their true love in the ensuing year. This is similar to the tradition of king cake at the festival of Epiphany.
+
+List of foods associated with Halloween:
+
+On Hallowe'en (All Hallows' Eve), in Poland, believers were once taught to pray out loud as they walk through the forests in order that the souls of the dead might find comfort; in Spain, Christian priests in tiny villages toll their church bells in order to remind their congregants to remember the dead on All Hallows' Eve.[203] In Ireland, and among immigrants in Canada, a custom includes the Christian practice of abstinence, keeping All Hallows' Eve as a meat-free day, and serving pancakes or colcannon instead.[204] In Mexico children make an altar to invite the return of the spirits of dead children (angelitos).[205]
+
+The Christian Church traditionally observed Hallowe'en through a vigil. Worshippers prepared themselves for feasting on the following All Saints' Day with prayers and fasting.[206] This church service is known as the Vigil of All Hallows or the Vigil of All Saints;[207][208] an initiative known as Night of Light seeks to further spread the Vigil of All Hallows throughout Christendom.[209][210] After the service, "suitable festivities and entertainments" often follow, as well as a visit to the graveyard or cemetery, where flowers and candles are often placed in preparation for All Hallows' Day.[211][212] In Finland, because so many people visit the cemeteries on All Hallows' Eve to light votive candles there, they "are known as valomeri, or seas of light".[213]
+
+Today, Christian attitudes towards Halloween are diverse. In the Anglican Church, some dioceses have chosen to emphasize the Christian traditions associated with All Hallow's Eve.[214][215] Some of these practices include praying, fasting and attending worship services.[1][2][3]
+
+O LORD our God, increase, we pray thee, and multiply upon us the gifts of thy grace: that we, who do prevent the glorious festival of all thy Saints, may of thee be enabled joyfully to follow them in all virtuous and godly living.  Through Jesus Christ, Our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end.  Amen. —Collect of the Vigil of All Saints, The Anglican Breviary[216]
+
+Other Protestant Christians also celebrate All Hallows' Eve as Reformation Day, a day to remember the Protestant Reformation, alongside All Hallow's Eve or independently from it.[217] This is because Martin Luther is said to have nailed his Ninety-five Theses to All Saints' Church in Wittenberg on All Hallows' Eve.[218] Often, "Harvest Festivals" or "Reformation Festivals" are held on All Hallows' Eve, in which children dress up as Bible characters or Reformers.[219] In addition to distributing candy to children who are trick-or-treating on Hallowe'en, many Christians also provide gospel tracts to them. One organization, the American Tract Society, stated that around 3 million gospel tracts are ordered from them alone for Hallowe'en celebrations.[220] Others order Halloween-themed Scripture Candy to pass out to children on this day.[221][222]
+
+Some Christians feel concerned about the modern celebration of Halloween because they feel it trivializes – or celebrates – paganism, the occult, or other practices and cultural phenomena deemed incompatible with their beliefs.[223] Father Gabriele Amorth, an exorcist in Rome, has said, "if English and American children like to dress up as witches and devils on one night of the year that is not a problem. If it is just a game, there is no harm in that."[224] In more recent years, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston has organized a "Saint Fest" on Halloween.[225] Similarly, many contemporary Protestant churches view Halloween as a fun event for children, holding events in their churches where children and their parents can dress up, play games, and get candy for free. To these Christians, Halloween holds no threat to the spiritual lives of children: being taught about death and mortality, and the ways of the Celtic ancestors actually being a valuable life lesson and a part of many of their parishioners' heritage.[226] Christian minister Sam Portaro wrote that Halloween is about using "humor and ridicule to confront the power of death".[227]
+
+In the Roman Catholic Church, Halloween's Christian connection is acknowledged, and Halloween celebrations are common in many Catholic parochial schools.[228][229] Many fundamentalist and evangelical churches use "Hell houses" and comic-style tracts in order to make use of Halloween's popularity as an opportunity for evangelism.[230] Others consider Halloween to be completely incompatible with the Christian faith due to its putative origins in the Festival of the Dead celebration.[231] Indeed, even though Eastern Orthodox Christians observe All Hallows' Day on the First Sunday after Pentecost, The Eastern Orthodox Church recommends the observance of Vespers or a Paraklesis on the Western observance of All Hallows' Eve, out of the pastoral need to provide an alternative to popular celebrations.[232]
+
+According to Alfred J. Kolatch in the Second Jewish Book of Why, in Judaism, Halloween is not permitted by Jewish Halakha because it violates Leviticus 18:3, which forbids Jews from partaking in gentile customs. Many Jews observe Yizkor communally four times a year, which is vaguely similar to the observance of Allhallowtide in Christianity, in the sense that prayers are said for both "martyrs and for one's own family".[233] Nevertheless, many American Jews celebrate Halloween, disconnected from its Christian origins.[234] Reform Rabbi Jeffrey Goldwasser has said that "There is no religious reason why contemporary Jews should not celebrate Halloween" while Orthodox Rabbi Michael Broyde has argued against Jews' observing the holiday.[235] Jews do have the holiday of Purim, where the children dress up in costumes to celebrate.[236]
+
+Sheikh Idris Palmer, author of A Brief Illustrated Guide to Understanding Islam, has argued that Muslims should not participate in Halloween, stating that "participation in Halloween is worse than participation in Christmas, Easter, ... it is more sinful than congratulating the Christians for their prostration to the crucifix".[237] Javed Memon, a Muslim writer, has disagreed, saying that his "daughter dressing up like a British telephone booth will not destroy her faith as a Muslim".[238]
+
+Hindus remember the dead during the festival of Pitru Paksha, during which Hindus pay homage to and perform a ceremony "to keep the souls of their ancestors at rest". It is celebrated in the Hindu month of Bhadrapada, usually in mid-September.[239] The celebration of the Hindu festival Diwali sometimes conflicts with the date of Halloween; but some Hindus choose to participate in the popular customs of Halloween.[240] Other Hindus, such as Soumya Dasgupta, have opposed the celebration on the grounds that Western holidays like Halloween have "begun to adversely affect our indigenous festivals".[241]
+
+There is no consistent rule or view on Halloween amongst those who describe themselves as Neopagans or Wiccans. Some Neopagans do not observe Halloween, but instead observe Samhain on 1 November,[242] some neopagans do enjoy Halloween festivities, stating that one can observe both "the solemnity of Samhain in addition to the fun of Halloween". Some neopagans are opposed to the celebration of Hallowe'en, stating that it "trivializes Samhain",[243] and "avoid Halloween, because of the interruptions from trick or treaters".[244] The Manitoban writes that "Wiccans don't officially celebrate Halloween, despite the fact that 31 Oct. will still have a star beside it in any good Wiccan's day planner. Starting at sundown, Wiccans celebrate a holiday known as Samhain. Samhain actually comes from old Celtic traditions and is not exclusive to Neopagan religions like Wicca. While the traditions of this holiday originate in Celtic countries, modern day Wiccans don't try to historically replicate Samhain celebrations. Some traditional Samhain rituals are still practised, but at its core, the period is treated as a time to celebrate darkness and the dead – a possible reason why Samhain can be confused with Halloween celebrations."[242]
+
+The traditions and importance of Halloween vary greatly among countries that observe it. In Scotland and Ireland, traditional Halloween customs include children dressing up in costume going "guising", holding parties, while other practices in Ireland include lighting bonfires, and having firework displays.[245][246] In Brittany children would play practical jokes by setting candles inside skulls in graveyards to frighten visitors.[247] Mass transatlantic immigration in the 19th century popularized Halloween in North America, and celebration in the United States and Canada has had a significant impact on how the event is observed in other nations. This larger North American influence, particularly in iconic and commercial elements, has extended to places such as Ecuador, Chile,[248] Australia,[249] New Zealand,[250] (most) continental Europe, Japan, and other parts of East Asia.[251] In the Philippines, during Halloween, Filipinos return to their hometowns and purchase candles and flowers,[252] in preparation for the following All Saints Day (Araw ng mga Patay) on 1 November and All Souls Day – though it falls on 2 November, most of them observe it on the day before.[253] In Mexico and Latin America in general, it is referred to as " Día de Muertos " which translates in English to "Day of the dead". Most of the people from Latin America construct altars in their homes to honor their deceased relatives and they decorate them with flowers and candies and other offerings.[254]
+
+
+
+(federal) = federal holidays, (abbreviation) = state/territorial holidays, (religious) = religious holidays, (cultural) = holiday related to a specific racial/ethnic group or sexual minority, (week) = week-long holidays, (month) = month-long holidays, (36) = Title 36 Observances and Ceremonies
+Bold indicates major holidays commonly celebrated in the United States, which often represent the major celebrations of the month.

en/237.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,291 @@
+
+
+
+
+English is a West Germanic language that was first spoken in early medieval England and eventually became a global lingua franca.[4][5] It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the area of Great Britain that later took their name, England. Both names derive from Anglia, a peninsula on the Baltic Sea. English is most closely related to Frisian and Low Saxon, while its vocabulary has been significantly influenced by other Germanic languages, particularly Old Norse (a North Germanic language), as well as Latin and French.[6][7][8]
+
+English has developed over the course of more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a group of West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century, are collectively called Old English. Middle English began in the late 11th century with the Norman conquest of England; this was a period in which English was influenced by Old French, in particular through its Old Norman dialect.[9][10] Early Modern English began in the late 15th century with the introduction of the printing press to London, the printing of the King James Bible and the start of the Great Vowel Shift.[11]
+
+Modern English has been spreading around the world since the 17th century by the worldwide influence of the British Empire and the United States. Through all types of printed and electronic media of these countries, English has become the leading language of international discourse and the lingua franca in many regions and professional contexts such as science, navigation and law.[12] Modern English grammar is the result of a gradual change from a typical Indo-European dependent marking pattern, with a rich inflectional morphology and relatively free word order, to a mostly analytic pattern with little inflection, a fairly fixed subject–verb–object word order and a complex syntax.[13] Modern English relies more on auxiliary verbs and word order for the expression of complex tenses, aspect and mood, as well as passive constructions, interrogatives and some negation.
+
+English is the largest language by number of speakers,[14] and the third most-spoken native language in the world, after Standard Chinese and Spanish.[15] It is the most widely learned second language and is either the official language or one of the official languages in almost 60 sovereign states. There are more people who have learned it as a second language than there are native speakers. It is estimated that there are over 2 billion speakers of English.[16] English is the majority native language in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland, and it is widely spoken in some areas of the Caribbean, Africa and South Asia.[17] It is a co-official language of the United Nations, the European Union and many other world and regional international organisations. It is the most widely spoken Germanic language, accounting for at least 70% of speakers of this Indo-European branch. English speakers are called "Anglophones". Variability among the accents and dialects of English used in different countries and regions—in terms of phonetics and phonology, and sometimes also vocabulary, idioms, grammar, and spelling—does not typically prevent understanding by speakers of other dialects, although mutual unintelligibility can occur at extreme ends of the dialect continuum.
+
+English is an Indo-European language and belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages.[18] Old English originated from a Germanic tribal and linguistic continuum along the Frisian North Sea coast, whose languages gradually evolved into the Anglic languages in the British Isles, and into the Frisian languages and Low German/Low Saxon on the continent. The Frisian languages, which together with the Anglic languages form the Anglo-Frisian languages, are the closest living relatives of English. Low German/Low Saxon is also closely related, and sometimes English, the Frisian languages, and Low German are grouped together as the Ingvaeonic (North Sea Germanic) languages, though this grouping remains debated.[7] Old English evolved into Middle English, which in turn evolved into Modern English.[19] Particular dialects of Old and Middle English also developed into a number of other Anglic languages, including Scots[20] and the extinct Fingallian and Forth and Bargy (Yola) dialects of Ireland.[21]
+
+Like Icelandic and Faroese, the development of English in the British Isles isolated it from the continental Germanic languages and influences. It has since evolved considerably. English is not mutually intelligible with any continental Germanic language, differing in vocabulary, syntax, and phonology, although some of these, such as Dutch or Frisian, do show strong affinities with English, especially with its earlier stages.[22]
+
+Unlike Icelandic and Faroese, which were isolated, the development of English was influenced by a long series of invasions of the British Isles by other peoples and languages, particularly Old Norse and Norman French. These left a profound mark of their own on the language, so that English shows some similarities in vocabulary and grammar with many languages outside its linguistic clades—but it is not mutually intelligible with any of those languages either. Some scholars have argued that English can be considered a mixed language or a creole—a theory called the Middle English creole hypothesis. Although the great influence of these languages on the vocabulary and grammar of Modern English is widely acknowledged, most specialists in language contact do not consider English to be a true mixed language.[23][24]
+
+English is classified as a Germanic language because it shares innovations with other Germanic languages such as Dutch, German, and Swedish.[25] These shared innovations show that the languages have descended from a single common ancestor called Proto-Germanic. Some shared features of Germanic languages include the division of verbs into strong and weak classes, the use of modal verbs, and the sound changes affecting Proto-Indo-European consonants, known as Grimm's and Verner's laws. English is classified as an Anglo-Frisian language because Frisian and English share other features, such as the palatalisation of consonants that were velar consonants in Proto-Germanic (see Phonological history of Old English § Palatalization).[26]
+
+The earliest form of English is called Old English or Anglo-Saxon (c. 550–1066 CE). Old English developed from a set of West Germanic dialects, often grouped as Anglo-Frisian or North Sea Germanic, and originally spoken along the coasts of Frisia, Lower Saxony and southern Jutland by Germanic peoples known to the historical record as the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes.[27][28] From the 5th century CE, the Anglo-Saxons settled Britain as the Roman economy and administration collapsed. By the 7th century, the Germanic language of the Anglo-Saxons became dominant in Britain, replacing the languages of Roman Britain (43–409 CE): Common Brittonic, a Celtic language, and Latin, brought to Britain by the Roman occupation.[29][30][31] England and English (originally Ænglaland and Ænglisc) are named after the Angles.[32]
+
+Old English was divided into four dialects: the Anglian dialects (Mercian and Northumbrian) and the Saxon dialects, Kentish and West Saxon.[33] Through the educational reforms of King Alfred in the 9th century and the influence of the kingdom of Wessex, the West Saxon dialect became the standard written variety.[34] The epic poem Beowulf is written in West Saxon, and the earliest English poem, Cædmon's Hymn, is written in Northumbrian.[35] Modern English developed mainly from Mercian, but the Scots language developed from Northumbrian. A few short inscriptions from the early period of Old English were written using a runic script.[36] By the 6th century, a Latin alphabet was adopted, written with half-uncial letterforms. It included the runic letters wynn ⟨ƿ⟩ and thorn ⟨þ⟩, and the modified Latin letters eth ⟨ð⟩, and ash ⟨æ⟩.[36][37]
+
+Old English is essentially a distinct language from Modern English and is virtually impossible for 21st-century unstudied English-speakers to understand. Its grammar was similar to that of modern German, and its closest relative is Old Frisian. Nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs had many more inflectional endings and forms, and word order was much freer than in Modern English. Modern English has case forms in pronouns (he, him, his) and has a few verb inflections (speak, speaks, speaking, spoke, spoken), but Old English had case endings in nouns as well, and verbs had more person and number endings.[38][39][40]
+
+The translation of Matthew 8:20 from 1000 CE shows examples of case endings (nominative plural, accusative plural, genitive singular) and a verb ending (present plural):
+
+John of Trevisa, ca. 1385[42]
+
+From the 8th to the 12th century, Old English gradually transformed through language contact into Middle English. Middle English is often arbitrarily defined as beginning with the conquest of England by William the Conqueror in 1066, but it developed further in the period from 1200–1450.
+
+First, the waves of Norse colonisation of northern parts of the British Isles in the 8th and 9th centuries put Old English into intense contact with Old Norse, a North Germanic language. Norse influence was strongest in the north-eastern varieties of Old English spoken in the Danelaw area around York, which was the centre of Norse colonisation; today these features are still particularly present in Scots and Northern English. However the centre of norsified English seems to have been in the Midlands around Lindsey, and after 920 CE when Lindsey was reincorporated into the Anglo-Saxon polity, Norse features spread from there into English varieties that had not been in direct contact with Norse speakers. An element of Norse influence that persists in all English varieties today is the group of pronouns beginning with th- (they, them, their) which replaced the Anglo-Saxon pronouns with h- (hie, him, hera).[43]
+
+With the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the now norsified Old English language was subject to contact with Old French, in particular with the Old Norman dialect. The Norman language in England eventually developed into Anglo-Norman.[9] Because Norman was spoken primarily by the elites and nobles, while the lower classes continued speaking Anglo-Saxon (English), the main influence of Norman was the introduction of a wide range of loanwords related to politics, legislation and prestigious social domains.[8] Middle English also greatly simplified the inflectional system, probably in order to reconcile Old Norse and Old English, which were inflectionally different but morphologically similar. The distinction between nominative and accusative cases was lost except in personal pronouns, the instrumental case was dropped, and the use of the genitive case was limited to indicating possession. The inflectional system regularised many irregular inflectional forms,[44] and gradually simplified the system of agreement, making word order less flexible.[45] In the Wycliffe Bible of the 1380s, the verse Matthew 8:20 was written:
+
+Here the plural suffix -n on the verb have is still retained, but none of the case endings on the nouns are present. By the 12th century Middle English was fully developed, integrating both Norse and French features; it continued to be spoken until the transition to early Modern English around 1500. Middle English literature includes Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, and Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. In the Middle English period, the use of regional dialects in writing proliferated, and dialect traits were even used for effect by authors such as Chaucer.[47]
+
+The next period in the history of English was Early Modern English (1500–1700). Early Modern English was characterised by the Great Vowel Shift (1350–1700), inflectional simplification, and linguistic standardisation.
+
+The Great Vowel Shift affected the stressed long vowels of Middle English. It was a chain shift, meaning that each shift triggered a subsequent shift in the vowel system. Mid and open vowels were raised, and close vowels were broken into diphthongs. For example, the word bite was originally pronounced as the word beet is today, and the second vowel in the word about was pronounced as the word boot is today. The Great Vowel Shift explains many irregularities in spelling since English retains many spellings from Middle English, and it also explains why English vowel letters have very different pronunciations from the same letters in other languages.[48][49]
+
+English began to rise in prestige, relative to Norman French, during the reign of Henry V. Around 1430, the Court of Chancery in Westminster began using English in its official documents, and a new standard form of Middle English, known as Chancery Standard, developed from the dialects of London and the East Midlands. In 1476, William Caxton introduced the printing press to England and began publishing the first printed books in London, expanding the influence of this form of English.[50] Literature from the Early Modern period includes the works of William Shakespeare and the translation of the Bible commissioned by King James I. Even after the vowel shift the language still sounded different from Modern English: for example, the consonant clusters /kn ɡn sw/ in knight, gnat, and sword were still pronounced. Many of the grammatical features that a modern reader of Shakespeare might find quaint or archaic represent the distinct characteristics of Early Modern English.[51]
+
+In the 1611 King James Version of the Bible, written in Early Modern English, Matthew 8:20 says:
+
+This exemplifies the loss of case and its effects on sentence structure (replacement with Subject-Verb-Object word order, and the use of of instead of the non-possessive genitive), and the introduction of loanwords from French (ayre) and word replacements (bird originally meaning "nestling" had replaced OE fugol).[52]
+
+By the late 18th century, the British Empire had spread English through its colonies and geopolitical dominance. Commerce, science and technology, diplomacy, art, and formal education all contributed to English becoming the first truly global language. English also facilitated worldwide international communication.[53][12] England continued to form new colonies, and these later developed their own norms for speech and writing. English was adopted in parts of North America, parts of Africa, Australasia, and many other regions. When they obtained political independence, some of the newly independent nations that had multiple indigenous languages opted to continue using English as the official language to avoid the political and other difficulties inherent in promoting any one indigenous language above the others.[54][55][56] In the 20th century the growing economic and cultural influence of the United States and its status as a superpower following the Second World War has, along with worldwide broadcasting in English by the BBC[57] and other broadcasters, caused the language to spread across the planet much faster.[58][59] In the 21st century, English is more widely spoken and written than any language has ever been.[60]
+
+As Modern English developed, explicit norms for standard usage were published, and spread through official media such as public education and state-sponsored publications. In 1755 Samuel Johnson published his A Dictionary of the English Language which introduced standard spellings of words and usage norms. In 1828, Noah Webster published the American Dictionary of the English language to try to establish a norm for speaking and writing American English that was independent of the British standard. Within Britain, non-standard or lower class dialect features were increasingly stigmatised, leading to the quick spread of the prestige varieties among the middle classes.[61]
+
+In modern English, the loss of grammatical case is almost complete (it is now only found in pronouns, such as he and him, she and her, who and whom), and SVO word-order is mostly fixed.[61] Some changes, such as the use of do-support have become universalised. (Earlier English did not use the word "do" as a general auxiliary as Modern English does; at first it was only used in question constructions, and even then was not obligatory.[62] Now, do-support with the verb have is becoming increasingly standardised.) The use of progressive forms in -ing, appears to be spreading to new constructions, and forms such as had been being built are becoming more common. Regularisation of irregular forms also slowly continues (e.g. dreamed instead of dreamt), and analytical alternatives to inflectional forms are becoming more common (e.g. more polite instead of politer). British English is also undergoing change under the influence of American English, fuelled by the strong presence of American English in the media and the prestige associated with the US as a world power.[63][64][65]
+
+
+
+As of 2016[update], 400 million people spoke English as their first language, and 1.1 billion spoke it as a secondary language.[66] English is the largest language by number of speakers. English is spoken by communities on every continent and on islands in all the major oceans.[67]
+
+The countries where English is spoken can be grouped into different categories according to how English is used in each country. The "inner circle"[68] countries with many native speakers of English share an international standard of written English and jointly influence speech norms for English around the world. English does not belong to just one country, and it does not belong solely to descendants of English settlers. English is an official language of countries populated by few descendants of native speakers of English. It has also become by far the most important language of international communication when people who share no native language meet anywhere in the world.
+
+Braj Kachru distinguishes countries where English is spoken with a three circles model.[68] In his model,
+
+Kachru bases his model on the history of how English spread in different countries, how users acquire English, and the range of uses English has in each country. The three circles change membership over time.[69]
+
+Countries with large communities of native speakers of English (the inner circle) include Britain, the United States, Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand, where the majority speaks English, and South Africa, where a significant minority speaks English. The countries with the most native English speakers are, in descending order, the United States (at least 231 million),[70] the United Kingdom (60 million),[71][72][73] Canada (19 million),[74] Australia (at least 17 million),[75] South Africa (4.8 million),[76] Ireland (4.2 million), and New Zealand (3.7 million).[77] In these countries, children of native speakers learn English from their parents, and local people who speak other languages and new immigrants learn English to communicate in their neighbourhoods and workplaces.[78] The inner-circle countries provide the base from which English spreads to other countries in the world.[69]
+
+Estimates of the numbers of second language and foreign-language English speakers vary greatly from 470 million to more than 1 billion, depending on how proficiency is defined.[17] Linguist David Crystal estimates that non-native speakers now outnumber native speakers by a ratio of 3 to 1.[79] In Kachru's three-circles model, the "outer circle" countries are countries such as the Philippines,[80] Jamaica,[81] India, Pakistan, Singapore,[82] Malaysia and Nigeria[83][84] with a much smaller proportion of native speakers of English but much use of English as a second language for education, government, or domestic business, and its routine use for school instruction and official interactions with the government.[85]
+
+Those countries have millions of native speakers of dialect continua ranging from an English-based creole to a more standard version of English. They have many more speakers of English who acquire English as they grow up through day-to-day use and listening to broadcasting, especially if they attend schools where English is the medium of instruction. Varieties of English learned by non-native speakers born to English-speaking parents may be influenced, especially in their grammar, by the other languages spoken by those learners.[78] Most of those varieties of English include words little used by native speakers of English in the inner-circle countries,[78] and they may show grammatical and phonological differences from inner-circle varieties as well. The standard English of the inner-circle countries is often taken as a norm for use of English in the outer-circle countries.[78]
+
+In the three-circles model, countries such as Poland, China, Brazil, Germany, Japan, Indonesia, Egypt, and other countries where English is taught as a foreign language, make up the "expanding circle".[86] The distinctions between English as a first language, as a second language, and as a foreign language are often debatable and may change in particular countries over time.[85] For example, in the Netherlands and some other countries of Europe, knowledge of English as a second language is nearly universal, with over 80 percent of the population able to use it,[87] and thus English is routinely used to communicate with foreigners and often in higher education. In these countries, although English is not used for government business, its widespread use puts them at the boundary between the "outer circle" and "expanding circle". English is unusual among world languages in how many of its users are not native speakers but speakers of English as a second or foreign language.[88]
+
+Many users of English in the expanding circle use it to communicate with other people from the expanding circle, so that interaction with native speakers of English plays no part in their decision to use English.[89] Non-native varieties of English are widely used for international communication, and speakers of one such variety often encounter features of other varieties.[90] Very often today a conversation in English anywhere in the world may include no native speakers of English at all, even while including speakers from several different countries.[91]
+
+Pie chart showing the percentage of native English speakers living in "inner circle" English-speaking countries. Native speakers are now substantially outnumbered worldwide by second-language speakers of English (not counted in this chart).
+
+English is a pluricentric language, which means that no one national authority sets the standard for use of the language.[92][93][94][95] But English is not a divided language,[96] despite a long-standing joke originally attributed to George Bernard Shaw that the United Kingdom and the United States are "two countries separated by a common language".[97] Spoken English, for example English used in broadcasting, generally follows national pronunciation standards that are also established by custom rather than by regulation. International broadcasters are usually identifiable as coming from one country rather than another through their accents,[98] but newsreader scripts are also composed largely in international standard written English. The norms of standard written English are maintained purely by the consensus of educated English-speakers around the world, without any oversight by any government or international organisation.[99]
+
+American listeners generally readily understand most British broadcasting, and British listeners readily understand most American broadcasting. Most English speakers around the world can understand radio programmes, television programmes, and films from many parts of the English-speaking world.[100] Both standard and non-standard varieties of English can include both formal or informal styles, distinguished by word choice and syntax and use both technical and non-technical registers.[101]
+
+The settlement history of the English-speaking inner circle countries outside Britain helped level dialect distinctions and produce koineised forms of English in South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.[102] The majority of immigrants to the United States without British ancestry rapidly adopted English after arrival. Now the majority of the United States population are monolingual English speakers,[103][70] and English has been given official or co-official status by 30 of the 50 state governments, as well as all five territorial governments of the US, though there has never been an official language at the Federal level.[104][105]
+
+English has ceased to be an "English language" in the sense of belonging only to people who are ethnically English.[106][107] Use of English is growing country-by-country internally and for international communication. Most people learn English for practical rather than ideological reasons.[108] Many speakers of English in Africa have become part of an "Afro-Saxon" language community that unites Africans from different countries.[109]
+
+As decolonisation proceeded throughout the British Empire in the 1950s and 1960s, former colonies often did not reject English but rather continued to use it as independent countries setting their own language policies.[55][56][110] For example, the view of the English language among many Indians has gone from associating it with colonialism to associating it with economic progress, and English continues to be an official language of India.[111] English is also widely used in media and literature, and the number of English language books published annually in India is the third largest in the world after the US and UK.[112] However English is rarely spoken as a first language, numbering only around a couple hundred-thousand people, and less than 5% of the population speak fluent English in India.[113][114] David Crystal claimed in 2004 that, combining native and non-native speakers, India now has more people who speak or understand English than any other country in the world,[115] but the number of English speakers in India is very uncertain, with most scholars concluding that the United States still has more speakers of English than India.[116]
+
+Modern English, sometimes described as the first global lingua franca,[58][117] is also regarded as the first world language.[118][119] English is the world's most widely used language in newspaper publishing, book publishing, international telecommunications, scientific publishing, international trade, mass entertainment, and diplomacy.[119] English is, by international treaty, the basis for the required controlled natural languages[120] Seaspeak and Airspeak, used as international languages of seafaring[121] and aviation.[122] English used to have parity with French and German in scientific research, but now it dominates that field.[123] It achieved parity with French as a language of diplomacy at the Treaty of Versailles negotiations in 1919.[124] By the time of the foundation of the United Nations at the end of World War II, English had become pre-eminent[125] and is now the main worldwide language of diplomacy and international relations.[126] It is one of six official languages of the United Nations.[127] Many other worldwide international organisations, including the International Olympic Committee, specify English as a working language or official language of the organisation.
+
+Many regional international organisations such as the European Free Trade Association, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN),[59] and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) set English as their organisation's sole working language even though most members are not countries with a majority of native English speakers. While the European Union (EU) allows member states to designate any of the national languages as an official language of the Union, in practice English is the main working language of EU organisations.[128]
+
+Although in most countries English is not an official language, it is currently the language most often taught as a foreign language.[58][59] In the countries of the EU, English is the most widely spoken foreign language in nineteen of the twenty-five member states where it is not an official language (that is, the countries other than Ireland and Malta). In a 2012 official Eurobarometer poll (conducted when the UK was still a member of the EU), 38 percent of the EU respondents outside the countries where English is an official language said they could speak English well enough to have a conversation in that language. The next most commonly mentioned foreign language, French (which is the most widely known foreign language in the UK and Ireland), could be used in conversation by 12 percent of respondents.[129]
+
+A working knowledge of English has become a requirement in a number of occupations and professions such as medicine[130] and computing. English has become so important in scientific publishing that more than 80 percent of all scientific journal articles indexed by Chemical Abstracts in 1998 were written in English, as were 90 percent of all articles in natural science publications by 1996 and 82 percent of articles in humanities publications by 1995.[131]
+
+International communities such as international business people may use English as an auxiliary language, with an emphasis on vocabulary suitable for their domain of interest. This has led some scholars to develop the study of English as an auxiliary language. The trademarked Globish uses a relatively small subset of English vocabulary (about 1500 words, designed to represent the highest use in international business English) in combination with the standard English grammar.[132] Other examples include Simple English.
+
+The increased use of the English language globally has had an effect on other languages, leading to some English words being assimilated into the vocabularies of other languages. This influence of English has led to concerns about language death,[133] and to claims of linguistic imperialism,[134] and has provoked resistance to the spread of English; however the number of speakers continues to increase because many people around the world think that English provides them with opportunities for better employment and improved lives.[135]
+
+Although some scholars[who?] mention a possibility of future divergence of English dialects into mutually unintelligible languages, most think a more likely outcome is that English will continue to function as a koineised language in which the standard form unifies speakers from around the world.[136] English is used as the language for wider communication in countries around the world.[137] Thus English has grown in worldwide use much more than any constructed language proposed as an international auxiliary language, including Esperanto.[138][139]
+
+The phonetics and phonology of the English language differ from one dialect to another, usually without interfering with mutual communication. Phonological variation affects the inventory of phonemes (i.e. speech sounds that distinguish meaning), and phonetic variation consists in differences in pronunciation of the phonemes. [140] This overview mainly describes the standard pronunciations of the United Kingdom and the United States: Received Pronunciation (RP) and General American (GA). (See § Dialects, accents, and varieties, below.)
+
+The phonetic symbols used below are from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).[141][142][143]
+
+Most English dialects share the same 24 consonant phonemes. The consonant inventory shown below is valid for California English,[144] and for RP.[145]
+
+* Conventionally transcribed /r/
+
+In the table, when obstruents (stops, affricates, and fricatives) appear in pairs, such as /p b/, /tʃ dʒ/, and /s z/, the first is fortis (strong) and the second is lenis (weak). Fortis obstruents, such as /p tʃ s/ are pronounced with more muscular tension and breath force than lenis consonants, such as /b dʒ z/, and are always voiceless. Lenis consonants are partly voiced at the beginning and end of utterances, and fully voiced between vowels. Fortis stops such as /p/ have additional articulatory or acoustic features in most dialects: they are aspirated [pʰ] when they occur alone at the beginning of a stressed syllable, often unaspirated in other cases, and often unreleased [p̚] or pre-glottalised [ʔp] at the end of a syllable. In a single-syllable word, a vowel before a fortis stop is shortened: thus nip has a noticeably shorter vowel (phonetically, but not phonemically) than nib [nɪˑb̥] (see below).[146]
+
+In RP, the lateral approximant /l/, has two main allophones (pronunciation variants): the clear or plain [l], as in light, and the dark or velarised [ɫ], as in full.[147] GA has dark l in most cases.[148]
+
+All sonorants (liquids /l, r/ and nasals /m, n, ŋ/) devoice when following a voiceless obstruent, and they are syllabic when following a consonant at the end of a word.[149]
+
+The pronunciation of vowels varies a great deal between dialects and is one of the most detectable aspects of a speaker's accent. The table below lists the vowel phonemes in Received Pronunciation (RP) and General American (GA), with examples of words in which they occur from lexical sets compiled by linguists. The vowels are represented with symbols from the International Phonetic Alphabet; those given for RP are standard in British dictionaries and other publications.[150]
+
+In RP, vowel length is phonemic; long vowels are marked with a triangular colon ⟨ː⟩ in the table above, such as the vowel of need [niːd] as opposed to bid [bɪd]. In GA, vowel length is non-distinctive.
+
+In both RP and GA, vowels are phonetically shortened before fortis consonants in the same syllable, like /t tʃ f/, but not before lenis consonants like /d dʒ v/ or in open syllables: thus, the vowels of rich [rɪtʃ], neat [nit], and safe [seɪ̯f] are noticeably shorter than the vowels of ridge [rɪˑdʒ], need [niˑd], and save [seˑɪ̯v], and the vowel of light [laɪ̯t] is shorter than that of lie [laˑɪ̯]. Because lenis consonants are frequently voiceless at the end of a syllable, vowel length is an important cue as to whether the following consonant is lenis or fortis.[151]
+
+The vowel /ə/ only occurs in unstressed syllables and is more open in quality in stem-final positions.[152][153] Some dialects do not contrast /ɪ/ and /ə/ in unstressed positions, so that rabbit and abbot rhyme and Lenin and Lennon are homophonous, a dialect feature called weak vowel merger.[154] GA /ɜr/ and /ər/ are realised as an r-coloured vowel [ɚ], as in further [ˈfɚðɚ] (phonemically /ˈfɜrðər/), which in RP is realised as [ˈfəːðə] (phonemically /ˈfɜːðə/).[155]
+
+An English syllable includes a syllable nucleus consisting of a vowel sound. Syllable onset and coda (start and end) are optional. A syllable can start with up to three consonant sounds, as in sprint /sprɪnt/, and end with up to four, as in texts /teksts/. This gives an English syllable the following structure, (CCC)V(CCCC) where C represents a consonant and V a vowel; the word strengths /strɛŋkθs/ is thus an example of the most complex syllable possible in English. The consonants that may appear together in onsets or codas are restricted, as is the order in which they may appear. Onsets can only have four types of consonant clusters: a stop and approximant, as in play; a voiceless fricative and approximant, as in fly or sly; s and a voiceless stop, as in stay; and s, a voiceless stop, and an approximant, as in string.[156] Clusters of nasal and stop are only allowed in codas. Clusters of obstruents always agree in voicing, and clusters of sibilants and of plosives with the same point of articulation are prohibited. Furthermore, several consonants have limited distributions: /h/ can only occur in syllable-initial position, and /ŋ/ only in syllable-final position.[157]
+
+Stress plays an important role in English. Certain syllables are stressed, while others are unstressed. Stress is a combination of duration, intensity, vowel quality, and sometimes changes in pitch. Stressed syllables are pronounced longer and louder than unstressed syllables, and vowels in unstressed syllables are frequently reduced while vowels in stressed syllables are not.[158] Some words, primarily short function words but also some modal verbs such as can, have weak and strong forms depending on whether they occur in stressed or non-stressed position within a sentence.
+
+Stress in English is phonemic, and some pairs of words are distinguished by stress. For instance, the word contract is stressed on the first syllable (/ˈkɒntrækt/ KON-trakt) when used as a noun, but on the last syllable (/kənˈtrækt/ kən-TRAKT) for most meanings (for example, "reduce in size") when used as a verb.[159][160][161] Here stress is connected to vowel reduction: in the noun "contract" the first syllable is stressed and has the unreduced vowel /ɒ/, but in the verb "contract" the first syllable is unstressed and its vowel is reduced to /ə/. Stress is also used to distinguish between words and phrases, so that a compound word receives a single stress unit, but the corresponding phrase has two: e.g. a burnout (/ˈbɜːrnaʊt/) versus to burn out (/ˈbɜːrn ˈaʊt/), and a hotdog (/ˈhɒtdɒɡ/) versus a hot dog (/ˈhɒt ˈdɒɡ/).[162]
+
+In terms of rhythm, English is generally described as a stress-timed language, meaning that the amount of time between stressed syllables tends to be equal.[163] Stressed syllables are pronounced longer, but unstressed syllables (syllables between stresses) are shortened. Vowels in unstressed syllables are shortened as well, and vowel shortening causes changes in vowel quality: vowel reduction.[164]
+
+Varieties of English vary the most in pronunciation of vowels. The best known national varieties used as standards for education in non-English-speaking countries are British (BrE) and American (AmE). Countries such as Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand and South Africa have their own standard varieties which are less often used as standards for education internationally. Some differences between the various dialects are shown in the table "Varieties of Standard English and their features".[165]
+
+English has undergone many historical sound changes, some of them affecting all varieties, and others affecting only a few. Most standard varieties are affected by the Great Vowel Shift, which changed the pronunciation of long vowels, but a few dialects have slightly different results. In North America, a number of chain shifts such as the Northern Cities Vowel Shift and Canadian Shift have produced very different vowel landscapes in some regional accents.[166][167]
+
+Some dialects have fewer or more consonant phonemes and phones than the standard varieties. Some conservative varieties like Scottish English have a voiceless [ʍ] sound in whine that contrasts with the voiced [w] in wine, but most other dialects pronounce both words with voiced [w], a dialect feature called wine–whine merger. The unvoiced velar fricative sound /x/ is found in Scottish English, which distinguishes loch /lɔx/ from lock /lɔk/. Accents like Cockney with "h-dropping" lack the glottal fricative /h/, and dialects with th-stopping and th-fronting like African American Vernacular and Estuary English do not have the dental fricatives /θ, ð/, but replace them with dental or alveolar stops /t, d/ or labiodental fricatives /f, v/.[168][169] Other changes affecting the phonology of local varieties are processes such as yod-dropping, yod-coalescence, and reduction of consonant clusters.[170]
+
+General American and Received Pronunciation vary in their pronunciation of historical /r/ after a vowel at the end of a syllable (in the syllable coda). GA is a rhotic dialect, meaning that it pronounces /r/ at the end of a syllable, but RP is non-rhotic, meaning that it loses /r/ in that position. English dialects are classified as rhotic or non-rhotic depending on whether they elide /r/ like RP or keep it like GA.[171]
+
+There is complex dialectal variation in words with the open front and open back vowels /æ ɑː ɒ ɔː/. These four vowels are only distinguished in RP, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. In GA, these vowels merge to three /æ ɑ ɔ/,[172] and in Canadian English, they merge to two /æ ɑ/.[173] In addition, the words that have each vowel vary by dialect. The table "Dialects and open vowels" shows this variation with lexical sets in which these sounds occur.
+
+As is typical of an Indo-European language, English follows accusative morphosyntactic alignment. Unlike other Indo-European languages though, English has largely abandoned the inflectional case system in favor of analytic constructions. Only the personal pronouns retain morphological case more strongly than any other word class. English distinguishes at least seven major word classes: verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, determiners (including articles), prepositions, and conjunctions. Some analyses add pronouns as a class separate from nouns, and subdivide conjunctions into subordinators and coordinators, and add the class of interjections.[174] English also has a rich set of auxiliary verbs, such as have and do, expressing the categories of mood and aspect. Questions are marked by do-support, wh-movement (fronting of question words beginning with wh-) and word order inversion with some verbs.[175]
+
+Some traits typical of Germanic languages persist in English, such as the distinction between irregularly inflected strong stems inflected through ablaut (i.e. changing the vowel of the stem, as in the pairs speak/spoke and foot/feet) and weak stems inflected through affixation (such as love/loved, hand/hands).[176] Vestiges of the case and gender system are found in the pronoun system (he/him, who/whom) and in the inflection of the copula verb to be.[176]
+
+The seven-word classes are exemplified in this sample sentence:[177]
+
+English nouns are only inflected for number and possession. New nouns can be formed through derivation or compounding. They are semantically divided into proper nouns (names) and common nouns. Common nouns are in turn divided into concrete and abstract nouns, and grammatically into count nouns and mass nouns.[178]
+
+Most count nouns are inflected for plural number through the use of the plural suffix -s, but a few nouns have irregular plural forms. Mass nouns can only be pluralised through the use of a count noun classifier, e.g. one loaf of bread, two loaves of bread.[179]
+
+Regular plural formation:
+
+Irregular plural formation:
+
+Possession can be expressed either by the possessive enclitic -s (also traditionally called a genitive suffix), or by the preposition of. Historically the -s possessive has been used for animate nouns, whereas the of possessive has been reserved for inanimate nouns. Today this distinction is less clear, and many speakers use -s also with inanimates. Orthographically the possessive -s is separated from the noun root with an apostrophe.[175]
+
+Possessive constructions:
+
+Nouns can form noun phrases (NPs) where they are the syntactic head of the words that depend on them such as determiners, quantifiers, conjunctions or adjectives.[180] Noun phrases can be short, such as the man, composed only of a determiner and a noun. They can also include modifiers such as adjectives (e.g. red, tall, all) and specifiers such as determiners (e.g. the, that). But they can also tie together several nouns into a single long NP, using conjunctions such as and, or prepositions such as with, e.g. the tall man with the long red trousers and his skinny wife with the spectacles (this NP uses conjunctions, prepositions, specifiers, and modifiers). Regardless of length, an NP functions as a syntactic unit.[175] For example, the possessive enclitic can, in cases which do not lead to ambiguity, follow the entire noun phrase, as in The President of India's wife, where the enclitic follows India and not President.
+
+The class of determiners is used to specify the noun they precede in terms of definiteness, where the marks a definite noun and a or an an indefinite one. A definite noun is assumed by the speaker to be already known by the interlocutor, whereas an indefinite noun is not specified as being previously known. Quantifiers, which include one, many, some and all, are used to specify the noun in terms of quantity or number. The noun must agree with the number of the determiner, e.g. one man (sg.) but all men (pl.). Determiners are the first constituents in a noun phrase.[181]
+
+Adjectives modify a noun by providing additional information about their referents. In English, adjectives come before the nouns they modify and after determiners.[182] In Modern English, adjectives are not inflected, and they do not agree in form with the noun they modify, as adjectives in most other Indo-European languages do. For example, in the phrases the slender boy, and many slender girls, the adjective slender does not change form to agree with either the number or gender of the noun.
+
+Some adjectives are inflected for degree of comparison, with the positive degree unmarked, the suffix -er marking the comparative, and -est marking the superlative: a small boy, the boy is smaller than the girl, that boy is the smallest. Some adjectives have irregular comparative and superlative forms, such as good, better, and best. Other adjectives have comparatives formed by periphrastic constructions, with the adverb more marking the comparative, and most marking the superlative: happier or more happy, the happiest or most happy.[183] There is some variation among speakers regarding which adjectives use inflected or periphrastic comparison, and some studies have shown a tendency for the periphrastic forms to become more common at the expense of the inflected form.[184]
+
+English pronouns conserve many traits of case and gender inflection. The personal pronouns retain a difference between subjective and objective case in most persons (I/me, he/him, she/her, we/us, they/them) as well as a gender and animateness distinction in the third person singular (distinguishing he/she/it). The subjective case corresponds to the Old English nominative case, and the objective case is used both in the sense of the previous accusative case (in the role of patient, or direct object of a transitive verb), and in the sense of the Old English dative case (in the role of a recipient or indirect object of a transitive verb).[185][186] Subjective case is used when the pronoun is the subject of a finite clause, and otherwise, the objective case is used.[187] While grammarians such as Henry Sweet[188] and Otto Jespersen[189] noted that the English cases did not correspond to the traditional Latin based system, some contemporary grammars, for example Huddleston & Pullum (2002), retain traditional labels for the cases, calling them nominative and accusative cases respectively.
+
+Possessive pronouns exist in dependent and independent forms; the dependent form functions as a determiner specifying a noun (as in my chair), while the independent form can stand alone as if it were a noun (e.g. the chair is mine).[190] The English system of grammatical person no longer has a distinction between formal and informal pronouns of address (the old 2nd person singular familiar pronoun thou acquired a pejorative or inferior tinge of meaning and was abandoned), and the forms for 2nd person plural and singular are identical except in the reflexive form. Some dialects have introduced innovative 2nd person plural pronouns such as y'all found in Southern American English and African American (Vernacular) English or youse found in Australian English and ye in Irish English.
+
+Pronouns are used to refer to entities deictically or anaphorically. A deictic pronoun points to some person or object by identifying it relative to the speech situation—for example, the pronoun I identifies the speaker, and the pronoun you, the addressee. Anaphoric pronouns such as that refer back to an entity already mentioned or assumed by the speaker to be known by the audience, for example in the sentence I already told you that. The reflexive pronouns are used when the oblique argument is identical to the subject of a phrase (e.g. "he sent it to himself" or "she braced herself for impact").[191]
+
+Prepositional phrases (PP) are phrases composed of a preposition and one or more nouns, e.g. with the dog, for my friend, to school, in England.[192] Prepositions have a wide range of uses in English. They are used to describe movement, place, and other relations between different entities, but they also have many syntactic uses such as introducing complement clauses and oblique arguments of verbs.[192] For example, in the phrase I gave it to him, the preposition to marks the recipient, or Indirect Object of the verb to give. Traditionally words were only considered prepositions if they governed the case of the noun they preceded, for example causing the pronouns to use the objective rather than subjective form, "with her", "to me", "for us". But some contemporary grammars such as that of Huddleston & Pullum (2002:598–600) no longer consider government of case to be the defining feature of the class of prepositions, rather defining prepositions as words that can function as the heads of prepositional phrases.
+
+English verbs are inflected for tense and aspect and marked for agreement with present-tense third-person singular subject. Only the copula verb to be is still inflected for agreement with the plural and first and second person subjects.[183] Auxiliary verbs such as have and be are paired with verbs in the infinitive, past, or progressive forms. They form complex tenses, aspects, and moods. Auxiliary verbs differ from other verbs in that they can be followed by the negation, and in that they can occur as the first constituent in a question sentence.[193][194]
+
+Most verbs have six inflectional forms. The primary forms are a plain present, a third-person singular present, and a preterite (past) form. The secondary forms are a plain form used for the infinitive, a gerund-participle and a past participle.[195] The copula verb to be is the only verb to retain some of its original conjugation, and takes different inflectional forms depending on the subject. The first-person present-tense form is am, the third person singular form is is, and the form are is used in the second-person singular and all three plurals. The only verb past participle is been and its gerund-participle is being.
+
+English has two primary tenses, past (preterit) and non-past. The preterit is inflected by using the preterit form of the verb, which for the regular verbs includes the suffix -ed, and for the strong verbs either the suffix -t or a change in the stem vowel. The non-past form is unmarked except in the third person singular, which takes the suffix -s.[193]
+
+English does not have a morphologised future tense.[196] Futurity of action is expressed periphrastically with one of the auxiliary verbs will or shall.[197] Many varieties also use a near future constructed with the phrasal verb be going to.[198]
+
+Further aspectual distinctions are encoded by the use of auxiliary verbs, primarily have and be, which encode the contrast between a perfect and non-perfect past tense (I have run vs. I was running), and compound tenses such as preterite perfect (I had been running) and present perfect (I have been running).[199]
+
+For the expression of mood, English uses a number of modal auxiliaries, such as can, may, will, shall and the past tense forms could, might, would, should. There is also a subjunctive and an imperative mood, both based on the plain form of the verb (i.e. without the third person singular -s), and which is used in subordinate clauses (e.g. subjunctive: It is important that he run every day; imperative Run!).[197]
+
+An infinitive form, that uses the plain form of the verb and the preposition to, is used for verbal clauses that are syntactically subordinate to a finite verbal clause. Finite verbal clauses are those that are formed around a verb in the present or preterit form. In clauses with auxiliary verbs, they are the finite verbs and the main verb is treated as a subordinate clause.[200] For example, he has to go where only the auxiliary verb have is inflected for time and the main verb to go is in the infinitive, or in a complement clause such as I saw him leave, where the main verb is to see which is in a preterite form, and leave is in the infinitive.
+
+English also makes frequent use of constructions traditionally called phrasal verbs, verb phrases that are made up of a verb root and a preposition or particle which follows the verb. The phrase then functions as a single predicate. In terms of intonation the preposition is fused to the verb, but in writing it is written as a separate word. Examples of phrasal verbs are to get up, to ask out, to back up, to give up, to get together, to hang out, to put up with, etc. The phrasal verb frequently has a highly idiomatic meaning that is more specialised and restricted than what can be simply extrapolated from the combination of verb and preposition complement (e.g. lay off meaning terminate someone's employment).[201] In spite of the idiomatic meaning, some grammarians, including Huddleston & Pullum (2002:274), do not consider this type of construction to form a syntactic constituent and hence refrain from using the term "phrasal verb". Instead, they consider the construction simply to be a verb with a prepositional phrase as its syntactic complement, i.e. he woke up in the morning and he ran up in the mountains are syntactically equivalent.
+
+The function of adverbs is to modify the action or event described by the verb by providing additional information about the manner in which it occurs.[175] Many adverbs are derived from adjectives by appending the suffix -ly. For example, in the phrase the woman walked quickly, the adverb quickly is derived in this way from the adjective quick. Some commonly used adjectives have irregular adverbial forms, such as good which has the adverbial form well.
+
+Modern English syntax language is moderately analytic.[202] It has developed features such as modal verbs and word order as resources for conveying meaning. Auxiliary verbs mark constructions such as questions, negative polarity, the passive voice and progressive aspect.
+
+English word order has moved from the Germanic verb-second (V2) word order to being almost exclusively subject–verb–object (SVO).[203] The combination of SVO order and use of auxiliary verbs often creates clusters of two or more verbs at the centre of the sentence, such as he had hoped to try to open it.
+
+In most sentences, English only marks grammatical relations through word order.[204] The subject constituent precedes the verb and the object constituent follows it. The example below demonstrates how the grammatical roles of each constituent is marked only by the position relative to the verb:
+
+An exception is found in sentences where one of the constituents is a pronoun, in which case it is doubly marked, both by word order and by case inflection, where the subject pronoun precedes the verb and takes the subjective case form, and the object pronoun follows the verb and takes the objective case form.[205] The example below demonstrates this double marking in a sentence where both object and subject is represented with a third person singular masculine pronoun:
+
+Indirect objects (IO) of ditransitive verbs can be placed either as the first object in a double object construction (S V IO O), such as I gave Jane the book or in a prepositional phrase, such as I gave the book to Jane.[206]
+
+In English a sentence may be composed of one or more clauses, that may, in turn, be composed of one or more phrases (e.g. Noun Phrases, Verb Phrases, and Prepositional Phrases). A clause is built around a verb and includes its constituents, such as any NPs and PPs. Within a sentence, there is always at least one main clause (or matrix clause) whereas other clauses are subordinate to a main clause. Subordinate clauses may function as arguments of the verb in the main clause. For example, in the phrase I think (that) you are lying, the main clause is headed by the verb think, the subject is I, but the object of the phrase is the subordinate clause (that) you are lying. The subordinating conjunction that shows that the clause that follows is a subordinate clause, but it is often omitted.[207] Relative clauses are clauses that function as a modifier or specifier to some constituent in the main clause: For example, in the sentence I saw the letter that you received today, the relative clause that you received today specifies the meaning of the word letter, the object of the main clause. Relative clauses can be introduced by the pronouns who, whose, whom and which as well as by that (which can also be omitted.)[208] In contrast to many other Germanic languages there is no major differences between word order in main and subordinate clauses.[209]
+
+English syntax relies on auxiliary verbs for many functions including the expression of tense, aspect, and mood. Auxiliary verbs form main clauses, and the main verbs function as heads of a subordinate clause of the auxiliary verb. For example, in the sentence the dog did not find its bone, the clause find its bone is the complement of the negated verb did not. Subject–auxiliary inversion is used in many constructions, including focus, negation, and interrogative constructions.
+
+The verb do can be used as an auxiliary even in simple declarative sentences, where it usually serves to add emphasis, as in "I did shut the fridge." However, in the negated and inverted clauses referred to above, it is used because the rules of English syntax permit these constructions only when an auxiliary is present. Modern English does not allow the addition of the negating adverb not to an ordinary finite lexical verb, as in *I know not—it can only be added to an auxiliary (or copular) verb, hence if there is no other auxiliary present when negation is required, the auxiliary do is used, to produce a form like I do not (don't) know. The same applies in clauses requiring inversion, including most questions—inversion must involve the subject and an auxiliary verb, so it is not possible to say *Know you him?; grammatical rules require Do you know him?[210]
+
+Negation is done with the adverb not, which precedes the main verb and follows an auxiliary verb. A contracted form of not -n't can be used as an enclitic attaching to auxiliary verbs and to the copula verb to be. Just as with questions, many negative constructions require the negation to occur with do-support, thus in Modern English I don't know him is the correct answer to the question Do you know him?, but not *I know him not, although this construction may be found in older English.[211]
+
+Passive constructions also use auxiliary verbs. A passive construction rephrases an active construction in such a way that the object of the active phrase becomes the subject of the passive phrase, and the subject of the active phrase is either omitted or demoted to a role as an oblique argument introduced in a prepositional phrase. They are formed by using the past participle either with the auxiliary verb to be or to get, although not all varieties of English allow the use of passives with get. For example, putting the sentence she sees him into the passive becomes he is seen (by her), or he gets seen (by her).[212]
+
+Both yes–no questions and wh-questions in English are mostly formed using subject–auxiliary inversion (Am I going tomorrow?, Where can we eat?), which may require do-support (Do you like her?, Where did he go?). In most cases, interrogative words (wh-words; e.g. what, who, where, when, why, how) appear in a fronted position. For example, in the question What did you see?, the word what appears as the first constituent despite being the grammatical object of the sentence. (When the wh-word is the subject or forms part of the subject, no inversion occurs: Who saw the cat?.) Prepositional phrases can also be fronted when they are the question's theme, e.g. To whose house did you go last night?. The personal interrogative pronoun who is the only interrogative pronoun to still show inflection for case, with the variant whom serving as the objective case form, although this form may be going out of use in many contexts.[213]
+
+While English is a subject-prominent language, at the discourse level it tends to use a topic-comment structure, where the known information (topic) precedes the new information (comment). Because of the strict SVO syntax, the topic of a sentence generally has to be the grammatical subject of the sentence. In cases where the topic is not the grammatical subject of the sentence, frequently the topic is promoted to subject position through syntactic means. One way of doing this is through a passive construction, the girl was stung by the bee. Another way is through a cleft sentence where the main clause is demoted to be a complement clause of a copula sentence with a dummy subject such as it or there, e.g. it was the girl that the bee stung, there was a girl who was stung by a bee.[214] Dummy subjects are also used in constructions where there is no grammatical subject such as with impersonal verbs (e.g., it is raining) or in existential clauses (there are many cars on the street). Through the use of these complex sentence constructions with informationally vacuous subjects, English is able to maintain both a topic-comment sentence structure and a SVO syntax.
+
+Focus constructions emphasise a particular piece of new or salient information within a sentence, generally through allocating the main sentence level stress on the focal constituent. For example, the girl was stung by a bee (emphasising it was a bee and not, for example, a wasp that stung her), or The girl was stung by a bee (contrasting with another possibility, for example that it was the boy).[215] Topic and focus can also be established through syntactic dislocation, either preposing or postposing the item to be focused on relative to the main clause. For example, That girl over there, she was stung by a bee, emphasises the girl by preposition, but a similar effect could be achieved by postposition, she was stung by a bee, that girl over there, where reference to the girl is established as an "afterthought".[216]
+
+Cohesion between sentences is achieved through the use of deictic pronouns as anaphora (e.g. that is exactly what I mean where that refers to some fact known to both interlocutors, or then used to locate the time of a narrated event relative to the time of a previously narrated event).[217] Discourse markers such as oh, so or well, also signal the progression of ideas between sentences and help to create cohesion. Discourse markers are often the first constituents in sentences. Discourse markers are also used for stance taking in which speakers position themselves in a specific attitude towards what is being said, for example, no way is that true! (the idiomatic marker no way! expressing disbelief), or boy! I'm hungry (the marker boy expressing emphasis). While discourse markers are particularly characteristic of informal and spoken registers of English, they are also used in written and formal registers.[218]
+
+English is a rich language in terms of vocabulary, containing more synonyms than any other language.[134] There are words which appear on the surface to mean exactly the same thing but which, in fact, have slightly different shades of meaning and must be chosen appropriately if a speaker wants to convey precisely the message intended. It is generally stated that English has around 170,000 words, or 220,000 if obsolete words are counted; this estimate is based on the last full edition of the Oxford English Dictionary from 1989.[219] Over half of these words are nouns, a quarter adjectives, and a seventh verbs. There is one count that puts the English vocabulary at about 1 million words—but that count presumably includes words such as Latin species names, scientific terminology, botanical terms, prefixed and suffixed words, jargon, foreign words of extremely limited English use, and technical acronyms.[220]
+
+Due to its status as an international language, English adopts foreign words quickly, and borrows vocabulary from many other sources. Early studies of English vocabulary by lexicographers, the scholars who formally study vocabulary, compile dictionaries, or both, were impeded by a lack of comprehensive data on actual vocabulary in use from good-quality linguistic corpora,[221] collections of actual written texts and spoken passages. Many statements published before the end of the 20th century about the growth of English vocabulary over time, the dates of first use of various words in English, and the sources of English vocabulary will have to be corrected as new computerised analysis of linguistic corpus data becomes available.[220][222]
+
+English forms new words from existing words or roots in its vocabulary through a variety of processes. One of the most productive processes in English is conversion,[223] using a word with a different grammatical role, for example using a noun as a verb or a verb as a noun. Another productive word-formation process is nominal compounding,[220][222] producing compound words such as babysitter or ice cream or homesick.[223] A process more common in Old English than in Modern English, but still productive in Modern English, is the use of derivational suffixes (-hood, -ness, -ing, -ility) to derive new words from existing words (especially those of Germanic origin) or stems (especially for words of Latin or Greek origin).
+
+Formation of new words, called neologisms, based on Greek and/or Latin roots (for example television or optometry) is a highly productive process in English and in most modern European languages, so much so that it is often difficult to determine in which language a neologism originated. For this reason, lexicographer Philip Gove attributed many such words to the "international scientific vocabulary" (ISV) when compiling Webster's Third New International Dictionary (1961). Another active word-formation process in English is acronyms,[224] words formed by pronouncing as a single word abbreviations of longer phrases (e.g. NATO, laser).
+
+Source languages of English vocabulary[6][225]
+
+English, besides forming new words from existing words and their roots, also borrows words from other languages. This adoption of words from other languages is commonplace in many world languages, but English has been especially open to borrowing of foreign words throughout the last 1,000 years.[226] The most commonly used words in English are West Germanic.[227] The words in English learned first by children as they learn to speak, particularly the grammatical words that dominate the word count of both spoken and written texts, are mainly the Germanic words inherited from the earliest periods of the development of Old English.[220]
+
+But one of the consequences of long language contact between French and English in all stages of their development is that the vocabulary of English has a very high percentage of "Latinate" words (derived from French, especially, and also from other Romance languages and Latin). French words from various periods of the development of French now make up one-third of the vocabulary of English.[228] Linguist Anthony Lacoudre estimated that over 40,000 English words are of French origin and may be understood without orthographical change by French speakers.[229] Words of Old Norse origin have entered the English language primarily from the contact between Old Norse and Old English during colonisation of eastern and northern England. Many of these words are part of English core vocabulary, such as egg and knife.[230]
+
+English has also borrowed many words directly from Latin, the ancestor of the Romance languages, during all stages of its development.[222][220] Many of these words had earlier been borrowed into Latin from Greek. Latin or Greek are still highly productive sources of stems used to form vocabulary of subjects learned in higher education such as the sciences, philosophy, and mathematics.[231] English continues to gain new loanwords and calques ("loan translations") from languages all over the world, and words from languages other than the ancestral Anglo-Saxon language make up about 60% of the vocabulary of English.[232]
+
+English has formal and informal speech registers; informal registers, including child-directed speech, tend to be made up predominantly of words of Anglo-Saxon origin, while the percentage of vocabulary that is of Latinate origin is higher in legal, scientific, and academic texts.[233][234]
+
+English has had a strong influence on the vocabulary of other languages.[228][235] The influence of English comes from such factors as opinion leaders in other countries knowing the English language, the role of English as a world lingua franca, and the large number of books and films that are translated from English into other languages.[236] That pervasive use of English leads to a conclusion in many places that English is an especially suitable language for expressing new ideas or describing new technologies. Among varieties of English, it is especially American English that influences other languages.[237] Some languages, such as Chinese, write words borrowed from English mostly as calques, while others, such as Japanese, readily take in English loanwords written in sound-indicating script.[238] Dubbed films and television programmes are an especially fruitful source of English influence on languages in Europe.[238]
+
+Since the ninth century, English has been written in a Latin alphabet (also called Roman alphabet). Earlier Old English texts in Anglo-Saxon runes are only short inscriptions. The great majority of literary works in Old English that survive to today are written in the Roman alphabet.[36] The modern English alphabet contains 26 letters of the Latin script: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z (which also have capital forms: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z).
+
+The spelling system, or orthography, of English is multi-layered, with elements of French, Latin, and Greek spelling on top of the native Germanic system.[239] Further complications have arisen through sound changes with which the orthography has not kept pace.[48] Compared to European languages for which official organisations have promoted spelling reforms, English has spelling that is a less consistent indicator of pronunciation, and standard spellings of words that are more difficult to guess from knowing how a word is pronounced.[240] There are also systematic spelling differences between British and American English. These situations have prompted proposals for spelling reform in English.[241]
+
+Although letters and speech sounds do not have a one-to-one correspondence in standard English spelling, spelling rules that take into account syllable structure, phonetic changes in derived words, and word accent are reliable for most English words.[242] Moreover, standard English spelling shows etymological relationships between related words that would be obscured by a closer correspondence between pronunciation and spelling, for example the words photograph, photography, and photographic,[242] or the words electricity and electrical. While few scholars agree with Chomsky and Halle (1968) that conventional English orthography is "near-optimal",[239] there is a rationale for current English spelling patterns.[243] The standard orthography of English is the most widely used writing system in the world.[244] Standard English spelling is based on a graphomorphemic segmentation of words into written clues of what meaningful units make up each word.[245]
+
+Readers of English can generally rely on the correspondence between spelling and pronunciation to be fairly regular for letters or digraphs used to spell consonant sounds. The letters b, d, f, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, w, y, z represent, respectively, the phonemes /b, d, f, h, dʒ, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, w, j, z/. The letters c and g normally represent /k/ and /ɡ/, but there is also a soft c pronounced /s/, and a soft g pronounced /dʒ/. The differences in the pronunciations of the letters c and g are often signalled by the following letters in standard English spelling. Digraphs used to represent phonemes and phoneme sequences include ch for /tʃ/, sh for /ʃ/, th for /θ/ or /ð/, ng for /ŋ/, qu for /kw/, and ph for /f/ in Greek-derived words. The single letter x is generally pronounced as /z/ in word-initial position and as /ks/ otherwise. There are exceptions to these generalisations, often the result of loanwords being spelled according to the spelling patterns of their languages of origin[242] or residues of proposals by scholars in the early period of Modern English to follow the spelling patterns of Latin for English words of Germanic origin.[246]
+
+For the vowel sounds of the English language, however, correspondences between spelling and pronunciation are more irregular. There are many more vowel phonemes in English than there are single vowel letters (a, e, i, o, u, w, y). As a result, some "long vowels" are often indicated by combinations of letters (like the oa in boat, the ow in how, and the ay in stay), or the historically based silent e (as in note and cake).[243]
+
+The consequence of this complex orthographic history is that learning to read can be challenging in English. It can take longer for school pupils to become independently fluent readers of English than of many other languages, including Italian, Spanish, and German.[247] Nonetheless, there is an advantage for learners of English reading in learning the specific sound-symbol regularities that occur in the standard English spellings of commonly used words.[242] Such instruction greatly reduces the risk of children experiencing reading difficulties in English.[248][249] Making primary school teachers more aware of the primacy of morpheme representation in English may help learners learn more efficiently to read and write English.[250]
+
+English writing also includes a system of punctuation marks that is similar to those used in most alphabetic languages around the world. The purpose of punctuation is to mark meaningful grammatical relationships in sentences to aid readers in understanding a text and to indicate features important for reading a text aloud.[251]
+
+Dialectologists identify many English dialects, which usually refer to regional varieties that differ from each other in terms of patterns of grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. The pronunciation of particular areas distinguishes dialects as separate regional accents. The major native dialects of English are often divided by linguists into the two extremely general categories of British English (BrE) and North American English (NAE).[252] There also exists a third common major grouping of English varieties: Southern Hemisphere English, the most prominent being Australian and New Zealand English.
+
+As the place where English first evolved, the British Isles, and particularly England, are home to the most diverse dialects. Within the United Kingdom, the Received Pronunciation (RP), an educated dialect of South East England, is traditionally used as the broadcast standard and is considered the most prestigious of the British dialects. The spread of RP (also known as BBC English) through the media has caused many traditional dialects of rural England to recede, as youths adopt the traits of the prestige variety instead of traits from local dialects. At the time of the Survey of English Dialects, grammar and vocabulary differed across the country, but a process of lexical attrition has led most of this variation to disappear.[253]
+
+Nonetheless, this attrition has mostly affected dialectal variation in grammar and vocabulary, and in fact, only 3 percent of the English population actually speak RP, the remainder speaking in regional accents and dialects with varying degrees of RP influence.[254] There is also variability within RP, particularly along class lines between Upper and Middle-class RP speakers and between native RP speakers and speakers who adopt RP later in life.[255] Within Britain, there is also considerable variation along lines of social class, and some traits though exceedingly common are considered "non-standard" and are associated with lower class speakers and identities. An example of this is H-dropping, which was historically a feature of lower-class London English, particularly Cockney, and can now be heard in the local accents of most parts of England—yet it remains largely absent in broadcasting and among the upper crust of British society.[256]
+
+English in England can be divided into four major dialect regions, Southwest English, South East English, Midlands English, and Northern English. Within each of these regions several local subdialects exist: Within the Northern region, there is a division between the Yorkshire dialects and the Geordie dialect spoken in Northumbria around Newcastle, and the Lancashire dialects with local urban dialects in Liverpool (Scouse) and Manchester (Mancunian). Having been the centre of Danish occupation during the Viking Invasions, Northern English dialects, particularly the Yorkshire dialect, retain Norse features not found in other English varieties.[257]
+
+Since the 15th century, southeastern England varieties have centred on London, which has been the centre from which dialectal innovations have spread to other dialects. In London, the Cockney dialect was traditionally used by the lower classes, and it was long a socially stigmatised variety. The spread of Cockney features across the south-east led the media to talk of Estuary English as a new dialect, but the notion was criticised by many linguists on the grounds that London had been influencing neighbouring regions throughout history.[258][259][260] Traits that have spread from London in recent decades include the use of intrusive R (drawing is pronounced drawring /ˈdrɔːrɪŋ/), t-glottalisation (Potter is pronounced with a glottal stop as Po'er /poʔʌ/), and the pronunciation of th- as /f/ (thanks pronounced fanks) or /v/ (bother pronounced bover).[261]
+
+Scots is today considered a separate language from English, but it has its origins in early Northern Middle English[262] and developed and changed during its history with influence from other sources, particularly Scots Gaelic and Old Norse. Scots itself has a number of regional dialects. And in addition to Scots, Scottish English comprises the varieties of Standard English spoken in Scotland; most varieties are Northern English accents, with some influence from Scots.[263]
+
+In Ireland, various forms of English have been spoken since the Norman invasions of the 11th century. In County Wexford, in the area surrounding Dublin, two extinct dialects known as Forth and Bargy and Fingallian developed as offshoots from Early Middle English, and were spoken until the 19th century. Modern Irish English, however, has its roots in English colonisation in the 17th century. Today Irish English is divided into Ulster English, the Northern Ireland dialect with strong influence from Scots, and various dialects of the Republic of Ireland. Like Scottish and most North American accents, almost all Irish accents preserve the rhoticity which has been lost in the dialects influenced by RP.[21][264]
+
+North American English is fairly homogeneous compared to British English. Today, American accent variation is often increasing at the regional level and decreasing at the very local level,[265] though most Americans still speak within a phonological continuum of similar accents,[266] known collectively as General American (GA), with differences hardly noticed even among Americans themselves (such as Midland and Western American English).[267][268][269] In most American and Canadian English dialects, rhoticity (or r-fulness) is dominant, with non-rhoticity (r-dropping) becoming associated with lower prestige and social class especially after World War II; this contrasts with the situation in England, where non-rhoticity has become the standard.[270]
+
+Separate from GA are American dialects with clearly distinct sound systems, historically including Southern American English, English of the coastal Northeast (famously including Eastern New England English and New York City English), and African American Vernacular English, all of which are historically non-rhotic. Canadian English, except for the Atlantic provinces and perhaps Quebec, may be classified under GA as well, but it often shows the raising of the vowels /aɪ/ and /aʊ/ before voiceless consonants, as well as distinct norms for written and pronunciation standards.[271]
+
+In Southern American English, the most populous American "accent group" outside of GA,[272] rhoticity now strongly prevails, replacing the region's historical non-rhotic prestige.[273][274][275] Southern accents are colloquially described as a "drawl" or "twang,"[276] being recognised most readily by the Southern Vowel Shift initiated by glide-deleting in the /aɪ/ vowel (e.g. pronouncing spy almost like spa), the "Southern breaking" of several front pure vowels into a gliding vowel or even two syllables (e.g. pronouncing the word "press" almost like "pray-us"),[277] the pin–pen merger, and other distinctive phonological, grammatical, and lexical features, many of which are actually recent developments of the 19th century or later.[278]
+
+Today spoken primarily by working- and middle-class African Americans, African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) is also largely non-rhotic and likely originated among enslaved Africans and African Americans influenced primarily by the non-rhotic, non-standard older Southern dialects. A minority of linguists,[279] contrarily, propose that AAVE mostly traces back to African languages spoken by the slaves who had to develop a pidgin or Creole English to communicate with slaves of other ethnic and linguistic origins.[280] AAVE's important commonalities with Southern accents suggests it developed into a highly coherent and homogeneous variety in the 19th or early 20th century. AAVE is commonly stigmatised in North America as a form of "broken" or "uneducated" English, as are white Southern accents, but linguists today recognise both as fully developed varieties of English with their own norms shared by a large speech community.[281][282]
+
+Since 1788, English has been spoken in Oceania, and Australian English has developed as a first language of the vast majority of the inhabitants of the Australian continent, its standard accent being General Australian. The English of neighbouring New Zealand has to a lesser degree become an influential standard variety of the language.[283] Australian and New Zealand English are each other's closest relatives with few differentiating characteristics, followed by South African English and the English of southeastern England, all of which have similarly non-rhotic accents, aside from some accents in the South Island of New Zealand. Australian and New Zealand English stand out for their innovative vowels: many short vowels are fronted or raised, whereas many long vowels have diphthongised. Australian English also has a contrast between long and short vowels, not found in most other varieties. Australian English grammar aligns closely to British and American English; like American English, collective plural subjects take on a singular verb (as in the government is rather than are).[284][285] New Zealand English uses front vowels that are often even higher than in Australian English.[286][287][288]
+
+The first significant exposure of the Philippines to the English language occurred in 1762 when the British occupied Manila during the Seven Years' War, but this was a brief episode that had no lasting influence. English later became more important and widespread during American rule between 1898 and 1946, and remains an official language of the Philippines. Today, the use of English is ubiquitous in the Philippines, from street signs and marquees, government documents and forms, courtrooms, the media and entertainment industries, the business sector, and other aspects of daily life. One such usage that is also prominent in the country is in speech, where most Filipinos from Manila would use or have been exposed to Taglish, a form of code-switching between Tagalog and English. A similar code-switching method is used by urban native speakers of Visayan languages called Bislish.
+
+English is spoken widely in southern Africa and is an official or co-official language in several countries. In South Africa, English has been spoken since 1820, co-existing with Afrikaans and various African languages such as the Khoe and Bantu languages. Today, about 9 percent of the South African population speaks South African English (SAE) as a first language. SAE is a non-rhotic variety, which tends to follow RP as a norm. It is alone among non-rhotic varieties in lacking intrusive r. There are different L2 varieties that differ based on the native language of the speakers.[289] Most phonological differences from RP are in the vowels.[290] Consonant differences include the tendency to pronounce /p, t, t͡ʃ, k/ without aspiration (e.g. pin pronounced [pɪn] rather than as [pʰɪn] as in most other varieties), while r is often pronounced as a flap [ɾ] instead of as the more common fricative.[291]
+
+Nigerian English is a dialect of English spoken in Nigeria.[292] It is based on British English, but in recent years, because of influence from the United States, some words of American English origin have made it into Nigerian English. Additionally, some new words and collocations have emerged from the language, which come from the need to express concepts specific to the culture of the nation (e.g. senior wife). Over 150 million Nigerians speak English.[293]
+
+Several varieties of English are also spoken in the Caribbean islands that were colonial possessions of Britain, including Jamaica, and the Leeward and Windward Islands and Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, the Cayman Islands, and Belize. Each of these areas is home both to a local variety of English and a local English based creole, combining English and African languages. The most prominent varieties are Jamaican English and Jamaican Creole. In Central America, English based creoles are spoken in on the Caribbean coasts of Nicaragua and Panama.[294] Locals are often fluent both in the local English variety and the local creole languages and code-switching between them is frequent, indeed another way to conceptualise the relationship between Creole and Standard varieties is to see a spectrum of social registers with the Creole forms serving as "basilect" and the more RP-like forms serving as the "acrolect", the most formal register.[295]
+
+Most Caribbean varieties are based on British English and consequently, most are non-rhotic, except for formal styles of Jamaican English which are often rhotic. Jamaican English differs from RP in its vowel inventory, which has a distinction between long and short vowels rather than tense and lax vowels as in Standard English. The diphthongs /ei/ and /ou/ are monophthongs [eː] and [oː] or even the reverse diphthongs [ie] and [uo] (e.g. bay and boat pronounced [bʲeː] and [bʷoːt]). Often word-final consonant clusters are simplified so that "child" is pronounced [t͡ʃail] and "wind" [win].[296][297][298]
+
+As a historical legacy, Indian English tends to take RP as its ideal, and how well this ideal is realised in an individual's speech reflects class distinctions among Indian English speakers. Indian English accents are marked by the pronunciation of phonemes such as /t/ and /d/ (often pronounced with retroflex articulation as [ʈ] and [ɖ]) and the replacement of /θ/ and /ð/ with dentals [t̪] and [d̪]. Sometimes Indian English speakers may also use spelling based pronunciations where the silent ⟨h⟩ found in words such as ghost is pronounced as an Indian voiced aspirated stop [ɡʱ].[299]
+
+Click on a coloured area to see an article about English in that country or region

en/2370.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,321 @@
+
+
+Hamburg (English: /ˈhæmbɜːrɡ/, German: [ˈhambʊʁk] (listen), locally also [ˈhambʊɪ̯ç] (listen) [ˈhambɔːχ]; Low Saxon: Hamborg), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (German: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; Low Saxon: Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),[6] is the second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and 7th largest city in the European Union with a population of over 1.84[7] million.
+
+One of Germany's 16 federal states, it is surrounded by Schleswig-Holstein to the north and Lower Saxony to the south. The city's metropolitan region is home to more than five million people. Hamburg lies on the River Elbe and two of its tributaries, the River Alster and the River Bille.
+
+The official name reflects Hamburg's history as a member of the medieval Hanseatic League and a free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire. Before the 1871 Unification of Germany, it was a fully sovereign city state, and before 1919 formed a civic republic headed constitutionally by a class of hereditary grand burghers or Hanseaten. Beset by disasters such as the Great Fire of Hamburg, North Sea flood of 1962 and military conflicts including World War II bombing raids, the city has managed to recover and emerge wealthier after each catastrophe.
+
+Hamburg is Europe's third-largest port. Major regional broadcaster NDR, the printing and publishing firm Gruner + Jahr and the newspapers Der Spiegel and Die Zeit are based in the city. Hamburg is the seat of Germany's oldest stock exchange and the world's oldest merchant bank, Berenberg Bank. Media, commercial, logistical, and industrial firms with significant locations in the city include multinationals Airbus, Blohm + Voss, Aurubis, Beiersdorf, and Unilever. Hamburg is also a major European science, research, and education hub, with several universities and institutions. The city enjoys a very high quality of living, being ranked 19th in the 2019 Mercer Quality of Living Survey.[8]
+
+Hamburg hosts specialists in world economics and international law, including consular and diplomatic missions as the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the EU-LAC Foundation, and the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning, multipartite international political conferences and summits such as Europe and China and the G20. Both former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and Angela Merkel, German chancellor since 2005, were born in Hamburg.
+
+Hamburg is a major international and domestic tourist destination. The Speicherstadt and Kontorhausviertel were declared World Heritage Sites by UNESCO in 2015.[9] Hamburg's rivers and canals are crossed by around 2,500 bridges, making it the city with the highest number of bridges in Europe.[10] Aside from its rich architectural heritage, the city is also home to notable cultural venues such as the Elbphilharmonie and Laeiszhalle concert halls. It gave birth to movements like Hamburger Schule and paved the way for bands including The Beatles. Hamburg is also known for several theatres and a variety of musical shows. St. Pauli's Reeperbahn is among the best-known European entertainment districts.
+
+Hamburg is at a sheltered natural harbour on the southern fanning-out of the Jutland Peninsula, between Continental Europe to the south and Scandinavia to the north, with the North Sea to the west and the Baltic Sea to the northeast. It is on the River Elbe at its confluence with the Alster and Bille. The city centre is around the Binnenalster ("Inner Alster") and Außenalster ("Outer Alster"), both formed by damming the River Alster to create lakes. The islands of Neuwerk, Scharhörn, and Nigehörn, 100 kilometres (60 mi) away in the Hamburg Wadden Sea National Park, are also part of the city of Hamburg.[11]
+
+The neighborhoods of Neuenfelde, Cranz, Francop and Finkenwerder are part of the Altes Land (old land) region, the largest contiguous fruit-producing region in Central Europe. Neugraben-Fischbek has Hamburg's highest elevation, the Hasselbrack at 116.2 metres (381 ft) AMSL.[12] Hamburg borders the states of Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony.
+
+Hamburg has an oceanic climate (Köppen: Cfb), influenced by its proximity to the coast and maritime influences that originate over the Atlantic Ocean. The location in the north of Germany provides extremes greater than typical marine climates, but definitely in the category due to the prevailing westerlies.[13] Nearby wetlands enjoy a maritime temperate climate. The amount of snowfall has varied greatly in recent decades. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, heavy snowfall sometimes occurred,[14] the winters of recent years have been less cold, with snowfall just a few days per year.[15][16]
+
+The warmest months are June, July, and August, with high temperatures of 20.1 to 22.5 °C (68.2 to 72.5 °F). The coldest are December, January, and February, with low temperatures of −0.3 to 1.0 °C (31.5 to 33.8 °F).[17]
+
+View climate chart 1986-2016 or 1960-1990
+
+Claudius Ptolemy (2nd century AD) reported the first name for the vicinity as Treva.[21]
+
+The name Hamburg comes from the first permanent building on the site, a castle which the Emperor Charlemagne ordered constructed in AD 808. It rose on rocky terrain in a marsh between the River Alster and the River Elbe as a defence against Slavic incursion, and acquired the name Hammaburg, burg meaning castle or fort. The origin of the Hamma term remains uncertain,[22] as does the exact location of the castle.[23]
+
+In 834, Hamburg was designated as the seat of a bishopric. The first bishop, Ansgar, became known as the Apostle of the North. Two years later, Hamburg was united with Bremen as the Bishopric of Hamburg-Bremen.[24]
+
+Hamburg was destroyed and occupied several times. In 845, 600 Viking ships sailed up the River Elbe and destroyed Hamburg, at that time a town of around 500 inhabitants.[24] In 1030, King Mieszko II Lambert of Poland burned down the city. Valdemar II of Denmark raided and occupied Hamburg in 1201 and in 1214. The Black Death killed at least 60% of the population in 1350.[25]
+Hamburg experienced several great fires in the medieval period.[26]
+
+In 1189, by imperial charter, Frederick I "Barbarossa" granted Hamburg the status of a Free Imperial City and tax-free access (or free-trade zone) up the Lower Elbe into the North Sea. In 1265, an allegedly forged letter was presented to or by the Rath of Hamburg.[27] This charter, along with Hamburg's proximity to the main trade routes of the North Sea and Baltic Sea, quickly made it a major port in Northern Europe. Its trade alliance with Lübeck in 1241 marks the origin and core of the powerful Hanseatic League of trading cities. On 8 November 1266, a contract between Henry III and Hamburg's traders allowed them to establish a hanse in London. This was the first time in history that the word hanse was used for the trading guild of the Hanseatic League.[28]
+In 1270, the solicitor of the senate of Hamburg, Jordan von Boitzenburg, wrote the first description of civil, criminal and procedural law for a city in Germany in the German language, the Ordeelbook (Ordeel: sentence).[29] On 10 August 1410, civil unrest forced a compromise (German: Rezeß, literally meaning: withdrawal). This is considered the first constitution of Hamburg.[30]
+
+In 1529, the city embraced Lutheranism, and it received Reformed refugees from the Netherlands and France.
+
+When Jan van Valckenborgh introduced a second layer to the fortifications to protect against the Thirty Years War in the seventeenth century, he extended Hamburg and created a "New Town" (Neustadt) whose street names still date from the grid system of roads he introduced.[31]
+
+Upon the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the Free Imperial City of Hamburg was not incorporated into a larger administrative area while retaining special privileges (mediatised), but became a sovereign state with the official title of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. Hamburg was briefly annexed by Napoleon I to the First French Empire (1804–1814/1815). Russian forces under General Bennigsen finally freed the city in 1814. Hamburg re-assumed its pre-1811 status as a city-state in 1814. The Vienna Congress of 1815 confirmed Hamburg's independence and it became one of 39 sovereign states of the German Confederation (1815–1866).
+
+In 1842, about a quarter of the inner city was destroyed in the "Great Fire". The fire started on the night of 4 May and was not extinguished until 8 May. It destroyed three churches, the town hall, and many other buildings, killing 51 people and leaving an estimated 20,000 homeless. Reconstruction took more than 40 years.
+
+After periodic political unrest, particularly in 1848, Hamburg adopted in 1860 a semidemocratic constitution that provided for the election of the Senate, the governing body of the city-state, by adult taxpaying males. Other innovations included the separation of powers, the separation of Church and State, freedom of the press, of assembly and association. Hamburg became a member of the North German Confederation (1866–1871) and of the German Empire (1871–1918), and maintained its self-ruling status during the Weimar Republic (1919–1933). Hamburg acceded to the German Customs Union or Zollverein in 1888, the last (along with Bremen) of the German states to join. The city experienced its fastest growth during the second half of the 19th century when its population more than quadrupled to 800,000 as the growth of the city's Atlantic trade helped make it Europe's second-largest port.[32] The Hamburg-America Line, with Albert Ballin as its director, became the world's largest transatlantic shipping company around the start of the 20th century. Shipping companies sailing to South America, Africa, India and East Asia were based in the city. Hamburg was the departure port for many Germans and Eastern Europeans to emigrate to the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Trading communities from all over the world established themselves there.
+
+A major outbreak of cholera in 1892 was badly handled by the city government, which retained an unusual degree of independence for a German city. About 8,600 died in the largest German epidemic of the late 19th century, and the last major cholera epidemic in a major city of the Western world.
+
+In Nazi Germany (1933–1945), Hamburg was a Gau from 1934 until 1945. During the Second World War, Hamburg suffered a series of Allied air raids which devastated much of the city and the harbour. On 23 July 1943, Royal Air Force (RAF) and United States Army Air Force (USAAF) firebombing created a firestorm which spread from the Hauptbahnhof (main railway station) and quickly moved south-east, completely destroying entire boroughs such as Hammerbrook, Billbrook and Hamm South. Thousands of people perished in these densely populated working class boroughs. The raids, codenamed Operation Gomorrah by the RAF, killed at least 42,600 civilians; the precise number is not known.
+About one million civilians were evacuated in the aftermath of the raids. While some of the boroughs destroyed were rebuilt as residential districts after the war, others such as Hammerbrook were entirely developed into office, retail and limited residential or industrial districts.
+
+The Hamburg Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery is in the greater Ohlsdorf Cemetery in the north of Hamburg.
+
+At least 42,900 people are thought to have perished[33] in the Neuengamme concentration camp (about 25 km (16 mi) outside the city in the marshlands), mostly from epidemics and in the bombing of Kriegsmarine evacuation vessels by the RAF at the end of the war[citation needed].
+
+Systematic deportations of Jewish Germans and Gentile Germans of Jewish descent started on 18 October 1941. These were all directed to Ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe or to concentration camps. Most deported persons perished in the Holocaust. By the end of 1942 the Jüdischer Religionsverband in Hamburg was dissolved as an independent legal entity and its remaining assets and staff were assumed by the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland (District Northwest). On 10 June 1943 the Reichssicherheitshauptamt dissolved the Reichsvereinigung by a decree.[34] The few remaining employees not somewhat protected by a mixed marriage were deported from Hamburg on 23 June to Theresienstadt, where most of them perished.
+
+Hamburg surrendered to British Forces on 3 May 1945,[35] three days after Adolf Hitler's death. After the Second World War, Hamburg formed part of the British Zone of Occupation; it became a state of the then Federal Republic of Germany in 1949.
+
+From 1960 to 1962, the Beatles launched their career by playing in various music clubs like the Star Club in the city.
+
+On 16 February 1962, a North Sea flood caused the Elbe to rise to an all-time high, inundating one-fifth of Hamburg and killing more than 300 people.
+
+The Inner German border – only 50 kilometres (30 mi) east of Hamburg – separated the city from most of its hinterland and reduced Hamburg's global trade. Since German reunification in 1990, and the accession of several Central European and Baltic states into the European Union in 2004, the Port of Hamburg has restarted ambitions for regaining its position as the region's largest deep-sea port for container shipping and its major commercial and trading centre.
+
+On 31 December 2016, there were 1,860,759 people registered as living in Hamburg in an area of 755.3 km2 (291.6 sq mi). The population density was 2,464/km2 (6,380/sq mi).[39] The metropolitan area of the Hamburg region (Hamburg Metropolitan Region) is home to 5,107,429 living on 196/km2 (510/sq mi).[40]
+
+There were 915,319 women and 945,440 men in Hamburg. For every 1,000 females, there were 1,033 males. In 2015, there were 19,768 births in Hamburg (of which 38.3% were to unmarried women); 6422 marriages and 3190 divorces, and 17,565 deaths. In the city, the population was spread out, with 16.1% under the age of 18, and 18.3% were 65 years of age or older. 356 people in Hamburg were over the age of 100.[41]
+
+According to the Statistical Office for Hamburg and Schleswig Holstein, the number of people with a migrant background is at 34% (631,246).[42] Immigrants come from 200 different countries. 5,891 people have acquired German cititzenship in 2016.[43]
+
+In 2016, there were 1,021,666 households, of which 17.8% had children under the age of 18; 54.4% of all households were made up of singles. 25.6% of all households were single parent households. The average household size was 1.8.[44]
+
+Hamburg residents with a foreign citizenship as of 31 December 2016 is as follows[43]
+
+Like elsewhere in Germany, Standard German is spoken in Hamburg, but as typical for northern Germany, the original language of Hamburg is Low German, usually referred to as Hamborger Platt (German Hamburger Platt) or Hamborgsch. Since large-scale standardization of the German language beginning in earnest in the 18th century, various Low German-colored dialects have developed (contact-varieties of German on Low Saxon substrates). Originally, there was a range of such Missingsch varieties, the best-known being the low-prestige ones of the working classes and the somewhat more bourgeois Hanseatendeutsch (Hanseatic German), although the term is used in appreciation.[45] All of these are now moribund due to the influences of Standard German used by education and media. However, the former importance of Low German is indicated by several songs, such as the famous sea shanty Hamborger Veermaster, written in the 19th century when Low German was used more frequently. Many toponyms and street names reflect Low Saxon vocabulary, partially even in Low Saxon spelling, which is not standardised, and to some part in forms adapted to Standard German.[46]
+
+Less than half of the residents of Hamburg are members of an organized religious group.
+In 2018, 24.9% of the population belonged to the North Elbian Evangelical Lutheran Church, the largest religious body, and 9.9% to the Roman Catholic Church. 65.2% of the population is not religious or adherent other religions.[47]
+
+According to the publication "Muslimisches Leben in Deutschland" (Muslim life in Germany) estimated 141,900 Muslim migrants (counting in nearly 50 countries of origin) lived in Hamburg in 2008.[48] About three years later (May 2011) calculations based on census data for 21 countries of origin resulted in the number of about 143,200 Muslim migrants in Hamburg, making up 8.4% percent of the population.[49]
+
+Hamburg is seat of one of the three bishops of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Northern Germany and seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hamburg. There are several mosques, including the Ahmadiyya run Fazle Omar Mosque, which is the oldest in the city,[50] the Islamic Centre Hamburg, and a Jewish community.[51]
+
+The city of Hamburg is one of 16 German states, therefore the Mayor of Hamburg's office corresponds more to the role of a minister-president than to the one of a city mayor. As a German state government, it is responsible for public education, correctional institutions and public safety; as a municipality, it is additionally responsible for libraries, recreational facilities, sanitation, water supply and welfare services.
+
+Since 1897, the seat of the government has been the Hamburg Rathaus (Hamburg City Hall), with the office of the mayor, the meeting room for the Senate and the floor for the Hamburg Parliament.[52] From 2001 until 2010, the mayor of Hamburg was Ole von Beust,[53] who governed in Germany's first statewide "black-green" coalition, consisting of the conservative CDU and the alternative GAL, which are Hamburg's regional wing of the Alliance 90/The Greens party.[54] Von Beust was briefly succeeded by Christoph Ahlhaus in 2010, but the coalition broke apart on November, 28. 2010.[55] On 7 March 2011 Olaf Scholz (SPD) became mayor. After the 2015 election the SPD and the Alliance 90/The Greens formed a coalition.
+
+Hamburg is made up of seven boroughs (German: Bezirke) and subdivided into 104 quarters (German: Stadtteile). There are 181 localities (German: Ortsteile). The urban organization is regulated by the Constitution of Hamburg and several laws.[6][56] Most of the quarters were former independent cities, towns or villages annexed into Hamburg proper. The last large annexation was done through the Greater Hamburg Act of 1937, when the cities Altona, Harburg and Wandsbek were merged into the state of Hamburg.[57] The Act of the Constitution and Administration of Hanseatic city of Hamburg established Hamburg as a state and a municipality.[58] Some of the boroughs and quarters have been rearranged several times.
+
+Each borough is governed by a Borough Council (German: Bezirksversammlung) and administered by a Municipal Administrator (German: Bezirksamtsleiter). The boroughs are not independent municipalities: their power is limited and subordinate to the Senate of Hamburg. The borough administrator is elected by the Borough Council and thereafter requires confirmation and appointment by Hamburg's Senate.[56] The quarters have no governing bodies of their own.
+
+In 2008, the boroughs were Hamburg-Mitte, Altona, Eimsbüttel, Hamburg-Nord, Wandsbek, Bergedorf and Harburg.[59]
+
+Hamburg-Mitte ("Hamburg Centre") covers mostly the urban centre of the city and consists of the quarters Billbrook, Billstedt, Borgfelde, Finkenwerder, HafenCity, Hamm, Hammerbrook, Horn, Kleiner Grasbrook, Neuwerk, Rothenburgsort, St. Georg, St. Pauli, Steinwerder, Veddel, Waltershof and Wilhelmsburg.[59] The quarters Hamburg-Altstadt ("old town") and Neustadt ("new town") are the historical origin of Hamburg.
+
+Altona is the westernmost urban borough, on the right bank of the Elbe river. From 1640 to 1864, Altona was under the administration of the Danish monarchy. Altona was an independent city until 1937. Politically, the following quarters are part of Altona: Altona-Altstadt, Altona-Nord, Bahrenfeld, Ottensen, Othmarschen, Groß Flottbek, Osdorf, Lurup, Nienstedten, Blankenese, Iserbrook, Sülldorf, Rissen, Sternschanze.[59]
+
+Bergedorf consists of the quarters Allermöhe, Altengamme, Bergedorf—the centre of the former independent town, Billwerder, Curslack, Kirchwerder, Lohbrügge, Moorfleet, Neuengamme, Neuallermöhe, Ochsenwerder, Reitbrook, Spadenland and Tatenberg.[59]
+
+Eimsbüttel is split into nine-quarters: Eidelstedt, Eimsbüttel, Harvestehude, Hoheluft-West, Lokstedt, Niendorf, Rotherbaum, Schnelsen and Stellingen.[59] Located within this borough is former Jewish neighbourhood Grindel.
+
+Hamburg-Nord contains the quarters Alsterdorf, Barmbek-Nord, Barmbek-Süd, Dulsberg, Eppendorf, Fuhlsbüttel, Groß Borstel, Hoheluft-Ost, Hohenfelde, Langenhorn, Ohlsdorf with Ohlsdorf cemetery, Uhlenhorst and Winterhude.[59]
+
+Harburg lies on the southern shores of the river Elbe and covers parts of the port of Hamburg, residential and rural areas, and some research institutes. The quarters are Altenwerder, Cranz, Eißendorf, Francop, Gut Moor, Harburg, Hausbruch, Heimfeld, Langenbek, Marmstorf, Moorburg, Neuenfelde, Neugraben-Fischbek, Neuland, Rönneburg, Sinstorf and Wilstorf.[59]
+
+Wandsbek is divided into the quarters Bergstedt, Bramfeld, Duvenstedt, Eilbek, Farmsen-Berne, Hummelsbüttel, Jenfeld, Lemsahl-Mellingstedt, Marienthal, Poppenbüttel, Rahlstedt, Sasel, Steilshoop, Tonndorf, Volksdorf, Wandsbek, Wellingsbüttel and Wohldorf-Ohlstedt.[59]
+
+Hamburg has architecturally significant buildings in a wide range of styles and no skyscrapers (see List of tallest buildings in Hamburg). Churches are important landmarks, such as St Nicholas', which for a short time in the 19th century was the world's tallest building. The skyline features the tall spires of the most important churches (Hauptkirchen) St Michael's (nicknamed "Michel"), St Peter's, St James's (St. Jacobi) and St. Catherine's covered with copper plates, and the Heinrich-Hertz-Turm, the radio and television tower (no longer publicly accessible).
+
+The many streams, rivers and canals are crossed by some 2,500 bridges, more than London, Amsterdam and Venice put together.[60] Hamburg has more bridges inside its city limits than any other city in the world.[61] The Köhlbrandbrücke, Freihafen Elbbrücken, and Lombardsbrücke and Kennedybrücke dividing Binnenalster from Aussenalster are important roadways.
+
+The town hall is a richly decorated Neo-Renaissance building finished in 1897.
+The tower is 112 metres (367 ft) high. Its façade, 111 m (364 ft) long, depicts the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, since Hamburg was, as a Free Imperial City, only under the sovereignty of the emperor.[62] The Chilehaus, a brick expressionist office building built in 1922 and designed by architect Fritz Höger, is shaped like an ocean liner.
+
+Europe's largest urban development since 2008, the HafenCity, will house about 10,000 inhabitants and 15,000 workers. The plan includes designs by Rem Koolhaas and Renzo Piano. The Elbphilharmonie (Elbe Philharmonic Hall), opened in January 2017, houses concerts in a sail-shaped building on top of an old warehouse, designed by architects Herzog & de Meuron.[63][64]
+
+The many parks are distributed over the whole city, which makes Hamburg a very verdant city. The biggest parks are the Stadtpark, the Ohlsdorf Cemetery and Planten un Blomen. The Stadtpark, Hamburg's "Central Park", has a great lawn and a huge water tower, which houses one of Europe's biggest planetaria. The park and its buildings were designed by Fritz Schumacher in the 1910s.
+
+The lavish and spacious Planten un Blomen park (Low German dialect for "plants and flowers") located in the centre of Hamburg is the green heart of the city. Within the park are various thematic gardens, the biggest Japanese garden in Germany, and the Alter Botanischer Garten Hamburg, which is a historic botanical garden that now consists primarily of greenhouses.
+
+The Botanischer Garten Hamburg is a modern botanical garden maintained by the University of Hamburg. Besides these, there are many more parks of various sizes. In 2014 Hamburg celebrated a birthday of park culture, where many parks were reconstructed and cleaned up. Moreover, every year there are the famous water-light-concerts in the Planten un Blomen park from May to early October.
+
+Hamburg has more than 40 theatres, 60 museums and 100 music venues and clubs. In 2005, more than 18 million people visited concerts, exhibitions, theatres, cinemas, museums, and cultural events. More than 8,552 taxable companies (average size 3.16 employees) were engaged in the culture sector, which includes music, performing arts and literature. There are five companies in the creative sector per thousand residents (as compared to three in Berlin and 37 in London).[65]
+Hamburg has entered the European Green Capital Award scheme, and was awarded the title of European Green Capital for 2011.
+
+The state-owned Deutsches Schauspielhaus, the Thalia Theatre, Ohnsorg Theatre, "Schmidts Tivoli" and the Kampnagel are well-known theatres.[66]
+
+The English Theatre of Hamburg[67] near U3 Mundsburg station was established in 1976 and is the oldest professional English-speaking theatre in Germany, and has exclusively English native-speaking actors in its company.
+
+Hamburg has several large museums and galleries showing classical and contemporary art, for example the Kunsthalle Hamburg with its contemporary art gallery (Galerie der Gegenwart), the Museum for Art and Industry (Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe) and the Deichtorhallen/House of Photography. The Internationales Maritimes Museum Hamburg opened in the HafenCity quarter in 2008. There are various specialised museums in Hamburg, such as the Archaeological Museum Hamburg (Archäologisches Museum Hamburg) in Hamburg-Harburg, the Hamburg Museum of Work (Museum der Arbeit), and several museums of local history, for example the Kiekeberg Open Air Museum (Freilichtmuseum am Kiekeberg). Two museum ships near Landungsbrücken bear witness to the freight ship (Cap San Diego) and cargo sailing ship era (Rickmer Rickmers).[68] The world's largest model railway museum Miniatur Wunderland with 15.4 km (9.57 mi) total railway length is also situated near Landungsbrücken in a former warehouse.
+
+BallinStadt (Emigration City) is dedicated to the millions of Europeans who emigrated to North and South America between 1850 and 1939. Visitors descending from those overseas emigrants may search for their ancestors at computer terminals.
+
+Hamburg State Opera is a leading opera company. Its orchestra is the Philharmoniker Hamburg. The city's other well-known orchestra is the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra. The main concert venue is the new concert hall Elbphilharmonie. Before it was the Laeiszhalle, Musikhalle Hamburg. The Laeiszhalle also houses a third orchestra, the Hamburger Symphoniker. György Ligeti and Alfred Schnittke taught at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg.[69][70]
+
+Hamburg is the birthplace of Johannes Brahms, who spent his formative early years in the city, and the birthplace and home of the famous waltz composer Oscar Fetrás, who wrote the well-known "Mondnacht auf der Alster" waltz.
+
+Since the German premiere of Cats in 1986, there have always been musicals running, including The Phantom of the Opera, The Lion King, Dirty Dancing and Dance of the Vampires (musical). This density, the highest in Germany, is partly due to the major musical production company Stage Entertainment being based in the city.
+
+The city was a major centre for rock music in the early 1960s. The Beatles lived and played in Hamburg during a period from August 1960 to December 1962. They proved popular and gained local acclaim. Prior to the group's initial recording and widespread fame, Hamburg provided residency and performing venues for the Beatles from 1960 to 1962.
+
+Hamburg has nurtured a number of other pop musicians. Identical twins Bill Kaulitz and Tom Kaulitz from the rock band Tokio Hotel live and maintain a recording studio in Hamburg, where they recorded their second and third albums, Zimmer 483 and Humanoid. Singer Nena also lives in Hamburg. There are German hip hop acts, such as Fünf Sterne deluxe, Samy Deluxe, Beginner and Fettes Brot. There is a substantial alternative and punk scene, which gathers around the Rote Flora, a squatted former theatre located in the Sternschanze. Hamburg is famous for an original kind of German alternative music called Hamburger Schule ("Hamburg School"), a term used for bands like Tocotronic, Blumfeld, Tomte or Kante.
+
+The city was a major centre for heavy metal music in the 1980s. Helloween, Gamma Ray, Running Wild and Grave Digger started in Hamburg.[71] The industrial rock band KMFDM was also formed in Hamburg, initially as a performance art project. The influences of these and other bands from the area helped establish the subgenre of power metal.
+
+Hamburg has a vibrant psychedelic trance community, with record labels such as Spirit Zone.[72]
+
+Hamburg is noted for several festivals and regular events. Some of them are street festivals, such as the gay pride Hamburg Pride festival[73] or the Alster fair (German: Alstervergnügen),[74] held at the Binnenalster. The Hamburger DOM is northern Germany's biggest funfair, held three times a year.[75] Hafengeburtstag is a funfair to honour the birthday of the port of Hamburg with a party and a ship parade.[76] The annual biker's service in Saint Michael's Church attracts tens of thousands of bikers.[77] Christmas markets in December are held at the Hamburg Rathaus square, among other places.[78] The long night of museums (German: Lange Nacht der Museen) offers one entrance fee for about 40 museums until midnight.[79] The sixth Festival of Cultures was held in September 2008, celebrating multi-cultural life.[80] The Filmfest Hamburg — a film festival originating from the 1950s Film Days (German: Film Tage) — presents a wide range of films.[81] The Hamburg Messe and Congress offers a venue for trade shows, such hanseboot, an international boat show, or Du und deine Welt, a large consumer products show.[82] Regular sports events—some open to pro and amateur participants—are the cycling competition EuroEyes Cyclassics, the Hamburg Marathon, the biggest marathon in Germany after Berlin,[83] the tennis tournament Hamburg Masters and equestrian events like the Deutsches Derby. Since 2007, Hamburg has the Dockville music and art festival. It takes place every year in summer in Wilhelmsburg.[84]
+
+Original Hamburg dishes are Birnen, Bohnen und Speck (green beans cooked with pears and bacon),[85] Aalsuppe (Hamburgisch Oolsupp) is often mistaken to be German for "eel soup" (Aal/Ool translated 'eel'), but the name probably comes from the Low Saxon allns [aˑlns], meaning "all", "everything and the kitchen sink", not necessarily eel. Today eel is often included to meet the expectations of unsuspecting diners.[86] There is Bratkartoffeln (pan-fried potato slices), Finkenwerder Scholle (Low Saxon Finkwarder Scholl, pan-fried plaice), Pannfisch (pan-fried fish with mustard sauce),[87] Rote Grütze (Low Saxon Rode Grütt, related to Danish rødgrød, a type of summer pudding made mostly from berries and usually served with cream, like Danish rødgrød med fløde)[88] and Labskaus (a mixture of corned beef, mashed potatoes and beetroot, a cousin of the Norwegian lapskaus and Liverpool's lobscouse, all offshoots off an old-time one-pot meal that used to be the main component of the common sailor's humdrum diet on the high seas).[89]
+
+Alsterwasser (in reference to the city's river, the Alster) is the local name for a type of shandy, a concoction of equal parts of beer and carbonated lemonade (Zitronenlimonade), the lemonade being added to the beer.[90]
+
+There is the curious regional dessert pastry called Franzbrötchen. Looking rather like a flattened croissant, it is similar in preparation but includes a cinnamon and sugar filling, often with raisins or brown sugar streusel. The name may also reflect to the roll's croissant-like appearance – franz appears to be a shortening of französisch, meaning "French", which would make a Franzbrötchen a "French roll".
+Ordinary bread rolls tend to be oval-shaped and of the French bread variety. The local name is Schrippe (scored lengthways) for the oval kind and, for the round kind, Rundstück ("round piece" rather than mainstream German Brötchen, diminutive form of Brot "bread"),[91] a relative of Denmark's rundstykke. In fact, while by no means identical, the cuisines of Hamburg and Denmark, especially of Copenhagen, have a lot in common. This also includes a predilection for open-faced sandwiches of all sorts, especially topped with cold-smoked or pickled fish.
+
+The American hamburger may have developed from Hamburg's Frikadeller: a pan-fried patty (usually larger and thicker than its American counterpart) made from a mixture of ground beef, soaked stale bread, egg, chopped onion, salt and pepper, usually served with potatoes and vegetables like any other piece of meat, not usually on a bun. The Oxford Dictionary defined a Hamburger steak in 1802: a sometimes-smoked and -salted piece of meat, that, according to some sources, came from Hamburg to America.[92] The name and food, "hamburger", has entered all English-speaking countries, and derivative words in non-English speaking countries.
+
+There are restaurants which offer most of these dishes, especially in the HafenCity.
+
+Elbphilharmonie ("Elphi")
+
+Port of Hamburg
+
+St. Pauli Piers and cruise ship
+
+Speicherstadt (Warehouse district)
+
+Hamburg City Hall
+
+St. Michael's Church ("Michel")
+
+Reeperbahn, nightlife district of St. Pauli
+
+Spielbudenplatz at Reeperbahn
+
+Große Freiheit ("Great Freedom")
+
+Nikolai Memorial
+
+HafenCity
+
+Dockland at night
+
+View over frozen Alster towards Radisson Hotel and Hertz-Turm
+
+Planten un Blomen
+
+Jungfernstieg Boulevard
+
+Hills and mansions in Blankenese
+
+Laeiszhalle concert venue
+
+Hamburg Hauptbahnhof, the busiest railway station in Germany
+
+Hanseatisches Oberlandesgericht ("HansOLG"), upper court
+
+Highrises in St. Pauli (Hafenkrone)
+
+Köhlbrand Bridge
+
+TV Tower
+
+Traditional sailing ships at Sandtorkai in HafenCity
+
+View over Hamburg and the Alster
+
+Hamburg has long been a centre of alternative music and counter-culture movements. The boroughs of St. Pauli, Sternschanze and Altona are known for being home to many radical left-wing and anarchist groups, culminating every year during the traditional May Day demonstrations.[93]
+
+The Rote Flora is a former theatre, which was squatted in 1989 in the wake of redevelopment plans for that area. Since then, the Rote Flora has become one of the most well-known strongholds against gentrification and a place for radical culture throughout Germany and Europe. Especially during the 33rd G8 summit in nearby Heiligendamm, the Rote Flora served as an important venue for organising the counter-protests that were taking place back then.[94]
+
+During the 2017 G20 summit, which took place in Hamburg from 7–8 July that year, protestors clashed violently with the police in the Sternschanze area and particularly around the Rote Flora. On 7 July, several cars were set on fire and street barricades were erected to prevent the police from entering the area. In response to that, the police made heavy use of water cannons and tear gas in order to scatter the protestors. However, this was met with strong resistance by protestors, resulting in a total of 160 injured police and 75 arrested participants in the protests.[95]
+
+After the summit, however, the Rote Flora issued a statement, in which it condemns the arbitrary acts of violence that were committed by some of the protestors whilst generally defending the right to use violence as a means of self-defence against police oppression. In particular, the spokesperson of the Rote Flora said that the autonomous cultural centre had a traditionally good relationship with its neighbours and local residents, since they were united in their fight against gentrification in that neighbourhood.[96]
+
+There are several English-speaking communities, such as the Caledonian Society of Hamburg, The British Club Hamburg, British and Commonwealth Luncheon Club, Anglo-German Club e.V.,[97] Professional Women's Forum,[98] The British Decorative and Fine Arts Society, The English Speaking Union of the Commonwealth, The Scottish Country Dancers of Hamburg, The Hamburg Players e.V. English Language Theatre Group, The Hamburg Exiles Rugby Club, several cricket clubs, and The Morris Minor Register of Hamburg. Furthermore, the Anglo-Hanseatic Lodge No. 850[99] within the Grand Lodge of British Freemasons of Germany[100] under the United Grand Lodges of Germany[101] works in Hamburg, and has a diverse expat membership. There is also a 400-year-old Anglican church community worshipping at St Thomas Becket Church.[102]
+
+American and international English-speaking organisations include The American Club of Hamburg e.V.,[103] the American Women's Club of Hamburg,[104] the English Speaking Union, the German-American Women's Club,[105] and The International Women's Club of Hamburg e.V. The American Chamber of Commerce handles matters related to business affairs.[106] The International School of Hamburg serves school children.
+
+William Wordsworth, Dorothy Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge spent the last two weeks of September 1798 at Hamburg.
+Dorothy wrote a detailed journal of their stay, labelled "The Hamburg Journal (1798) by noted Wordsworth scholar Edward de Selincourt.[107]
+
+A Hamburg saying, referring to its anglophile nature, is: "Wenn es in London anfängt zu regnen, spannen die Hamburger den Schirm auf." ... "When it starts raining in London, people in Hamburg open their umbrellas."
+
+A memorial for successful English engineer William Lindley, who reorganized, beginning in 1842, the drinking water and sewage system and thus helped to fight against cholera, is near Baumwall train station in Vorsetzen street.
+
+In 2009, more than 2,500 "stumbling blocks" (Stolpersteine) were laid, engraved with the names of deported and murdered citizens. Inserted into the pavement in front of their former houses, the blocks draw attention to the victims of Nazi persecution.[108]
+
+The Gross domestic product (GDP) of Hamburg was 119.0 billion € in 2018, accounting for 3.6% of German economic output. GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power was 59,600 € or 197% of the EU27 average in the same year. The GDP per employee was 132% of the EU average.[109] The city has a relatively high employment rate, at 88 percent of the working-age population, employed in over 160,000 businesses. The average income in 2016 of employees was €49,332.[110]
+
+The unemployment rate stood at 6.1% in October 2018 and was higher than the German average.[111]
+
+Hamburg has for centuries been a commercial centre of Northern Europe, and is the most important banking city of Northern Germany. The city is the seat of Germany's oldest bank, the Berenberg Bank, M.M.Warburg & CO and HSH Nordbank. The Hamburg Stock Exchange is the oldest of its kind in Germany.
+
+The most significant economic unit is the Port of Hamburg, which ranks third to Rotterdam and Antwerpen in Europe and 17th-largest worldwide with transshipments of 8.9 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) of cargo and 138.2 million tons of goods in 2016.[113] International trade is also the reason for the large number of consulates in the city. Although situated 110 kilometres (70 mi) up the Elbe, it is considered a sea port due to its ability to handle large ocean-going vessels.[114]
+
+Heavy industry of Hamburg includes the making of steel, aluminium, copper and various large shipyards such as Blohm + Voss.[115]
+
+Hamburg, along with Seattle and Toulouse, is an important location of the civil aerospace industry. Airbus, which has an assembly plant in Finkenwerder, employs over 13,000 people.[116]
+
+The HafenCity is Europe's largest urban development project and is located in the Hamburg-Mitte district. It consists of the area of the Great Grasbrook, the northern part of the former Elbe island Grasbrook, and the warehouse district on the former Elbe island Kehrwieder and Wandrahm. It is bordered to the north, separated by the customs channel to Hamburg's city center, west and south by the Elbe and to the east, bounded by the upper harbor, Rothenburgsort. The district is full of rivers and streams and is surrounded by channels, and has a total area of about 2.2 square-kilometers.
+
+HafenCity has 155 hectares in the area formerly belonging to the free port north of the Great Grasbrook. Residential units for up to 12,000 people are planned to be built on the site by around the mid-2020s, and jobs for up to 40,000 people, mainly in the office sector, should be created. It is the largest ongoing urban development project in Hamburg.
+
+Construction work started in 2003, and in 2009 the first part of the urban development project was finished with the completion of the Dalmannkai / Sandtorkai neighborhood – which is the first stage of the HafenCity project. According to the person responsible for the development and commercialization of HafenCity, HafenCity Hamburg GmbH, half of the master plan underlying structural construction is already completed, whereas the other half is either under construction or is in the construction preparation stages.
+
+Many companies operating in E-Commerce have moved into HafenCity or started there. In addition to cruise agents, many start-up companies that have no direct connection to the port or ships can be found in HafenCity.
+
+In 2017, more than 6,783,000 visitors with 13,822,000 overnight stays visited the city.[117] The tourism sector employs more than 175,000 people full-time and brings in revenue of almost €9 billion, making the tourism industry a major economic force in the Hamburg Metropolitan Region. Hamburg has one of the fastest-growing tourism industries in Germany. From 2001 to 2007, the overnight stays in the city increased by 55.2% (Berlin +52.7%, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern +33%).[118]
+
+A typical Hamburg visit includes a tour of the city hall and the grand church St. Michaelis (called the Michel), and visiting the old warehouse district (Speicherstadt) and the harbour promenade (Landungsbrücken). Sightseeing buses connect these points of interest. As Hamburg is one of the world's largest harbours many visitors take one of the harbour and/or canal boat tours (Große Hafenrundfahrt, Fleetfahrt) which start from the Landungsbrücken. Major destinations also include museums.
+
+The area of Reeperbahn in the quarter St. Pauli is Europe's largest red light district and home of strip clubs, brothels, bars and nightclubs. The singer and actor Hans Albers is strongly associated with St. Pauli, and wrote the neighbourhood's unofficial anthem, "Auf der Reeperbahn Nachts um Halb Eins" ("On the Reeperbahn at Half Past Midnight") in the 1940s. The Beatles had stints on the Reeperbahn early in their careers. Others prefer the laid-back neighbourhood Schanze with its street cafés, or a barbecue on one of the beaches along the river Elbe. Hamburg's famous zoo, the Tierpark Hagenbeck, was founded in 1907 by Carl Hagenbeck as the first zoo with moated, barless enclosures.[119]
+
+In 2016, the average visitor spent two nights in Hamburg.[120] The majority of visitors come from Germany. Most foreigners are European, especially from Denmark (395,681 overnight stays), the United Kingdom (301,000 overnight stays), Switzerland (340,156 overnight stays), Austria (about 252,397 overnight stays) and the Netherlands (about 182,610 overnight stays).[120] The largest group from outside Europe comes from the United States (206,614 overnight stays).[120]
+
+The Queen Mary 2 has docked regularly since 2004, and there were six departures planned from 2010 onwards.[121]
+
+Media businesses employ over 70,000 people.[122] The Norddeutscher Rundfunk which includes the television station NDR Fernsehen is based in Hamburg, including the very popular news program Tagesschau, as are the commercial television station Hamburg 1, the Christian television station Bibel TV and the civil media outlet Tide TV. There are regional radio stations such as Radio Hamburg. Some of Germany's largest publishing companies, Axel Springer AG, Gruner + Jahr, Bauer Media Group are located in the city. Many national newspapers and magazines such as Der Spiegel and Die Zeit are produced in Hamburg, as well as some special-interest newspapers such as Financial Times Deutschland. Hamburger Abendblatt and Hamburger Morgenpost are daily regional newspapers with a large circulation. There are music publishers, such as Warner Bros. Records Germany, and ICT firms such as Adobe Systems and Google Germany.
+
+Hamburg was one of the locations for the James Bond series film Tomorrow Never Dies. The Reeperbahn has been the location for many scenes, including the 1994 Beatles film Backbeat.[123] The film A Most Wanted Man was set in and filmed in Hamburg. Hamburg was also shown in An American Tail where Fievel Mousekewitz and his family immigrate to America in the hopes to escape cats.
+
+Hamburg has 54 hospitals. The University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, with about 1,736 beds, houses a large medical school. There are also smaller private hospitals. On 1 January 2011 there were about 12,507 hospital beds.[124] The city had 5,663 physicians in private practice and 456 pharmacies in 2010.[125]
+
+Hamburg is a major transportation hub, connected to four Autobahnen (motorways) and the most important railway junction on the route to Scandinavia.
+
+Bridges and tunnels connect the northern and southern parts of the city, such as the old Elbe Tunnel (Alter Elbtunnel) or St. Pauli Elbtunnel (official name) which opened in 1911, now is major tourist sight, and the Elbe Tunnel (Elbtunnel) the crossing of a motorway.[126]
+
+Hamburg Airport is the oldest airport in Germany still in operation.[127][128] There is also the smaller Hamburg Finkenwerder Airport, used only as a company airport for Airbus. Some airlines market Lübeck Airport in Lübeck as serving Hamburg.[129]
+
+Hamburg's licence plate prefix was "HH" (Hansestadt Hamburg; English: Hanseatic City of Hamburg) between 1906 and 1945 and from 1956 onwards, rather than the single letter normally used for large cities since the federal registration reform in 1956, such as B for Berlin or M for Munich. "H" was Hamburg's prefix in the years between 1945 and 1947 (used by Hanover since 1956);[130]
+
+Public transport by rail, bus and ship is organised by the Hamburger Verkehrsverbund ("Hamburg transit authority") (HVV). Tickets sold by one company are valid on all other HVV companies' services. The HVV was the first organisation of this kind worldwide.[131]
+
+33 mass transit rail lines across the city are the backbone of public transport.[132] The S-Bahn (commuter train system) comprises six lines and the U-Bahn four lines – U-Bahn is short for Untergrundbahn (underground railway). Approximately 41 km (25 mi) of 101 km (63 mi) of the U-Bahn is underground; most is on embankments or viaduct or at ground level. Older residents still speak of the system as Hochbahn (elevated railway), also because the operating company of the subway is the Hamburger Hochbahn. The AKN railway connects satellite towns in Schleswig-Holstein to the city. On some routes regional trains of Germany's major railway company Deutsche Bahn AG and the regional metronom trains may be used with an HVV ticket. Except at the four bigger stations of the city, Hauptbahnhof, Dammtor, Altona and Harburg regional trains do not stop inside the city. The tram system was opened in 1866 and shut down in 1978.[133]
+
+Gaps in the rail network are filled by more than 669 bus routes, operated by single-deck two-, three- and four-axle diesel buses.[132] Hamburg has no trams or trolleybuses, but has hydrogen-fueled buses. The buses run frequently during working hours, with buses on some so-called MetroBus routes as often as every 2 minutes.[citation needed] On special weekday night lines the intervals can be 30 minutes or longer, on normal days (Monday-Friday) the normal buses stop running at night. (MetroBuses run all around the clock, every day at the year at least every half-hour.)
+
+There are eight ferry lines along the River Elbe, operated by HADAG, that fall under the aegis of the HVV. While mainly used by citizens and dock workers, they can also be used for sightseeing tours.[134]
+
+The international airport serving Hamburg, Hamburg Airport Helmut Schmidt (IATA: HAM, ICAO: EDDH) is the fifth biggest and oldest airport in Germany, having been established in 1912 and located about 5 miles (8 kilometres) from the city centre. About 60 airlines provide service to 125 destination airports, including some long distance destinations like Newark, New Jersey on United Airlines, Dubai on Emirates, and Tehran on Iran Air. Hamburg is a secondary hub for Lufthansa, which is the largest carrier at the airport, and the airline also operates one of its biggest Lufthansa Technik maintenance facilities there. The second airport is located in Hamburg-Finkenwerder, officially named Hamburg Finkenwerder Airport (IATA: XFW, ICAO: EDHI). It is about 10 km (6 mi) from the city centre and is a nonpublic airport for the Airbus plant. It is the second biggest Airbus plant, after Toulouse, and the third biggest aviation manufacturing plant after Seattle and Toulouse; the plant houses the final assembly lines for A318, A319, A320, A321 and A380 aircraft.[135]
+
+The average amount of time people spend commuting with public transit in Hamburg, for example to and from work, on a weekday is 58 min. 16% of public transit riders, ride for more than two hours every day. The average amount of time people wait at a stop or station for public transit is 11 min, while 11% of riders wait for over 20 minutes on average every day. The average distance people usually ride in a single trip with public transit is 8.9 km, while 21% travel for over 12 km in a single direction.[136]
+
+Electricity for Hamburg and Northern Germany is largely provided by Vattenfall Europe, formerly the state-owned Hamburgische Electricitäts-Werke. Vattenfall Europe used to operate the Brunsbüttel Nuclear Power Plant and Krümmel Nuclear Power Plant, both taken out of service as part of the nuclear power phase-out. In addition, E.ON operates the Brokdorf Nuclear Power Plant near Hamburg.
+There are also the coal-fired Wedel, Tiefstack and Moorburg CHP Plant, and the fuel-cell power plant in the HafenCity quarter. VERA Klärschlammverbrennung uses the biosolids of the Hamburg wastewater treatment plant; the Pumpspeicherwerk Geesthacht is a pump storage power plant and a solid waste combustion power station is Müllverwertung Borsigstraße.[137]
+
+In June 2019 City of Hamburg introduced a law governing the phasing out of coal based thermal and electric energy production ("Kohleausstiegsgesetz").[138] This move was the result of negotiations between parliamentary parties and representatives of the popular petition Tschuess Kohle ("Goodbye Coal"). Hamburg Ministry for Environment and Energy in 2020 announced a partnership with Namibia, which is a potential supplier of woody biomass from encroacher bush as replacement of coal.[139]
+
+Hamburger SV is a football team playing in the 2. Bundesliga (as of 2018). The HSV was the oldest team of the Bundesliga, playing in the league since its beginning in 1963 until a change of results saw them relegated from the Bundesliga in 2018. HSV is a six-time German champion, a three-time German cup winner and triumphed in the European Cup in 1983, and has played in the group stages of the Champions League twice: in 2000–01 and in 2006–07. They play at the Volksparkstadion (average attendance in the 12–13 season was 52,916). In addition, FC St. Pauli was a second division football club that came in second place in the 2009–10 season and qualified to play alongside Hamburger SV in the first division for the first time since the 2001–02 season. St. Pauli's home games take place at the Millerntor-Stadion.
+
+The Hamburg Freezers represented Hamburg until 2016 in the DEL, the premier ice hockey league in Germany.
+
+HSV Handball represented Hamburg until 2016 in the German handball league. In 2007, HSV Handball won the European Cupwinners Cup. The Club won the league in the 2010–11 season and had an average attendance of 10.690 in the O2 World Hamburg the same year. The most recent success for the team was the EHF Champions League win in 2013. Since 2014, the club has suffered from economic problems and was almost not allowed the playing licence for the 2014–15 season. But due to economic support from the former club president/sponsor Andreas Rudolf the club was allowed the licence in the last minute. On 20 January 2016 however, their licence was removed due to violations following the continued economic struggles. In 2016–17, they were not allowed to play in the first or second league. The team lives on through their former second team (now their main team) in the third division (2016-2018) and in second division (since 2018).
+
+The BCJ Hamburg played in the Basketball Bundesliga from 1999 to 2001. Since then, teams from Hamburg have attempted to return to Germany's elite league. The recently founded Hamburg Towers have already established themselves as one of the main teams in Germany's second division ProA and aim to take on the heritage of the BCJ Hamburg. The Towers play their home games at the Inselparkhalle in Wilhelmsburg.
+
+Hamburg is the nation's field hockey capital and dominates the men's as well as the women's Bundesliga. Hamburg hosts many top teams such as Uhlenhorster Hockey Club, Harvesterhuder Hockey Club and Club An Der Alster.
+
+The Hamburg Warriors are one of Germany's top lacrosse clubs.[140] The club has grown immensely in the last several years and includes at least one youth team, three men's, and two women's teams. The team participates in the Deutsch Lacrosse Verein. The Hamburg Warriors are part of the Harvestehuder Tennis- und Hockey-Club e.V (HTHC).[141]
+
+There are also the Hamburg Dockers, an Australian rules football club.[142] The FC St. Pauli team dominates women's rugby in Germany. Other first-league teams include VT Aurubis Hamburg (Volleyball), Hamburger Polo Club, and Hamburg Blue Devils (American Football).[143] There are also several minority sports clubs, including four cricket clubs.
+
+The Centre Court of the Tennis Am Rothenbaum venue, with a capacity of 13,200 people, is the largest in Germany.[144]
+
+Hamburg also hosts equestrian events at Reitstadion Klein Flottbek (Deutsches Derby in jumping and dressage) and Horner Rennbahn (Deutsches Derby flat racing).[145] Besides Hamburg owns the famous harness racing track "Trabrennbahn Bahrenfeld". The Hamburg Marathon is the biggest marathon in Germany after Berlin's. In 2008 23,230 participants were registered.[146] World Cup events in cycling, the UCI ProTour competition EuroEyes Cyclassics, and the triathlon ITU World Cup event Hamburg City Man are also held in here.[147]
+
+Volksparkstadion was used as a site for the 2006 World Cup. In 2010 UEFA held the final of the UEFA Europa League in the arena.[148]
+
+Hamburg made a bid for the 2024 Olympic Games, but 51.7 percent of those city residents participating in a referendum in November 2015 voted against continuing Hamburg's bid to host the games. Meanwhile, Hamburg's partner city Kiel voted in favour of hosting the event, with almost 66 percent of all participants supporting the bid. Opponents of the bid had argued that hosting the 33rd Olympic Games would cost the city too much in public funds.[149]
+
+The school system is managed by the Ministry of Schools and Vocational Training (Behörde für Schule und Berufsbildung). The system had approximately 191,148 students in 221 primary schools and 188 secondary schools in 2016.[150] There are 32 public libraries in Hamburg.[151]
+
+Nineteen universities are located in Hamburg, with about 100,589 university students in total, including 9,000 resident students.[152] Six universities are public, including the largest, the University of Hamburg (Universität Hamburg) with the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, the University of Music and Theatre, the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, the HafenCity University Hamburg and the Hamburg University of Technology. Seven universities are private, like the Bucerius Law School, the Kühne Logistics University and the HSBA Hamburg School of Business Administration. The city has also smaller private colleges and universities, including many religious and special-purpose institutions, such as the Helmut Schmidt University (formerly the University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg).[153]
+Hamburg is home to one of the oldest international schools in Germany, the International School of Hamburg.
+
+Hamburg has nine twin towns and sister cities around the world. Dar es Salaam, Tanzania became its newest sister city in 2010.[154]
+
+In Hamburg it's hard to find a native Hamburger. A hurried and superficial search turns up only crayfish, people from Pinneberg, and those from Bergedorf. One accompanies the contented little kippers of a striving society; mackerels from Stade, sole from Finkenwerder, herrings from Cuxhaven swim in expectant throngs through the streets of my city and lobsters patrol the stock exchange with open claws.... The first so-called unguarded glance always lands on the bottom of the sea and falls into twilight of the aquarium. Heinrich Heine must have had the same experience when he tried, with his cultivated scorn and gifted melancholy, to find the people of Hamburg.

en/2371.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,75 @@
+
+
+Hammurabi[a] (c. 1810 – c. 1750 BC) was the sixth king of the First Babylonian dynasty of the Amorite tribe,[2] reigning from c. 1792 BC to c. 1750 BC (according to the Middle Chronology). He was preceded by his father, Sin-Muballit, who abdicated due to failing health. During his reign, he conquered Elam and the city-states of Larsa, Eshnunna, and Mari. He ousted Ishme-Dagan I, the king of Assyria, and forced his son Mut-Ashkur to pay tribute, bringing almost all of Mesopotamia under Babylonian rule.[3]
+
+Hammurabi is best known for having issued the Code of Hammurabi, which he claimed to have received from Shamash, the Babylonian god of justice. Unlike earlier Sumerian law codes, such as the Code of Ur-Nammu, which had focused on compensating the victim of the crime, the Law of Hammurabi was one of the first law codes to place greater emphasis on the physical punishment of the perpetrator. It prescribed specific penalties for each crime and is among the first codes to establish the presumption of innocence. Although its penalties are extremely harsh by modern standards, they were intended to limit what a wronged person was permitted to do in retribution. The Code of Hammurabi and the Law of Moses in the Torah contain numerous similarities.
+
+Hammurabi was seen by many as a god within his own lifetime. After his death, Hammurabi was revered as a great conqueror who spread civilization and forced all peoples to pay obeisance to Marduk, the national god of the Babylonians. Later, his military accomplishments became de-emphasized and his role as the ideal lawgiver became the primary aspect of his legacy. For later Mesopotamians, Hammurabi's reign became the frame of reference for all events occurring in the distant past. Even after the empire he built collapsed, he was still revered as a model ruler, and many kings across the Near East claimed him as an ancestor. Hammurabi was rediscovered by archaeologists in the late nineteenth century and has since become seen as an important figure in the history of law.
+
+Hammurabi was an Amorite First Dynasty king of the city-state of Babylon, and inherited the power from his father, Sin-Muballit, in c. 1792 BC.[4] Babylon was one of the many largely Amorite ruled city-states that dotted the central and southern Mesopotamian plains and waged war on each other for control of fertile agricultural land.[5] Though many cultures co-existed in Mesopotamia, Babylonian culture gained a degree of prominence among the literate classes throughout the Middle East under Hammurabi.[6] The kings who came before Hammurabi had founded a relatively minor City State in 1894 BC, which controlled little territory outside of the city itself. Babylon was overshadowed by older, larger, and more powerful kingdoms such as Elam, Assyria, Isin, Eshnunna, and Larsa for a century or so after its founding. However, his father Sin-Muballit had begun to consolidate rule of a small area of south central Mesopotamia under Babylonian hegemony and, by the time of his reign, had conquered the minor city-states of Borsippa, Kish, and Sippar.[6]
+
+Thus Hammurabi ascended to the throne as the king of a minor kingdom in the midst of a complex geopolitical situation. The powerful kingdom of Eshnunna controlled the upper Tigris River while Larsa controlled the river delta. To the east of Mesopotamia lay the powerful kingdom of Elam, which regularly invaded and forced tribute upon the small states of southern Mesopotamia. In northern Mesopotamia, the Assyrian king Shamshi-Adad I, who had already inherited centuries old Assyrian colonies in Asia Minor, had expanded his territory into the Levant and central Mesopotamia,[7] although his untimely death would somewhat fragment his empire.[8]
+
+The first few years of Hammurabi's reign were quite peaceful. Hammurabi used his power to undertake a series of public works, including heightening the city walls for defensive purposes, and expanding the temples.[9] In c. 1801 BC, the powerful kingdom of Elam, which straddled important trade routes across the Zagros Mountains, invaded the Mesopotamian plain.[10] With allies among the plain states, Elam attacked and destroyed the kingdom of Eshnunna, destroying a number of cities and imposing its rule on portions of the plain for the first time.[11]
+
+In order to consolidate its position, Elam tried to start a war between Hammurabi's Babylonian kingdom and the kingdom of Larsa.[13] Hammurabi and the king of Larsa made an alliance when they discovered this duplicity and were able to crush the Elamites, although Larsa did not contribute greatly to the military effort.[13] Angered by Larsa's failure to come to his aid, Hammurabi turned on that southern power, thus gaining control of the entirety of the lower Mesopotamian plain by c. 1763 BC.[14]
+
+As Hammurabi was assisted during the war in the south by his allies from the north such as Yamhad and Mari, the absence of soldiers in the north led to unrest.[14] Continuing his expansion, Hammurabi turned his attention northward, quelling the unrest and soon after crushing Eshnunna.[15] Next the Babylonian armies conquered the remaining northern states, including Babylon's former ally Mari, although it is possible that the conquest of Mari was a surrender without any actual conflict.[16][17][18]
+
+Hammurabi entered into a protracted war with Ishme-Dagan I of Assyria for control of Mesopotamia, with both kings making alliances with minor states in order to gain the upper hand. Eventually Hammurabi prevailed, ousting Ishme-Dagan I just before his own death. Mut-Ashkur, the new king of Assyria, was forced to pay tribute to Hammurabi.
+
+In just a few years, Hammurabi succeeded in uniting all of Mesopotamia under his rule.[18] The Assyrian kingdom survived but was forced to pay tribute during his reign, and of the major city-states in the region, only Aleppo and Qatna to the west in the Levant maintained their independence.[18] However, one stele of Hammurabi has been found as far north as Diyarbekir, where he claims the title "King of the Amorites".[19]
+
+Vast numbers of contract tablets, dated to the reigns of Hammurabi and his successors, have been discovered, as well as 55 of his own letters.[20] These letters give a glimpse into the daily trials of ruling an empire, from dealing with floods and mandating changes to a flawed calendar, to taking care of Babylon's massive herds of livestock.[21] Hammurabi died and passed the reins of the empire on to his son Samsu-iluna in c. 1750 BC, under whose rule the Babylonian empire quickly began to unravel.[22]
+
+The Code of Hammurabi is not the earliest surviving law code;[23] it is predated by the Code of Ur-Nammu, the Laws of Eshnunna, and the Code of Lipit-Ishtar.[23] Nonetheless, the Code of Hammurabi shows marked differences from these earlier law codes and ultimately proved more influential.[24][25][23]
+
+The Code of Hammurabi was inscribed on a stele and placed in a public place so that all could see it, although it is thought that few were literate. The stele was later plundered by the Elamites and removed to their capital, Susa; it was rediscovered there in 1901 in Iran and is now in the Louvre Museum in Paris. The code of Hammurabi contains 282 laws, written by scribes on 12 tablets. Unlike earlier laws, it was written in Akkadian, the daily language of Babylon, and could therefore be read by any literate person in the city.[24] Earlier Sumerian law codes had focused on compensating the victim of the crime,[25] but the Code of Hammurabi instead focused on physically punishing the perpetrator.[25] The Code of Hammurabi was one of the first law code to place restrictions on what a wronged person was allowed to do in retribution.[25]
+
+The structure of the code is very specific, with each offense receiving a specified punishment. The punishments tended to be very harsh by modern standards, with many offenses resulting in death, disfigurement, or the use of the "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth" (Lex Talionis "Law of Retaliation") philosophy.[26][25] The code is also one of the earliest examples of the idea of presumption of innocence, and it also suggests that the accused and accuser have the opportunity to provide evidence.[27] However, there is no provision for extenuating circumstances to alter the prescribed punishment.
+
+A carving at the top of the stele portrays Hammurabi receiving the laws from Shamash, the Babylonian god of justice,[28] and the preface states that Hammurabi was chosen by Shamash to bring the laws to the people.[29] Parallels between this narrative and the giving of the Covenant Code to Moses by Yahweh atop Mount Sinai in the Biblical Book of Exodus and similarities between the two legal codes suggest a common ancestor in the Semitic background of the two.[30][31][32][33] Nonetheless, fragments of previous law codes have been found and it is unlikely that the Mosaic laws were directly inspired by the Code of Hammurabi.[30][31][32][33][b] Some scholars have disputed this; David P. Wright argues that the Jewish Covenant Code is "directly, primarily, and throughout" based upon the Laws of Hammurabi.[34] In 2010, a team of archaeologists from Hebrew University discovered a cuneiform tablet dating to the eighteenth or seventeenth century BC at Hazor in Israel containing laws clearly derived from the Code of Hammurabi.[35]
+
+Hammurabi was honored above all other kings of the second millennium BC[36] and he received the unique honor of being declared to be a god within his own lifetime.[37] The personal name "Hammurabi-ili" meaning "Hammurabi is my god" became common during and after his reign. In writings from shortly after his death, Hammurabi is commemorated mainly for three achievements: bringing victory in war, bringing peace, and bringing justice.[37] Hammurabi's conquests came to be regarded as part of a sacred mission to spread civilization to all nations.[38] A stele from Ur glorifies him in his own voice as a mighty ruler who forces evil into submission and compels all peoples to worship Marduk.[39] The stele declares: "The people of Elam, Gutium, Subartu, and Tukrish, whose mountains are distant and whose languages are obscure, I placed into [Marduk's] hand. I myself continued to put straight their confused minds." A later hymn also written in Hammurabi's own voice extols him as a powerful, supernatural force for Marduk:[38]
+
+I am the king, the brace that grasps wrongdoers, that makes people of one mind,
+I am the great dragon among kings, who throws their counsel in disarray,
+I am the net that is stretched over the enemy,
+I am the fear-inspiring, who, when lifting his fierce eyes, gives the disobedient the death sentence,
+I am the great net that covers evil intent,
+I am the young lion, who breaks nets and scepters,
+I am the battle net that catches him who offends me.[39]
+
+After extolling Hammurabi's military accomplishments, the hymn finally declares: "I am Hammurabi, the king of justice."[37] In later commemorations, Hammurabi's role as a great lawgiver came to be emphasized above all his other accomplishments and his military achievements became de-emphasized. Hammurabi's reign became the point of reference for all events in the distant past. A hymn to the goddess Ishtar, whose language suggests it was written during the reign of Ammisaduqa, Hammurabi's fourth successor, declares: "The king who first heard this song as a song of your heroism is Hammurabi. This song for you was composed in his reign. May he be given life forever!"[36] For centuries after his death, Hammurabi's laws continued to be copied by scribes as part of their writing exercises and they were even partially translated into Sumerian.[43]
+
+During the reign of Hammurabi, Babylon usurped the position of "most holy city" in southern Mesopotamia from its predecessor, Nippur.[45] Under the rule of Hammurabi's successor Samsu-iluna, the short-lived Babylonian Empire began to collapse. In northern Mesopotamia, both the Amorites and Babylonians were driven from Assyria by Puzur-Sin a native Akkadian-speaking ruler, c. 1740 BC. Around the same time, native Akkadian speakers threw off Amorite Babylonian rule in the far south of Mesopotamia, creating the Sealand Dynasty, in more or less the region of ancient Sumer. Hammurabi's ineffectual successors met with further defeats and loss of territory at the hands of Assyrian kings such as Adasi and Bel-ibni, as well as to the Sealand Dynasty to the south, Elam to the east, and to the Kassites from the northeast. Thus was Babylon quickly reduced to the small and minor state it had once been upon its founding.[46]
+
+The coup de grace for the Hammurabi's Amorite Dynasty occurred in 1595 BC, when Babylon was sacked and conquered by the powerful Hittite Empire, thereby ending all Amorite political presence in Mesopotamia.[47] However, the Indo-European-speaking Hittites did not remain, turning over Babylon to their Kassite allies, a people speaking a language isolate, from the Zagros mountains region. This Kassite Dynasty ruled Babylon for over 400 years and adopted many aspects of the Babylonian culture, including Hammurabi's code of laws.[47] Even after the fall of the Amorite Dynasty, however, Hammurabi was still remembered and revered.[43] When the Elamite king Shutruk-Nahhunte I raided Babylon in 1158 BC and carried off many stone monuments, he had most of the inscriptions on these monuments erased and new inscriptions carved into them.[43] On the stele containing Hammurabi's laws, however, only four or five columns were wiped out and no new inscription was ever added.[44] Over a thousand years after Hammurabi's death, the kings of Suhu, a land along the Euphrates river, just northwest of Babylon, claimed him as their ancestor.[48]
+
+In the late nineteenth century, the Code of Hammurabi became a major center of debate in the heated Babel und Bibel ("Babylon and Bible") controversy in Germany over the relationship between the Bible and ancient Babylonian texts.[49] In January 1902, the German Assyriologist Friedrich Delitzsch gave a lecture at the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin in front of the Kaiser and his wife, in which he argued that the Mosaic Laws of the Old Testament were directly copied off the Code of Hammurabi.[50] Delitzsch's lecture was so controversial that, by September 1903, he had managed to collect 1,350 short articles from newspapers and journals, over 300 longer ones, and twenty-eight pamphlets, all written in response to this lecture, as well as the preceding one about the Flood story in the Epic of Gilgamesh. These articles were overwhelmingly critical of Delitzsch, though a few were sympathetic. The Kaiser distanced himself from Delitzsch and his radical views and, in fall of 1904, Delitzsch was forced to give his third lecture in Cologne and Frankfurt am Main rather than in Berlin.[49] The putative relationship between the Mosaic Law and the Code of Hammurabi later became a major part of Delitzsch's argument in his 1920–21 book Die große Täuschung (The Great Deception) that the Hebrew Bible was irredeemably contaminated by Babylonian influence and that only by eliminating the human Old Testament entirely could Christians finally believe in the true, Aryan message of the New Testament.[50] In the early twentieth century, many scholars believed that Hammurabi was Amraphel, the King of Shinar in the Book of Genesis 14:1.[51][52] This view has now been largely rejected,[53][54] and Amraphael's existence is not attested in any writings from outside the Bible.[54]
+
+Because of Hammurabi's reputation as a lawgiver, his depiction can be found in several United States government buildings. Hammurabi is one of the 23 lawgivers depicted in marble bas-reliefs in the chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives in the United States Capitol.[55] A frieze by Adolph Weinman depicting the "great lawgivers of history", including Hammurabi, is on the south wall of the U.S. Supreme Court building.[56][57] At the time of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi Army's 1st Hammurabi Armoured Division was named after the ancient king as part of an effort to emphasize the connection between modern Iraq and the pre-Arab Mesopotamian cultures.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SixteenthDynasty
+AbydosDynasty
+SeventeenthDynasty
+
+Nineteenth Dynasty of EgyptRamesses I Seti I Ramesses II Merneptah Amenmesses Seti II Siptah Twosret♀
+
+Twenty-first Dynasty of EgyptSmendes Amenemnisu Psusennes I Amenemope Osorkon the Elder Siamun Psusennes II
+
+Twenty-third Dynasty of EgyptHarsiese A Takelot II Pedubast I Shoshenq VI Osorkon III Takelot III Rudamun Menkheperre Ini
+Twenty-fourth Dynasty of EgyptTefnakht Bakenranef
+
+(Sargonid dynasty)Tiglath-Pileser† Shalmaneser† Marduk-apla-iddina II Sargon† Sennacherib† Marduk-zakir-shumi II Marduk-apla-iddina II Bel-ibni Ashur-nadin-shumi† Nergal-ushezib Mushezib-Marduk Esarhaddon† Ashurbanipal Ashur-etil-ilani Sinsharishkun Sin-shumu-lishir Ashur-uballit II
+
+Seleucid Empire: Seleucus I Antiochus I Antiochus II Seleucus II Seleucus III Antiochus III Seleucus IV Antiochus IV Antiochus V Demetrius I Alexander III Demetrius II Antiochus VI Dionysus Diodotus Tryphon Antiochus VII Sidetes
+

en/2372.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,75 @@
+
+
+Hammurabi[a] (c. 1810 – c. 1750 BC) was the sixth king of the First Babylonian dynasty of the Amorite tribe,[2] reigning from c. 1792 BC to c. 1750 BC (according to the Middle Chronology). He was preceded by his father, Sin-Muballit, who abdicated due to failing health. During his reign, he conquered Elam and the city-states of Larsa, Eshnunna, and Mari. He ousted Ishme-Dagan I, the king of Assyria, and forced his son Mut-Ashkur to pay tribute, bringing almost all of Mesopotamia under Babylonian rule.[3]
+
+Hammurabi is best known for having issued the Code of Hammurabi, which he claimed to have received from Shamash, the Babylonian god of justice. Unlike earlier Sumerian law codes, such as the Code of Ur-Nammu, which had focused on compensating the victim of the crime, the Law of Hammurabi was one of the first law codes to place greater emphasis on the physical punishment of the perpetrator. It prescribed specific penalties for each crime and is among the first codes to establish the presumption of innocence. Although its penalties are extremely harsh by modern standards, they were intended to limit what a wronged person was permitted to do in retribution. The Code of Hammurabi and the Law of Moses in the Torah contain numerous similarities.
+
+Hammurabi was seen by many as a god within his own lifetime. After his death, Hammurabi was revered as a great conqueror who spread civilization and forced all peoples to pay obeisance to Marduk, the national god of the Babylonians. Later, his military accomplishments became de-emphasized and his role as the ideal lawgiver became the primary aspect of his legacy. For later Mesopotamians, Hammurabi's reign became the frame of reference for all events occurring in the distant past. Even after the empire he built collapsed, he was still revered as a model ruler, and many kings across the Near East claimed him as an ancestor. Hammurabi was rediscovered by archaeologists in the late nineteenth century and has since become seen as an important figure in the history of law.
+
+Hammurabi was an Amorite First Dynasty king of the city-state of Babylon, and inherited the power from his father, Sin-Muballit, in c. 1792 BC.[4] Babylon was one of the many largely Amorite ruled city-states that dotted the central and southern Mesopotamian plains and waged war on each other for control of fertile agricultural land.[5] Though many cultures co-existed in Mesopotamia, Babylonian culture gained a degree of prominence among the literate classes throughout the Middle East under Hammurabi.[6] The kings who came before Hammurabi had founded a relatively minor City State in 1894 BC, which controlled little territory outside of the city itself. Babylon was overshadowed by older, larger, and more powerful kingdoms such as Elam, Assyria, Isin, Eshnunna, and Larsa for a century or so after its founding. However, his father Sin-Muballit had begun to consolidate rule of a small area of south central Mesopotamia under Babylonian hegemony and, by the time of his reign, had conquered the minor city-states of Borsippa, Kish, and Sippar.[6]
+
+Thus Hammurabi ascended to the throne as the king of a minor kingdom in the midst of a complex geopolitical situation. The powerful kingdom of Eshnunna controlled the upper Tigris River while Larsa controlled the river delta. To the east of Mesopotamia lay the powerful kingdom of Elam, which regularly invaded and forced tribute upon the small states of southern Mesopotamia. In northern Mesopotamia, the Assyrian king Shamshi-Adad I, who had already inherited centuries old Assyrian colonies in Asia Minor, had expanded his territory into the Levant and central Mesopotamia,[7] although his untimely death would somewhat fragment his empire.[8]
+
+The first few years of Hammurabi's reign were quite peaceful. Hammurabi used his power to undertake a series of public works, including heightening the city walls for defensive purposes, and expanding the temples.[9] In c. 1801 BC, the powerful kingdom of Elam, which straddled important trade routes across the Zagros Mountains, invaded the Mesopotamian plain.[10] With allies among the plain states, Elam attacked and destroyed the kingdom of Eshnunna, destroying a number of cities and imposing its rule on portions of the plain for the first time.[11]
+
+In order to consolidate its position, Elam tried to start a war between Hammurabi's Babylonian kingdom and the kingdom of Larsa.[13] Hammurabi and the king of Larsa made an alliance when they discovered this duplicity and were able to crush the Elamites, although Larsa did not contribute greatly to the military effort.[13] Angered by Larsa's failure to come to his aid, Hammurabi turned on that southern power, thus gaining control of the entirety of the lower Mesopotamian plain by c. 1763 BC.[14]
+
+As Hammurabi was assisted during the war in the south by his allies from the north such as Yamhad and Mari, the absence of soldiers in the north led to unrest.[14] Continuing his expansion, Hammurabi turned his attention northward, quelling the unrest and soon after crushing Eshnunna.[15] Next the Babylonian armies conquered the remaining northern states, including Babylon's former ally Mari, although it is possible that the conquest of Mari was a surrender without any actual conflict.[16][17][18]
+
+Hammurabi entered into a protracted war with Ishme-Dagan I of Assyria for control of Mesopotamia, with both kings making alliances with minor states in order to gain the upper hand. Eventually Hammurabi prevailed, ousting Ishme-Dagan I just before his own death. Mut-Ashkur, the new king of Assyria, was forced to pay tribute to Hammurabi.
+
+In just a few years, Hammurabi succeeded in uniting all of Mesopotamia under his rule.[18] The Assyrian kingdom survived but was forced to pay tribute during his reign, and of the major city-states in the region, only Aleppo and Qatna to the west in the Levant maintained their independence.[18] However, one stele of Hammurabi has been found as far north as Diyarbekir, where he claims the title "King of the Amorites".[19]
+
+Vast numbers of contract tablets, dated to the reigns of Hammurabi and his successors, have been discovered, as well as 55 of his own letters.[20] These letters give a glimpse into the daily trials of ruling an empire, from dealing with floods and mandating changes to a flawed calendar, to taking care of Babylon's massive herds of livestock.[21] Hammurabi died and passed the reins of the empire on to his son Samsu-iluna in c. 1750 BC, under whose rule the Babylonian empire quickly began to unravel.[22]
+
+The Code of Hammurabi is not the earliest surviving law code;[23] it is predated by the Code of Ur-Nammu, the Laws of Eshnunna, and the Code of Lipit-Ishtar.[23] Nonetheless, the Code of Hammurabi shows marked differences from these earlier law codes and ultimately proved more influential.[24][25][23]
+
+The Code of Hammurabi was inscribed on a stele and placed in a public place so that all could see it, although it is thought that few were literate. The stele was later plundered by the Elamites and removed to their capital, Susa; it was rediscovered there in 1901 in Iran and is now in the Louvre Museum in Paris. The code of Hammurabi contains 282 laws, written by scribes on 12 tablets. Unlike earlier laws, it was written in Akkadian, the daily language of Babylon, and could therefore be read by any literate person in the city.[24] Earlier Sumerian law codes had focused on compensating the victim of the crime,[25] but the Code of Hammurabi instead focused on physically punishing the perpetrator.[25] The Code of Hammurabi was one of the first law code to place restrictions on what a wronged person was allowed to do in retribution.[25]
+
+The structure of the code is very specific, with each offense receiving a specified punishment. The punishments tended to be very harsh by modern standards, with many offenses resulting in death, disfigurement, or the use of the "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth" (Lex Talionis "Law of Retaliation") philosophy.[26][25] The code is also one of the earliest examples of the idea of presumption of innocence, and it also suggests that the accused and accuser have the opportunity to provide evidence.[27] However, there is no provision for extenuating circumstances to alter the prescribed punishment.
+
+A carving at the top of the stele portrays Hammurabi receiving the laws from Shamash, the Babylonian god of justice,[28] and the preface states that Hammurabi was chosen by Shamash to bring the laws to the people.[29] Parallels between this narrative and the giving of the Covenant Code to Moses by Yahweh atop Mount Sinai in the Biblical Book of Exodus and similarities between the two legal codes suggest a common ancestor in the Semitic background of the two.[30][31][32][33] Nonetheless, fragments of previous law codes have been found and it is unlikely that the Mosaic laws were directly inspired by the Code of Hammurabi.[30][31][32][33][b] Some scholars have disputed this; David P. Wright argues that the Jewish Covenant Code is "directly, primarily, and throughout" based upon the Laws of Hammurabi.[34] In 2010, a team of archaeologists from Hebrew University discovered a cuneiform tablet dating to the eighteenth or seventeenth century BC at Hazor in Israel containing laws clearly derived from the Code of Hammurabi.[35]
+
+Hammurabi was honored above all other kings of the second millennium BC[36] and he received the unique honor of being declared to be a god within his own lifetime.[37] The personal name "Hammurabi-ili" meaning "Hammurabi is my god" became common during and after his reign. In writings from shortly after his death, Hammurabi is commemorated mainly for three achievements: bringing victory in war, bringing peace, and bringing justice.[37] Hammurabi's conquests came to be regarded as part of a sacred mission to spread civilization to all nations.[38] A stele from Ur glorifies him in his own voice as a mighty ruler who forces evil into submission and compels all peoples to worship Marduk.[39] The stele declares: "The people of Elam, Gutium, Subartu, and Tukrish, whose mountains are distant and whose languages are obscure, I placed into [Marduk's] hand. I myself continued to put straight their confused minds." A later hymn also written in Hammurabi's own voice extols him as a powerful, supernatural force for Marduk:[38]
+
+I am the king, the brace that grasps wrongdoers, that makes people of one mind,
+I am the great dragon among kings, who throws their counsel in disarray,
+I am the net that is stretched over the enemy,
+I am the fear-inspiring, who, when lifting his fierce eyes, gives the disobedient the death sentence,
+I am the great net that covers evil intent,
+I am the young lion, who breaks nets and scepters,
+I am the battle net that catches him who offends me.[39]
+
+After extolling Hammurabi's military accomplishments, the hymn finally declares: "I am Hammurabi, the king of justice."[37] In later commemorations, Hammurabi's role as a great lawgiver came to be emphasized above all his other accomplishments and his military achievements became de-emphasized. Hammurabi's reign became the point of reference for all events in the distant past. A hymn to the goddess Ishtar, whose language suggests it was written during the reign of Ammisaduqa, Hammurabi's fourth successor, declares: "The king who first heard this song as a song of your heroism is Hammurabi. This song for you was composed in his reign. May he be given life forever!"[36] For centuries after his death, Hammurabi's laws continued to be copied by scribes as part of their writing exercises and they were even partially translated into Sumerian.[43]
+
+During the reign of Hammurabi, Babylon usurped the position of "most holy city" in southern Mesopotamia from its predecessor, Nippur.[45] Under the rule of Hammurabi's successor Samsu-iluna, the short-lived Babylonian Empire began to collapse. In northern Mesopotamia, both the Amorites and Babylonians were driven from Assyria by Puzur-Sin a native Akkadian-speaking ruler, c. 1740 BC. Around the same time, native Akkadian speakers threw off Amorite Babylonian rule in the far south of Mesopotamia, creating the Sealand Dynasty, in more or less the region of ancient Sumer. Hammurabi's ineffectual successors met with further defeats and loss of territory at the hands of Assyrian kings such as Adasi and Bel-ibni, as well as to the Sealand Dynasty to the south, Elam to the east, and to the Kassites from the northeast. Thus was Babylon quickly reduced to the small and minor state it had once been upon its founding.[46]
+
+The coup de grace for the Hammurabi's Amorite Dynasty occurred in 1595 BC, when Babylon was sacked and conquered by the powerful Hittite Empire, thereby ending all Amorite political presence in Mesopotamia.[47] However, the Indo-European-speaking Hittites did not remain, turning over Babylon to their Kassite allies, a people speaking a language isolate, from the Zagros mountains region. This Kassite Dynasty ruled Babylon for over 400 years and adopted many aspects of the Babylonian culture, including Hammurabi's code of laws.[47] Even after the fall of the Amorite Dynasty, however, Hammurabi was still remembered and revered.[43] When the Elamite king Shutruk-Nahhunte I raided Babylon in 1158 BC and carried off many stone monuments, he had most of the inscriptions on these monuments erased and new inscriptions carved into them.[43] On the stele containing Hammurabi's laws, however, only four or five columns were wiped out and no new inscription was ever added.[44] Over a thousand years after Hammurabi's death, the kings of Suhu, a land along the Euphrates river, just northwest of Babylon, claimed him as their ancestor.[48]
+
+In the late nineteenth century, the Code of Hammurabi became a major center of debate in the heated Babel und Bibel ("Babylon and Bible") controversy in Germany over the relationship between the Bible and ancient Babylonian texts.[49] In January 1902, the German Assyriologist Friedrich Delitzsch gave a lecture at the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin in front of the Kaiser and his wife, in which he argued that the Mosaic Laws of the Old Testament were directly copied off the Code of Hammurabi.[50] Delitzsch's lecture was so controversial that, by September 1903, he had managed to collect 1,350 short articles from newspapers and journals, over 300 longer ones, and twenty-eight pamphlets, all written in response to this lecture, as well as the preceding one about the Flood story in the Epic of Gilgamesh. These articles were overwhelmingly critical of Delitzsch, though a few were sympathetic. The Kaiser distanced himself from Delitzsch and his radical views and, in fall of 1904, Delitzsch was forced to give his third lecture in Cologne and Frankfurt am Main rather than in Berlin.[49] The putative relationship between the Mosaic Law and the Code of Hammurabi later became a major part of Delitzsch's argument in his 1920–21 book Die große Täuschung (The Great Deception) that the Hebrew Bible was irredeemably contaminated by Babylonian influence and that only by eliminating the human Old Testament entirely could Christians finally believe in the true, Aryan message of the New Testament.[50] In the early twentieth century, many scholars believed that Hammurabi was Amraphel, the King of Shinar in the Book of Genesis 14:1.[51][52] This view has now been largely rejected,[53][54] and Amraphael's existence is not attested in any writings from outside the Bible.[54]
+
+Because of Hammurabi's reputation as a lawgiver, his depiction can be found in several United States government buildings. Hammurabi is one of the 23 lawgivers depicted in marble bas-reliefs in the chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives in the United States Capitol.[55] A frieze by Adolph Weinman depicting the "great lawgivers of history", including Hammurabi, is on the south wall of the U.S. Supreme Court building.[56][57] At the time of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi Army's 1st Hammurabi Armoured Division was named after the ancient king as part of an effort to emphasize the connection between modern Iraq and the pre-Arab Mesopotamian cultures.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SixteenthDynasty
+AbydosDynasty
+SeventeenthDynasty
+
+Nineteenth Dynasty of EgyptRamesses I Seti I Ramesses II Merneptah Amenmesses Seti II Siptah Twosret♀
+
+Twenty-first Dynasty of EgyptSmendes Amenemnisu Psusennes I Amenemope Osorkon the Elder Siamun Psusennes II
+
+Twenty-third Dynasty of EgyptHarsiese A Takelot II Pedubast I Shoshenq VI Osorkon III Takelot III Rudamun Menkheperre Ini
+Twenty-fourth Dynasty of EgyptTefnakht Bakenranef
+
+(Sargonid dynasty)Tiglath-Pileser† Shalmaneser† Marduk-apla-iddina II Sargon† Sennacherib† Marduk-zakir-shumi II Marduk-apla-iddina II Bel-ibni Ashur-nadin-shumi† Nergal-ushezib Mushezib-Marduk Esarhaddon† Ashurbanipal Ashur-etil-ilani Sinsharishkun Sin-shumu-lishir Ashur-uballit II
+
+Seleucid Empire: Seleucus I Antiochus I Antiochus II Seleucus II Seleucus III Antiochus III Seleucus IV Antiochus IV Antiochus V Demetrius I Alexander III Demetrius II Antiochus VI Dionysus Diodotus Tryphon Antiochus VII Sidetes
+

en/2373.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,115 @@
+Handball (also known as team handball, European handball or Olympic handball)[3] is a team sport in which two teams of seven players each (six outcourt players and a goalkeeper) pass a ball using their hands with the aim of throwing it into the goal of the other team. A standard match consists of two periods of 30 minutes, and the team that scores more goals wins.
+
+Modern handball is played on a court of 40 by 20 metres (131 by 66 ft), with a goal in the middle of each end. The goals are surrounded by a 6-meter (20 ft) zone where only the defending goalkeeper is allowed; goals must be scored by throwing the ball from outside the zone or while "diving" into it. The sport is usually played indoors, but outdoor variants exist in the forms of field handball, Czech handball (which were more common in the past) and beach handball. The game is fast and high-scoring: professional teams now typically score between 20 and 35 goals each, though lower scores were not uncommon until a few decades ago. Players may score hat tricks. Body contact is permitted for the defenders trying to stop the attackers from approaching the goal. No protective equipment is mandated, but players may wear soft protective bands, pads and mouth guards.[4]
+
+The game was codified at the end of the 19th century in Denmark. The modern set of rules was published on 29 October 1917 in Berlin, which is seen as the date of birth of the sport,[5][1] and had several revisions since. The first official handball match was played in the same year in Germany.[1] The first international games were played under these rules for men in 1925 and for women in 1930. Men's handball was first played at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin as outdoors, and the next time at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich as indoors, and has been an Olympic sport since. Women's team handball was added at the 1976 Summer Olympics.
+
+The International Handball Federation was formed in 1946 and, as of 2016[update], has 197 member federations.[6] The sport is most popular in Europe, and European countries have won all medals but one in the men's world championships since 1938. In the women's world championships, only two non-European countries have won the title: South Korea and Brazil. The game also enjoys popularity in East Asia, North Africa and parts of South America.
+
+Games similar to handball were played in Ancient Greece and are represented on amphoras and stone carvings. Although detailed textual reference is rare, there are numerous descriptions of ball games being played where players throw the ball to one another; sometimes this is done in order to avoid interception by a player on the opposing team. Such games were played widely and served as both a form of exercise and a social event.[7]
+
+There is evidence of ancient Roman women playing a version of handball called expulsim ludere.[8] There are records of handball-like games in medieval France, and among the Inuit in Greenland, in the Middle Ages. By the 19th century, there existed similar games of håndbold from Denmark, házená in the Czech Republic, handbol in Ukraine, and torball in Germany.[9]
+
+The team handball game of today was codified at the end of the 19th century in northern Europe: primarily in Denmark, Germany, Norway and Sweden. The first written set of team handball rules was published in 1906 by the Danish gym teacher, lieutenant and Olympic medalist Holger Nielsen from Ordrup grammar school, north of Copenhagen. The modern set of rules was published on 29 October 1917 by Max Heiser, Karl Schelenz, and Erich Konigh from Berlin, Germany. 29 October 1917 is therefore seen as the "date of birth" of the sport.[5][1] The first ever official handball match was played on 2 December 1917 in Berlin.[1] After 1919 the rules were improved by Karl Schelenz. The first international games were played under these rules, between Germany and Belgium by men in 1925 and between Germany and Austria by women in 1930.
+
+In 1926, the Congress of the International Amateur Athletics Federation nominated a committee to draw up international rules for field handball. The International Amateur Handball Federation was formed in 1928 and later the International Handball Federation was formed in 1946.
+
+Men's field handball was played at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. During the next several decades, indoor handball flourished and evolved in the Scandinavian countries. The sport re-emerged onto the world stage as team handball for the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. Women's team handball was added at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. Due to its popularity in the region, the Eastern European countries that refined the event became the dominant force in the sport when it was reintroduced.
+
+The International Handball Federation organised the men's world championship in 1938 and every four (sometimes three) years from World War II to 1995. Since the 1995 world championship in Iceland, the competition has been held every two years. The women's world championship has been held since 1957. The IHF also organizes women's and men's junior world championships. By July 2009, the IHF listed 166 member federations - approximately 795,000 teams and 19 million players.
+
+The rules are laid out in the IHF's set of rules.[10]
+
+Two teams of seven players (six field players plus one goalkeeper) take the field and attempt to score points by putting the game ball into the opposing team's goal. In handling the ball, players are subject to the following restrictions:
+
+Notable scoring opportunities can occur when attacking players jump into the goal area. For example, an attacking player may catch a pass while launching inside the goal area, and then shoot or pass before touching the floor. Doubling occurs when a diving attacking player passes to another diving teammate.
+
+Handball is played on a court 40 by 20 metres (131 ft × 66 ft), with a goal in the centre of each end. The goals are surrounded by a near-semicircular area, called the zone or the crease, defined by a line six meters from the goal. A dashed near-semicircular line nine metres from the goal marks the free-throw line. Each line on the court is part of the area it encompasses. This implies that the middle line belongs to both halves at the same time.
+
+The goals are two meters high and three meters wide. They must be securely bolted either to the floor or the wall behind.
+
+The goal posts and the crossbar must be made out of the same material (e.g., wood or aluminium) and feature a quadratic cross section with sides of 8 cm (3 in). The three sides of the beams visible from the playing field must be painted alternatingly in two contrasting colors which both have to contrast against the background. The colors on both goals must be the same.
+
+Each goal must feature a net. This must be fastened in such a way that a ball thrown into the goal does not leave or pass the goal under normal circumstances. If necessary, a second net may be clasped to the back of the net on the inside.
+
+The goals are surrounded by the crease. This area is delineated by two quarter circles with a radius of six metres around the far corners of each goal post and a connecting line parallel to the goal line. Only the defending goalkeeper is allowed inside this zone. However, the court players may catch and touch the ball in the air within it as long as the player starts his jump outside the zone and releases the ball before he lands (landing inside the perimeter is allowed in this case as long as the ball has been released).
+
+If a player without the ball contacts the ground inside the goal perimeter, or the line surrounding the perimeter, he must take the most direct path out of it. However, should a player cross the zone in an attempt to gain an advantage (e.g., better position) their team cedes the ball. Similarly, violation of the zone by a defending player is penalized only if they do so in order to gain an advantage in defending.
+
+Outside of one long edge of the court to both sides of the middle line are the substitution areas for each team. Team officials, substitutes, and suspended players must wait within this area. A team's area is the same side as the goal the team is defending; during halftime, substitution areas are swapped. Any player entering or leaving the play must cross the substitution line which is part of the side line and extends 4.5 metres (15 ft) from the middle line to the team's side.
+
+A standard match has two 30-minute halves with a 10- or 15-minute (major Championships/Olympics) halftime intermission. At half-time, teams switch sides of the court as well as benches. For youths, the length of the halves is reduced—25 minutes at ages 12 to 15, and 20 minutes at ages 8 to 11; though national federations of some countries may differ in their implementation from the official guidelines.[11]
+
+If a decision must be reached in a particular match (e.g., in a tournament) and it ends in a draw after regular time, there are at maximum two overtimes, each consisting of two straight 5-minute periods with a one-minute break in between. Should these not decide the game either, the winning team is determined in a penalty shootout (best-of-five rounds; if still tied, extra rounds are added until one team wins).
+
+The referees may call timeout according to their sole discretion; typical reasons are injuries, suspensions, or court cleaning. Penalty throws should trigger a timeout only for lengthy delays, such as a change of the goalkeeper.
+
+Since 2012, teams can call 3 team timeouts per game (up to two per half), which last one minute each. This right may only be invoked by the team in possession of the ball. Team representatives must show a green card marked with a black T on the timekeeper's desk. The timekeeper then immediately interrupts the game by sounding an acoustic signal to stop the clock. Before 2012,  teams were allowed only one timeout per half. For the purpose of calling timeouts, overtime and shootouts are extensions of the second half.
+
+A handball match is adjudicated by two equal referees. Some national bodies allow games with only a single referee in special cases like illness on short notice. Should the referees disagree on any occasion, a decision is made on mutual agreement during a short timeout; or, in case of punishments, the more severe of the two comes into effect. The referees are obliged to make their decisions "on the basis of their observations of facts".[12] Their judgements are final and can be appealed against only if not in compliance with the rules.
+
+The referees position themselves in such a way that the team players are confined between them. They stand diagonally aligned so that each can observe one side line. Depending on their positions, one is called field referee and the other goal referee. These positions automatically switch on ball turnover. They physically exchange their positions approximately every 10 minutes (long exchange), and change sides every five minutes (short exchange).
+
+The IHF defines 18 hand signals for quick visual communication with players and officials. The signal for warning is accompanied by a yellow card.[13] A disqualification for the game is indicated by a red card,[14] followed by a blue card if the disqualification will be accompanied by a report.[15] The referees also use whistle blows to indicate infractions or to restart the play.
+
+The referees are supported by a scorekeeper and a timekeeper who attend to formal things such as keeping track of goals and suspensions, or starting and stopping the clock, respectively. They also keep an eye on the benches and notify the referees on substitution errors. Their desk is located between the two substitution areas.
+
+Each team consists of seven players on court and seven substitute players on the bench. One player on the court must be the designated goalkeeper, differing in his clothing from the rest of the field players. Substitution of players can be done in any number and at any time during game play. An exchange takes place over the substitution line. A prior notification of the referees is not necessary.
+
+Some national bodies, such as the Deutsche Handball Bund (DHB, "German Handball Federation"), allow substitution in junior teams only when in ball possession or during timeouts. This restriction is intended to prevent early specialization of players to offence or defence.
+
+Field players are allowed to touch the ball with any part of their bodies above and including the knee. As in several other team sports, a distinction is made between catching and dribbling. A player who is in possession of the ball may stand stationary for only three seconds, and may take only three steps. They must then either shoot, pass, or dribble the ball. Taking more than three steps at any time is considered travelling, and results in a turnover. A player may dribble as many times as they want (though, since passing is faster, it is the preferred method of attack), as long as during each dribble the hand contacts only the top of the ball. Therefore, carrying is completely prohibited, and results in a turnover. After the dribble is picked up, the player has the right to another three seconds or three steps. The ball must then be passed or shot, as further holding or dribbling will result in a double dribble turnover and a free throw for the other team. Other offensive infractions that result in a turnover include charging and setting an illegal screen. Carrying the ball into the six-meter zone results either in ball possession by the goalkeeper (by attacker) or turnover (by defender).
+
+Only the goalkeepers are allowed to move freely within the goal perimeter, although they may not cross the goal perimeter line while carrying or dribbling the ball. Within the zone, they are allowed to touch the ball with all parts of their bodies, including their feet, with a defensive aim (for other actions, they are subject to the same restrictions as the field players). The goalkeepers may participate in the normal play of their teammates. They may be substituted by a regular field player if their team elects to use this scheme in order to outnumber the defending players. Earlier, this field player become the designated goalkeeper on the court; and had to wear some vest or bib to be identified as such. That shirt had to be equal in colour and form to the goalkeeper's shirt, to avoid confusion. A rule change meant to make the game more offensive now allows any player to substitute with the goalkeeper. The new rule resembles the one used in ice hockey. This rule was first used in the women's world championship in December 2015 and has since been used by the men's European championship in January 2016 and by both genders in the Olympic tournament in Rio in 2016.
+
+If either goalkeeper deflects the ball over the outer goal line, their team stays in possession of the ball, in contrast to other sports like football. The goalkeeper resumes the play with a throw from within the zone ("goalkeeper throw"). Passing to one's own goalkeeper results in a turnover. In a penalty shot, throwing the ball against the head of a goalkeeper who is not moving risks a direct disqualification ("red card").
+
+Outside of own D-zone, the goalkeeper is treated as a current field player, and has to follow field players' rules; holding or tackling an opponent player outside the area risks a direct disqualification.[clarification needed] The goalkeeper may not return to the area with the ball.
+
+Each team is allowed to have a maximum of four team officials seated on the benches. An official is anybody who is neither player nor substitute. One official must be the designated representative who is usually the team manager. Since 2012, representatives can call up to 3 team timeouts (up to twice per half), and may address the scorekeeper, timekeeper, and referees (before that, it was once per half); overtime and shootouts are considered extensions of the second half. Other officials typically include physicians or managers. Neither official is allowed to enter the playing court without the permission of the referees.
+
+The ball is spherical and must be made either of leather or a synthetic material. It is not allowed to have a shiny or slippery surface. As the ball is intended to be operated by a single hand, its official sizes vary depending on age and gender of the participating teams.
+
+The referees may award a special throw to a team. This usually happens after certain events such as scored goals, off-court balls, turnovers and timeouts. All of these special throws require the thrower to obtain a certain position, and pose restrictions on the positions of all other players. Sometimes the execution must wait for a whistle blow by the referee.
+
+Penalties are given to players, in progressive format, for fouls that require more punishment than just a free-throw. Actions directed mainly at the opponent and not the ball (such as reaching around, holding, pushing, tripping, and jumping into opponent) as well as contact from the side, from behind a player or impeding the opponent's counterattack are all considered illegal and are subject to penalty. Any infraction that prevents a clear scoring opportunity will result in a seven-meter penalty shot.
+
+Typically the referee will give a warning yellow card for an illegal action; but, if the contact was particularly dangerous, like striking the opponent in the head, neck or throat, the referee can forego the warning for an immediate two-minute suspension. Players are warned once before given a yellow card; they risk being red-carded if they draw three yellows.
+
+A red card results in an ejection from the game and a two-minute penalty for the team. A player may receive a red card directly for particularly rough penalties. For instance, any contact from behind during a fast break is now being treated with a red card; as does any deliberate intent to injure opponents. A red-carded player has to leave the playing area completely. A player who is disqualified may be substituted with another player after the two-minute penalty is served. A coach or official can also be penalized progressively. Any coach or official who receives a two-minute suspension will have to pull out one of their players for two minutes; however, the player is not the one punished, and can be substituted in again, as the penalty consists of the team playing with one fewer player than the opposing team.
+
+After referees award the ball to the opponents for whatever reason, the player currently in possession of the ball has to lay it down quickly, or risk a two-minute suspension. Also, gesticulating or verbally questioning the referee's order, as well as arguing with the officials' decisions, will normally risk a yellow card. If the suspended player protests further, does not walk straight off the field to the bench, or if the referee deems the tempo deliberately slow, that player risks a double yellow card. Illegal substitution (outside of the dedicated area, or if the replacement player enters too early) is prohibited; if they do, they risk a yellow card.
+
+Players are typically referred to by the positions they are playing. The positions are always denoted from the view of the respective goalkeeper, so that a defender on the right opposes an attacker on the left. However, not all of the following positions may be occupied depending on the formation or potential suspensions.
+
+Sometimes, the offense uses formations with two pivot players.
+
+There are many variations in defensive formations. Usually, they are described as n:m formations, where n is the number of players defending at the goal line and m the number of players defending more offensive. Exceptions are the 3:2:1 defense and n+m formation (e.g. 5+1), where m players defend some offensive player in man coverage (instead of the usual zone coverage).
+
+Attacks are played with all field players on the side of the defenders. Depending on the speed of the attack, one distinguishes between three attack waves with a decreasing chance of success:
+
+The third wave evolves into the normal offensive play when all defenders not only reach the zone, but gain their accustomed positions. Some teams then substitute specialised offence players. However, this implies that these players must play in the defence should the opposing team be able to switch quickly to offence. The latter is another benefit for fast playing teams.
+
+If the attacking team does not make sufficient progress (eventually releasing a shot on goal), the referees can call passive play (since about 1995, the referee gives a passive warning some time before the actual call by holding one hand up in the air, signalling that the attacking team should release a shot soon), turning control over to the other team. A shot on goal or an infringement leading to a yellow card or two-minute penalty will mark the start of a new attack, causing the hand to be taken down; but a shot blocked by the defense or a normal free throw will not. If it were not for this rule, it would be easy for an attacking team to stall the game indefinitely, as it is difficult to intercept a pass without at the same time conceding dangerous openings towards the goal.
+
+The usual formations of the defense are 6–0, when all the defense players line up between the 6-metre (20 ft) and 9-metre (30 ft) lines to form a wall; the 5–1, when one of the players cruises outside the 9-metre (30 ft) perimeter, usually targeting the center forwards while the other 5 line up on the 6-metre (20 ft) line; and the less common 4–2 when there are two such defenders out front. Very fast teams will also try a 3–3 formation which is close to a switching man-to-man style. The formations vary greatly from country to country, and reflect each country's style of play. 6–0 is sometimes known as "flat defense", and all other formations are usually called "offensive defense".
+
+Handball teams are usually organised as clubs. On a national level, the clubs are associated in federations which organize matches in leagues and tournaments.
+
+The International Handball Federation (IHF) is the administrative and controlling body for international handball. Handball is an Olympic sport played during the Summer Olympics.[16]
+
+The IHF organizes world championships, held in odd-numbered years, with separate competitions for men and women.[17]
+The IHF World Men's Handball Championship 2019 title holders are Denmark.[18] The IHF World Women's Handball Championship 2019 title holders are Netherlands.[19]
+
+The IHF is composed of five continental federations: Asian Handball Federation, African Handball Confederation, Pan-American Team Handball Federation, European Handball Federation and Oceania Handball Federation. These federations organize continental championships held every other second year. Handball is played during the Pan American Games,[20] All-Africa Games,[21] and Asian Games.[16] It is also played at the Mediterranean Games. In addition to continental competitions between national teams, the federations arrange international tournaments between club teams.[22]
+
+The current worldwide attendance record for seven-a-side handball was set on September 6, 2014, during a neutral venue German league game between HSV Hamburg and the Mannheim-based Rhein-Neckar Lions.[23] The matchup drew 44,189 spectators to Commerzbank Arena in Frankfurt, exceeding the previous record of 36,651 set at Copenhagen's Parken Stadium during the 2011 Danish Cup final.[23]
+
+Handball events have been selected as a main motif in numerous collectors' coins. One of the recent samples is the €10 Greek Handball commemorative coin, minted in 2003 to commemorate the 2004 Summer Olympics. On the coin, the modern athlete directs the ball in his hands towards his target, while in the background the ancient athlete is just about to throw a ball, in a game known as cheirosphaira, in a representation taken from a black-figure pottery vase of the Archaic period.[24]
+
+The most recent commemorative coin featuring handball is the British 50 pence coin, part of the series of coins commemorating the London 2012 Olympic Games.[25]
+
+Notes
+
+Media related to Handball at Wikimedia Commons
+

en/2374.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,115 @@
+Handball (also known as team handball, European handball or Olympic handball)[3] is a team sport in which two teams of seven players each (six outcourt players and a goalkeeper) pass a ball using their hands with the aim of throwing it into the goal of the other team. A standard match consists of two periods of 30 minutes, and the team that scores more goals wins.
+
+Modern handball is played on a court of 40 by 20 metres (131 by 66 ft), with a goal in the middle of each end. The goals are surrounded by a 6-meter (20 ft) zone where only the defending goalkeeper is allowed; goals must be scored by throwing the ball from outside the zone or while "diving" into it. The sport is usually played indoors, but outdoor variants exist in the forms of field handball, Czech handball (which were more common in the past) and beach handball. The game is fast and high-scoring: professional teams now typically score between 20 and 35 goals each, though lower scores were not uncommon until a few decades ago. Players may score hat tricks. Body contact is permitted for the defenders trying to stop the attackers from approaching the goal. No protective equipment is mandated, but players may wear soft protective bands, pads and mouth guards.[4]
+
+The game was codified at the end of the 19th century in Denmark. The modern set of rules was published on 29 October 1917 in Berlin, which is seen as the date of birth of the sport,[5][1] and had several revisions since. The first official handball match was played in the same year in Germany.[1] The first international games were played under these rules for men in 1925 and for women in 1930. Men's handball was first played at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin as outdoors, and the next time at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich as indoors, and has been an Olympic sport since. Women's team handball was added at the 1976 Summer Olympics.
+
+The International Handball Federation was formed in 1946 and, as of 2016[update], has 197 member federations.[6] The sport is most popular in Europe, and European countries have won all medals but one in the men's world championships since 1938. In the women's world championships, only two non-European countries have won the title: South Korea and Brazil. The game also enjoys popularity in East Asia, North Africa and parts of South America.
+
+Games similar to handball were played in Ancient Greece and are represented on amphoras and stone carvings. Although detailed textual reference is rare, there are numerous descriptions of ball games being played where players throw the ball to one another; sometimes this is done in order to avoid interception by a player on the opposing team. Such games were played widely and served as both a form of exercise and a social event.[7]
+
+There is evidence of ancient Roman women playing a version of handball called expulsim ludere.[8] There are records of handball-like games in medieval France, and among the Inuit in Greenland, in the Middle Ages. By the 19th century, there existed similar games of håndbold from Denmark, házená in the Czech Republic, handbol in Ukraine, and torball in Germany.[9]
+
+The team handball game of today was codified at the end of the 19th century in northern Europe: primarily in Denmark, Germany, Norway and Sweden. The first written set of team handball rules was published in 1906 by the Danish gym teacher, lieutenant and Olympic medalist Holger Nielsen from Ordrup grammar school, north of Copenhagen. The modern set of rules was published on 29 October 1917 by Max Heiser, Karl Schelenz, and Erich Konigh from Berlin, Germany. 29 October 1917 is therefore seen as the "date of birth" of the sport.[5][1] The first ever official handball match was played on 2 December 1917 in Berlin.[1] After 1919 the rules were improved by Karl Schelenz. The first international games were played under these rules, between Germany and Belgium by men in 1925 and between Germany and Austria by women in 1930.
+
+In 1926, the Congress of the International Amateur Athletics Federation nominated a committee to draw up international rules for field handball. The International Amateur Handball Federation was formed in 1928 and later the International Handball Federation was formed in 1946.
+
+Men's field handball was played at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. During the next several decades, indoor handball flourished and evolved in the Scandinavian countries. The sport re-emerged onto the world stage as team handball for the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich. Women's team handball was added at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. Due to its popularity in the region, the Eastern European countries that refined the event became the dominant force in the sport when it was reintroduced.
+
+The International Handball Federation organised the men's world championship in 1938 and every four (sometimes three) years from World War II to 1995. Since the 1995 world championship in Iceland, the competition has been held every two years. The women's world championship has been held since 1957. The IHF also organizes women's and men's junior world championships. By July 2009, the IHF listed 166 member federations - approximately 795,000 teams and 19 million players.
+
+The rules are laid out in the IHF's set of rules.[10]
+
+Two teams of seven players (six field players plus one goalkeeper) take the field and attempt to score points by putting the game ball into the opposing team's goal. In handling the ball, players are subject to the following restrictions:
+
+Notable scoring opportunities can occur when attacking players jump into the goal area. For example, an attacking player may catch a pass while launching inside the goal area, and then shoot or pass before touching the floor. Doubling occurs when a diving attacking player passes to another diving teammate.
+
+Handball is played on a court 40 by 20 metres (131 ft × 66 ft), with a goal in the centre of each end. The goals are surrounded by a near-semicircular area, called the zone or the crease, defined by a line six meters from the goal. A dashed near-semicircular line nine metres from the goal marks the free-throw line. Each line on the court is part of the area it encompasses. This implies that the middle line belongs to both halves at the same time.
+
+The goals are two meters high and three meters wide. They must be securely bolted either to the floor or the wall behind.
+
+The goal posts and the crossbar must be made out of the same material (e.g., wood or aluminium) and feature a quadratic cross section with sides of 8 cm (3 in). The three sides of the beams visible from the playing field must be painted alternatingly in two contrasting colors which both have to contrast against the background. The colors on both goals must be the same.
+
+Each goal must feature a net. This must be fastened in such a way that a ball thrown into the goal does not leave or pass the goal under normal circumstances. If necessary, a second net may be clasped to the back of the net on the inside.
+
+The goals are surrounded by the crease. This area is delineated by two quarter circles with a radius of six metres around the far corners of each goal post and a connecting line parallel to the goal line. Only the defending goalkeeper is allowed inside this zone. However, the court players may catch and touch the ball in the air within it as long as the player starts his jump outside the zone and releases the ball before he lands (landing inside the perimeter is allowed in this case as long as the ball has been released).
+
+If a player without the ball contacts the ground inside the goal perimeter, or the line surrounding the perimeter, he must take the most direct path out of it. However, should a player cross the zone in an attempt to gain an advantage (e.g., better position) their team cedes the ball. Similarly, violation of the zone by a defending player is penalized only if they do so in order to gain an advantage in defending.
+
+Outside of one long edge of the court to both sides of the middle line are the substitution areas for each team. Team officials, substitutes, and suspended players must wait within this area. A team's area is the same side as the goal the team is defending; during halftime, substitution areas are swapped. Any player entering or leaving the play must cross the substitution line which is part of the side line and extends 4.5 metres (15 ft) from the middle line to the team's side.
+
+A standard match has two 30-minute halves with a 10- or 15-minute (major Championships/Olympics) halftime intermission. At half-time, teams switch sides of the court as well as benches. For youths, the length of the halves is reduced—25 minutes at ages 12 to 15, and 20 minutes at ages 8 to 11; though national federations of some countries may differ in their implementation from the official guidelines.[11]
+
+If a decision must be reached in a particular match (e.g., in a tournament) and it ends in a draw after regular time, there are at maximum two overtimes, each consisting of two straight 5-minute periods with a one-minute break in between. Should these not decide the game either, the winning team is determined in a penalty shootout (best-of-five rounds; if still tied, extra rounds are added until one team wins).
+
+The referees may call timeout according to their sole discretion; typical reasons are injuries, suspensions, or court cleaning. Penalty throws should trigger a timeout only for lengthy delays, such as a change of the goalkeeper.
+
+Since 2012, teams can call 3 team timeouts per game (up to two per half), which last one minute each. This right may only be invoked by the team in possession of the ball. Team representatives must show a green card marked with a black T on the timekeeper's desk. The timekeeper then immediately interrupts the game by sounding an acoustic signal to stop the clock. Before 2012,  teams were allowed only one timeout per half. For the purpose of calling timeouts, overtime and shootouts are extensions of the second half.
+
+A handball match is adjudicated by two equal referees. Some national bodies allow games with only a single referee in special cases like illness on short notice. Should the referees disagree on any occasion, a decision is made on mutual agreement during a short timeout; or, in case of punishments, the more severe of the two comes into effect. The referees are obliged to make their decisions "on the basis of their observations of facts".[12] Their judgements are final and can be appealed against only if not in compliance with the rules.
+
+The referees position themselves in such a way that the team players are confined between them. They stand diagonally aligned so that each can observe one side line. Depending on their positions, one is called field referee and the other goal referee. These positions automatically switch on ball turnover. They physically exchange their positions approximately every 10 minutes (long exchange), and change sides every five minutes (short exchange).
+
+The IHF defines 18 hand signals for quick visual communication with players and officials. The signal for warning is accompanied by a yellow card.[13] A disqualification for the game is indicated by a red card,[14] followed by a blue card if the disqualification will be accompanied by a report.[15] The referees also use whistle blows to indicate infractions or to restart the play.
+
+The referees are supported by a scorekeeper and a timekeeper who attend to formal things such as keeping track of goals and suspensions, or starting and stopping the clock, respectively. They also keep an eye on the benches and notify the referees on substitution errors. Their desk is located between the two substitution areas.
+
+Each team consists of seven players on court and seven substitute players on the bench. One player on the court must be the designated goalkeeper, differing in his clothing from the rest of the field players. Substitution of players can be done in any number and at any time during game play. An exchange takes place over the substitution line. A prior notification of the referees is not necessary.
+
+Some national bodies, such as the Deutsche Handball Bund (DHB, "German Handball Federation"), allow substitution in junior teams only when in ball possession or during timeouts. This restriction is intended to prevent early specialization of players to offence or defence.
+
+Field players are allowed to touch the ball with any part of their bodies above and including the knee. As in several other team sports, a distinction is made between catching and dribbling. A player who is in possession of the ball may stand stationary for only three seconds, and may take only three steps. They must then either shoot, pass, or dribble the ball. Taking more than three steps at any time is considered travelling, and results in a turnover. A player may dribble as many times as they want (though, since passing is faster, it is the preferred method of attack), as long as during each dribble the hand contacts only the top of the ball. Therefore, carrying is completely prohibited, and results in a turnover. After the dribble is picked up, the player has the right to another three seconds or three steps. The ball must then be passed or shot, as further holding or dribbling will result in a double dribble turnover and a free throw for the other team. Other offensive infractions that result in a turnover include charging and setting an illegal screen. Carrying the ball into the six-meter zone results either in ball possession by the goalkeeper (by attacker) or turnover (by defender).
+
+Only the goalkeepers are allowed to move freely within the goal perimeter, although they may not cross the goal perimeter line while carrying or dribbling the ball. Within the zone, they are allowed to touch the ball with all parts of their bodies, including their feet, with a defensive aim (for other actions, they are subject to the same restrictions as the field players). The goalkeepers may participate in the normal play of their teammates. They may be substituted by a regular field player if their team elects to use this scheme in order to outnumber the defending players. Earlier, this field player become the designated goalkeeper on the court; and had to wear some vest or bib to be identified as such. That shirt had to be equal in colour and form to the goalkeeper's shirt, to avoid confusion. A rule change meant to make the game more offensive now allows any player to substitute with the goalkeeper. The new rule resembles the one used in ice hockey. This rule was first used in the women's world championship in December 2015 and has since been used by the men's European championship in January 2016 and by both genders in the Olympic tournament in Rio in 2016.
+
+If either goalkeeper deflects the ball over the outer goal line, their team stays in possession of the ball, in contrast to other sports like football. The goalkeeper resumes the play with a throw from within the zone ("goalkeeper throw"). Passing to one's own goalkeeper results in a turnover. In a penalty shot, throwing the ball against the head of a goalkeeper who is not moving risks a direct disqualification ("red card").
+
+Outside of own D-zone, the goalkeeper is treated as a current field player, and has to follow field players' rules; holding or tackling an opponent player outside the area risks a direct disqualification.[clarification needed] The goalkeeper may not return to the area with the ball.
+
+Each team is allowed to have a maximum of four team officials seated on the benches. An official is anybody who is neither player nor substitute. One official must be the designated representative who is usually the team manager. Since 2012, representatives can call up to 3 team timeouts (up to twice per half), and may address the scorekeeper, timekeeper, and referees (before that, it was once per half); overtime and shootouts are considered extensions of the second half. Other officials typically include physicians or managers. Neither official is allowed to enter the playing court without the permission of the referees.
+
+The ball is spherical and must be made either of leather or a synthetic material. It is not allowed to have a shiny or slippery surface. As the ball is intended to be operated by a single hand, its official sizes vary depending on age and gender of the participating teams.
+
+The referees may award a special throw to a team. This usually happens after certain events such as scored goals, off-court balls, turnovers and timeouts. All of these special throws require the thrower to obtain a certain position, and pose restrictions on the positions of all other players. Sometimes the execution must wait for a whistle blow by the referee.
+
+Penalties are given to players, in progressive format, for fouls that require more punishment than just a free-throw. Actions directed mainly at the opponent and not the ball (such as reaching around, holding, pushing, tripping, and jumping into opponent) as well as contact from the side, from behind a player or impeding the opponent's counterattack are all considered illegal and are subject to penalty. Any infraction that prevents a clear scoring opportunity will result in a seven-meter penalty shot.
+
+Typically the referee will give a warning yellow card for an illegal action; but, if the contact was particularly dangerous, like striking the opponent in the head, neck or throat, the referee can forego the warning for an immediate two-minute suspension. Players are warned once before given a yellow card; they risk being red-carded if they draw three yellows.
+
+A red card results in an ejection from the game and a two-minute penalty for the team. A player may receive a red card directly for particularly rough penalties. For instance, any contact from behind during a fast break is now being treated with a red card; as does any deliberate intent to injure opponents. A red-carded player has to leave the playing area completely. A player who is disqualified may be substituted with another player after the two-minute penalty is served. A coach or official can also be penalized progressively. Any coach or official who receives a two-minute suspension will have to pull out one of their players for two minutes; however, the player is not the one punished, and can be substituted in again, as the penalty consists of the team playing with one fewer player than the opposing team.
+
+After referees award the ball to the opponents for whatever reason, the player currently in possession of the ball has to lay it down quickly, or risk a two-minute suspension. Also, gesticulating or verbally questioning the referee's order, as well as arguing with the officials' decisions, will normally risk a yellow card. If the suspended player protests further, does not walk straight off the field to the bench, or if the referee deems the tempo deliberately slow, that player risks a double yellow card. Illegal substitution (outside of the dedicated area, or if the replacement player enters too early) is prohibited; if they do, they risk a yellow card.
+
+Players are typically referred to by the positions they are playing. The positions are always denoted from the view of the respective goalkeeper, so that a defender on the right opposes an attacker on the left. However, not all of the following positions may be occupied depending on the formation or potential suspensions.
+
+Sometimes, the offense uses formations with two pivot players.
+
+There are many variations in defensive formations. Usually, they are described as n:m formations, where n is the number of players defending at the goal line and m the number of players defending more offensive. Exceptions are the 3:2:1 defense and n+m formation (e.g. 5+1), where m players defend some offensive player in man coverage (instead of the usual zone coverage).
+
+Attacks are played with all field players on the side of the defenders. Depending on the speed of the attack, one distinguishes between three attack waves with a decreasing chance of success:
+
+The third wave evolves into the normal offensive play when all defenders not only reach the zone, but gain their accustomed positions. Some teams then substitute specialised offence players. However, this implies that these players must play in the defence should the opposing team be able to switch quickly to offence. The latter is another benefit for fast playing teams.
+
+If the attacking team does not make sufficient progress (eventually releasing a shot on goal), the referees can call passive play (since about 1995, the referee gives a passive warning some time before the actual call by holding one hand up in the air, signalling that the attacking team should release a shot soon), turning control over to the other team. A shot on goal or an infringement leading to a yellow card or two-minute penalty will mark the start of a new attack, causing the hand to be taken down; but a shot blocked by the defense or a normal free throw will not. If it were not for this rule, it would be easy for an attacking team to stall the game indefinitely, as it is difficult to intercept a pass without at the same time conceding dangerous openings towards the goal.
+
+The usual formations of the defense are 6–0, when all the defense players line up between the 6-metre (20 ft) and 9-metre (30 ft) lines to form a wall; the 5–1, when one of the players cruises outside the 9-metre (30 ft) perimeter, usually targeting the center forwards while the other 5 line up on the 6-metre (20 ft) line; and the less common 4–2 when there are two such defenders out front. Very fast teams will also try a 3–3 formation which is close to a switching man-to-man style. The formations vary greatly from country to country, and reflect each country's style of play. 6–0 is sometimes known as "flat defense", and all other formations are usually called "offensive defense".
+
+Handball teams are usually organised as clubs. On a national level, the clubs are associated in federations which organize matches in leagues and tournaments.
+
+The International Handball Federation (IHF) is the administrative and controlling body for international handball. Handball is an Olympic sport played during the Summer Olympics.[16]
+
+The IHF organizes world championships, held in odd-numbered years, with separate competitions for men and women.[17]
+The IHF World Men's Handball Championship 2019 title holders are Denmark.[18] The IHF World Women's Handball Championship 2019 title holders are Netherlands.[19]
+
+The IHF is composed of five continental federations: Asian Handball Federation, African Handball Confederation, Pan-American Team Handball Federation, European Handball Federation and Oceania Handball Federation. These federations organize continental championships held every other second year. Handball is played during the Pan American Games,[20] All-Africa Games,[21] and Asian Games.[16] It is also played at the Mediterranean Games. In addition to continental competitions between national teams, the federations arrange international tournaments between club teams.[22]
+
+The current worldwide attendance record for seven-a-side handball was set on September 6, 2014, during a neutral venue German league game between HSV Hamburg and the Mannheim-based Rhein-Neckar Lions.[23] The matchup drew 44,189 spectators to Commerzbank Arena in Frankfurt, exceeding the previous record of 36,651 set at Copenhagen's Parken Stadium during the 2011 Danish Cup final.[23]
+
+Handball events have been selected as a main motif in numerous collectors' coins. One of the recent samples is the €10 Greek Handball commemorative coin, minted in 2003 to commemorate the 2004 Summer Olympics. On the coin, the modern athlete directs the ball in his hands towards his target, while in the background the ancient athlete is just about to throw a ball, in a game known as cheirosphaira, in a representation taken from a black-figure pottery vase of the Archaic period.[24]
+
+The most recent commemorative coin featuring handball is the British 50 pence coin, part of the series of coins commemorating the London 2012 Olympic Games.[25]
+
+Notes
+
+Media related to Handball at Wikimedia Commons
+

en/2375.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,97 @@
+
+
+Hans Christian Andersen (/ˈændərsən/, Danish: [ˈhænˀs ˈkʰʁestjæn ˈɑnɐsn̩] (listen); 2 April 1805 – 4 August 1875), in Denmark usually called H.C. Andersen, was a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, he is best remembered for his fairy tales.
+
+Andersen's fairy tales, consisting of 156 stories across nine volumes[1] and translated into more than 125 languages,[2] have become culturally embedded in the West's collective consciousness, readily accessible to children, but presenting lessons of virtue and resilience in the face of adversity for mature readers as well.[3] His most famous fairy tales include "The Emperor's New Clothes," "The Little Mermaid," "The Nightingale," "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", "The Red Shoes", "The Princess and the Pea," "The Snow Queen," "The Ugly Duckling," "The Little Match Girl," and "Thumbelina." His stories have inspired ballets, plays, and animated and live-action films.[4] One of Copenhagen's widest and busiest boulevards, skirting Copenhagen City Hall Square at the corner of which Andersen's larger-than-life bronze statue sits, is named "H.C. Andersens Boulevard."[5]
+
+"The Ugly Duckling"
+
+Hans Christian Andersen was born in Odense, Denmark on 2 April 1805. He was an only child. His father, also named Hans, considered himself related to nobility (his paternal grandmother had told his father that their family had belonged to a higher social class,[6] but investigations have disproved these stories).[6][7] A persistent speculation suggests that Andersen was an illegitimate son of King Christian VIII, but this notion has been challenged.[6]
+
+Hans Christian Andersen was baptised April 15, 1805 in Saint Hans Church (St John's Church) in Odense, Denmark. His certificate of birth was not drafted until november 1823, according to which six Godparents were present at the baptising ceremony: Madam Sille Marie Breineberg, Maiden Friederiche Pommer, Shuemaker Peder Waltersdorff, journeyman carpenter Anders Jørgensen, Hospital portner Nicolas Gomard, and Royal Hatter Jens Henrichsen Dorch.
+
+Andersen's father, who had received an elementary school education, introduced his son to literature, reading to him the Arabian Nights.[8] Andersen's mother, Anne Marie Andersdatter, was an illiterate washerwoman. Following her husband's death in 1816, she remarried in 1818.[8] Andersen was sent to a local school for poor children where he received a basic education and had to support himself, working as an apprentice to a weaver and, later, to a tailor. At fourteen, he moved to Copenhagen to seek employment as an actor. Having an excellent soprano voice, he was accepted into the Royal Danish Theatre, but his voice soon changed. A colleague at the theatre told him that he considered Andersen a poet. Taking the suggestion seriously, Andersen began to focus on writing.
+
+Jonas Collin, director of the Royal Danish Theatre, held great affection for Andersen and sent him to a grammar school in Slagelse, persuading King Frederick VI to pay part of the youth's education.[9] Andersen had by then published his first story, "The Ghost at Palnatoke's Grave" (1822). Though not a stellar pupil, he also attended school at Elsinore until 1827.[10]
+
+He later said, that his years at this school were the darkest and most bitter years of his life. At one particular school, he lived at his schoolmaster's home. There, he was abused and he was told, that it was done in order "to improve his character". He later said that the faculty had discouraged him from writing, which then resulted in a depression.[11]
+
+A very early fairy tale by Andersen,  "[The Tallow Candle]" (Danish: Tællelyset), was discovered in a Danish archive in October 2012. The story, written in the 1820s, was about a candle that did not feel appreciated. It was written while Andersen was still in school and dedicated to one of his benefactors. The story remained in that family's possession until it turned up among other family papers in a local archive.[12]
+
+In 1829, Andersen enjoyed considerable success with the short story "A Journey on Foot from Holmen's Canal to the East Point of Amager". Its protagonist meets characters ranging from Saint Peter to a talking cat. Andersen followed this success with a theatrical piece, Love on St. Nicholas Church Tower, and a short volume of poems. He made little progress in writing and publishing immediately following the issue of these poems but he did receive a small travel grant from the king in 1833. This enabled him to set out on the first of many journeys throughout Europe. At Jura, near Le Locle, Switzerland, Andersen wrote the story "Agnete and the Merman". The same year he spent an evening in the Italian seaside village of Sestri Levante, the place which inspired the title of "The Bay of Fables".[13] He arrived in Rome in October 1834. Andersen's travels in Italy were reflected in his first novel, a fictionalized autobiography titled The Improvisatore (Improvisatoren), published in 1835 to instant acclaim.[14][15]
+
+Fairy Tales Told for Children. First Collection. (Danish: Eventyr, fortalt for Børn. Første Samling.) is a collection of nine fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen. The tales were published in a series of three installments by C. A. Reitzel in Copenhagen, Denmark between May 1835 and April 1837, and represent Andersen's first venture into the fairy tale genre.
+
+The first installment of sixty-one unbound pages was published 8 May 1835 and contained "The Tinderbox", "Little Claus and Big Claus", "The Princess and the Pea" and "Little Ida's Flowers". The first three tales were based on folktales Andersen had heard in his childhood while the last tale was completely Andersen's creation and created for Ida Thiele, the daughter of Andersen's early benefactor, the folklorist Just Mathias Thiele. Reitzel paid Andersen thirty rixdollars for the manuscript, and the booklet was priced at twenty-four shillings.[16][17]
+
+The second booklet was published on 16 December 1835 and contained "Thumbelina", "The Naughty Boy" and "The Traveling Companion". "Thumbelina" was completely Andersen's creation although inspired by "Tom Thumb" and other stories of miniature people. "The Naughty Boy" was based on a poem by Anacreon about Cupid, and "The Traveling Companion" was a ghost story Andersen had experimented with in the year 1830.[16]
+
+The third booklet contained "The Little Mermaid" and "The Emperor's New Clothes", and it was published on the 7 April 1837. "The Little Mermaid" was completely Andersen's creation though influenced by De la Motte Fouqué's "Undine" (1811) and the lore about mermaids. This tale established Andersen's international reputation.[18] The only other tale in the third booklet was "The Emperor's New Clothes", which was based on a medieval Spanish story with Arab and Jewish sources. On the eve of the third installment's publication, Andersen revised the finish of his story, (the Emperor simply walks in procession) to its now-familiar finale of a child calling out, "The Emperor is not wearing any clothes!"[19]
+
+Danish reviews of the first two booklets appeared in 1836 and they were not enthusiastic. The critics disliked the chatty, informal style, and immorality that flew in the face of their expectations. Children's literature was meant to educate rather than to amuse. The critics discouraged Andersen from pursuing this type of style. Andersen believed, that he was working against the critics' preconceived notions about fairy tales and he temporarily returned to novel-writing. The critic's reaction was so severe that Andersen waited a full year before publishing his third installment.[20]
+
+The nine tales of the three booklets were combined and then published in one volume and sold at seventy-two shillings. A title page, a table of contents, and a preface by Andersen were published in this volume.[21]
+
+In 1851, he published In Sweden, a volume of travel sketches. The publication received wide acclaims. A keen traveler, Andersen published several other long travelogues: Shadow Pictures of a Journey to the Harz, Swiss Saxony, etc. etc. in the Summer of 1831, A Poet's Bazaar, In Spain and A Visit to Portugal in 1866. (The last describes his visit with his Portuguese friends Jorge and Jose O'Neill, who were his friends in the mid-1820s while he was living in Copenhagen.) In his travelogues, Andersen took heed of some of the contemporary conventions related to travel writing but he always developed the style to suit his own purpose. Each of his travelogues combines documentary and descriptive accounts of his experiences, adding additional philosophical passages on topics such as what it is to be an author, general immortality, and the nature of fiction in literary travel reports. Some of the travelogues, such as In Sweden, even contain fairy-tales.
+
+In the 1840s, Andersen's attention again returned to the theatre stage, but with little success. He had better luck with the publication of the Picture-Book without Pictures (1840). A second series of fairy tales was started in 1838 and a third serie in 1845. Andersen was now celebrated throughout Europe although his native Denmark still showed some resistance to his pretensions.
+
+Between 1845 and 1864, H. C. Andersen lived at Nyhavn 67, Copenhagen, where a memorial plaque is placed on a building.[22]
+
+In ‘Andersen as a Novelist’, Kierkegaard remarks that Andersen is characterized as, “...a possibility of a personality, wrapped up in such a web of arbitrary moods and moving through an elegiac duo-decimal scale [i.e., a chromatic scale. Proceeding by semitones, and therefore including sharps as well as flats, such a scale is associated more with lament or elegy than is an ordinary diatonic scale] of almost echoless, dying tones just as easily roused as subdued, who, in order to become a personality, needs a strong life-development.”
+
+In June 1847, Andersen paid his first visit to England and he enjoyed a triumphal social success during this summer. The Countess of Blessington invited him to her parties where intellectual people would meet, and it was at one of such parties where he met Charles Dickens for the first time. They shook hands and walked to the veranda, which Andersen wrote about in his diary: "We were on the veranda, and I was so happy to see and speak to England's now-living writer whom I do love the most."[23]
+
+The two authors respected each other's work and as writers, they shared something important in common: depictions of the poor and the underclass who often had difficult lives affected both by the Industrial Revolution and by abject poverty. In the Victorian era there was a growing sympathy for children and an idealization of the innocence of childhood.
+
+Ten years later, Andersen visited England again, primarily to meet Dickens. He extended the planned brief visit to Dickens' home at Gads Hill Place into a five-week stay, much to the distress of Dickens' family. After Andersen was told to leave, Dickens gradually stopped all correspondence between them, this to the great disappointment and confusion of Andersen, who had quite enjoyed the visit and could never understand why his letters went unanswered.[23]
+
+In Andersen's early life, his private journal records his refusal to have sexual relations.[24][25]
+
+Andersen often fell in love with unattainable women, and many of his stories are interpreted as references.[26]  At one point, he wrote in his diary: "Almighty God, thee only have I; thou steerest my fate, I must give myself up to thee! Give me a livelihood! Give me a bride! My blood wants love, as my heart does!"[27] A girl named Riborg Voigt was the unrequited love of Andersen's youth. A small pouch containing a long letter from Voigt was found on Andersen's chest when he died several decades after he first fell in love with her, and after, he presumably fell in love with others. Other disappointments in love included Sophie Ørsted, the daughter of the physicist Hans Christian Ørsted, and Louise Collin, the youngest daughter of his benefactor Jonas Collin. One of his stories, "The Nightingale", was written as an expression of his passion for Jenny Lind and became the inspiration for her nickname, the "Swedish Nightingale".[28] Andersen was often shy around women and had extreme difficulty in proposing to Lind. When Lind was boarding a train to go to an opera concert, Andersen gave Lind a letter of proposal. Her feelings towards him were not the same; she saw him as a brother, writing to him in 1844: "farewell ... God bless and protect my brother is the sincere wish of his affectionate sister, Jenny".[29]
+
+Andersen certainly experienced same-sex attraction as well: he wrote to Edvard Collin:[30] "I languish for you as for a pretty Calabrian wench ... my sentiments for you are those of a woman. The femininity of my nature and our friendship must remain a mystery."[31] Collin, who preferred women, wrote in his own memoir: "I found myself unable to respond to this love, and this caused the author much suffering." Likewise, the infatuations of the author for the Danish dancer Harald Scharff[32] and Carl Alexander, the young hereditary duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach,[33] did not result in any relationships.
+
+According to Anne Klara Bom and Anya Aarenstrup from the H. C. Andersen Centre of University of Southern Denmark, "To conclude, it is correct to point to the very ambivalent (and also very traumatic) elements in Andersen's emotional life concerning the sexual sphere, but it is decidedly just as wrong to describe him as homosexual and maintain that he had physical relationships with men. He did not. Indeed, that would have been entirely contrary to his moral and religious ideas, aspects that are quite outside the field of vision of Wullschlager and her like."[34]
+
+In early 1872, Andersen fell out of his bed and was severely hurt; he never fully recovered from the resultant injuries. Soon afterward, he started to show signs of liver cancer.[35]
+
+He died on 4 August 1875, in a house called Rolighed (literally: calmness), near Copenhagen, the home of his close friends, the banker Moritz Melchior and his wife.[35] Shortly before his death, Andersen had consulted a composer about the music for his funeral, saying: "Most of the people who will walk after me will be children, so make the beat keep time with little steps."[35]
+
+His body was interred in the Assistens Kirkegård in the Nørrebro area of Copenhagen, in the family plot of the Collins. However, in 1914 the stone was moved to another cemetery (today known as "Frederiksbergs ældre kirkegaard"), where younger Collin family members were buried. For a period, his, Edvard Collin's and Henriette Collin's graves were unmarked. A second stone has been erected, marking H.C. Andersen's grave, now without any mention of the Collin couple, but all three still share the same plot.[36]
+
+At the time of his death, Andersen was internationally revered, and the Danish Government paid him an annual stipend as a "national treasure".[37]
+
+Noteworthy recordings in English include:
+
+Tale Spinners for Children released seven LP's of dramatizations of Andersen stories:
+
+Andersen's stories laid the groundwork for other children's classics, such as The Wind in the Willows (1908) by Kenneth Grahame and Winnie-the-Pooh (1926) by A. A. Milne. The technique of making inanimate objects, such as toys, come to life ("Little Ida's Flowers") would later also be used by Lewis Carroll and Beatrix Potter.[44][45]
+
+Statue in Central Park, New York commemorating Andersen and The Ugly Duckling
+
+Andersen statue at the Rosenborg Castle Gardens, Copenhagen
+
+Statue in Odense being led out to the harbour during a public exhibition
+
+Odense statue half-submerged in the water
+
+Statue in Solvang, California, a city built by Danish immigrants.
+
+Statue in Bratislava, Slovakia
+
+Portrait bust in Sydney unveiled by the Crown Prince and Princess of Denmark in 2005
+
+In Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy Opera Iolanthe, the Lord Chancellor mocks the Fairy Queen with a reference to Andersen, thereby implying that her claims are fictional:[84]
+
+It seems that she's a fairy
+From Andersen's library,
+And I took her for
+The proprietor
+Of a Ladies' Seminary!
+
+In Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music, the middle-aged Frederik contemplates reading erotic literature to his young, virginal bride in order to seduce her, but concludes: "Her taste is much blander / I'm sorry to say / But is Hans Christian Ander- / Sen ever risqué?"
+
+Titles like "The Ugly Duckling" and "The Emperor's New Clothes" have become idiomatic in several languages.
+
+Andersen's fairy tales include:

en/2376.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,63 @@
+"Happy" is a song written, produced, and performed by American singer Pharrell Williams, released as the first and only single from the soundtrack album for the film Despicable Me 2 (2013). The song was first released on November 21, 2013, alongside a long-form music video. The song was reissued on December 16, 2013, by Back Lot Music under exclusive license to Columbia Records, a division of Sony Music.[1] The song also served as the lead single from Williams' second studio album, Girl (2014).
+
+"Happy" is an uptempo soul and neo soul song on which Williams's falsetto voice has been compared to Curtis Mayfield by critics. The song has been highly successful, peaking at No. 1 in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and 19 other countries. It was the best-selling song of 2014 in the United States with 6.45 million copies sold for the year,[3] as well as in the United Kingdom with 1.5 million copies sold for the year.[4] It reached No. 1 in the UK on a record-setting three separate occasions and became the most downloaded song of all time in the UK in September 2014;[5] it is the eighth highest-selling single of all time in the country.[6] It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song. A live rendition of the song won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Solo Performance at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards.
+
+The music video for "Happy" was nominated for Best Male Video and Video of the Year at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards. It also won the Grammy Award for Best Music Video at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards.[7][8] The song was Billboard's number-one single for 2014.
+
+"Happy" was the most successful song of 2014, with 13.9 million units (sales plus equivalent streams) worldwide.[9]
+
+Williams provided vocals for French duo Daft Punk's 2013 album Random Access Memories, on the songs "Lose Yourself to Dance" and "Get Lucky". After returning from the recording sessions in Paris, he attended a meeting with record label managers who said that the results were "spectacular" and that "Get Lucky" would be Daft Punk's next single. They also made Williams an offer to record his own album, to which he agreed quickly, "overwhelmed that someone wanted to know what's in my heart".[10]
+
+On December 17, 2013, it was announced that Williams had signed to Columbia Records and would release his second studio album in 2014.[11] In a December 2013 press release, Rob Stringer, Chairman of Columbia Records, said "When we excitedly partnered with Pharrell in January of this year, we felt it was his time again. Since then, 'Blurred Lines' and 'Get Lucky' have defined pop music in 2013, and now we are preparing to launch Pharrell as a global solo superstar in 2014. 'Happy' is just the beginning."[11]
+
+Williams originally wrote the song for CeeLo Green and felt Green's recording of the song was better, but Elektra Records, Green's record label, decided against it since he was on the verge of releasing his Christmas album, Cee Lo's Magic Moment.[12][13][14][15]
+
+"Happy" was written and produced by Williams, with backing vocals by Rhea Dummett, Trevon Henderson, Ashley L. Lee, Shamika Hightower, Jasmine Murray and Terrence Rolle.[16] The track was digitally edited and arranged by Andrew Coleman and Mike Larson, who also recorded it with assistance from Matthew Desrameaux at Circle House Studios in Miami, Florida. The song was later mixed by Leslie Brathwaite at Music Box Studios in Atlanta, Georgia.[16]
+
+"Happy" plays for 3 minutes and 53 seconds[1] in common time and at a tempo of 156 beats per minute. The song is written in the key of F minor.[17] Williams sings the upper notes in falsetto; his vocal range spans from F3 to C5.[17] His singing on the track has been compared to that of Curtis Mayfield.[18][19]
+
+"Happy" is a mid-tempo soul and neo soul song.[20][21] According to music journalist Paul Tingen, "Happy" is "a mid-tempo ... song in a faux-Motown style, with an arrangement that is, by modern standards, very sparse: programmed drums, one bass and one keyboard part, and handclaps both programmed and played, all topped off by Williams's lead vocals and a whole posse of backing vocals".[20] Jody Rosen viewed the song as a "standout" with a "sprightly neosoul funk groove".[18]
+
+Jody Rosen of Rolling Stone gave it 3.5 stars and deemed it "an instant contender for 2013's Song of the Summer".[18] In a 4/5 review, Renowned for Sound's Huw Woodward said, "Happy is a rather… well… happy affair with a cheerful beat and exuberant vocal that would indicate that the former N.E.R.D singer is finding a lot of lighthearted fun to be had in both music and life. 'Because I'm happy, clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth' sings Williams as the jaunty rhythm gets your head nodding."[23] Holly Williams of Contactmusic.com gave it four stars, praising it for being "unbelievably catchy" and "the kind of song that makes you want to dance and sing along".[22]
+
+The song was nominated for Best Original Song at the 86th Academy Awards on March 2, 2014, but lost to "Let It Go" from Frozen.[24] When GQ magazine asked Williams "how badly" he wanted the Oscar, he responded: "When they read the results, my face was...frozen. But then I thought about it, and I just decided just to... let it go."[25]
+
+In January 2015, "Happy" was ranked at No. 13 on The Village Voice's annual year-end Pazz & Jop critics' poll.[26]
+
+"I like that song 'Happy'…" remarked Phil Collins. "It's a great groove, and he's a very smart guy."[27]
+
+In October 2013, a month prior to its release, "Happy" catapulted to No. 1 on the Dutch Top 40 chart in the Netherlands, partially as a result of radio station 3FM airplay and subsequent online downloads, as well as featuring in a Transavia commercial.[28] It was released worldwide on November 21, 2013. In 2014, after 35 weeks on the charts and then still in the top 15, "Happy" became the most successful song in the Dutch Top 40 of all time.[29][30]
+
+In the United Kingdom, "Happy" debuted at No. 71 on the UK Singles Chart on December 1, 2013.[31] It then spent four weeks climbing before finally reaching No. 1 on December 29.[32] It became Williams' third No. 1 song in Britain, counting "Get Lucky" and "Blurred Lines", where he appeared as a featured artist.[33] It has since spent four non-consecutive weeks at No. 1, reaching the peak on three separate occasions. In doing so, Williams became only the third artist ever to achieve this, and the first since Guy Mitchell in 1957 with "Singing the Blues".[34] Following the single's third week at No. 1, it spent five weeks in the top three before returning to the summit, boosted by his performance at the 2014 Brit Awards.[34] In the same week that "Happy" returned to No. 1 for the third time, it sold its millionth copy in the UK, Williams' third in under a year, having previously done so with Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" in June 2013, and Thicke's "Blurred Lines" in July 2013. This made Williams only the second artist in UK chart history (the first being The Beatles) to have three singles sell 1 million copies in under a year,[34] as well as only the third artist ever to have three million-sellers, along with The Beatles (who have six) and Rihanna (who has four).[34]
+
+"Happy" was the best-selling single of UK in 2014, with 1.5 million copies sold for the year,[4] and became the most downloaded song of all time in the UK by September 2014, with over 1.62 million sold.[35] It had also been streamed over 25 million times and was the first song released in the 2010s to go 3× Platinum.[36] With the inclusion of streaming, "Happy" has achieved combined sales of over 2 million.[37] Additionally, "Happy" and Idina Menzel's "Let It Go" became the first singles ever to spend an entire calendar year on the official UK top 75 chart. On June 12, it was announced that "Happy" had overtaken "Evergreen" by Will Young as the UK's best-selling single of the 21st century, with sales of 1.81 million.[35] "Happy" spent 92 weeks in the UK top 100.[38] On April 22, 2016, "Happy" went 4× Platinum.[39] As of September 2017[update], the song has sold 1,922,000 copies, which gives a total of 2,630,000 combined units when 70 million streams are included.[6]
+
+On the New Zealand Singles Chart, "Happy" debuted at No. 11 on December 23, 2013. The next week it moved to No. 2. Then on January 6, 2014, "Happy" began a 12-week consecutive reign in the No. 1 position, right up until March 24, 2014. It then dropped to No. 2 for one week, then spent a further three weeks at No. 1, bringing the total number of weeks at No. 1 to fifteen, breaking the 36-year-long record for most weeks spent at No. 1, previously held by Boney M.'s "Rivers of Babylon".[40][41] As of February 22, 2015[update], "Happy" had spent 62 straight weeks in the New Zealand Top 40 since its debut, before finally dropping out of the chart the following week. The song has been certified 6× Platinum in New Zealand.[40][42]
+
+"Happy" reached the top of the US Billboard Hot 100 for the week ending March 8, 2014, giving Williams his fourth No. 1 single on the chart, but his first as lead artist. It took twelve years and a week (as the issue date is March 8, 2014) to achieve his first Hot 100 No. 1 hit as a lead artist.[43] The song remained at No. 1 the following week, and also topped the Hot 100 Airplay chart.[44] The song also holds the record for the second-highest audience peak for a week on the Hot 100 Airplay, with 225.9 million impressions while Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines", a song in which Pharrell was featured as well as produced and co-wrote, holds the all-time record.[45] The song remained at the No. 1 position longer than any other song in the calendar year. The single passed its 4 million sales mark in April 2014, the first song of 2014 to do so.[46]
+
+On the week of May 17, 2014, after spending ten weeks at the summit, "Happy" was finally knocked off number one by John Legend's "All of Me" down to the No. 2 spot.[47] "Happy" became the 28th song in the history of the chart to reach this milestone.[48] It spent a total of 22 weeks in the top 10, entering on the week-ending February 15, 2014 and departing on July 19, 2014. The song sold 5,633,000 copies in the US in the first six months of 2014, the most ever of any song in the first six months of any calendar year.[49] It was also the best-selling song of 2014 in the US with 6.45 million copies sold for the year,[3] and has sold over 6.9 million total copies in the US as of April 2015[update].[50]
+
+The song also topped the charts of 22 other countries, including Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Poland and Spain. It has spent twelve weeks (including seven consecutive) at No. 1 in Ireland,[51] making it the third song in less than a year to spend more than seven weeks at No. 1, after Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" and Avicii's "Wake Me Up!". In France, "Happy" spent 22 weeks at No. 1, the longest reign at the top of the Syndicat National de l'Edition Phonographique, beating Lou Bega's "Mambo No. 5", which spent 20 weeks at No. 1 in 1999.
+
+To coincide with the single release, the website 24hoursofhappy.com was launched, featuring a visual presentation of "Happy", which was advertised as being "the world's first 24-hour music video." The video was shot by steadicam operator Jon Beattie,[52] its creative director was Yoann Lemoine[53] and its director the French directing team We Are from LA.[54] It consists of the four-minute song repeated multiple times, with various people dancing around Los Angeles and miming along. The website allows users to navigate to various points in the 24-hour timeframe, including all 360 four-minute segments.[55]
+
+Williams himself appears 24 times in the day-long video, once at the start of each hour. There are a number of celebrity cameos in the video, including Tyler, the Creator, Earl Sweatshirt, Whit Hertford, Kelly Osbourne, Rob Zabrecky, Magic Johnson, Urijah Faber, Sérgio Mendes, Jimmy Kimmel, Odd Future, Steve Carell (voice of Gru in the Despicable Me films), Jamie Foxx, Ana Ortiz, Miranda Cosgrove (voice of Margo in the films), Kazuchika Okada, Shinsuke Nakamura, Gavin DeGraw, Leah LaBelle and JoJo.[56] The minions from the Despicable Me series make several appearances throughout the film, including one scene at 3:00 am, in which Pharrell Williams and the minions dance in a movie theatre that is playing the scene from Despicable Me 2 in which "Happy" appears. A lone, one-eyed minion also appears dancing to song in its entirety at 4:40 pm.
+
+An official four-minute edit of the video was also released onto YouTube on November 21, 2013, and as of March 2018[update] has had over 1 billion views.[57] It was nominated for Best Male Video and Video of the Year at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards.[7][8] The 24-hour music video for "Happy" was also projected at the Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema in April 2014.[58]
+
+The original video spawned many cover videos on YouTube in which people from different cities throughout the world dance to the song. Those videos are usually called "Pharrell Williams – Happy – We Are from [name of the city]".[59] As of May 2014[update], more than 1,500 videos have been created. Inspired by this global phenomenon, a French couple launched a website wearehappyfrom.com to showcase the remakes.[60]
+
+In April 2014, the Embassy of the United States, Yerevan, Armenia released a video titled "Happy Yerevan", directed by Artyom Abovyan featuring US ambassador John A. Heffern and several Armenian celebrities, such as singers André, Emmy and Aram Mp3.[61][62] The same month artsmedia Albania produced a music video for the track featuring inhabitants of Tirana. The video soon became popular in Albania and caused controversy over the usage of images of Albanian First Secretary Enver Hoxha.[63]
+
+In May 2014, a group of Iranian fans who created a tribute to "Happy" were arrested.[64][65][66][67] According to a police chief, the song represented vulgarity and also hurt public chastity. Williams responded to the arrest in a tweet stating "It's beyond sad these kids were arrested for trying to spread happiness."[68] Soon after Iran's President Hassan Rouhani criticized the arrest when he tweeted "#Happiness is our people's right. We shouldn't be too hard on behaviours caused by joy."[69] The dancers, along with the director,[70] were later released. It was reported on September 19, 2014 that seven of the individuals in the Iranian video had been handed suspended punishments of 91 lashes each along with jail sentences by Iranian courts. The result of the suspended sentence is that if another crime is committed in the next three years, then the punishments will be carried out.[71]
+
+Recording[2]
+
+Personnel[2]
+
+
+
+
+
+*sales figures based on certification alone^shipments figures based on certification alonesales+streaming figures based on certification alone

en/2377.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,63 @@
+"Happy" is a song written, produced, and performed by American singer Pharrell Williams, released as the first and only single from the soundtrack album for the film Despicable Me 2 (2013). The song was first released on November 21, 2013, alongside a long-form music video. The song was reissued on December 16, 2013, by Back Lot Music under exclusive license to Columbia Records, a division of Sony Music.[1] The song also served as the lead single from Williams' second studio album, Girl (2014).
+
+"Happy" is an uptempo soul and neo soul song on which Williams's falsetto voice has been compared to Curtis Mayfield by critics. The song has been highly successful, peaking at No. 1 in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and 19 other countries. It was the best-selling song of 2014 in the United States with 6.45 million copies sold for the year,[3] as well as in the United Kingdom with 1.5 million copies sold for the year.[4] It reached No. 1 in the UK on a record-setting three separate occasions and became the most downloaded song of all time in the UK in September 2014;[5] it is the eighth highest-selling single of all time in the country.[6] It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song. A live rendition of the song won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Solo Performance at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards.
+
+The music video for "Happy" was nominated for Best Male Video and Video of the Year at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards. It also won the Grammy Award for Best Music Video at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards.[7][8] The song was Billboard's number-one single for 2014.
+
+"Happy" was the most successful song of 2014, with 13.9 million units (sales plus equivalent streams) worldwide.[9]
+
+Williams provided vocals for French duo Daft Punk's 2013 album Random Access Memories, on the songs "Lose Yourself to Dance" and "Get Lucky". After returning from the recording sessions in Paris, he attended a meeting with record label managers who said that the results were "spectacular" and that "Get Lucky" would be Daft Punk's next single. They also made Williams an offer to record his own album, to which he agreed quickly, "overwhelmed that someone wanted to know what's in my heart".[10]
+
+On December 17, 2013, it was announced that Williams had signed to Columbia Records and would release his second studio album in 2014.[11] In a December 2013 press release, Rob Stringer, Chairman of Columbia Records, said "When we excitedly partnered with Pharrell in January of this year, we felt it was his time again. Since then, 'Blurred Lines' and 'Get Lucky' have defined pop music in 2013, and now we are preparing to launch Pharrell as a global solo superstar in 2014. 'Happy' is just the beginning."[11]
+
+Williams originally wrote the song for CeeLo Green and felt Green's recording of the song was better, but Elektra Records, Green's record label, decided against it since he was on the verge of releasing his Christmas album, Cee Lo's Magic Moment.[12][13][14][15]
+
+"Happy" was written and produced by Williams, with backing vocals by Rhea Dummett, Trevon Henderson, Ashley L. Lee, Shamika Hightower, Jasmine Murray and Terrence Rolle.[16] The track was digitally edited and arranged by Andrew Coleman and Mike Larson, who also recorded it with assistance from Matthew Desrameaux at Circle House Studios in Miami, Florida. The song was later mixed by Leslie Brathwaite at Music Box Studios in Atlanta, Georgia.[16]
+
+"Happy" plays for 3 minutes and 53 seconds[1] in common time and at a tempo of 156 beats per minute. The song is written in the key of F minor.[17] Williams sings the upper notes in falsetto; his vocal range spans from F3 to C5.[17] His singing on the track has been compared to that of Curtis Mayfield.[18][19]
+
+"Happy" is a mid-tempo soul and neo soul song.[20][21] According to music journalist Paul Tingen, "Happy" is "a mid-tempo ... song in a faux-Motown style, with an arrangement that is, by modern standards, very sparse: programmed drums, one bass and one keyboard part, and handclaps both programmed and played, all topped off by Williams's lead vocals and a whole posse of backing vocals".[20] Jody Rosen viewed the song as a "standout" with a "sprightly neosoul funk groove".[18]
+
+Jody Rosen of Rolling Stone gave it 3.5 stars and deemed it "an instant contender for 2013's Song of the Summer".[18] In a 4/5 review, Renowned for Sound's Huw Woodward said, "Happy is a rather… well… happy affair with a cheerful beat and exuberant vocal that would indicate that the former N.E.R.D singer is finding a lot of lighthearted fun to be had in both music and life. 'Because I'm happy, clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth' sings Williams as the jaunty rhythm gets your head nodding."[23] Holly Williams of Contactmusic.com gave it four stars, praising it for being "unbelievably catchy" and "the kind of song that makes you want to dance and sing along".[22]
+
+The song was nominated for Best Original Song at the 86th Academy Awards on March 2, 2014, but lost to "Let It Go" from Frozen.[24] When GQ magazine asked Williams "how badly" he wanted the Oscar, he responded: "When they read the results, my face was...frozen. But then I thought about it, and I just decided just to... let it go."[25]
+
+In January 2015, "Happy" was ranked at No. 13 on The Village Voice's annual year-end Pazz & Jop critics' poll.[26]
+
+"I like that song 'Happy'…" remarked Phil Collins. "It's a great groove, and he's a very smart guy."[27]
+
+In October 2013, a month prior to its release, "Happy" catapulted to No. 1 on the Dutch Top 40 chart in the Netherlands, partially as a result of radio station 3FM airplay and subsequent online downloads, as well as featuring in a Transavia commercial.[28] It was released worldwide on November 21, 2013. In 2014, after 35 weeks on the charts and then still in the top 15, "Happy" became the most successful song in the Dutch Top 40 of all time.[29][30]
+
+In the United Kingdom, "Happy" debuted at No. 71 on the UK Singles Chart on December 1, 2013.[31] It then spent four weeks climbing before finally reaching No. 1 on December 29.[32] It became Williams' third No. 1 song in Britain, counting "Get Lucky" and "Blurred Lines", where he appeared as a featured artist.[33] It has since spent four non-consecutive weeks at No. 1, reaching the peak on three separate occasions. In doing so, Williams became only the third artist ever to achieve this, and the first since Guy Mitchell in 1957 with "Singing the Blues".[34] Following the single's third week at No. 1, it spent five weeks in the top three before returning to the summit, boosted by his performance at the 2014 Brit Awards.[34] In the same week that "Happy" returned to No. 1 for the third time, it sold its millionth copy in the UK, Williams' third in under a year, having previously done so with Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" in June 2013, and Thicke's "Blurred Lines" in July 2013. This made Williams only the second artist in UK chart history (the first being The Beatles) to have three singles sell 1 million copies in under a year,[34] as well as only the third artist ever to have three million-sellers, along with The Beatles (who have six) and Rihanna (who has four).[34]
+
+"Happy" was the best-selling single of UK in 2014, with 1.5 million copies sold for the year,[4] and became the most downloaded song of all time in the UK by September 2014, with over 1.62 million sold.[35] It had also been streamed over 25 million times and was the first song released in the 2010s to go 3× Platinum.[36] With the inclusion of streaming, "Happy" has achieved combined sales of over 2 million.[37] Additionally, "Happy" and Idina Menzel's "Let It Go" became the first singles ever to spend an entire calendar year on the official UK top 75 chart. On June 12, it was announced that "Happy" had overtaken "Evergreen" by Will Young as the UK's best-selling single of the 21st century, with sales of 1.81 million.[35] "Happy" spent 92 weeks in the UK top 100.[38] On April 22, 2016, "Happy" went 4× Platinum.[39] As of September 2017[update], the song has sold 1,922,000 copies, which gives a total of 2,630,000 combined units when 70 million streams are included.[6]
+
+On the New Zealand Singles Chart, "Happy" debuted at No. 11 on December 23, 2013. The next week it moved to No. 2. Then on January 6, 2014, "Happy" began a 12-week consecutive reign in the No. 1 position, right up until March 24, 2014. It then dropped to No. 2 for one week, then spent a further three weeks at No. 1, bringing the total number of weeks at No. 1 to fifteen, breaking the 36-year-long record for most weeks spent at No. 1, previously held by Boney M.'s "Rivers of Babylon".[40][41] As of February 22, 2015[update], "Happy" had spent 62 straight weeks in the New Zealand Top 40 since its debut, before finally dropping out of the chart the following week. The song has been certified 6× Platinum in New Zealand.[40][42]
+
+"Happy" reached the top of the US Billboard Hot 100 for the week ending March 8, 2014, giving Williams his fourth No. 1 single on the chart, but his first as lead artist. It took twelve years and a week (as the issue date is March 8, 2014) to achieve his first Hot 100 No. 1 hit as a lead artist.[43] The song remained at No. 1 the following week, and also topped the Hot 100 Airplay chart.[44] The song also holds the record for the second-highest audience peak for a week on the Hot 100 Airplay, with 225.9 million impressions while Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines", a song in which Pharrell was featured as well as produced and co-wrote, holds the all-time record.[45] The song remained at the No. 1 position longer than any other song in the calendar year. The single passed its 4 million sales mark in April 2014, the first song of 2014 to do so.[46]
+
+On the week of May 17, 2014, after spending ten weeks at the summit, "Happy" was finally knocked off number one by John Legend's "All of Me" down to the No. 2 spot.[47] "Happy" became the 28th song in the history of the chart to reach this milestone.[48] It spent a total of 22 weeks in the top 10, entering on the week-ending February 15, 2014 and departing on July 19, 2014. The song sold 5,633,000 copies in the US in the first six months of 2014, the most ever of any song in the first six months of any calendar year.[49] It was also the best-selling song of 2014 in the US with 6.45 million copies sold for the year,[3] and has sold over 6.9 million total copies in the US as of April 2015[update].[50]
+
+The song also topped the charts of 22 other countries, including Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Poland and Spain. It has spent twelve weeks (including seven consecutive) at No. 1 in Ireland,[51] making it the third song in less than a year to spend more than seven weeks at No. 1, after Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" and Avicii's "Wake Me Up!". In France, "Happy" spent 22 weeks at No. 1, the longest reign at the top of the Syndicat National de l'Edition Phonographique, beating Lou Bega's "Mambo No. 5", which spent 20 weeks at No. 1 in 1999.
+
+To coincide with the single release, the website 24hoursofhappy.com was launched, featuring a visual presentation of "Happy", which was advertised as being "the world's first 24-hour music video." The video was shot by steadicam operator Jon Beattie,[52] its creative director was Yoann Lemoine[53] and its director the French directing team We Are from LA.[54] It consists of the four-minute song repeated multiple times, with various people dancing around Los Angeles and miming along. The website allows users to navigate to various points in the 24-hour timeframe, including all 360 four-minute segments.[55]
+
+Williams himself appears 24 times in the day-long video, once at the start of each hour. There are a number of celebrity cameos in the video, including Tyler, the Creator, Earl Sweatshirt, Whit Hertford, Kelly Osbourne, Rob Zabrecky, Magic Johnson, Urijah Faber, Sérgio Mendes, Jimmy Kimmel, Odd Future, Steve Carell (voice of Gru in the Despicable Me films), Jamie Foxx, Ana Ortiz, Miranda Cosgrove (voice of Margo in the films), Kazuchika Okada, Shinsuke Nakamura, Gavin DeGraw, Leah LaBelle and JoJo.[56] The minions from the Despicable Me series make several appearances throughout the film, including one scene at 3:00 am, in which Pharrell Williams and the minions dance in a movie theatre that is playing the scene from Despicable Me 2 in which "Happy" appears. A lone, one-eyed minion also appears dancing to song in its entirety at 4:40 pm.
+
+An official four-minute edit of the video was also released onto YouTube on November 21, 2013, and as of March 2018[update] has had over 1 billion views.[57] It was nominated for Best Male Video and Video of the Year at the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards.[7][8] The 24-hour music video for "Happy" was also projected at the Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema in April 2014.[58]
+
+The original video spawned many cover videos on YouTube in which people from different cities throughout the world dance to the song. Those videos are usually called "Pharrell Williams – Happy – We Are from [name of the city]".[59] As of May 2014[update], more than 1,500 videos have been created. Inspired by this global phenomenon, a French couple launched a website wearehappyfrom.com to showcase the remakes.[60]
+
+In April 2014, the Embassy of the United States, Yerevan, Armenia released a video titled "Happy Yerevan", directed by Artyom Abovyan featuring US ambassador John A. Heffern and several Armenian celebrities, such as singers André, Emmy and Aram Mp3.[61][62] The same month artsmedia Albania produced a music video for the track featuring inhabitants of Tirana. The video soon became popular in Albania and caused controversy over the usage of images of Albanian First Secretary Enver Hoxha.[63]
+
+In May 2014, a group of Iranian fans who created a tribute to "Happy" were arrested.[64][65][66][67] According to a police chief, the song represented vulgarity and also hurt public chastity. Williams responded to the arrest in a tweet stating "It's beyond sad these kids were arrested for trying to spread happiness."[68] Soon after Iran's President Hassan Rouhani criticized the arrest when he tweeted "#Happiness is our people's right. We shouldn't be too hard on behaviours caused by joy."[69] The dancers, along with the director,[70] were later released. It was reported on September 19, 2014 that seven of the individuals in the Iranian video had been handed suspended punishments of 91 lashes each along with jail sentences by Iranian courts. The result of the suspended sentence is that if another crime is committed in the next three years, then the punishments will be carried out.[71]
+
+Recording[2]
+
+Personnel[2]
+
+
+
+
+
+*sales figures based on certification alone^shipments figures based on certification alonesales+streaming figures based on certification alone

en/2378.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,395 @@
+
+
+Coordinates: 8°N 38°E / 8°N 38°E / 8; 38
+
+Ethiopia (/ˌiːθiˈoʊpiə/; Amharic: ኢትዮጵያ, ʾĪtyōṗṗyā (listen), Afar: Itiyoophiyaa, Ge'ez: ኢትዮጵያ. Oromo: Itoophiyaa, Somali: Itoobiya, Tigrinya: ኢትዮጵያ), officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in  East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east, Kenya to the south, South Sudan to the west and Sudan to the northwest. With over 109 million inhabitants as of 2019[update],[7][8] Ethiopia is the most populous landlocked country in the world and the second-most populous nation on the African continent (after Nigeria). The country has a total area of 1,100,000 square kilometres (420,000 sq mi). Its capital and largest city is Addis Ababa, which lies a few miles west of the East African Rift that splits the country into the African and Somali tectonic plates.[13] Ethiopian national identity is grounded in the historic and contemporary roles of Christianity and Islam, and the independence of Ethiopia from foreign rule, stemming from the various ancient Ethiopian kingdoms of antiquity.[14]
+
+Some of the oldest skeletal evidence for anatomically modern humans has been found in Ethiopia.[15] It is widely considered as the region from which modern humans first set out for the Middle East and places beyond.[16][17][18] According to linguists, the first Afroasiatic-speaking populations settled in the Horn region during the ensuing Neolithic era.[19] Tracing its roots to the 2nd millennium BC, Ethiopia's governmental system was a monarchy for most of its history. Oral literature tells that the monarchy was founded by the Solomonic dynasty of the Queen of Sheba, under its first king, Menelik I.[20] In the first centuries, the Kingdom of Aksum maintained a unified civilization in the region,[21][22][23][24] followed by the Ethiopian Empire c. 1137.
+
+During the late–19th-century Scramble for Africa, Ethiopia and Liberia were the only two nations that preserved their sovereignty from long-term colonisation by a European colonial power, and many newly independent nations on the continent subsequently adopted its flag colours. However, the country was later occupied by Italy in 1936 and became Italian Ethiopia (part of Italian East Africa), until it was liberated during World War II. During the Italian rule, the government abolished slavery,[25] a practice that existed in the country for centuries, and urbanization steadily increased.[26] Ethiopia was also the first independent African member of the 20th-century League of Nations and the United Nations.[27] In 1974, the Ethiopian monarchy under Haile Selassie was overthrown by the Derg, a communist military government backed by the Soviet Union. In 1987, the Derg established the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, but it was overthrown in 1991 by the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front, which has been the ruling political coalition since.
+
+Ethiopia and Eritrea use the ancient Ge'ez script, which is one of the oldest alphabets still in use in the world.[28] They follow the Ethiopian calendar, which is approximately seven years and three months behind the Gregorian calendar. A majority of the population adheres to Christianity (mainly the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and P'ent'ay), and the historical Kingdom of Aksum was one of the first states to officially adopt the religion, whereas around a third follows Islam (primarily Sunni). The country is the site of the Islamic Migration to Abyssinia and the oldest Muslim settlement in Africa, at Negash. A substantial population of Ethiopian Jews, known as Bete Israel, also resided in Ethiopia until the 1980s.[29][30] Ethiopia is a multilingual nation, with around 80 ethnolinguistic groups, the four largest of which are the Oromo, Amhara, Somali and Tigrayans. Most people in the country speak Afroasiatic languages of the Cushitic or Semitic branches. Additionally, Omotic languages are spoken by ethnic minority groups inhabiting the southern regions. Nilo-Saharan languages are also spoken by the nation's Nilotic ethnic minorities. Oromo is the most populous language by native speakers, while Amharic is the most populous by number of total speakers and serves as the working language in the federal government. Ge'ez remains important as a liturgical language for both the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church and for the Beta Israel.
+
+The nation is a land of natural contrasts, with its vast fertile west, its forests and its numerous rivers, and the world's hottest settlement of Dallol in its north. The Ethiopian Highlands are the largest continuous mountain ranges in Africa, and the Sof Omar Caves contains the largest cave on the continent. Ethiopia also has the second-largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Africa.[31] Additionally, the sovereign state is a founding member of the UN, the Group of 24 (G-24), the Non-Aligned Movement, the G77 and the Organisation of African Unity. Its capital city, Addis Ababa, serves as the headquarters of the African Union, the Pan African Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, the African Standby Force and many of the global NGOs focused on Africa. In the 1970s and 1980s, Ethiopia experienced civil conflicts and communist purges, which hindered its economy. The country has since recovered and as of 2010[update] has the largest economy (by GDP) in East Africa, as well as having the largest population in the region.[32][33][34] Despite these improvements, it remains one of the world's poorest countries.[35] In addition to poverty, Ethiopia faces hunger, corruption, weak infrastructure, and poor respect for human rights and access to health and education (with an illiteracy rate of 51%),[36] ranking in the worst quartile on the Human Development Index.
+
+The Greek name Αἰθιοπία (from Αἰθίοψ, Aithiops, "an Ethiopian") is a compound word, derived from the two Greek words, from αἴθω + ὤψ (aitho "I burn" + ops "face"). According to the Perseus Digital Library, the designation properly translates as Burnt-face in noun form and red-brown in adjectival form.[37] The historian Herodotus used the appellation to denote those parts of Africa South of the Sahara that were then known within the Ecumene (inhabitable world).[38] However, the Greek formation may be a folk etymology for the Ancient Egyptian term athtiu-abu, which means 'robbers of hearts'.[39] This Greek name was borrowed into Amharic as ኢትዮጵያ, ʾĪtyōṗṗyā.
+
+In Greco-Roman epigraphs, Aethiopia was a specific toponym for ancient Nubia.[40] At least as early as c. 850,[41] the name Aethiopia also occurs in many translations of the Old Testament in allusion to Nubia. The ancient Hebrew texts identify Nubia instead as Kush.[42] However, in the New Testament, the Greek term Aithiops does occur, referring to a servant of the Kandake, the queen of Kush.[43]
+
+Following the Hellenic and Biblical traditions, the Monumentum Adulitanum, a third century inscription belonging to the Aksumite Empire, indicates that Aksum's then ruler governed an area which was flanked to the west by the territory of Ethiopia and Sasu. The Aksumite King Ezana would eventually conquer Nubia the following century, and the Aksumites thereafter appropriated the designation "Ethiopians" for their own kingdom. In the Ge'ez version of the Ezana inscription, Aἰθιόποι is equated with the unvocalized Ḥbšt and Ḥbśt (Ḥabashat), and denotes for the first time the highland inhabitants of Aksum. This new demonym would subsequently be rendered as 'ḥbs ('Aḥbāsh) in Sabaic and as Ḥabasha in Arabic.[40]
+
+In the 15th-century Ge'ez Book of Aksum, the name is ascribed to a legendary individual called Ityopp'is. He was an extra-Biblical son of Cush, son of Ham, said to have founded the city of Axum.[44]
+
+In English, and generally outside of Ethiopia, the country was once historically known as Abyssinia. This toponym was derived from the Latinized form of the ancient Habash.[45]
+
+Several important finds have propelled Ethiopia and the surrounding region to the forefront of palaeontology. The oldest hominid discovered to date in Ethiopia is the 4.2 million year old Ardipithicus ramidus (Ardi) found by Tim D. White in 1994.[46] The most well known hominid discovery is Australopithecus afarensis (Lucy). Known locally as Dinkinesh, the specimen was found in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia's Afar Region in 1974 by Donald Johanson, and is one of the most complete and best preserved adult Australopithecine fossils ever uncovered. Lucy's taxonomic name refers to the region where the discovery was made. The hominid is estimated to have lived 3.2 million years ago.[47][48][49]
+
+Ethiopia is also considered one of the earliest sites of the emergence of anatomically modern humans, Homo sapiens. The oldest of these local fossil finds, the Omo remains, were excavated in the southwestern Omo Kibish area and have been dated to the Middle Paleolithic, around 200,000 years ago.[50] Additionally, skeletons of Homo sapiens idaltu were found at a site in the Middle Awash valley. Dated to approximately 160,000 years ago, they may represent an extinct subspecies of Homo sapiens, or the immediate ancestors of anatomically modern humans.[51] Archaic Homo sapiens fossils excavated at the Jebel Irhoud site in Morocco have since been dated to an earlier period, about 300,000 years ago,[52] while Omo-Kibish I (Omo I) from southern Ethiopia is the oldest anatomically modern Homo sapiens skeleton currently known (196 ± 5 ka).[53]
+
+According to linguists, the first Afroasiatic-speaking populations arrived in the region during the ensuing Neolithic era from the family's proposed urheimat ("original homeland") in the Nile Valley,[19] or the Near East.[54] Other scholars propose that the Afroasiatic family developed in situ in the Horn, with its speakers subsequently dispersing from there.[55]
+
+In 2019, archaeologists discovered a 30,000-year-old Middle-Stone Age rock shelter at the Fincha Habera site in the Bale Mountains of Ethiopia at an elevation of 3,469 metres above sea level. At this high altitude humans are susceptible both to hypoxia and to extreme weather. According to a study published in the journal Science, this dwelling is proof of the earliest permanent human occupation at high altitude yet discovered. Thousands of animal bones, hundreds of stone tools, and ancient fireplaces were discovered, revealing a diet that featured giant mole rats.[56][57][58][59][60][61][62]
+
+Evidence of some of the earliest known stone-tipped projectile weapons (a characteristic tool of Homo sapiens), the stone tips of javelins or throwing spears, were discovered in 2013 at the Ethiopian site of Gademotta, and date to around 279,000 years ago.[63] In 2019, further evidence of Middle Stone Age complex projectile weapons was found at Aduma, also in Ethiopia, dated 100,000-80,000 years ago, in the form of points considered likely to belong to darts delivered by spear throwers.[64]
+
+Around the 8th century BC, a kingdom known as Dʿmt was established in Tigray, in northern Ethiopia, and Eritrea. The polity's capital was located at Yeha, in northern Ethiopia. Most modern historians consider this civilization to be a native Ethiopian one, although Sabaean-influenced because of the latter's hegemony of the Red Sea.[22]
+
+Other scholars regard Dʿmt as the result of a union of Afroasiatic-speaking cultures of the Cushitic and Semitic branches; namely, local Agaw peoples and Sabaeans from South Arabia. However, Ge'ez, the ancient Semitic language of Ethiopia, is thought to have developed independently from Sabaean, one of the South Semitic languages. As early as 2000 BC, other Semitic speakers were living in Ethiopia and Eritrea where Ge'ez developed.[65][66] Sabaean influence is now thought to have been minor, limited to a few localities, and disappearing after a few decades or a century. It may have been a trading or military colony in alliance with the Ethiopian civilization of Dʿmt or some other proto-Aksumite state.[22]
+
+After the fall of Dʿmt during the fourth century BC, the Ethiopian plateau came to be dominated by smaller successor kingdoms. In the first century AD, the Kingdom of Aksum emerged in what is now Tigray and Eritrea. According to the medieval Book of Aksum, the kingdom's first capital, Mazaber, was built by Itiyopis, son of Cush.[44] Aksum would later at times extend its rule into Yemen on the other side of the Red Sea.[67] The Persian prophet Mani listed Aksum with Rome, Persia, and China as one of the four great powers of his era, during the 3rd century.[68]
+
+Around 316 AD, Frumentius and his brother Edesius from Tyre accompanied their uncle on a voyage to Ethiopia. When the vessel stopped at a Red Sea port, the natives killed all the travellers except the two brothers, who were taken to the court as slaves. They were given positions of trust by the monarch, and they converted members of the royal court to Christianity. Frumentius became the first bishop of Aksum.[69] A coin dated to 324 shows that Ethiopia was the second country to officially adopt Christianity (after Armenia did so in 301), although the religion may have been at first confined to court circles; it was the first major power to do so.
+
+The weakened Axumite dynasty came to an end in the 9th century when Yodit defeated the last king of the dynasty. Empress Yodit's reign, which lasted for 40 years, aimed to abolish Christianity (a religion first accepted by King Ezana of the Axumite dynasty) by burning down churches and crucifying people who remained faithful to the orthodox Tewahedo church, which at the time was considered as the religion of the state. The Empress tried to force many people to change their religion and destroyed much historical heritage of the Axumite dynasty earning her the epithet of Yodit Gudit (in Amharic ዮዲት ጉዲት). Her reign finally came to an end in 912 following her defeat by the first leader of the Zagwe dynasty.[70] The reign of the Zagwe dynasty came to an end by the rise of Yekuno Amlak.[71]
+
+The first interaction that the Islamic Prophet Muhammad had with Ethiopia was during the reign of Aṣḥama ibn Abjar, who was at the time the Emperor of Aksum and gave refuge to several Muslims in the Kingdom of Aksum in 614 AD.[72] According to other authors, Ashama may have been the same person as king Armah, or his father or son.[73] Taddesse Tamrat records that the inhabitants of Wiqro, where the ruler is known as Ashamat al-Negashi, claim that his tomb is located in their village.[74][75]
+
+Muhammad's second interaction with Ethiopia was during the Expedition of Zaid ibn Haritha, when he sent Amr bin Umayyah al-Damri to the King of Ethiopia (then Abyssinia).[76]
+
+The Zagwe dynasty ruled many parts of present-day Ethiopia and Eritrea between the early 12th and late 13th century. The name of the dynasty is derived from the Cushitic-speaking Agaw of northern Ethiopia. From 1270 AD until the Zemene Mesafint (Age of Princes), the Solomonic dynasty governed the Ethiopian Empire.[77]
+
+In the early 15th century, Ethiopia sought to make diplomatic contact with European kingdoms for the first time since the Aksumite era. A letter from Henry IV of England to the Emperor of Abyssinia survives.[78] In 1428, Yeshaq I sent two emissaries to Alfonso V of Aragon, who sent return emissaries. They failed to complete the return trip.[79] The first continuous relations with a European country began in 1508 with Portugal under Dawit II (Lebna Dengel), who had just inherited the throne from his father.[80] In 1487, King John II of Portugal sent two emissaries to the Orient, Pero da Covilhã and Afonso de Paiva. Afonso would die on this mission.[81]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+This proved to be an important development, for when the Empire was subjected to an occupation led by the Adal Sultanate's general and imam, Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi (called "Grañ " "the Left-handed"), Portugal assisted the Ethiopian emperor by sending weapons and four hundred men, who helped his son Gelawdewos defeat Ahmad and re-establish his rule.[82]
+
+This Abyssinian–Adal War was also one of the first proxy wars in the region, as the Ottoman Empire and Portugal took sides in the conflict.
+When Emperor Susenyos I converted to Roman Catholicism in 1624, years of revolt and civil unrest followed, resulting in thousands of deaths.[83] The Jesuit missionaries had offended the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo faith of the local Ethiopians. In June 1632, Fasilides, Susenyos' son, declared the state religion again to be the Ethiopian Orthodoxy. He expelled the Jesuit missionaries and other Europeans.[84][85]
+
+The Sultanate of Aussa or "Afar Sultanate" succeeded the earlier Imamate of Aussa. The latter polity had come into existence in 1577 when Muhammed Jasa moved his capital from Harar to Aussa (Asaita) with the split of the Adal Sultanate into the Sultanate of Aussa and the Sultanate of Harar. At some point after 1672, the Sultanate of Aussa declined and temporarily came to an end in conjunction with Imam Umar Din bin Adam's recorded ascension to the throne.[86]
+
+The Sultanate was subsequently re-established by Kedafu around the year 1734. It was thereafter ruled by his Mudaito Dynasty.[87] The primary symbol of the Sultan was a silver baton, which was considered to have magical properties.[88]
+
+Between 1755 and 1855, Ethiopia experienced a period of isolation referred to as the Zemene Mesafint or "Age of Princes". The Emperors became figureheads, controlled by regional lords and noblemen like Ras Mikael Sehul of Tigray, Ras Wolde Selassie of Tigray, and by the Were ShehYejju Oromo dynasty, such as Ras Gugsa of Yejju. Prior to the Zemene Mesafint, King Iyoas had introduced Oromo as the language of the court from Amharic to Afaan Oromo.[89][90]
+
+Ethiopian isolationism ended following a British mission that concluded an alliance between the two nations, but it was not until 1855 that the Amhara kingdoms of northern Ethiopia (Gonder, Gojam, Shoa) were briefly united after the power of the Emperor was restored beginning with the reign of Tewodros II.  Tewodros had been born in Begemder from a nobleman of Qwara, where the Qwara dialect of the Agaw language is spoken.
+
+Upon his ascent, he began modernizing Ethiopia and recentralizing power in the Emperor. Ethiopia began to take part in world affairs once again.[91]
+
+But Tewodros suffered several rebellions inside his empire. Northern Oromo militias, Tigrayan rebellion, and the constant incursion of Ottoman Empire and Egyptian forces near the Red Sea brought the weakening and the final downfall of Tewodros II. He killed himself in 1868 during his last fight with the British Expedition to Abyssinia at the Battle of Magdala.
+
+After Tewodros' death, Tekle Giyorgis II was proclaimed Emperor but was defeated in the Battles of Zulawu (21 June 1871) and Adua (11 July 1871).
+
+The victorious Mercha Kassai was subsequently declared Yohannes IV on 21 January 1872. In 1875 and 1876, Turkish/Egyptian forces, accompanied by many European and American 'advisors', twice invaded Abyssinia but were initially defeated: once at the Battle of Gundet losing 800 men, and then in the second invasion, decisively defeated by Emperor Yohannes IV at the Battle of Gura on 7 March 1875, where the invading forces lost at least 3000 men by death or captured.[92] From 1885 to 1889, Ethiopia joined the Mahdist War allied to Britain, Turkey, and Egypt against the Sudanese Mahdist State. In 1887 Menelik king of Shewa invaded the Emirate of Harar after his victory at the Battle of Chelenqo.[93] On 10 March 1889, Yohannes IV was killed by the Sudanese Khalifah Abdullah's army whilst leading his army in the Battle of Gallabat (also called Battle of Metemma).[94]
+
+Ethiopia in roughly its current form began under the reign of Menelik II, who was Emperor from 1889 until his death in 1913. From his base in the central province of Shewa, Menelik set out to annex territories to the south, east and west,[95] areas inhabited by the Oromo, Sidama, Gurage, Welayta, and other peoples.[96] He did this with the help of Ras Gobana Dacche's Shewan Oromo militia, which occupied lands that had not been held since Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi's war, as well as other areas that had never been under Ethiopian sovereignty.[97] Menelik's campaign against Oromos outside his army was largely in retaliation for centuries of Oromo expansionism and the Zemene Mesafint, a period during which a succession of Oromo feudal rulers dominated the highlanders.[98] Chief among these was the Yejju dynasty, which included Aligaz of Yejju and his brother Ali I of Yejju. Ali I founded the town of Debre Tabor in the Amhara Region, which became the dynasty's capital.[99]
+
+Menelik was born from King Hailemelekot of Shewa and his mother Ejegayehu Lema Adeyamo who was a servant in the royal household.[100] He had been born at Angolala in an Oromo area and had lived his first twelve years with Shewan Oromos with whom he thus had much in common.[101] During his reign, Menelik II advanced road construction, electricity and education; the development of a central taxation system and the foundation and building of the city of Addis Ababa—which became the capital of Shewa Province in 1881. After he ascended to the throne in 1889, it was renamed Addis Ababa, the new capital of Abyssinia.
+
+For his leadership, despite opposition from more traditional elements of society, Menelik II is heralded as a national hero. Menelik had signed the Treaty of Wichale with Italy in May 1889 in which Italy would recognize Ethiopia's sovereignty so long as Italy could control an area north of Ethiopia (now part of modern Eritrea). In return, Italy was to provide Menelik with weapons and support him as emperor. The Italians used the time between the signing of the treaty and its ratification by the Italian government to expand their territorial claims. This conflict erupted in the Battle of Adwa on 1 March 1896 in which Italy's colonial forces were defeated by the Ethiopians.[96][102]
+
+About a third of the population died in the Great Ethiopian Famine (1888 to 1892).[103][104]
+
+The early 20th century was marked by the reign of Emperor Haile Selassie (Ras Tafari). Haile Selassie I was born to parents with ethnic links to three of Ethiopia's Afroasiatic-speaking populations: the Oromo and Amhara, the country's two largest ethnic groups, as well as the Gurage. He came to power after Iyasu V was deposed, and undertook a nationwide modernization campaign from 1916, when he was made a Ras and Regent (Inderase) for the Empress Regnant, Zewditu, and became the de facto ruler of the Ethiopian Empire. Following Zewditu's death, on 2 November 1930, he succeeded her as emperor.[105]
+
+The independence of Ethiopia was interrupted by the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, beginning when it was invaded by Fascist Italy in early October 1935, and Italian occupation of the country (1936–1941).[106] During this time, Haile Selassie appealed to the League of Nations in 1935, delivering an address that made him a worldwide figure, and the 1935 Time Man of the Year.[107] As the majority of the Ethiopian population lived in rural towns, Italy faced continued resistance and ambushes in urban centres throughout its occupation. Haile Selassie fled into exile in Fairfield House, Bath, England. Mussolini was able to proclaim Italian Ethiopia and the assumption of the imperial title by the Italian king Vittorio Emanuele III.[108]
+
+In 1937, the Italian massacre of Yekatit 12 took place, in which as many as 30,000 civilians were killed and many others imprisoned.[109][110][111] This massacre was a reprisal for the attempted assassination Rodolfo Graziani, the viceroy of Italian East Africa.[112]
+
+The Italians made investments in Ethiopian infrastructure development during their occupation. They created the so-called "imperial road" between Addis Ababa and Massaua.[113] More than 900 km of railways were reconstructed, dams and hydroelectric plants were built, and many public and private companies were established. The Italian government abolished slavery, a practice that existed in the country for centuries.[26]
+
+Following the entry of Italy into World War II, British Empire forces, together with the Arbegnoch (literally, "patriots", referring to armed resistance soldiers) restored the sovereignty of Ethiopia in the course of the East African Campaign in 1941. An Italian guerrilla warfare campaign continued until 1943. This was followed by British recognition of Ethiopia's full sovereignty, without any special British privileges, when the Anglo-Ethiopian Agreement was signed in December 1944.[114] Under the peace treaty of 1947, Italy recognised the sovereignty and independence of Ethiopia.
+
+On 26 August 1942, Haile Selassie issued a proclamation that removed Ethiopia's legal basis for slavery.[115] Ethiopia had between two and four million slaves in the early 20th century, out of a total population of about eleven million.[116]
+
+In 1952, Haile Selassie orchestrated a federation with Eritrea. He dissolved this in 1962 and annexed Eritrea, resulting in the Eritrean War of Independence. Haile Selassie played a leading role in the formation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1963.[117]
+
+Opinion within Ethiopia turned against Haile Selassie I owing to the worldwide 1973 oil crisis. This oil crisis caused a sharp increase in gasoline prices starting on 13 February 1974; food shortages; uncertainty regarding the succession; border wars; and discontent in the middle class created through modernization.[118] The high gasoline prices motivated taxi drivers and teachers to go on strike on 18 February 1974, and students and workers in Addis Ababa began demonstrating against the government on 20 February 1974.[119] The feudal oligarchical cabinet of Akilou Habte Wolde was toppled, and a new government was formed with Endelkachew Makonnen serving as Prime Minister.[120]
+
+Haile Selassie's rule ended on 12 September 1974, when he was deposed by the Derg, a Soviet-backed Marxist–Leninist military dictatorship led by Mengistu Haile Mariam.[121] The new Provisional Military Administrative Council established a one-party communist state in March 1975.[122]
+
+The ensuing government suffered several coups, uprisings, wide-scale drought, and a huge refugee problem. In 1977, Somalia, which had previously been receiving assistance and arms from the USSR, invaded Ethiopia in the Ogaden War, capturing part of the Ogaden region. Ethiopia recovered it after it began receiving massive military aid from the USSR, Cuba, South Yemen, East Germany,[123] and North Korea. This included around 15,000 Cuban combat troops.[124][125]
+
+In 1977–78, up to 500,000 were killed as a result of the Red Terror,[126] from forced deportations or from the use of hunger as a weapon under Mengistu's rule.[118] The Red Terror was carried out in response to what the Derg termed the 'White Terror', a chain of violent events, assassinations, and killings carried out by what it called "petty bourgeois reactionaries" who desired a reversal of the 1974 revolution.[127][128]
+
+The 1983–85 famine in Ethiopia affected around eight million people, resulting in one million dead. Insurrections against Communist rule sprang up, particularly in the northern regions of Eritrea and Tigray. The Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF) merged with other ethnically based opposition movements in 1989, to form the coalition known as the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF).[130]
+
+Concurrently, the Soviet Union began to retreat from building world communism under Mikhail Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika policies, marking a dramatic reduction in aid to Ethiopia from Socialist Bloc countries. This resulted in more economic hardship and the collapse of the military in the face of determined onslaughts by guerrilla forces in the north. The collapse of Marxism–Leninism in general, and in eastern Europe during the revolutions of 1989, coincided with the Soviet Union stopping aid to Ethiopia altogether in 1990. The strategic outlook for Mengistu quickly deteriorated.[131][132]
+
+EPRDF forces advanced on Addis Ababa in May 1991, and the Soviet Union did not intervene to save the government side. Mengistu fled the country and was granted asylum in Zimbabwe, where he still resides.[133][134]
+
+In 2006, after a trial that lasted 12 years, Ethiopia's Federal High Court in Addis Ababa found Mengistu guilty of genocide in absentia.[135] Numerous other top leaders of his government were also found guilty of war crimes. Mengistu and others who had fled the country were tried and sentenced in absentia. Numerous former officials received the death sentence and tens of others spent the next 20 years in jail, before being pardoned from life sentences.[136][137][138][139]
+
+In July 1991, EPRDF convened a National Conference to establish the Transitional Government of Ethiopia composed of an 87-member Council of Representatives and guided by a national charter that functioned as a transitional constitution.[140] In June 1992, the Oromo Liberation Front withdrew from the government; in March 1993, members of the Southern Ethiopia Peoples' Democratic Coalition also left the government.[141][142] In 1994, a new constitution was written that established a parliamentary republic with a bicameral legislature and a judicial system.[2]
+
+The first multiparty election took place in May 1995, which was won by the EPRDF.[143] The president of the transitional government, EPRDF leader Meles Zenawi, became the first Prime Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, and Negasso Gidada was elected its president.[144]
+
+In May 1998, a border dispute with Eritrea led to the Eritrean–Ethiopian War, which lasted until June 2000 and cost both countries an estimated $1 million a day.[145] This had a negative effect on Ethiopia's economy,[146] but strengthened the ruling coalition.[citation needed]
+
+Ethiopia's 3rd multiparty election on 15 May 2005 was highly disputed, with some opposition groups claiming fraud. Though the Carter Center approved the pre-election conditions, it expressed its dissatisfaction with post-election events. European Union election observers cited state support for the EPRDF campaign, as well as irregularities in ballot counting and results publishing.[147] The opposition parties gained more than 200 parliamentary seats, compared with just 12 in the 2000 elections. While most of the opposition representatives joined the parliament, some leaders of the CUD party who refused to take up their parliamentary seats were accused of inciting the post-election violence and were imprisoned. Amnesty International considered them "prisoners of conscience" and they were subsequently released.[148]
+
+A coalition of opposition parties and some individuals was established in 2009 to oust the government of the EPRDF in legislative elections of 2010. Meles' party, which has been in power since 1991, published its 65-page manifesto in Addis Ababa on 10 October 2009. The opposition won most votes in Addis Ababa, but the EPRDF halted counting of votes for several days. After it ensued, it claimed the election, amidst charges of fraud and intimidation.[149]
+
+Some of the eight member parties of the Medrek (Forum for Democratic Dialogue) include the Oromo Federalist Congress (organized by the Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement and the Oromo People's Congress), the Arena Tigray (organized by former members of the ruling party TPLF), the Unity for Democracy and Justice (UDJ, whose leader is imprisoned), and the Coalition of Somali Democratic Forces.[citation needed]
+
+In mid-2011, two consecutively missed rainy seasons precipitated the worst drought in East Africa seen in 60 years. Full recovery from the drought's effects did not occur until 2012, with long-term strategies by the national government in conjunction with development agencies believed to offer the most sustainable results.[150]
+
+Meles died on 20 August 2012 in Brussels, where he was being treated for an unspecified illness.[151] Deputy Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn was appointed as a new prime minister until the 2015 elections,[152] and remained so afterwards with his party in control of every parliamentary seat.[153]
+
+Protests broke out across the country on 5 August 2016 and dozens of protesters were subsequently shot and killed by police. The protesters demanded an end to human rights abuses, the release of political prisoners, a fairer redistribution of the wealth generated by over a decade of economic growth, and a return of Wolqayt District to the Amhara Region.[154][155][156] The events were the most violent crackdown against protesters in Sub-Saharan Africa since the Ethiopian government killed at least 75 people during protests in the Oromia Region in November and December 2015.[157][158] Following these protests, Ethiopia declared a state of emergency on 6 October 2016.[159] The state of emergency was lifted in August 2017.[160]
+
+On 16 February 2018, the government of Ethiopia declared a six-month nationwide state of emergency following the resignation of Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn.[161] Hailemariam is the first ruler in modern Ethiopian history to step down; previous leaders have died in office or been overthrown.[162] He said he wanted to clear the way for reforms.
+
+The new Prime Minister was Abiy Ahmed, who made a historic visit to Eritrea in 2018, ending the state of conflict between the countries.[163] For his efforts in ending the 20-year-long war between Ethiopia and Eritrea Abiy Ahmed was awarded with the Nobel prize for peace in 2019.[164] Since taking office in April 2018, 42-year-old Abiy has also released political prisoners, promised fair elections for 2019 and announced sweeping economic reforms.[165] As of 6 June 2019,[update] all the previously censored websites were made accessible again, over a thousand political prisoners were released and hundreds of administrative staff were fired as part of the reforms.[166][167][168][169]
+
+Ethnic violence rose with the political unrest. There were Oromo–Somali clashes between the Oromo, who make up the largest ethnic group in the country, and the ethnic Somalis, leading to up to 400,000 have been displaced in 2017.[170] Gedeo–Oromo clashes between the Oromo and the Gedeo people in the south of the country led to Ethiopia having the largest number of people to flee their homes in the world in 2018, with 1.4 million newly displaced people.[171] In September 2018 in the minorities protest that took place in Oromo near the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, 23 people were killed.[172] Some have blamed the rise in ethnic violence by the Oromo on the new Oromo Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed for giving space to groups formerly banned by previous Tigrayan-led governments, such as the Oromo Liberation Front.[173] Oromo-led protests broke out across Ethiopia following the assassination of musician Hachalu Hundessa on 29 June 2020, leading to the deaths of at least 200 people.[174]
+
+The dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam has escalated in 2020.[175][176] Egypt has opposed the dam, fearing that it will reduce the amount of water it receives from the Nile.[177] Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed warned that "No force can stop Ethiopia from building a dam. If there is need to go to war, we could get millions readied."[178]
+
+The politics of Ethiopia takes place in a framework of a federal parliamentary republic, wherein the Prime Minister is the head of government.
+
+The President is the head of state but with largely ceremonial powers. Executive power is exercised by the government. Federal legislative power is vested in both the government and the two chambers of parliament. On the basis of Article 78 of the 1994 Ethiopian Constitution, the Judiciary is completely independent of the executive and the legislature.[179] In 2015, the realities of this provision were questioned in a report prepared by Freedom House.[180]
+
+According to the Democracy Index published by the United Kingdom-based Economist Intelligence Unit in late 2010, Ethiopia was an "authoritarian regime", ranking as the 118th-most democratic out of 167 countries.[181] Ethiopia had dropped 12 places on the list since 2006, and the 2010 report attributed the drop to the government's crackdown on opposition activities, media and civil society before the 2010 parliamentary election, which the report argued had made Ethiopia a de facto one-party state.
+
+However, since the appointment of Abiy Ahmed as prime minister in 2018, the situation has rapidly evolved.[clarification needed]
+
+In July 2015, during a trip that then-U.S. President Barack Obama took to Ethiopia, he highlighted the role of the country in the fight against Islamic terrorism.[182] Obama was the first sitting United States president to visit Ethiopia.
+
+The election of Ethiopia's 547-member constituent assembly was held in June 1994. This assembly adopted the constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia in December 1994. The elections for Ethiopia's first popularly chosen national parliament and regional legislatures were held in May and June 1995. Most opposition parties chose to boycott these elections. There was a landslide victory for the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). International and non-governmental observers concluded that opposition parties would have been able to participate had they chosen to do so.[citation needed] The current government of Ethiopia was installed in August 1995. The first President was Negasso Gidada. The EPRDF-led government of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi promoted a policy of ethnic federalism, devolving significant powers to regional, ethnically based authorities. Ethiopia today has nine semi-autonomous administrative regions that have the power to raise and spend their own revenues. Under the present government, some fundamental freedoms, including freedom of the press, are circumscribed.[183]
+
+Citizens have little access to media other than the state-owned networks, and most private newspapers struggle to remain open and suffer periodic harassment from the government.[183] Since the 2005 elections, at least 18 journalists who had written articles critical of the government, were arrested on genocide and treason charges. The government uses press laws governing libel to intimidate journalists who are critical of its policies.[184]
+
+Meles' government was elected in 2000 in Ethiopia's first-ever multiparty elections; however, the results were heavily criticized by international observers and denounced by the opposition as fraudulent. The EPRDF also won the 2005 election returning Meles to power. Although the opposition vote increased in the election, both the opposition and observers from the European Union and elsewhere stated that the vote did not meet international standards for fair and free elections.[183] Ethiopian police are said to have massacred 193 protesters, mostly in the capital Addis Ababa, in the violence following the May 2005 elections in the Ethiopian police massacre.[185]
+
+The government initiated a crackdown in the provinces as well; in Oromia state the authorities used concerns over insurgency and terrorism to use torture, imprisonment, and other repressive methods to silence critics following the election, particularly people sympathetic to the registered opposition party Oromo National Congress (ONC).[184] The government has been engaged in a conflict with rebels in the Ogaden region since 2007. The biggest opposition party in 2005 was the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD). After various internal divisions, most of the CUD party leaders have established the new Unity for Democracy and Justice party led by Judge Birtukan Mideksa. A member of the country's Oromo ethnic group, Ms. Birtukan Mideksa is the first woman to lead a political party in Ethiopia.
+
+In 2008, the top five opposition parties were the Unity for Democracy and Justice led by Judge Birtukan Mideksa, United Ethiopian Democratic Forces led by Dr. Beyene Petros, Oromo Federalist Democratic Movement led by Dr. Bulcha Demeksa, Oromo People's Congress led by Dr. Merera Gudina, and United Ethiopian Democratic Party – Medhin Party led by Lidetu Ayalew.  After the 2015 elections, Ethiopia lost its single remaining opposition MP;[186] there are now no opposition MPs in the Ethiopian parliament.[187]
+
+Recent human rights violations include the killing of 100 peaceful protestors by direct government gunfire in the Oromo and Amhara regions in 2016.[188] The UN has called for UN observers on the ground in Ethiopia to investigate this incident,[189] however the EPRDF-dominated Ethiopian government has refused this call.[190] The protestors are protesting land grabs and lack of basic human rights such as the freedom to elect their representatives. The TPLF-dominated EPRDF won 100% in an election marked by fraud which has resulted in Ethiopian civilians protesting on scale unseen in prior post-election protests.[191]
+
+Merera Gudina, leader of the Oromo People's Congress, said the East African country was at a "crossroads". "People are demanding their rights," he said. "People are fed up with what the regime has been doing for a quarter of a century. They're protesting against land grabs, reparations, stolen elections, the rising cost of living, many things. "If the government continue to repress while the people are demanding their rights in the millions that (civil war) is one of the likely scenarios," Merera said in an interview with Reuters.[191]
+
+According to surveys in 2003 by the National Committee on Traditional Practices in Ethiopia, marriage by abduction accounts for 69% of the nation's marriages, with around 80% in the largest region, Oromiya, and as high as 92% in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region.[192][193] Homosexual acts are illegal in Ethiopia.[194] Journalists and activists have been threatened or arrested for their coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic in Ethiopia.[195]
+
+Among the Omotic Karo-speaking and Hamer peoples in southern Ethiopia, adults and children with physical abnormalities are considered to be mingi, "ritually impure". The latter are believed to exert an evil influence upon others; disabled infants have traditionally been murdered without a proper burial.[196] The Karo officially banned the practice in July 2012.[197]
+
+In 2013, the Oakland Institute released a report accusing the Ethiopian government of forcing the relocation of "hundreds of thousands of indigenous people from their lands" in the Gambela Region[198] The report describes the Ethiopian government's "plans to move over 1.5 million people" by the end of 2013, in order to allow foreign investors to develop the land for large scale industrial agriculture.[198] According to several reports by the organization, those who refused were the subject of a variety of intimidation techniques including physical and sexual abuse, which sometimes led to deaths.[199][200][201] A similar 2012 report by Human Rights Watch also describes the Ethiopian government's 2010–2011 villagization program in Gambella, with plans to carry out similar resettlements in other regions.[202] The Ethiopian government has denied the accusations of land grabbing and instead pointed to the positive trajectory of the countries economy as evidence of the development program's benefits.[201]
+Map of the Regions of Ethiopia; each is based on ethnicity and language, rather than physical geography or history.
+Despite a wide range of support from all over the world, and even winning Nobel peace prize for 2019, Prim minister Abiy Ahmed has failed to deliver the peace and integrity he promised in the highly divided nation. A nationwide series of violent protests, concentrated in the Oromia Region, broke out starting on 23 October 2019, sparked by activist and media owner Jawar Mohammed's allegation that security forces had attempted to detain him. According to official reports, 86 people were killed,[203] mostly by mobs targeting ethnic and religious minorities within the region and surrounding areas, including Addis Ababa, Dire Dawa, and the Harari Region.[citation needed]
+
+On 29 May 2020, Amnesty International released a report accusing the security forces of Ethiopia of mass detentions and extrajudicial killings. The report stated that in 2019, at least 25 people, suspected of supporting the Oromo Liberation Army, were killed by the forces in parts the Oromia Region. Besides, between January and September 2019, at least 10,000 people were detained under suspicion, where most were “subjected to brutal beatings”.[204]
+
+Since 1996, landlocked Ethiopia has had no navy and the army is relatively small with about 170,000 volunteers on active duty. In 2018 Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said on state TV: "We built one of the strongest ground and air force in Africa ... we should build our naval force capacity in the future."[205]
+
+Before 1996, Ethiopia was divided into thirteen provinces, many derived from historical regions. The nation now has a tiered governmental system consisting of a federal government overseeing ethnically based regional states, zones, districts (woreda), and kebeles ("neighbourhoods").
+
+Since 1996, Ethiopia has been divided into nine ethnically based and politically autonomous regional states (kililoch, singular kilil ) and two chartered cities (astedader akababiwoch, singular astedader akababi ), the latter being Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa. The kililoch are subdivided into sixty-eight zones, and then further into 550 woredas and several special woredas.
+
+The constitution assigns extensive power to regional states, which can establish their own government and democracy as long as it is in line with the federal government's constitution. Each region has at its apex a regional council where members are directly elected to represent the districts and the council has legislative and executive power to direct internal affairs of the regions.
+
+Article 39 of the Ethiopian Constitution further gives every regional state the right to secede from Ethiopia. There is debate, however, as to how much of the power guaranteed in the constitution is actually given to the states. The councils implement their mandate through an executive committee and regional sectoral bureaus. Such elaborate structure of council, executive, and sectoral public institutions is replicated to the next level (woreda).
+
+At 1,104,300 square kilometres (426,372.61 sq mi),[6] Ethiopia is the world's 28th-largest country, comparable in size to Bolivia. It lies between the 3rd parallel north and the 15th parallel north and longitudes 33rd meridian east and 48th meridian east.
+
+The major portion of Ethiopia lies in the Horn of Africa, which is the easternmost part of the African landmass. The territories that have frontiers with Ethiopia are Eritrea to the north and then, moving in a clockwise direction, Djibouti, the de facto state of Somaliland, Somalia, Kenya, South Sudan and Sudan. Within Ethiopia is a vast highland complex of mountains and dissected plateaus divided by the Great Rift Valley, which runs generally southwest to northeast and is surrounded by lowlands, steppes, or semi-desert. There is a great diversity of terrain with wide variations in climate, soils, natural vegetation and settlement patterns.
+
+Ethiopia is an ecologically diverse country, ranging from the deserts along the eastern border to the tropical forests in the south to extensive Afromontane in the northern and southwestern parts. Lake Tana in the north is the source of the Blue Nile. It also has many endemic species, notably the gelada, the walia ibex and the Ethiopian wolf ("Simien fox"). The wide range of altitude has given the country a variety of ecologically distinct areas, and this has helped to encourage the evolution of endemic species in ecological isolation.
+
+The predominant climate type is tropical monsoon, with wide topographic-induced variation. The Ethiopian Highlands cover most of the country and have a climate which is generally considerably cooler than other regions at similar proximity to the Equator. Most of the country's major cities are located at elevations of around 2,000–2,500 m (6,562–8,202 ft) above sea level, including historic capitals such as Gondar and Axum.
+
+The modern capital, Addis Ababa, is situated on the foothills of Mount Entoto at an elevation of around 2,400 metres (7,900 ft). It experiences a mild climate year round. With temperatures fairly uniform year round, the seasons in Addis Ababa are largely defined by rainfall: a dry season from October to February, a light rainy season from March to May, and a heavy rainy season from June to September. The average annual rainfall is approximately 1,200 millimetres (47 in).
+
+There are on average seven hours of sunshine per day. The dry season is the sunniest time of the year, though even at the height of the rainy season in July and August there are still usually several hours per day of bright sunshine. The average annual temperature in Addis Ababa is 16 °C (60.8 °F), with daily maximum temperatures averaging 20–25 °C (68.0–77.0 °F) throughout the year, and overnight lows averaging 5–10 °C (41.0–50.0 °F).
+
+Most major cities and tourist sites in Ethiopia lie at a similar elevation to Addis Ababa and have a comparable climate. In less elevated regions, particularly the lower lying Ethiopian xeric grasslands and shrublands in the east of the country, the climate can be significantly hotter and drier. Dallol, in the Danakil Depression in this eastern zone, has the world's highest average annual temperature of 34 °C (93.2 °F).
+
+Ethiopia has 31 endemic species of mammals.[208] The African wild dog prehistorically had widespread distribution in the territory. However, with last sightings at Finicha'a, this canid is thought to be potentially locally extinct. The Ethiopian wolf is perhaps the most researched of all the endangered species within Ethiopia.
+
+Ethiopia is a global center of avian diversity. To date more than 856 bird species have been recorded in Ethiopia, twenty of which are endemic to the country.[209] Sixteen species are endangered or critically endangered. Many of these birds feed on butterflies, like the Bicyclus anynana.[210]
+
+Historically, throughout the African continent, wildlife populations have been rapidly declining due to logging, civil wars, pollution, poaching, and other human factors.[211] A 17-year-long civil war, along with severe drought, negatively affected Ethiopia's environmental conditions, leading to even greater habitat degradation.[212] Habitat destruction is a factor that leads to endangerment. When changes to a habitat occur rapidly, animals do not have time to adjust. Human impact threatens many species, with greater threats expected as a result of climate change induced by greenhouse gases.[213] With carbon dioxide emissions in 2010 of 6,494,000 tonnes, Ethiopia contributes just 0.02% to the annual human-caused release of greenhouse gases.[214]
+
+Ethiopia has many species listed as critically endangered, endangered, and vulnerable to global extinction. The threatened species in Ethiopia can be broken down into three categories (based on IUCN ratings): critically endangered, endangered, and vulnerable.[208]
+
+Ethiopia is one of the eight fundamental and independent centers of origin for cultivated plants in the world.[216] However, deforestation is a major concern for Ethiopia as studies suggest loss of forest contributes to soil erosion, loss of nutrients in the soil, loss of animal habitats, and reduction in biodiversity. At the beginning of the 20th century, around 420,000 km2 (or 35%) of Ethiopia's land was covered by trees, but recent research indicates that forest cover is now approximately 11.9% of the area.[217]
+
+Ethiopia loses an estimated 1,410 km2 of natural forests each year. Between 1990 and 2005 the country lost approximately 21,000 km2 of forests.[citation needed] Current government programs to control deforestation consist of education, promoting reforestation programs, and providing raw materials which are alternatives to timber. In rural areas the government also provides non-timber fuel sources and access to non-forested land to promote agriculture without destroying forest habitat.[citation needed] [218]
+
+Organizations such as SOS and Farm Africa are working with the federal government and local governments to create a system of forest management.[219] Working with a grant of approximately 2.3 million Euros, the Ethiopian government recently began training people on reducing erosion and using proper irrigation techniques that do not contribute to deforestation. This project is assisting more than 80 communities.[citation needed]
+
+Since April 2019, Ethiopian prime minister, Abiy Ahmed has promoted Beautifying Sheger, a development project that aims to reduce the negative effects of climate change – among other things – in the capital city of Addis Ababa.[220] In the following May, the government held "Dine for Sheger", a fundraising event in order to cover some of the $1 billion needed through the public.[221] $25 million was raised through the expensive event, both through the cost of attending and donation.[222] Two Chinese railway companies under the Belt and Road Initiative between China and Ethiopia had supplied funds to develop 12 of the total 56 kilometres.[223]
+
+According to the IMF, Ethiopia was one of the fastest growing economies in the world, registering over 10% economic growth from 2004 through 2009.[225] It was the fastest-growing non-oil-dependent African economy in the years 2007 and 2008.[226] In 2015, the World Bank highlighted that Ethiopia had witnessed rapid economic growth with real domestic product (GDP) growth averaging 10.9% between 2004 and 2014.[227]
+
+In 2008 and 2011, Ethiopia's growth performance and considerable development gains were challenged by high inflation and a difficult balance of payments situation. Inflation surged to 40% in August 2011 because of loose monetary policy, large civil service wage increase in early 2011, and high food prices.[228] For 2011/12, end-year inflation was projected to be about 22%, and single digit inflation is projected in 2012/13 with the implementation of tight monetary and fiscal policies.[229]
+
+In spite of fast growth in recent years, GDP per capita is one of the lowest in the world, and the economy faces a number of serious structural problems. However, with a focused investment in public infrastructure and industrial parks, Ethiopia's economy is addressing its structural problems to become a hub for light manufacturing in Africa.[230] In 2019 a law was passed allowing expatriate Ethiopians to invest in Ethiopia's financial service industry.[231]
+
+The Ethiopian constitution defines the right to own land as belonging only to "the state and the people", but citizens may lease land (up to 99 years), and are unable to mortgage or sell. Renting of land for a maximum of twenty years is allowed and this is expected to ensure that land goes to the most productive user. Land distribution and administration is considered an area where corruption is institutionalized, and facilitation payments as well as bribes are often demanded when dealing with land-related issues.[232] As there is no land ownership, infrastructural projects are most often simply done without asking the land users, which then end up being displaced and without home or land. A lot of anger and distrust sometimes results in public protests. In addition, agricultural productivity remains low, and frequent droughts still beset the country, also leading to internal displacement.[233]
+
+Ethiopia has 14 major rivers flowing from its highlands, including the Nile. It has the largest water reserves in Africa. As of 2012[update], hydroelectric plants represented around 88.2% of the total installed electricity generating capacity.
+
+The remaining electrical power was generated from fossil fuels (8.3%) and renewable sources (3.6%).
+
+The electrification rate for the total population in 2016 was 42%, with 85% coverage in urban areas and 26% coverage in rural areas. As of 2016[update], total electricity production was 11.15 TW⋅h and consumption was 9.062 TW⋅h. There were 0.166 TW⋅h of electricity exported, 0 kW⋅h imported, and 2.784 GW of installed generating capacity.[13]
+
+Ethiopia delivers roughly 81% of water volume to the Nile through the river basins of the Blue Nile, Sobat River and Atbara. In 1959, Egypt and Sudan signed a bilateral treaty, the 1959 Nile Waters Agreement, which gave both countries exclusive maritime rights over the Nile waters. Ever since, Egypt has discouraged almost all projects in Ethiopia that sought to utilize the local Nile tributaries. This had the effect of discouraging external financing of hydropower and irrigation projects in western Ethiopia, thereby impeding water resource-based economic development projects. However, Ethiopia is in the process of constructing a large 6,450 MW hydroelectric dam on the Blue Nile river. When completed, this Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is slated to be the largest hydroelectric power station in Africa.[234]
+
+The Gibe III hydroelectric project is so far the largest in the country with an installed capacity of 1,870 MW. For the year 2017–18 (2010 E.C) this hydro electric dam generated 4,900 GW⋅h.[235]
+
+Agriculture constitutes around 85% of the labour force. However, the service sector represents the largest portion of the GDP.[13] Many other economic activities depend on agriculture, including marketing, processing, and export of agricultural products. Production is overwhelmingly by small-scale farmers and enterprises, and a large part of commodity exports are provided by the small agricultural cash-crop sector. Principal crops include coffee, legumes, oilseeds, cereals, potatoes, sugarcane, and vegetables. Ethiopia is also a Vavilov center of diversity for domesticated crops, including enset,[236] coffee and teff.
+
+Exports are almost entirely agricultural commodities (with the exception of Gold exports), and coffee is the largest foreign exchange earner. Ethiopia is Africa's second biggest maize producer.[237] According to UN estimations the per capita GDP of Ethiopia has reached $357 as of 2011[update].[238]
+
+Exports from Ethiopia in the 2009/2010 financial year totaled US$1.4 billion.[239] The country produces more coffee than any other nation on the continent.[240]"Coffee provides a livelihood for close to 15 million Ethiopians, 16% of the population. Farmers in the eastern part of the country, where a warming climate is already impacting production, have struggled in recent years, and many are currently reporting largely failed harvests as a result of a prolonged drought".[241]
+
+Ethiopia also has the 5th largest inventory of cattle.[242] Other main export commodities are khat, gold, leather products, and oilseeds. Recent development of the floriculture sector means Ethiopia is poised to become one of the top flower and plant exporters in the world.[243]
+
+Cross-border trade by pastoralists is often informal and beyond state control and regulation. In East Africa, over 95% of cross-border trade is through unofficial channels. The unofficial trade of live cattle, camels, sheep, and goats from Ethiopia sold to Somalia, Djibouti, and Kenya generates an estimated total value of between 250 and US$300 million annually (100 times more than the official figure).[244]
+
+This trade helps lower food prices, increase food security, relieve border tensions, and promote regional integration.[244] However, the unregulated and undocumented nature of this trade runs risks, such as allowing disease to spread more easily across national borders. Furthermore, the government of Ethiopia is purportedly unhappy with lost tax revenue and foreign exchange revenues.[244] Recent initiatives have sought to document and regulate this trade.[244]
+
+With the private sector growing slowly, designer leather products like bags are becoming a big export business, with Taytu becoming the first luxury designer label in the country.[245] Additional small-scale export products include cereals, pulses, cotton, sugarcane, potatoes, and hides. With the construction of various new dams and growing hydroelectric power projects around the country, Ethiopia also plans to export electric power to its neighbors.[246][247]
+
+Most regard Ethiopia's large water resources and potential as its "white oil" and its coffee resources as "black gold".[248][249]
+
+The country also has large mineral resources and oil potential in some of the less inhabited regions. Political instability in those regions, however, has inhibited development. Ethiopian geologists were implicated in a major gold swindle in 2008. Four chemists and geologists from the Ethiopian Geological Survey were arrested in connection with a fake gold scandal, following complaints from buyers in South Africa. Gold bars from the National Bank of Ethiopia were found by police to be gilded metal, costing the state around US$17 million, according to the Science and Development Network website.[250]
+
+In 2011, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam project was commenced. When completed, it will provide surplus energy in Ethiopia which will be available for export to neighboring countries.
+
+Ethiopia has 926 km of electrified 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) standard gauge railways, 656 km for the Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway between Addis Ababa and the Port of Djibouti (via Awash)[251] and 270 km for the Awash–Hara Gebeya Railway between Addis Ababa and the twin cities of Dessie/Kombolcha[252] (also via Awash). Both railways are either in trial service or still under construction as of August 2017[update]. Once commissioned and fully operational in 2018/2019, both railways will allow passenger transport with a designated speed of 120 km/hour and freight transport with a speed of ~80 km/hour. Expected travel time from Addis Ababa to Djibouti City for passengers would be less than twelve hours and travel time from Addis Ababa to Dessie/Kombolcha would be around six hours.
+
+Beyond the first 270 km of the Awash–Hara Gebeya Railway, a second construction phase over 120 km foresees the extension of this railway from Dessie/Kombolcha to Hara Gebeya/Woldiya. It is not clear, when this section will be built and opened.[253] A third, northern 216 km long railway is also under construction between Mek'ele and Woldiya, but it is also not clear, when this railway will be commissioned and opened.[254] All railways are part of a future railway network of more than 5,000 km of railways, the National Railway Network of Ethiopia.
+
+As the first part of a ten-year Road Sector Development Program, between 1997 and 2002 the Ethiopian government began a sustained effort to improve its infrastructure of roads. As a result, as of 2015[update] Ethiopia has a total (Federal and Regional) of 100,000 km of roads, both paved and gravel.[255]
+
+Ethiopia had 58 airports as of 2012[update],[13] and 61 as of 2016[update].[256] Among these, the Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa and the Aba Tenna Dejazmach Yilma International Airport in Dire Dawa accommodate international flights. Ethiopian Airlines is the country's flag carrier, and is wholly owned by the Government of Ethiopia.[257] From its hub at the Bole International Airport, the airline serves a network of 102 international passenger, 20 domestic passenger, and 44 cargo destinations.[258][259] It is also one of the fastest-growing carriers in the industry and continent.[260]
+
+Ethiopia's total population has grown from 38.1 million in 1983 to 109.5 million in 2018.[261] The population was only about nine million in the 19th century.[262] The 2007 Population and Housing Census results show that the population of Ethiopia grew at an average annual rate of 2.6% between 1994 and 2007, down from 2.8% during the period 1983–1994. Currently, the population growth rate is among the top ten countries in the world. The population is forecast to grow to over 210 million by 2060, which would be an increase from 2011 estimates by a factor of about 2.5.[263] According to UN estimations, life expectancy had improved substantially in recent years with male life expectancy reported to be 56 years and for women 60 years.[238]
+
+The country's population is highly diverse, containing over 80 different ethnic groups. According to the Ethiopian national census of 2007, the Oromo are the largest ethnic group in Ethiopia, at 34.4% of the nation's population. The Amhara represent 27.0% of the country's inhabitants, while Somalis and Tigrayans represent 6.2% and 6.1% of the population, respectively. Other prominent ethnic groups are as follows: Sidama 4.0%, Gurage 2.5%, Welayta 2.3%, Afar 1.7%, Hadiya 1.7%, Gamo 1.5% and Arabs and others 12.6%.[9]
+
+Afroasiatic-speaking communities make up the majority of the population. Among these, Semitic speakers often collectively refer to themselves as the Habesha people. The Arabic form of this term (al-Ḥabasha) is the etymological basis of "Abyssinia," the former name of Ethiopia in English and other European languages.[265] Additionally, Nilo-Saharan-speaking ethnic minorities inhabit the southern regions of the country, particularly in areas of the Gambela Region which borders South Sudan. The largest ethnic groups among these include the Nuer and Anuak.
+
+In addition, Ethiopia had over 75,000 Italian settlers during the Italian occupation of the country.[266] After independence, many Italians remained for decades after receiving full pardons from Emperor Selassie, as he saw the opportunity to continue modernization efforts.[267] However, due to the Ethiopian Civil War in 1974, nearly 22,000 Italo-Ethiopians left the country.[267] In the 2000s, some Italian companies returned to operate in Ethiopia, and many Italian technicians and managers arrived with their families, residing mainly in the metropolitan area of the capital.[268]
+
+In 2009, Ethiopia hosted a population of refugees and asylum seekers numbering approximately 135,200. The majority of this population came from Somalia (approximately 64,300 persons), Eritrea (41,700) and Sudan (25,900). The Ethiopian government required nearly all refugees to live in refugee camps.[269]
+
+Languages of Ethiopia as of 2007[update] Census[9]
+
+According to Ethnologue, there are 90 individual languages spoken in Ethiopia.[270] Most people in the country speak Afroasiatic languages of the Cushitic or Semitic branches. The former includes Oromo language, spoken by the Oromo, and Somali, spoken by the Somalis; the latter includes Amharic, spoken by the Amhara, and Tigrinya, spoken by the Tigrayans. Together, these four groups make up about three-quarters of Ethiopia's population. Other Afroasiatic languages with a significant number of speakers include the Cushitic Sidamo, Afar, Hadiyya and Agaw languages, as well as the Semitic Gurage languages, Harari, Silt'e, and Argobba languages.[9] Arabic, which also belongs to the Afroasiatic family, is likewise spoken in some areas.[271]
+
+Additionally, Omotic languages are spoken by Omotic ethnic minority groups inhabiting the southern regions. Among these idioms are Aari, Bench, Dime, Dizin, Gamo-Gofa-Dawro, Maale, Hamer, and Wolaytta.[9]
+
+Languages from the Nilo-Saharan family are also spoken by ethnic minorities concentrated in the southwestern parts of the country. These languages include Nuer, Anuak, Nyangatom, Majang, Suri, Me'en, and Mursi.[9]
+
+English is the most widely spoken foreign language, and is the medium of instruction in secondary schools. Amharic was the language of primary school instruction, but has been replaced in many areas by regional languages such as Oromiffa, Somali or Tigrinya.[272] While all languages enjoy equal state recognition in the 1995 Constitution of Ethiopia and Oromo is the most widely spoken language, Amharic is recognized as the official working language of the Federal Government.[2]
+
+The various regions of Ethiopia and chartered cities are free to determine their own working languages.[272] Amharic is recognised as the official working language of Amhara Region, Benishangul-Gumuz, Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region, Gambela Region, Addis Abeba and Dire Dawa.[273] Oromo language serves as the official working language and the primary language of education in the Oromia,[274] Harar and Dire Dawa and of the Oromia Zone in the Amhara Region. Somali is the official working language of Somali region and Dire Dawa, while Afar,[275] Harari,[276] and Tigrinya[277] are recognized as official working languages in their respective regions.
+
+Italian is still spoken by few parts of the population, mostly among older generations, and is taught in many schools (most notably the Istituto Statale Italiano Omnicomprensivo di Addis Abeba). Also, Amharic and Tigrinya have many words borrowed from the Italian language.[278][279]
+
+Ethiopia's principal orthography is the Ge'ez script. Employed as an abugida for several of the country's languages, it first came into usage in the 6th and 5th centuries BC as an abjad to transcribe the Semitic Ge'ez language.[280] Ge'ez now serves as the liturgical language of both the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Churches. During the 1980s, the Ethiopic character set was computerized. It is today part of the Unicode standard as Ethiopic, Ethiopic Extended, Ethiopic Supplement and Ethiopic Extended-A.
+
+Other writing systems have also been used over the years by different Ethiopian communities. The latter include Bakri Sapalo's script for Oromiffa.[281]
+
+Religion in Ethiopia (2007)
+
+Ethiopia has close historical ties with all three of the world's major Abrahamic religions. In the 4th century, the Ethiopian empire was one of the first in the world to officially adopt Christianity as the state religion. As a result of the resolutions of the Council of Chalcedon, in 451 the miaphysites,[282] which included the vast majority of Christians in Egypt and Ethiopia, were accused of monophysitism and designated as heretics under the common name of Coptic Christianity (see Oriental Orthodoxy). While no longer distinguished as a state religion, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church remains the majority Christian denomination. There is also a substantial Muslims demographic, representing around a third of the population. Additionally, Ethiopia is the site of the First Hegira, a major emigration in Islamic history. A town in the Tigray Region, Negash is the oldest Muslim settlement in Africa.
+
+Until the 1980s, a substantial population of Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jews) resided in Ethiopia.[283][284] About 4,000 are estimated to still live in the country, along with many more members of two related ethno-religious groups, the Falash Mura and the Beta Abraham. The Falash Mura are Beta Israel who, while identifying as Jews, adopted elements of Christianity due to missionary efforts, and now practice a syncretic form of Ethiopian Judaism mixed with Christianity; they number about 150,000 people. The Beta Abraham are regarded as a medieval offshoot of the Beta Israel, having incorporated elements of traditional African religion, and number about 8,000. While both still identify as Beta Israel, they exist outside the main community. The official Beta Israel community leaders tentatively accept the Falash Mura, and have requested they be allowed to emigrate to Israel. The Beta Abraham have historically been shunned by most other communities, having a reputation of being "sorcerers".
+
+According to the 2007 National Census, Christians make up 62.8% of the country's population (43.5% Ethiopian Orthodox, 19.3% other denominations), Muslims 33.9%, practitioners of traditional faiths 2.6%, and other religions 0.6%.[9] This is in agreement with the CIA World Factbook, which states that Christianity is the most widely practiced religion in Ethiopia.[13] The ratio of the Christian to Muslim population has largely remained stable when compared to previous censuses conducted decades ago.[285] Sunnis form the majority of Muslims with non-denominational Muslims being the second largest group of Muslims, and the Shia and Ahmadiyyas are a minority. Sunnis are largely Shafi'is or Salafis, and there are also many Sufi Muslims there.[286] The large Muslim population in the northern Afar region has resulted in a Muslim separatist movement called the "Islamic State of Afaria" seeking a sharia-compliant constitution.[287]
+
+Some critics asserted that the Haile Selassie regime had been fabricating the census to present Ethiopia as a Christian country to the outside world, stating that Islam made up 50% of the total population in 1991, based on the 1984 census commissioned by the Derg regime.[288] Several Muslim observers and bloggers claim that Muslims are in the majority and disagree with the above census numbers, without providing factual data supporting their claims.[289]
+
+The Kingdom of Aksum was one of the first polities to officially embrace Christianity, when Frumentius of Tyre, called Fremnatos or Abba Selama ("Father of Peace") in Ethiopia, converted Emperor Ezana during the fourth century.[69][283] According to the New Testament, Christianity had entered Ethiopia even earlier, when an official in the Ethiopian royal treasury was baptized by Philip the Evangelist.[290]
+
+The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church is part of Oriental Orthodoxy. It is by far the largest Christian denomination, although a number of P'ent'ay (Protestant) churches have recently gained ground. Since 1930, a relatively small Ethiopian Catholic Church has existed in full communion with Rome, with adherents making up less than 1% of the total population.[285][291]
+
+Islam in Ethiopia dates back to the founding of the religion in 622 when a group of Muslims were counseled by Muhammad to escape persecution in Mecca. The disciples subsequently migrated to Abyssinia via modern-day Eritrea, which was at the time ruled by Ashama ibn-Abjar, a pious Christian emperor.[283] Also, the largest single ethnic group of non-Arab Sahabah was that of the Ethiopians.[citation needed]
+
+According to the 2007 Population and Housing Census, around 1,957,944 people in Ethiopia are adherents of traditional religions. An additional 471,861 residents practice other creeds.[9] While followers of all religions can be found in each region, they tend to be concentrated in certain parts of the country. Christians predominantly live in the northern Amhara and Tigray regions, and are largely members of the non-Chalcedonian Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. Those belonging to P'ent'ay are centered in the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region (SNNP) and Oromia. Muslims in Ethiopia predominantly adhere to Sunni Islam and generally inhabit eastern and northeastern areas; particularly the Somali, Afar, Dire Dawa and Harari regions. Practitioners of traditional religions mainly reside in the nation's far southwestern and western rural borderlands, in the SNNP, Benishangul-Gumuz and Gambela regions.[9][283]
+
+Human rights groups have regularly accused the government of arresting activists, journalists and bloggers to stamp out dissent among some religious communities. Lengthy prison terms were handed to 17 Muslim activists on 3 August 2015 ranging from seven to 22 years. They were charged with trying to create an Islamic state in the majority Christian country. All the defendants denied the charges and claimed that they were merely protesting in defence of their rights.[292][293][294]
+
+There is a small, yet significant number of Jews in Ethiopia, who claim to be one of the lost tribes of Israel. In the 1980s, the number of Ethiopian-Jews decreased, as many started moving to Israel. The tribe has been given the name Beta Israel / ቤታ እስራኤል / ביתא ישראל. There are a higher number of Ethiopian-Jews living in Israel today, though, in certain Ethiopian towns and villages such as Wolleka, near the Ethiopian city of Gondar, the concentration of Ethiopian-Jews reaches an estimated 100%. The US also has a significant number of Ethiopian-Jews, with a population slightly less than that of Ethiopia.
+
+Population growth, migration, and urbanization are all straining both governments' and ecosystems' capacity to provide people with basic services.[295] Urbanization has steadily been increasing in Ethiopia, with two periods of significantly rapid growth. First, in 1936–1941 during the Italian occupation under Mussolini's fascist government, and from 1967 to 1975 when the populations of urban centers tripled.[296]
+
+In 1936, Italy annexed Ethiopia, building infrastructure to connect major cities, and a dam providing power and water.[26] This along with the influx of Italians and labourers was the major cause of rapid growth during this period. The second period of growth was from 1967 to 1975 when rural populations migrated to urban centers seeking work and better living conditions.[296]
+
+This pattern slowed due to the 1975 Land Reform program instituted by the government, which provided incentives for people to stay in rural areas. As people moved from rural areas to the cities, there were fewer people to grow food for the population. The Land Reform Act was meant to increase agriculture since food production was not keeping up with population growth over the period of 1970–1983. This program proliferated the formation of peasant associations, large villages based on agriculture. The act did lead to an increase in food production, although there is debate over the cause; it may be related to weather conditions more than the reform act.[297] Urban populations have continued to grow with an 8.1% increase from 1975 to 2000.[298]
+
+Migration to urban areas is usually motivated by the hope of better lives. In peasant associations daily life is a struggle to survive. About 16% of the population in Ethiopia are living on less than one dollar per day (2008). Only 65% of rural households in Ethiopia consume the World Health Organization's minimum standard of food per day (2,200 kilocalories), with 42% of children under 5 years old being underweight.[299]
+
+Most poor families (75%) share their sleeping quarters with livestock, and 40% of children sleep on the floor, where nighttime temperatures average 5 degrees Celsius in the cold season.[299] The average family size is six or seven, living in a 30-square-meter mud and thatch hut, with less than two hectares of land to cultivate.[299]
+
+The peasant associations face a cycle of poverty. Since the landholdings are so small, farmers cannot allow the land to lie fallow, which reduces soil fertility.[299] This land degradation reduces the production of fodder for livestock, which causes low milk yields.[299] Since the community burns livestock manure as fuel, rather than plowing the nutrients back into the land, the crop production is reduced.[299] The low productivity of agriculture leads to inadequate incomes for farmers, hunger, malnutrition and disease. These unhealthy farmers have difficulty working the land and the productivity drops further.[299]
+
+Although conditions are drastically better in cities, all of Ethiopia suffers from poverty and poor sanitation. However, poverty in Ethiopia fell from 44% to 29.6% during 2000–2011, according to the World Bank.[300] In the capital city of Addis Ababa, 55% of the population used to live in slums.[26] Now, however, a construction boom in both the private and the public sector has led to a dramatic improvement in living standards in major cities, particularly in Addis Ababa. Notably, government-built condominium housing complexes have sprung up throughout the city, benefiting close to 600,000 individuals.[301] Sanitation is the most pressing need in the city, with most of the population lacking access to waste treatment facilities. This contributes to the spread of illness through unhealthy water.[26]
+
+Despite the living conditions in the cities, the people of Addis Ababa are much better off than people living in the peasant associations owing to their educational opportunities. Unlike rural children, 69% of urban children are enrolled in primary school, and 35% of those are eligible to attend secondary school.[clarification needed][26] Addis Ababa has its own university as well as many other secondary schools. The literacy rate is 82%.[26]
+
+Many NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) are working to solve this problem; however, most are far apart, uncoordinated, and working in isolation.[298] The Sub-Saharan Africa NGO Consortium is attempting to coordinate efforts.[298]
+
+The World Health Organization's 2006 World Health Report gives a figure of 1,936 physicians (for 2003),[302] which comes to about 2.6 per 100,000. A brain drain associated with globalization is said to affect the country, with many educated professionals leaving Ethiopia for better economic opportunities in the West.
+
+Ethiopia's main health problems are said to be communicable (contagious) diseases worsened by poor sanitation and malnutrition. Over 44 million people (nearly half the population) do not have access to clean water.[303] These problems are exacerbated by the shortage of trained doctors and nurses and health facilities.[304]
+
+The state of public health is considerably better in the cities. Birth rates, infant mortality rates, and death rates are lower in cities than in rural areas due to better access to education, medicines, and hospitals.[26] Life expectancy is better in cities compared to rural areas, but there have been significant improvements witnessed throughout the country in recent years, the average Ethiopian living to be 62.2 years old, according to a UNDP report.[305] Despite sanitation being a problem, use of improved water sources is also on the rise; 81% in cities compared to 11% in rural areas.[298] As in other parts of Africa, there has been a steady migration of people towards the cities in hopes of better living conditions.
+
+There are 119 hospitals (12 in Addis Ababa) and 412 health centers in Ethiopia.[306] Infant mortality rates are relatively high, as 41 infants die per 1,000 live births.[307] Ethiopia has been able to reduce under-five mortality by two-thirds (one of the Millennium Development Goals) since 1990.[306] Although this is a dramatic decrease, birth-related complications such as obstetric fistula affect many of the nation's women.
+
+HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia stood at 1.1% in 2014, a dramatic decrease from 4.5% 15 years ago.[citation needed] The most affected are poor communities and women, due to lack of health education, empowerment, awareness and lack of social well-being. The government of Ethiopia and many international organizations like World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations, are launching campaigns and are working aggressively to improve Ethiopia's health conditions and promote health awareness on AIDS and other communicable diseases.[308]
+
+Ethiopia has a relatively high infant and maternal mortality rate. Although, Ethiopia did not meet the MDG target of reducing maternal mortality rate by two thirds in 2015, there are improvements nonetheless. For instance, the contraception prevalence rate increased from 8.1% in 2000 to 41.8% in 2014, and Antenatal care service coverage increase from 29% to an astounding 98.1% in the same period.[citation needed] Currently, the maternal mortality rate stands at 420 per 100,000 live births.[citation needed] Only a minority of Ethiopians are born in hospitals, while most are born in rural households. Those who are expected to give birth at home have elderly women serve as midwives who assist with the delivery.[309] The "WHO estimates that a majority of maternal fatalities and disabilities could be prevented if deliveries were to take place at well-equipped health centers, with adequately trained staff".[310]
+
+The low availability of health-care professionals with modern medical training, together with lack of funds for medical services, leads to the preponderance of less-reliable traditional healers that use home-based therapies to heal common ailments.
+
+One common cultural practice, irrespective of religion or economic status, is female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female genital cutting (FGC), a procedure that involves partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.[311] The practice was made illegal in Ethiopia in 2004.[312] FGM is a pre-marital custom mainly endemic to Northeast Africa and parts of the Near East that has its ultimate origins in Ancient Egypt.[313][314] Encouraged by women in the community, it is primarily intended to deter promiscuity and to offer protection from assault.[315]
+
+The country has a high prevalence of FGM, but prevalence is lower among young girls. Ethiopia's 2005 Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS) noted that the national prevalence rate is 74% among women ages 15–49.[316] The practice is almost universal in the regions of Dire Dawa, Somali, and Afar. In the Oromo and Harari regions, more than 80% of girls and women undergo the procedure. FGC is least prevalent in the regions of Tigray and Gambela, where 29% and 27% of girls and women, respectively, are affected.[317] According to a 2010 study performed by the Population Reference Bureau, Ethiopia has a prevalence rate of 81% among women ages 35 to 39 and 62% among women ages 15–19.[318] A 2014 UNICEF report found that only 24% of girls under 14 had undergone FGM.[319]
+
+Male circumcision is also practiced in the country, and about 76% of Ethiopia's male population is reportedly circumcised.[320]
+
+The Government of the Federal Republic of Ethiopia is signatory to various international conventions and treaties that protect the rights of women and children. Its constitution provides for the fundamental rights and freedoms for women. There is an attempt being made to raise the social and economic status of women through eliminating all legal and customary practices, which hinder women's equal participation in society and undermine their social status.
+
+The National Mental Health Strategy, published in 2012, introduced the development of policy designed to improve mental health care in Ethiopia. This strategy mandated that mental health be integrated into the primary health care system.[321] However, the success of the National Mental Health Strategy has been limited. For example, the burden of depression is estimated to have increased 34.2% from 2007 to 2017.[322] Furthermore, the prevalence of stigmatizing attitudes, inadequate leadership and co-ordination of efforts, as well as a lack of mental health awareness in the general population, all remain as obstacles to successful mental health care.[323]
+
+Education in Ethiopia was dominated by the Tewahedo Church for many centuries until secular education was adopted in the early 1900s. The current system follows school expansion schemes which are very similar to the system in the rural areas during the 1980s, with an addition of deeper regionalization, providing rural education in students' own languages starting at the elementary level, and with more budget finances allocated to the education sector. The sequence of general education in Ethiopia is six years of primary school, four years of lower secondary school and two years of higher secondary school.[324]
+
+Access to education in Ethiopia has improved significantly. Approximately three million people were in primary school in 1994/95, and by 2008/09, primary enrolment had risen to 15.5 million – an increase of over 500%.[325] In 2013/14, the country had witnessed significant boost in gross enrolment across all regions.[326] The national GER was 104.8% for boys, 97.8% for girls and 101.3% across both sexes.[327]
+
+The literacy rate has increased in recent years: according to the 1994 census, the literacy rate in Ethiopia was 23.4%.[270] In 2007 it was estimated to be 39% (male 49.1% and female 28.9%).[328] A report by UNDP in 2011 showed that the literacy rate in Ethiopia was 46.7%. The same report also indicated that the female literacy rate has increased from 27 to 39 percent from 2004 to 2011, and the male literacy rate has increased from 49 to 59 percent over the same period for persons 10 years and older.[329] By 2015, the literacy rate had further increased, to 49.1% (57.2% male and 41.1% female).[330]
+
+Ethiopians have a different naming system to the family name-based Western system. Children add the given names of their father and paternal grandfather consecutively to their own given name. For compatibility purposes, as is done in passports, the grandfather's given name is taken as a family surname, and a person's given name and their father's given name form the first names.
+
+Everyone is addressed by their given name. In official situations, the prefixes Ato (አቶ) is used for men; Weyzero (ወይዘሮ) for married women; and Weyzerīt (ወይዘሪት) for unmarried women.
+
+Ethiopia has several local calendars. The most widely known is the Ethiopian calendar, also known as the Ge'ez calendar. It is based on the older Alexandrian or Coptic calendar, which in turn derives from the Egyptian calendar. Like the Coptic calendar, the Ethiopian calendar has twelve months of exactly 30 days each plus five or six epagomenal days, which comprise a thirteenth month. The Ethiopian months begin on the same days as those of the Coptic calendar, but their names are in Ge'ez.
+
+Like the Julian calendar, the sixth epagomenal day—which in essence is a leap day—is added every four years without exception on 29 August of the Julian calendar, six months before the Julian leap day. Thus, the first day of the Ethiopian year, 1 Mäskäräm, for years between 1901 and 2099 (inclusive), is usually 11 September (Gregorian), but falls on 12 September in years before the Gregorian leap year. Also, a seven- to eight-year gap between the Ethiopian and Gregorian calendars results from an alternate calculation in determining the date of the Annunciation of Jesus.
+
+Another calendrical system was developed around 300 BC by the Oromo. A lunar-stellar calendar, this Oromo calendar relies on astronomical observations of the moon in conjunction with seven particular stars or constellations. Oromo months (stars/lunar phases) are Bittottessa (Iangulum), Camsa (Pleiades), Bufa (Aldebarran), Waxabajjii (Belletrix), Obora Gudda (Central Orion-Saiph), Obora Dikka (Sirius), Birra (full moon), Cikawa (gibbous moon), Sadasaa (quarter moon), Abrasa (large crescent), Ammaji (medium crescent), and Gurrandala (small crescent).[331]
+
+Time in Ethiopia is counted differently from most countries. The Ethiopian day is reckoned as beginning at 06:00 as opposed to 00:00, coinciding with sunrise throughout the year. To convert between the Ethiopian clock and Western clocks, one must add (or subtract) six hours to the Western time. For example, 02:00 local Addis Ababa time is called "8 at night" in Ethiopia, while 20:00 is called "2 in the evening".
+
+The best-known Ethiopian cuisine consists of various types of thick meat stews, known as wat in Ethiopian culture, and vegetable side dishes served atop injera, a large sourdough flatbread made of teff flour. This is not eaten with utensils, but instead one uses the injera to scoop up the entrées and side dishes. Almost universally in Ethiopia, it is common to eat from the same dish in the center of the table with a group of people. It is also a common custom to feed others in your group with your own hands—a tradition referred to as "gursha".[332] Traditional Ethiopian cuisine employs no pork or shellfish of any kind, as they are forbidden in the Ethiopian Orthodox Christian, Islamic and Jewish faiths.
+
+Chechebsa, marqa, chukko, michirra and dhanga are the most popular dishes from the Oromo. Kitfo, which originated among the Gurage, is one of the country's most popular delicacies. In addition, Doro wot (ደሮ ወጥ in Amharic) and Tsebehi derho (ጽብሒ ድርሆ in Tigrinya), are other popular dishes, originating from northwestern Ethiopia.[citation needed] Tihlo (ጥሕሎ)—which is a type of dumpling—is prepared from roasted barley flour and originated in the Tigray Region. Tihlo is now very popular in Amhara and spreading further south.[333]
+
+Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC), formerly known as ETV, is the government-owned national channel. Other television stations in the country include Kana TV.
+
+The most widely circulated newspapers in Ethiopia are Addis Fortune, Capital Ethiopia, Ethiopian Reporter, Addis Zemen[citation needed] (Amharic) and Ethiopian Herald[citation needed].
+
+The sole internet service provider is the national telecommunications firm Ethio Telecom. A large portion of users in the country access the internet through mobile devices.[334] As of July 2016[update], there are around 4.29 million people who have internet access at their home as compared to a quarter of a million users a decade before that.[335] The Ethiopian government has at times intentionally shut down internet service in the country or restricted access to certain social media sites during periods of political unrest. In August 2016, following protest and demonstration in the Oromia Region, all access to the internet was shut down for a period of two days.[336] In June 2017, the government shut down access to the internet for mobile users during a period that coincided with the administration of Ethiopia's university entrance examination. Although the reason for the restriction was not confirmed by the government,[334] the move was similar to a measure taken during the same period in 2016, after a leak of test questions.[337][338]
+
+The music of Ethiopia is extremely diverse, with each of the country's 80 ethnic groups being associated with unique sounds. Ethiopian music uses a distinct modal system that is pentatonic, with characteristically long intervals between some notes. As with many other aspects of Ethiopian culture and tradition, tastes in music and lyrics are strongly linked with those in neighboring Eritrea, Somalia, Djibouti, and Sudan.[339][340] Traditional singing in Ethiopia presents diverse styles of polyphony (heterophony, drone, imitation, and counterpoint). Traditionally, lyricism in Ethiopian song writing is strongly associated with views of patriotism or national pride, romance, friendship, and a most unique type of memoire known as 'Tizita'.
+
+The main sports in Ethiopia are track and field (particularly long distance running) and football. Ethiopian athletes have won many Olympic gold medals in track and field, most of them in long distance running.[341] Abebe Bikila became the first athlete from a sub Saharan country to win an Olympic Gold medal when he won the Marathon at the 1960 Rome Olympic Games in a world record time of 2:15:16.[342][343]
+
+Haile Gebrselassie is a world-renowned long distance runner with several world records under his belt. Kenenisa Bekele and Tirunesh Dibaba are also dominant runners, particularly in the 5,000 and 10,000 meters in which they hold the world records.
+
+Other notable Ethiopian athletes are Mamo Wolde, Miruts Yifter, Derartu Tulu, Meseret Defar, Almaz Ayana, Birhane Adere, Tiki Gelana, Genzebe Dibaba, Tariku Bekele, and Gelete Burka. As of 2012[update] and going into 2013, the current national Ethiopian national football team (nicknamed the Walayia Antelopes) made history by qualifying for the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations and reached the last 10 African football teams in the last stage of qualification for the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Noted players include captain Adane Girma and top scorer Saladin Said.
+
+Ethiopia has sub-Saharan Africa's longest basketball tradition as it established a national basketball team in 1949.
+

en/2379.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,54 @@
+
+
+Phaseolus vulgaris, also known as the common bean[2] and French bean,[3] is a herbaceous annual plant grown worldwide for its edible dry seeds or unripe fruit (both commonly called beans). The main categories of common beans, on the basis of use, are dry beans (seeds harvested at complete maturity), snap beans (tender pods with reduced fibre harvested before the seed development phase) and shell (shelled) beans (seeds harvested at physiological maturity). Its leaf is also occasionally used as a vegetable and the straw as fodder. Its botanical classification, along with other Phaseolus species, is as a member of the legume family Fabaceae. Like most members of this family, common beans acquire the nitrogen they require through an association with rhizobia, which are nitrogen-fixing bacteria.
+
+The common bean is a highly variable species that has a long history of cultivation. All wild members of the species have a climbing habit,[4] but many cultivars are classified either as bush beans or dwarf beans, or as pole beans or climbing beans, depending on their style of growth. These include the kidney bean, the navy bean, the pinto bean, and the wax bean.[5] The other major types of commercially grown bean are the runner bean (Phaseolus coccineus) and the broad bean (Vicia faba). Beans are grown on every continent except Antarctica. Worldwide, 27 million tonnes of dried beans and 24 million tonnes of green beans were grown in 2016.[6] In 2016, Myanmar was the largest producer of dried beans, while China produced 79% of the world total of green beans.
+
+The wild P. vulgaris is native to the Americas.  It was originally believed that it had been domesticated separately in Mesoamerica and in the southern Andes region, giving the domesticated bean two gene pools.[7]  However, recent genetic analyses show that it was actually domesticated in Mesoamerica first, and traveled south, probably along with squash and maize (corn).  The three Mesoamerican crops constitute the "Three Sisters" central to indigenous North American agriculture.
+
+The common bean is a highly variable species with a long history. Bush varieties form erect bushes 20–60 cm (8–20 in) tall, while pole or running varieties form vines 2–3 m (7–10 ft) long. All varieties bear alternate, green or purple leaves, which are divided into three oval, smooth-edged leaflets, each 6–15 cm (2–6 in) long and 3–11 cm (1–4 in) wide. The white, pink, or purple flowers are about 1 cm long, and they give way to pods 8–20 cm (3–8 in) long and 1–1.5 cm wide. These may be green, yellow, black, or purple in color, each containing 4–6 beans. The beans are smooth, plump, kidney-shaped, up to 1.5 cm long, range widely in color, and are often mottled in two or more colors. Raw or undercooked beans contain a toxic protein called phytohaemagglutinin.[8]:254
+
+Similar to other beans, the common bean is high in starch, protein, and dietary fiber, and is an excellent source of iron, potassium, selenium, thiamine, vitamin B6, and folate.[citation needed]
+
+Dry beans will keep indefinitely if stored in a cool, dry place, but as time passes, their nutritive value and flavor degrade and cooking times lengthen. Dried beans are almost always cooked by boiling, often after being soaked in water for several hours. While the soaking is not strictly necessary, it shortens cooking time and results in more evenly textured beans. In addition, soaking beans removes 5 to 10% of the gas-producing sugars that can cause flatulence for some people.[9] The methods include simple overnight soaking and the power soak method in which beans are boiled for three minutes and then set aside for 2–4 hours. Before cooking, the soaking water is drained off and discarded. Dry common beans take longer to cook than most pulses: cooking times vary from one to four hours, but are substantially reduced with pressure cooking.
+
+In Mexico, Central America, and South America, the traditional spice used with beans is epazote, which is also said to aid digestion. In East Asia, a type of seaweed, kombu, is added to beans as they cook for the same purpose. Salt, sugar, and acidic foods such as tomatoes may harden uncooked beans, resulting in seasoned beans at the expense of slightly longer cooking times.
+
+Dry beans may also be bought cooked and canned as refried beans, or whole with water, salt, and sometimes sugar.
+
+The three commonly known types of green beans are string or snap beans, which may be round or have a flat pod; stringless or French beans, which lack a tough, fibrous string running along the length of the pod; and runner beans, which belong to a separate species, Phaseolus coccineus. Green beans may have a purple rather than green pod, which changes to green when cooked.[10] Wax beans are P. vulgaris beans that have a yellow[4] or white pod. Wax bean cultivars are commonly grown;[4] the plants are often of the bush or dwarf form.[4]
+
+As the name implies, snap beans break easily when the pod is bent, giving off a distinct audible snap sound. The pods of snap beans (green, yellow and purple in colour) are harvested when they are rapidly growing, fleshy, tender (not tough and stringy), bright in colour, and the seeds are small and underdeveloped (8 to 10 days after flowering).
+
+Compared to dry beans, green and wax beans provide less starch and protein and more vitamin A and vitamin C.[citation needed] Green beans and wax beans are often steamed, boiled, stir-fried, or baked in casseroles.
+
+Shell, shelled, or shelling beans are beans removed from their pods before being cooked or dried. Common beans can be used as shell beans, but the term also refers to other species of beans whose pods are not typically eaten, such as lima beans, soybeans, peas, and fava beans. Fresh shell beans are nutritionally similar to dry beans, but are prepared more like a vegetable, often being steamed, fried, or made into soups.[citation needed]
+
+The nuña is an Andean subspecies, P. v. subsp. nunas (formerly P. vulgaris Nuñas group), with round, multicolored seeds that resemble pigeon eggs. When cooked on high heat, the bean explodes, exposing the inner part, in the manner of popcorn and other puffed grains.[citation needed]
+
+Some scientists have proposed Mesoamerica as a possible origin for the common bean. Scientists disagree over whether the common bean was a product of one or multiple domestication events. Over time two diverse gene pools emerged: the Andean gene pool from Southern Peru to Northwest Argentina and the Mesoamerican gene pool between Mexico and Colombia.[11]
+
+Large-seeded varieties of the domesticated bean have been found in the highlands of Peru, dating to 2300 BC, and spreading to the coastal regions by around 500 BC.[12] Small-seeded varieties were found in sites in Mexico, dating to 300 BC, which then spread north and east of the Mississippi River by 1000 AD.[12]
+
+Many well-known bean cultivars and varieties belong to this species, and the list below is in no way exhaustive. Both bush and running (pole) cultivars/varieties exist. The colors and shapes of pods and seeds vary over a wide range.
+
+In 2016, world production of green beans was 23.6 million tonnes, led by China with 79% of the total (table). World dried bean production in 2016 was 26.8 million tonnes, with Myanmar, India, and Brazil as leading producers (table).
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The toxic compound phytohaemagglutinin, a lectin, is present in many common bean varieties, but is especially concentrated in red kidney beans. White kidney beans contain about a third as much toxin as the red variety; broad beans (Vicia faba) contain 5 to 10% as much as red kidney beans.[8]
+
+Phytohaemagglutinin can be deactivated by cooking beans for ten minutes at boiling point (100 °C, 212 °F). Insufficient cooking, such as in a slow cooker at 80 °C/ 176 °F, however, is not sufficient to deactivate all toxin.[27] To safely cook the beans, the U.S Food and Drug Administration recommends boiling for 30 minutes to ensure they reach a sufficient temperature for long enough to completely destroy the toxin.[28] For dry beans, the FDA also recommends an initial soak of at least 5 hours in water which should then be discarded.[8] Outbreaks of poisoning have been associated with cooking kidney beans in slow cookers.[8]
+
+The primary symptoms of phytohaemagglutinin poisoning are nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. Onset is from one to three hours after consumption of improperly prepared beans, and symptoms typically resolve within a few hours.[8] Consumption of as few as four or five raw, soaked kidney beans can cause symptoms.[8] Canned red kidney beans, though, are safe to use immediately, as they have already been cooked.[29][30][31]
+
+Beans are high in purines, which are metabolized to uric acid. Uric acid is not a toxin as such, but may promote the development or exacerbation of gout. However, more recent research has questioned this association, finding that moderate intake of purine-rich foods is not associated with increased risk of gout.[32]
+
+Bean leaves have been used to trap bedbugs in houses.[33] Microscopic hairs (trichomes) on the bean leaves entrap the insects.[33]
+
+From ancient times, beans were used as device in various methods of divination. Fortune-telling using beans is called favomancy.
+

en/238.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,291 @@
+
+
+
+
+English is a West Germanic language that was first spoken in early medieval England and eventually became a global lingua franca.[4][5] It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the area of Great Britain that later took their name, England. Both names derive from Anglia, a peninsula on the Baltic Sea. English is most closely related to Frisian and Low Saxon, while its vocabulary has been significantly influenced by other Germanic languages, particularly Old Norse (a North Germanic language), as well as Latin and French.[6][7][8]
+
+English has developed over the course of more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a group of West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century, are collectively called Old English. Middle English began in the late 11th century with the Norman conquest of England; this was a period in which English was influenced by Old French, in particular through its Old Norman dialect.[9][10] Early Modern English began in the late 15th century with the introduction of the printing press to London, the printing of the King James Bible and the start of the Great Vowel Shift.[11]
+
+Modern English has been spreading around the world since the 17th century by the worldwide influence of the British Empire and the United States. Through all types of printed and electronic media of these countries, English has become the leading language of international discourse and the lingua franca in many regions and professional contexts such as science, navigation and law.[12] Modern English grammar is the result of a gradual change from a typical Indo-European dependent marking pattern, with a rich inflectional morphology and relatively free word order, to a mostly analytic pattern with little inflection, a fairly fixed subject–verb–object word order and a complex syntax.[13] Modern English relies more on auxiliary verbs and word order for the expression of complex tenses, aspect and mood, as well as passive constructions, interrogatives and some negation.
+
+English is the largest language by number of speakers,[14] and the third most-spoken native language in the world, after Standard Chinese and Spanish.[15] It is the most widely learned second language and is either the official language or one of the official languages in almost 60 sovereign states. There are more people who have learned it as a second language than there are native speakers. It is estimated that there are over 2 billion speakers of English.[16] English is the majority native language in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland, and it is widely spoken in some areas of the Caribbean, Africa and South Asia.[17] It is a co-official language of the United Nations, the European Union and many other world and regional international organisations. It is the most widely spoken Germanic language, accounting for at least 70% of speakers of this Indo-European branch. English speakers are called "Anglophones". Variability among the accents and dialects of English used in different countries and regions—in terms of phonetics and phonology, and sometimes also vocabulary, idioms, grammar, and spelling—does not typically prevent understanding by speakers of other dialects, although mutual unintelligibility can occur at extreme ends of the dialect continuum.
+
+English is an Indo-European language and belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages.[18] Old English originated from a Germanic tribal and linguistic continuum along the Frisian North Sea coast, whose languages gradually evolved into the Anglic languages in the British Isles, and into the Frisian languages and Low German/Low Saxon on the continent. The Frisian languages, which together with the Anglic languages form the Anglo-Frisian languages, are the closest living relatives of English. Low German/Low Saxon is also closely related, and sometimes English, the Frisian languages, and Low German are grouped together as the Ingvaeonic (North Sea Germanic) languages, though this grouping remains debated.[7] Old English evolved into Middle English, which in turn evolved into Modern English.[19] Particular dialects of Old and Middle English also developed into a number of other Anglic languages, including Scots[20] and the extinct Fingallian and Forth and Bargy (Yola) dialects of Ireland.[21]
+
+Like Icelandic and Faroese, the development of English in the British Isles isolated it from the continental Germanic languages and influences. It has since evolved considerably. English is not mutually intelligible with any continental Germanic language, differing in vocabulary, syntax, and phonology, although some of these, such as Dutch or Frisian, do show strong affinities with English, especially with its earlier stages.[22]
+
+Unlike Icelandic and Faroese, which were isolated, the development of English was influenced by a long series of invasions of the British Isles by other peoples and languages, particularly Old Norse and Norman French. These left a profound mark of their own on the language, so that English shows some similarities in vocabulary and grammar with many languages outside its linguistic clades—but it is not mutually intelligible with any of those languages either. Some scholars have argued that English can be considered a mixed language or a creole—a theory called the Middle English creole hypothesis. Although the great influence of these languages on the vocabulary and grammar of Modern English is widely acknowledged, most specialists in language contact do not consider English to be a true mixed language.[23][24]
+
+English is classified as a Germanic language because it shares innovations with other Germanic languages such as Dutch, German, and Swedish.[25] These shared innovations show that the languages have descended from a single common ancestor called Proto-Germanic. Some shared features of Germanic languages include the division of verbs into strong and weak classes, the use of modal verbs, and the sound changes affecting Proto-Indo-European consonants, known as Grimm's and Verner's laws. English is classified as an Anglo-Frisian language because Frisian and English share other features, such as the palatalisation of consonants that were velar consonants in Proto-Germanic (see Phonological history of Old English § Palatalization).[26]
+
+The earliest form of English is called Old English or Anglo-Saxon (c. 550–1066 CE). Old English developed from a set of West Germanic dialects, often grouped as Anglo-Frisian or North Sea Germanic, and originally spoken along the coasts of Frisia, Lower Saxony and southern Jutland by Germanic peoples known to the historical record as the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes.[27][28] From the 5th century CE, the Anglo-Saxons settled Britain as the Roman economy and administration collapsed. By the 7th century, the Germanic language of the Anglo-Saxons became dominant in Britain, replacing the languages of Roman Britain (43–409 CE): Common Brittonic, a Celtic language, and Latin, brought to Britain by the Roman occupation.[29][30][31] England and English (originally Ænglaland and Ænglisc) are named after the Angles.[32]
+
+Old English was divided into four dialects: the Anglian dialects (Mercian and Northumbrian) and the Saxon dialects, Kentish and West Saxon.[33] Through the educational reforms of King Alfred in the 9th century and the influence of the kingdom of Wessex, the West Saxon dialect became the standard written variety.[34] The epic poem Beowulf is written in West Saxon, and the earliest English poem, Cædmon's Hymn, is written in Northumbrian.[35] Modern English developed mainly from Mercian, but the Scots language developed from Northumbrian. A few short inscriptions from the early period of Old English were written using a runic script.[36] By the 6th century, a Latin alphabet was adopted, written with half-uncial letterforms. It included the runic letters wynn ⟨ƿ⟩ and thorn ⟨þ⟩, and the modified Latin letters eth ⟨ð⟩, and ash ⟨æ⟩.[36][37]
+
+Old English is essentially a distinct language from Modern English and is virtually impossible for 21st-century unstudied English-speakers to understand. Its grammar was similar to that of modern German, and its closest relative is Old Frisian. Nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs had many more inflectional endings and forms, and word order was much freer than in Modern English. Modern English has case forms in pronouns (he, him, his) and has a few verb inflections (speak, speaks, speaking, spoke, spoken), but Old English had case endings in nouns as well, and verbs had more person and number endings.[38][39][40]
+
+The translation of Matthew 8:20 from 1000 CE shows examples of case endings (nominative plural, accusative plural, genitive singular) and a verb ending (present plural):
+
+John of Trevisa, ca. 1385[42]
+
+From the 8th to the 12th century, Old English gradually transformed through language contact into Middle English. Middle English is often arbitrarily defined as beginning with the conquest of England by William the Conqueror in 1066, but it developed further in the period from 1200–1450.
+
+First, the waves of Norse colonisation of northern parts of the British Isles in the 8th and 9th centuries put Old English into intense contact with Old Norse, a North Germanic language. Norse influence was strongest in the north-eastern varieties of Old English spoken in the Danelaw area around York, which was the centre of Norse colonisation; today these features are still particularly present in Scots and Northern English. However the centre of norsified English seems to have been in the Midlands around Lindsey, and after 920 CE when Lindsey was reincorporated into the Anglo-Saxon polity, Norse features spread from there into English varieties that had not been in direct contact with Norse speakers. An element of Norse influence that persists in all English varieties today is the group of pronouns beginning with th- (they, them, their) which replaced the Anglo-Saxon pronouns with h- (hie, him, hera).[43]
+
+With the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the now norsified Old English language was subject to contact with Old French, in particular with the Old Norman dialect. The Norman language in England eventually developed into Anglo-Norman.[9] Because Norman was spoken primarily by the elites and nobles, while the lower classes continued speaking Anglo-Saxon (English), the main influence of Norman was the introduction of a wide range of loanwords related to politics, legislation and prestigious social domains.[8] Middle English also greatly simplified the inflectional system, probably in order to reconcile Old Norse and Old English, which were inflectionally different but morphologically similar. The distinction between nominative and accusative cases was lost except in personal pronouns, the instrumental case was dropped, and the use of the genitive case was limited to indicating possession. The inflectional system regularised many irregular inflectional forms,[44] and gradually simplified the system of agreement, making word order less flexible.[45] In the Wycliffe Bible of the 1380s, the verse Matthew 8:20 was written:
+
+Here the plural suffix -n on the verb have is still retained, but none of the case endings on the nouns are present. By the 12th century Middle English was fully developed, integrating both Norse and French features; it continued to be spoken until the transition to early Modern English around 1500. Middle English literature includes Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, and Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. In the Middle English period, the use of regional dialects in writing proliferated, and dialect traits were even used for effect by authors such as Chaucer.[47]
+
+The next period in the history of English was Early Modern English (1500–1700). Early Modern English was characterised by the Great Vowel Shift (1350–1700), inflectional simplification, and linguistic standardisation.
+
+The Great Vowel Shift affected the stressed long vowels of Middle English. It was a chain shift, meaning that each shift triggered a subsequent shift in the vowel system. Mid and open vowels were raised, and close vowels were broken into diphthongs. For example, the word bite was originally pronounced as the word beet is today, and the second vowel in the word about was pronounced as the word boot is today. The Great Vowel Shift explains many irregularities in spelling since English retains many spellings from Middle English, and it also explains why English vowel letters have very different pronunciations from the same letters in other languages.[48][49]
+
+English began to rise in prestige, relative to Norman French, during the reign of Henry V. Around 1430, the Court of Chancery in Westminster began using English in its official documents, and a new standard form of Middle English, known as Chancery Standard, developed from the dialects of London and the East Midlands. In 1476, William Caxton introduced the printing press to England and began publishing the first printed books in London, expanding the influence of this form of English.[50] Literature from the Early Modern period includes the works of William Shakespeare and the translation of the Bible commissioned by King James I. Even after the vowel shift the language still sounded different from Modern English: for example, the consonant clusters /kn ɡn sw/ in knight, gnat, and sword were still pronounced. Many of the grammatical features that a modern reader of Shakespeare might find quaint or archaic represent the distinct characteristics of Early Modern English.[51]
+
+In the 1611 King James Version of the Bible, written in Early Modern English, Matthew 8:20 says:
+
+This exemplifies the loss of case and its effects on sentence structure (replacement with Subject-Verb-Object word order, and the use of of instead of the non-possessive genitive), and the introduction of loanwords from French (ayre) and word replacements (bird originally meaning "nestling" had replaced OE fugol).[52]
+
+By the late 18th century, the British Empire had spread English through its colonies and geopolitical dominance. Commerce, science and technology, diplomacy, art, and formal education all contributed to English becoming the first truly global language. English also facilitated worldwide international communication.[53][12] England continued to form new colonies, and these later developed their own norms for speech and writing. English was adopted in parts of North America, parts of Africa, Australasia, and many other regions. When they obtained political independence, some of the newly independent nations that had multiple indigenous languages opted to continue using English as the official language to avoid the political and other difficulties inherent in promoting any one indigenous language above the others.[54][55][56] In the 20th century the growing economic and cultural influence of the United States and its status as a superpower following the Second World War has, along with worldwide broadcasting in English by the BBC[57] and other broadcasters, caused the language to spread across the planet much faster.[58][59] In the 21st century, English is more widely spoken and written than any language has ever been.[60]
+
+As Modern English developed, explicit norms for standard usage were published, and spread through official media such as public education and state-sponsored publications. In 1755 Samuel Johnson published his A Dictionary of the English Language which introduced standard spellings of words and usage norms. In 1828, Noah Webster published the American Dictionary of the English language to try to establish a norm for speaking and writing American English that was independent of the British standard. Within Britain, non-standard or lower class dialect features were increasingly stigmatised, leading to the quick spread of the prestige varieties among the middle classes.[61]
+
+In modern English, the loss of grammatical case is almost complete (it is now only found in pronouns, such as he and him, she and her, who and whom), and SVO word-order is mostly fixed.[61] Some changes, such as the use of do-support have become universalised. (Earlier English did not use the word "do" as a general auxiliary as Modern English does; at first it was only used in question constructions, and even then was not obligatory.[62] Now, do-support with the verb have is becoming increasingly standardised.) The use of progressive forms in -ing, appears to be spreading to new constructions, and forms such as had been being built are becoming more common. Regularisation of irregular forms also slowly continues (e.g. dreamed instead of dreamt), and analytical alternatives to inflectional forms are becoming more common (e.g. more polite instead of politer). British English is also undergoing change under the influence of American English, fuelled by the strong presence of American English in the media and the prestige associated with the US as a world power.[63][64][65]
+
+
+
+As of 2016[update], 400 million people spoke English as their first language, and 1.1 billion spoke it as a secondary language.[66] English is the largest language by number of speakers. English is spoken by communities on every continent and on islands in all the major oceans.[67]
+
+The countries where English is spoken can be grouped into different categories according to how English is used in each country. The "inner circle"[68] countries with many native speakers of English share an international standard of written English and jointly influence speech norms for English around the world. English does not belong to just one country, and it does not belong solely to descendants of English settlers. English is an official language of countries populated by few descendants of native speakers of English. It has also become by far the most important language of international communication when people who share no native language meet anywhere in the world.
+
+Braj Kachru distinguishes countries where English is spoken with a three circles model.[68] In his model,
+
+Kachru bases his model on the history of how English spread in different countries, how users acquire English, and the range of uses English has in each country. The three circles change membership over time.[69]
+
+Countries with large communities of native speakers of English (the inner circle) include Britain, the United States, Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand, where the majority speaks English, and South Africa, where a significant minority speaks English. The countries with the most native English speakers are, in descending order, the United States (at least 231 million),[70] the United Kingdom (60 million),[71][72][73] Canada (19 million),[74] Australia (at least 17 million),[75] South Africa (4.8 million),[76] Ireland (4.2 million), and New Zealand (3.7 million).[77] In these countries, children of native speakers learn English from their parents, and local people who speak other languages and new immigrants learn English to communicate in their neighbourhoods and workplaces.[78] The inner-circle countries provide the base from which English spreads to other countries in the world.[69]
+
+Estimates of the numbers of second language and foreign-language English speakers vary greatly from 470 million to more than 1 billion, depending on how proficiency is defined.[17] Linguist David Crystal estimates that non-native speakers now outnumber native speakers by a ratio of 3 to 1.[79] In Kachru's three-circles model, the "outer circle" countries are countries such as the Philippines,[80] Jamaica,[81] India, Pakistan, Singapore,[82] Malaysia and Nigeria[83][84] with a much smaller proportion of native speakers of English but much use of English as a second language for education, government, or domestic business, and its routine use for school instruction and official interactions with the government.[85]
+
+Those countries have millions of native speakers of dialect continua ranging from an English-based creole to a more standard version of English. They have many more speakers of English who acquire English as they grow up through day-to-day use and listening to broadcasting, especially if they attend schools where English is the medium of instruction. Varieties of English learned by non-native speakers born to English-speaking parents may be influenced, especially in their grammar, by the other languages spoken by those learners.[78] Most of those varieties of English include words little used by native speakers of English in the inner-circle countries,[78] and they may show grammatical and phonological differences from inner-circle varieties as well. The standard English of the inner-circle countries is often taken as a norm for use of English in the outer-circle countries.[78]
+
+In the three-circles model, countries such as Poland, China, Brazil, Germany, Japan, Indonesia, Egypt, and other countries where English is taught as a foreign language, make up the "expanding circle".[86] The distinctions between English as a first language, as a second language, and as a foreign language are often debatable and may change in particular countries over time.[85] For example, in the Netherlands and some other countries of Europe, knowledge of English as a second language is nearly universal, with over 80 percent of the population able to use it,[87] and thus English is routinely used to communicate with foreigners and often in higher education. In these countries, although English is not used for government business, its widespread use puts them at the boundary between the "outer circle" and "expanding circle". English is unusual among world languages in how many of its users are not native speakers but speakers of English as a second or foreign language.[88]
+
+Many users of English in the expanding circle use it to communicate with other people from the expanding circle, so that interaction with native speakers of English plays no part in their decision to use English.[89] Non-native varieties of English are widely used for international communication, and speakers of one such variety often encounter features of other varieties.[90] Very often today a conversation in English anywhere in the world may include no native speakers of English at all, even while including speakers from several different countries.[91]
+
+Pie chart showing the percentage of native English speakers living in "inner circle" English-speaking countries. Native speakers are now substantially outnumbered worldwide by second-language speakers of English (not counted in this chart).
+
+English is a pluricentric language, which means that no one national authority sets the standard for use of the language.[92][93][94][95] But English is not a divided language,[96] despite a long-standing joke originally attributed to George Bernard Shaw that the United Kingdom and the United States are "two countries separated by a common language".[97] Spoken English, for example English used in broadcasting, generally follows national pronunciation standards that are also established by custom rather than by regulation. International broadcasters are usually identifiable as coming from one country rather than another through their accents,[98] but newsreader scripts are also composed largely in international standard written English. The norms of standard written English are maintained purely by the consensus of educated English-speakers around the world, without any oversight by any government or international organisation.[99]
+
+American listeners generally readily understand most British broadcasting, and British listeners readily understand most American broadcasting. Most English speakers around the world can understand radio programmes, television programmes, and films from many parts of the English-speaking world.[100] Both standard and non-standard varieties of English can include both formal or informal styles, distinguished by word choice and syntax and use both technical and non-technical registers.[101]
+
+The settlement history of the English-speaking inner circle countries outside Britain helped level dialect distinctions and produce koineised forms of English in South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.[102] The majority of immigrants to the United States without British ancestry rapidly adopted English after arrival. Now the majority of the United States population are monolingual English speakers,[103][70] and English has been given official or co-official status by 30 of the 50 state governments, as well as all five territorial governments of the US, though there has never been an official language at the Federal level.[104][105]
+
+English has ceased to be an "English language" in the sense of belonging only to people who are ethnically English.[106][107] Use of English is growing country-by-country internally and for international communication. Most people learn English for practical rather than ideological reasons.[108] Many speakers of English in Africa have become part of an "Afro-Saxon" language community that unites Africans from different countries.[109]
+
+As decolonisation proceeded throughout the British Empire in the 1950s and 1960s, former colonies often did not reject English but rather continued to use it as independent countries setting their own language policies.[55][56][110] For example, the view of the English language among many Indians has gone from associating it with colonialism to associating it with economic progress, and English continues to be an official language of India.[111] English is also widely used in media and literature, and the number of English language books published annually in India is the third largest in the world after the US and UK.[112] However English is rarely spoken as a first language, numbering only around a couple hundred-thousand people, and less than 5% of the population speak fluent English in India.[113][114] David Crystal claimed in 2004 that, combining native and non-native speakers, India now has more people who speak or understand English than any other country in the world,[115] but the number of English speakers in India is very uncertain, with most scholars concluding that the United States still has more speakers of English than India.[116]
+
+Modern English, sometimes described as the first global lingua franca,[58][117] is also regarded as the first world language.[118][119] English is the world's most widely used language in newspaper publishing, book publishing, international telecommunications, scientific publishing, international trade, mass entertainment, and diplomacy.[119] English is, by international treaty, the basis for the required controlled natural languages[120] Seaspeak and Airspeak, used as international languages of seafaring[121] and aviation.[122] English used to have parity with French and German in scientific research, but now it dominates that field.[123] It achieved parity with French as a language of diplomacy at the Treaty of Versailles negotiations in 1919.[124] By the time of the foundation of the United Nations at the end of World War II, English had become pre-eminent[125] and is now the main worldwide language of diplomacy and international relations.[126] It is one of six official languages of the United Nations.[127] Many other worldwide international organisations, including the International Olympic Committee, specify English as a working language or official language of the organisation.
+
+Many regional international organisations such as the European Free Trade Association, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN),[59] and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) set English as their organisation's sole working language even though most members are not countries with a majority of native English speakers. While the European Union (EU) allows member states to designate any of the national languages as an official language of the Union, in practice English is the main working language of EU organisations.[128]
+
+Although in most countries English is not an official language, it is currently the language most often taught as a foreign language.[58][59] In the countries of the EU, English is the most widely spoken foreign language in nineteen of the twenty-five member states where it is not an official language (that is, the countries other than Ireland and Malta). In a 2012 official Eurobarometer poll (conducted when the UK was still a member of the EU), 38 percent of the EU respondents outside the countries where English is an official language said they could speak English well enough to have a conversation in that language. The next most commonly mentioned foreign language, French (which is the most widely known foreign language in the UK and Ireland), could be used in conversation by 12 percent of respondents.[129]
+
+A working knowledge of English has become a requirement in a number of occupations and professions such as medicine[130] and computing. English has become so important in scientific publishing that more than 80 percent of all scientific journal articles indexed by Chemical Abstracts in 1998 were written in English, as were 90 percent of all articles in natural science publications by 1996 and 82 percent of articles in humanities publications by 1995.[131]
+
+International communities such as international business people may use English as an auxiliary language, with an emphasis on vocabulary suitable for their domain of interest. This has led some scholars to develop the study of English as an auxiliary language. The trademarked Globish uses a relatively small subset of English vocabulary (about 1500 words, designed to represent the highest use in international business English) in combination with the standard English grammar.[132] Other examples include Simple English.
+
+The increased use of the English language globally has had an effect on other languages, leading to some English words being assimilated into the vocabularies of other languages. This influence of English has led to concerns about language death,[133] and to claims of linguistic imperialism,[134] and has provoked resistance to the spread of English; however the number of speakers continues to increase because many people around the world think that English provides them with opportunities for better employment and improved lives.[135]
+
+Although some scholars[who?] mention a possibility of future divergence of English dialects into mutually unintelligible languages, most think a more likely outcome is that English will continue to function as a koineised language in which the standard form unifies speakers from around the world.[136] English is used as the language for wider communication in countries around the world.[137] Thus English has grown in worldwide use much more than any constructed language proposed as an international auxiliary language, including Esperanto.[138][139]
+
+The phonetics and phonology of the English language differ from one dialect to another, usually without interfering with mutual communication. Phonological variation affects the inventory of phonemes (i.e. speech sounds that distinguish meaning), and phonetic variation consists in differences in pronunciation of the phonemes. [140] This overview mainly describes the standard pronunciations of the United Kingdom and the United States: Received Pronunciation (RP) and General American (GA). (See § Dialects, accents, and varieties, below.)
+
+The phonetic symbols used below are from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).[141][142][143]
+
+Most English dialects share the same 24 consonant phonemes. The consonant inventory shown below is valid for California English,[144] and for RP.[145]
+
+* Conventionally transcribed /r/
+
+In the table, when obstruents (stops, affricates, and fricatives) appear in pairs, such as /p b/, /tʃ dʒ/, and /s z/, the first is fortis (strong) and the second is lenis (weak). Fortis obstruents, such as /p tʃ s/ are pronounced with more muscular tension and breath force than lenis consonants, such as /b dʒ z/, and are always voiceless. Lenis consonants are partly voiced at the beginning and end of utterances, and fully voiced between vowels. Fortis stops such as /p/ have additional articulatory or acoustic features in most dialects: they are aspirated [pʰ] when they occur alone at the beginning of a stressed syllable, often unaspirated in other cases, and often unreleased [p̚] or pre-glottalised [ʔp] at the end of a syllable. In a single-syllable word, a vowel before a fortis stop is shortened: thus nip has a noticeably shorter vowel (phonetically, but not phonemically) than nib [nɪˑb̥] (see below).[146]
+
+In RP, the lateral approximant /l/, has two main allophones (pronunciation variants): the clear or plain [l], as in light, and the dark or velarised [ɫ], as in full.[147] GA has dark l in most cases.[148]
+
+All sonorants (liquids /l, r/ and nasals /m, n, ŋ/) devoice when following a voiceless obstruent, and they are syllabic when following a consonant at the end of a word.[149]
+
+The pronunciation of vowels varies a great deal between dialects and is one of the most detectable aspects of a speaker's accent. The table below lists the vowel phonemes in Received Pronunciation (RP) and General American (GA), with examples of words in which they occur from lexical sets compiled by linguists. The vowels are represented with symbols from the International Phonetic Alphabet; those given for RP are standard in British dictionaries and other publications.[150]
+
+In RP, vowel length is phonemic; long vowels are marked with a triangular colon ⟨ː⟩ in the table above, such as the vowel of need [niːd] as opposed to bid [bɪd]. In GA, vowel length is non-distinctive.
+
+In both RP and GA, vowels are phonetically shortened before fortis consonants in the same syllable, like /t tʃ f/, but not before lenis consonants like /d dʒ v/ or in open syllables: thus, the vowels of rich [rɪtʃ], neat [nit], and safe [seɪ̯f] are noticeably shorter than the vowels of ridge [rɪˑdʒ], need [niˑd], and save [seˑɪ̯v], and the vowel of light [laɪ̯t] is shorter than that of lie [laˑɪ̯]. Because lenis consonants are frequently voiceless at the end of a syllable, vowel length is an important cue as to whether the following consonant is lenis or fortis.[151]
+
+The vowel /ə/ only occurs in unstressed syllables and is more open in quality in stem-final positions.[152][153] Some dialects do not contrast /ɪ/ and /ə/ in unstressed positions, so that rabbit and abbot rhyme and Lenin and Lennon are homophonous, a dialect feature called weak vowel merger.[154] GA /ɜr/ and /ər/ are realised as an r-coloured vowel [ɚ], as in further [ˈfɚðɚ] (phonemically /ˈfɜrðər/), which in RP is realised as [ˈfəːðə] (phonemically /ˈfɜːðə/).[155]
+
+An English syllable includes a syllable nucleus consisting of a vowel sound. Syllable onset and coda (start and end) are optional. A syllable can start with up to three consonant sounds, as in sprint /sprɪnt/, and end with up to four, as in texts /teksts/. This gives an English syllable the following structure, (CCC)V(CCCC) where C represents a consonant and V a vowel; the word strengths /strɛŋkθs/ is thus an example of the most complex syllable possible in English. The consonants that may appear together in onsets or codas are restricted, as is the order in which they may appear. Onsets can only have four types of consonant clusters: a stop and approximant, as in play; a voiceless fricative and approximant, as in fly or sly; s and a voiceless stop, as in stay; and s, a voiceless stop, and an approximant, as in string.[156] Clusters of nasal and stop are only allowed in codas. Clusters of obstruents always agree in voicing, and clusters of sibilants and of plosives with the same point of articulation are prohibited. Furthermore, several consonants have limited distributions: /h/ can only occur in syllable-initial position, and /ŋ/ only in syllable-final position.[157]
+
+Stress plays an important role in English. Certain syllables are stressed, while others are unstressed. Stress is a combination of duration, intensity, vowel quality, and sometimes changes in pitch. Stressed syllables are pronounced longer and louder than unstressed syllables, and vowels in unstressed syllables are frequently reduced while vowels in stressed syllables are not.[158] Some words, primarily short function words but also some modal verbs such as can, have weak and strong forms depending on whether they occur in stressed or non-stressed position within a sentence.
+
+Stress in English is phonemic, and some pairs of words are distinguished by stress. For instance, the word contract is stressed on the first syllable (/ˈkɒntrækt/ KON-trakt) when used as a noun, but on the last syllable (/kənˈtrækt/ kən-TRAKT) for most meanings (for example, "reduce in size") when used as a verb.[159][160][161] Here stress is connected to vowel reduction: in the noun "contract" the first syllable is stressed and has the unreduced vowel /ɒ/, but in the verb "contract" the first syllable is unstressed and its vowel is reduced to /ə/. Stress is also used to distinguish between words and phrases, so that a compound word receives a single stress unit, but the corresponding phrase has two: e.g. a burnout (/ˈbɜːrnaʊt/) versus to burn out (/ˈbɜːrn ˈaʊt/), and a hotdog (/ˈhɒtdɒɡ/) versus a hot dog (/ˈhɒt ˈdɒɡ/).[162]
+
+In terms of rhythm, English is generally described as a stress-timed language, meaning that the amount of time between stressed syllables tends to be equal.[163] Stressed syllables are pronounced longer, but unstressed syllables (syllables between stresses) are shortened. Vowels in unstressed syllables are shortened as well, and vowel shortening causes changes in vowel quality: vowel reduction.[164]
+
+Varieties of English vary the most in pronunciation of vowels. The best known national varieties used as standards for education in non-English-speaking countries are British (BrE) and American (AmE). Countries such as Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand and South Africa have their own standard varieties which are less often used as standards for education internationally. Some differences between the various dialects are shown in the table "Varieties of Standard English and their features".[165]
+
+English has undergone many historical sound changes, some of them affecting all varieties, and others affecting only a few. Most standard varieties are affected by the Great Vowel Shift, which changed the pronunciation of long vowels, but a few dialects have slightly different results. In North America, a number of chain shifts such as the Northern Cities Vowel Shift and Canadian Shift have produced very different vowel landscapes in some regional accents.[166][167]
+
+Some dialects have fewer or more consonant phonemes and phones than the standard varieties. Some conservative varieties like Scottish English have a voiceless [ʍ] sound in whine that contrasts with the voiced [w] in wine, but most other dialects pronounce both words with voiced [w], a dialect feature called wine–whine merger. The unvoiced velar fricative sound /x/ is found in Scottish English, which distinguishes loch /lɔx/ from lock /lɔk/. Accents like Cockney with "h-dropping" lack the glottal fricative /h/, and dialects with th-stopping and th-fronting like African American Vernacular and Estuary English do not have the dental fricatives /θ, ð/, but replace them with dental or alveolar stops /t, d/ or labiodental fricatives /f, v/.[168][169] Other changes affecting the phonology of local varieties are processes such as yod-dropping, yod-coalescence, and reduction of consonant clusters.[170]
+
+General American and Received Pronunciation vary in their pronunciation of historical /r/ after a vowel at the end of a syllable (in the syllable coda). GA is a rhotic dialect, meaning that it pronounces /r/ at the end of a syllable, but RP is non-rhotic, meaning that it loses /r/ in that position. English dialects are classified as rhotic or non-rhotic depending on whether they elide /r/ like RP or keep it like GA.[171]
+
+There is complex dialectal variation in words with the open front and open back vowels /æ ɑː ɒ ɔː/. These four vowels are only distinguished in RP, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. In GA, these vowels merge to three /æ ɑ ɔ/,[172] and in Canadian English, they merge to two /æ ɑ/.[173] In addition, the words that have each vowel vary by dialect. The table "Dialects and open vowels" shows this variation with lexical sets in which these sounds occur.
+
+As is typical of an Indo-European language, English follows accusative morphosyntactic alignment. Unlike other Indo-European languages though, English has largely abandoned the inflectional case system in favor of analytic constructions. Only the personal pronouns retain morphological case more strongly than any other word class. English distinguishes at least seven major word classes: verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, determiners (including articles), prepositions, and conjunctions. Some analyses add pronouns as a class separate from nouns, and subdivide conjunctions into subordinators and coordinators, and add the class of interjections.[174] English also has a rich set of auxiliary verbs, such as have and do, expressing the categories of mood and aspect. Questions are marked by do-support, wh-movement (fronting of question words beginning with wh-) and word order inversion with some verbs.[175]
+
+Some traits typical of Germanic languages persist in English, such as the distinction between irregularly inflected strong stems inflected through ablaut (i.e. changing the vowel of the stem, as in the pairs speak/spoke and foot/feet) and weak stems inflected through affixation (such as love/loved, hand/hands).[176] Vestiges of the case and gender system are found in the pronoun system (he/him, who/whom) and in the inflection of the copula verb to be.[176]
+
+The seven-word classes are exemplified in this sample sentence:[177]
+
+English nouns are only inflected for number and possession. New nouns can be formed through derivation or compounding. They are semantically divided into proper nouns (names) and common nouns. Common nouns are in turn divided into concrete and abstract nouns, and grammatically into count nouns and mass nouns.[178]
+
+Most count nouns are inflected for plural number through the use of the plural suffix -s, but a few nouns have irregular plural forms. Mass nouns can only be pluralised through the use of a count noun classifier, e.g. one loaf of bread, two loaves of bread.[179]
+
+Regular plural formation:
+
+Irregular plural formation:
+
+Possession can be expressed either by the possessive enclitic -s (also traditionally called a genitive suffix), or by the preposition of. Historically the -s possessive has been used for animate nouns, whereas the of possessive has been reserved for inanimate nouns. Today this distinction is less clear, and many speakers use -s also with inanimates. Orthographically the possessive -s is separated from the noun root with an apostrophe.[175]
+
+Possessive constructions:
+
+Nouns can form noun phrases (NPs) where they are the syntactic head of the words that depend on them such as determiners, quantifiers, conjunctions or adjectives.[180] Noun phrases can be short, such as the man, composed only of a determiner and a noun. They can also include modifiers such as adjectives (e.g. red, tall, all) and specifiers such as determiners (e.g. the, that). But they can also tie together several nouns into a single long NP, using conjunctions such as and, or prepositions such as with, e.g. the tall man with the long red trousers and his skinny wife with the spectacles (this NP uses conjunctions, prepositions, specifiers, and modifiers). Regardless of length, an NP functions as a syntactic unit.[175] For example, the possessive enclitic can, in cases which do not lead to ambiguity, follow the entire noun phrase, as in The President of India's wife, where the enclitic follows India and not President.
+
+The class of determiners is used to specify the noun they precede in terms of definiteness, where the marks a definite noun and a or an an indefinite one. A definite noun is assumed by the speaker to be already known by the interlocutor, whereas an indefinite noun is not specified as being previously known. Quantifiers, which include one, many, some and all, are used to specify the noun in terms of quantity or number. The noun must agree with the number of the determiner, e.g. one man (sg.) but all men (pl.). Determiners are the first constituents in a noun phrase.[181]
+
+Adjectives modify a noun by providing additional information about their referents. In English, adjectives come before the nouns they modify and after determiners.[182] In Modern English, adjectives are not inflected, and they do not agree in form with the noun they modify, as adjectives in most other Indo-European languages do. For example, in the phrases the slender boy, and many slender girls, the adjective slender does not change form to agree with either the number or gender of the noun.
+
+Some adjectives are inflected for degree of comparison, with the positive degree unmarked, the suffix -er marking the comparative, and -est marking the superlative: a small boy, the boy is smaller than the girl, that boy is the smallest. Some adjectives have irregular comparative and superlative forms, such as good, better, and best. Other adjectives have comparatives formed by periphrastic constructions, with the adverb more marking the comparative, and most marking the superlative: happier or more happy, the happiest or most happy.[183] There is some variation among speakers regarding which adjectives use inflected or periphrastic comparison, and some studies have shown a tendency for the periphrastic forms to become more common at the expense of the inflected form.[184]
+
+English pronouns conserve many traits of case and gender inflection. The personal pronouns retain a difference between subjective and objective case in most persons (I/me, he/him, she/her, we/us, they/them) as well as a gender and animateness distinction in the third person singular (distinguishing he/she/it). The subjective case corresponds to the Old English nominative case, and the objective case is used both in the sense of the previous accusative case (in the role of patient, or direct object of a transitive verb), and in the sense of the Old English dative case (in the role of a recipient or indirect object of a transitive verb).[185][186] Subjective case is used when the pronoun is the subject of a finite clause, and otherwise, the objective case is used.[187] While grammarians such as Henry Sweet[188] and Otto Jespersen[189] noted that the English cases did not correspond to the traditional Latin based system, some contemporary grammars, for example Huddleston & Pullum (2002), retain traditional labels for the cases, calling them nominative and accusative cases respectively.
+
+Possessive pronouns exist in dependent and independent forms; the dependent form functions as a determiner specifying a noun (as in my chair), while the independent form can stand alone as if it were a noun (e.g. the chair is mine).[190] The English system of grammatical person no longer has a distinction between formal and informal pronouns of address (the old 2nd person singular familiar pronoun thou acquired a pejorative or inferior tinge of meaning and was abandoned), and the forms for 2nd person plural and singular are identical except in the reflexive form. Some dialects have introduced innovative 2nd person plural pronouns such as y'all found in Southern American English and African American (Vernacular) English or youse found in Australian English and ye in Irish English.
+
+Pronouns are used to refer to entities deictically or anaphorically. A deictic pronoun points to some person or object by identifying it relative to the speech situation—for example, the pronoun I identifies the speaker, and the pronoun you, the addressee. Anaphoric pronouns such as that refer back to an entity already mentioned or assumed by the speaker to be known by the audience, for example in the sentence I already told you that. The reflexive pronouns are used when the oblique argument is identical to the subject of a phrase (e.g. "he sent it to himself" or "she braced herself for impact").[191]
+
+Prepositional phrases (PP) are phrases composed of a preposition and one or more nouns, e.g. with the dog, for my friend, to school, in England.[192] Prepositions have a wide range of uses in English. They are used to describe movement, place, and other relations between different entities, but they also have many syntactic uses such as introducing complement clauses and oblique arguments of verbs.[192] For example, in the phrase I gave it to him, the preposition to marks the recipient, or Indirect Object of the verb to give. Traditionally words were only considered prepositions if they governed the case of the noun they preceded, for example causing the pronouns to use the objective rather than subjective form, "with her", "to me", "for us". But some contemporary grammars such as that of Huddleston & Pullum (2002:598–600) no longer consider government of case to be the defining feature of the class of prepositions, rather defining prepositions as words that can function as the heads of prepositional phrases.
+
+English verbs are inflected for tense and aspect and marked for agreement with present-tense third-person singular subject. Only the copula verb to be is still inflected for agreement with the plural and first and second person subjects.[183] Auxiliary verbs such as have and be are paired with verbs in the infinitive, past, or progressive forms. They form complex tenses, aspects, and moods. Auxiliary verbs differ from other verbs in that they can be followed by the negation, and in that they can occur as the first constituent in a question sentence.[193][194]
+
+Most verbs have six inflectional forms. The primary forms are a plain present, a third-person singular present, and a preterite (past) form. The secondary forms are a plain form used for the infinitive, a gerund-participle and a past participle.[195] The copula verb to be is the only verb to retain some of its original conjugation, and takes different inflectional forms depending on the subject. The first-person present-tense form is am, the third person singular form is is, and the form are is used in the second-person singular and all three plurals. The only verb past participle is been and its gerund-participle is being.
+
+English has two primary tenses, past (preterit) and non-past. The preterit is inflected by using the preterit form of the verb, which for the regular verbs includes the suffix -ed, and for the strong verbs either the suffix -t or a change in the stem vowel. The non-past form is unmarked except in the third person singular, which takes the suffix -s.[193]
+
+English does not have a morphologised future tense.[196] Futurity of action is expressed periphrastically with one of the auxiliary verbs will or shall.[197] Many varieties also use a near future constructed with the phrasal verb be going to.[198]
+
+Further aspectual distinctions are encoded by the use of auxiliary verbs, primarily have and be, which encode the contrast between a perfect and non-perfect past tense (I have run vs. I was running), and compound tenses such as preterite perfect (I had been running) and present perfect (I have been running).[199]
+
+For the expression of mood, English uses a number of modal auxiliaries, such as can, may, will, shall and the past tense forms could, might, would, should. There is also a subjunctive and an imperative mood, both based on the plain form of the verb (i.e. without the third person singular -s), and which is used in subordinate clauses (e.g. subjunctive: It is important that he run every day; imperative Run!).[197]
+
+An infinitive form, that uses the plain form of the verb and the preposition to, is used for verbal clauses that are syntactically subordinate to a finite verbal clause. Finite verbal clauses are those that are formed around a verb in the present or preterit form. In clauses with auxiliary verbs, they are the finite verbs and the main verb is treated as a subordinate clause.[200] For example, he has to go where only the auxiliary verb have is inflected for time and the main verb to go is in the infinitive, or in a complement clause such as I saw him leave, where the main verb is to see which is in a preterite form, and leave is in the infinitive.
+
+English also makes frequent use of constructions traditionally called phrasal verbs, verb phrases that are made up of a verb root and a preposition or particle which follows the verb. The phrase then functions as a single predicate. In terms of intonation the preposition is fused to the verb, but in writing it is written as a separate word. Examples of phrasal verbs are to get up, to ask out, to back up, to give up, to get together, to hang out, to put up with, etc. The phrasal verb frequently has a highly idiomatic meaning that is more specialised and restricted than what can be simply extrapolated from the combination of verb and preposition complement (e.g. lay off meaning terminate someone's employment).[201] In spite of the idiomatic meaning, some grammarians, including Huddleston & Pullum (2002:274), do not consider this type of construction to form a syntactic constituent and hence refrain from using the term "phrasal verb". Instead, they consider the construction simply to be a verb with a prepositional phrase as its syntactic complement, i.e. he woke up in the morning and he ran up in the mountains are syntactically equivalent.
+
+The function of adverbs is to modify the action or event described by the verb by providing additional information about the manner in which it occurs.[175] Many adverbs are derived from adjectives by appending the suffix -ly. For example, in the phrase the woman walked quickly, the adverb quickly is derived in this way from the adjective quick. Some commonly used adjectives have irregular adverbial forms, such as good which has the adverbial form well.
+
+Modern English syntax language is moderately analytic.[202] It has developed features such as modal verbs and word order as resources for conveying meaning. Auxiliary verbs mark constructions such as questions, negative polarity, the passive voice and progressive aspect.
+
+English word order has moved from the Germanic verb-second (V2) word order to being almost exclusively subject–verb–object (SVO).[203] The combination of SVO order and use of auxiliary verbs often creates clusters of two or more verbs at the centre of the sentence, such as he had hoped to try to open it.
+
+In most sentences, English only marks grammatical relations through word order.[204] The subject constituent precedes the verb and the object constituent follows it. The example below demonstrates how the grammatical roles of each constituent is marked only by the position relative to the verb:
+
+An exception is found in sentences where one of the constituents is a pronoun, in which case it is doubly marked, both by word order and by case inflection, where the subject pronoun precedes the verb and takes the subjective case form, and the object pronoun follows the verb and takes the objective case form.[205] The example below demonstrates this double marking in a sentence where both object and subject is represented with a third person singular masculine pronoun:
+
+Indirect objects (IO) of ditransitive verbs can be placed either as the first object in a double object construction (S V IO O), such as I gave Jane the book or in a prepositional phrase, such as I gave the book to Jane.[206]
+
+In English a sentence may be composed of one or more clauses, that may, in turn, be composed of one or more phrases (e.g. Noun Phrases, Verb Phrases, and Prepositional Phrases). A clause is built around a verb and includes its constituents, such as any NPs and PPs. Within a sentence, there is always at least one main clause (or matrix clause) whereas other clauses are subordinate to a main clause. Subordinate clauses may function as arguments of the verb in the main clause. For example, in the phrase I think (that) you are lying, the main clause is headed by the verb think, the subject is I, but the object of the phrase is the subordinate clause (that) you are lying. The subordinating conjunction that shows that the clause that follows is a subordinate clause, but it is often omitted.[207] Relative clauses are clauses that function as a modifier or specifier to some constituent in the main clause: For example, in the sentence I saw the letter that you received today, the relative clause that you received today specifies the meaning of the word letter, the object of the main clause. Relative clauses can be introduced by the pronouns who, whose, whom and which as well as by that (which can also be omitted.)[208] In contrast to many other Germanic languages there is no major differences between word order in main and subordinate clauses.[209]
+
+English syntax relies on auxiliary verbs for many functions including the expression of tense, aspect, and mood. Auxiliary verbs form main clauses, and the main verbs function as heads of a subordinate clause of the auxiliary verb. For example, in the sentence the dog did not find its bone, the clause find its bone is the complement of the negated verb did not. Subject–auxiliary inversion is used in many constructions, including focus, negation, and interrogative constructions.
+
+The verb do can be used as an auxiliary even in simple declarative sentences, where it usually serves to add emphasis, as in "I did shut the fridge." However, in the negated and inverted clauses referred to above, it is used because the rules of English syntax permit these constructions only when an auxiliary is present. Modern English does not allow the addition of the negating adverb not to an ordinary finite lexical verb, as in *I know not—it can only be added to an auxiliary (or copular) verb, hence if there is no other auxiliary present when negation is required, the auxiliary do is used, to produce a form like I do not (don't) know. The same applies in clauses requiring inversion, including most questions—inversion must involve the subject and an auxiliary verb, so it is not possible to say *Know you him?; grammatical rules require Do you know him?[210]
+
+Negation is done with the adverb not, which precedes the main verb and follows an auxiliary verb. A contracted form of not -n't can be used as an enclitic attaching to auxiliary verbs and to the copula verb to be. Just as with questions, many negative constructions require the negation to occur with do-support, thus in Modern English I don't know him is the correct answer to the question Do you know him?, but not *I know him not, although this construction may be found in older English.[211]
+
+Passive constructions also use auxiliary verbs. A passive construction rephrases an active construction in such a way that the object of the active phrase becomes the subject of the passive phrase, and the subject of the active phrase is either omitted or demoted to a role as an oblique argument introduced in a prepositional phrase. They are formed by using the past participle either with the auxiliary verb to be or to get, although not all varieties of English allow the use of passives with get. For example, putting the sentence she sees him into the passive becomes he is seen (by her), or he gets seen (by her).[212]
+
+Both yes–no questions and wh-questions in English are mostly formed using subject–auxiliary inversion (Am I going tomorrow?, Where can we eat?), which may require do-support (Do you like her?, Where did he go?). In most cases, interrogative words (wh-words; e.g. what, who, where, when, why, how) appear in a fronted position. For example, in the question What did you see?, the word what appears as the first constituent despite being the grammatical object of the sentence. (When the wh-word is the subject or forms part of the subject, no inversion occurs: Who saw the cat?.) Prepositional phrases can also be fronted when they are the question's theme, e.g. To whose house did you go last night?. The personal interrogative pronoun who is the only interrogative pronoun to still show inflection for case, with the variant whom serving as the objective case form, although this form may be going out of use in many contexts.[213]
+
+While English is a subject-prominent language, at the discourse level it tends to use a topic-comment structure, where the known information (topic) precedes the new information (comment). Because of the strict SVO syntax, the topic of a sentence generally has to be the grammatical subject of the sentence. In cases where the topic is not the grammatical subject of the sentence, frequently the topic is promoted to subject position through syntactic means. One way of doing this is through a passive construction, the girl was stung by the bee. Another way is through a cleft sentence where the main clause is demoted to be a complement clause of a copula sentence with a dummy subject such as it or there, e.g. it was the girl that the bee stung, there was a girl who was stung by a bee.[214] Dummy subjects are also used in constructions where there is no grammatical subject such as with impersonal verbs (e.g., it is raining) or in existential clauses (there are many cars on the street). Through the use of these complex sentence constructions with informationally vacuous subjects, English is able to maintain both a topic-comment sentence structure and a SVO syntax.
+
+Focus constructions emphasise a particular piece of new or salient information within a sentence, generally through allocating the main sentence level stress on the focal constituent. For example, the girl was stung by a bee (emphasising it was a bee and not, for example, a wasp that stung her), or The girl was stung by a bee (contrasting with another possibility, for example that it was the boy).[215] Topic and focus can also be established through syntactic dislocation, either preposing or postposing the item to be focused on relative to the main clause. For example, That girl over there, she was stung by a bee, emphasises the girl by preposition, but a similar effect could be achieved by postposition, she was stung by a bee, that girl over there, where reference to the girl is established as an "afterthought".[216]
+
+Cohesion between sentences is achieved through the use of deictic pronouns as anaphora (e.g. that is exactly what I mean where that refers to some fact known to both interlocutors, or then used to locate the time of a narrated event relative to the time of a previously narrated event).[217] Discourse markers such as oh, so or well, also signal the progression of ideas between sentences and help to create cohesion. Discourse markers are often the first constituents in sentences. Discourse markers are also used for stance taking in which speakers position themselves in a specific attitude towards what is being said, for example, no way is that true! (the idiomatic marker no way! expressing disbelief), or boy! I'm hungry (the marker boy expressing emphasis). While discourse markers are particularly characteristic of informal and spoken registers of English, they are also used in written and formal registers.[218]
+
+English is a rich language in terms of vocabulary, containing more synonyms than any other language.[134] There are words which appear on the surface to mean exactly the same thing but which, in fact, have slightly different shades of meaning and must be chosen appropriately if a speaker wants to convey precisely the message intended. It is generally stated that English has around 170,000 words, or 220,000 if obsolete words are counted; this estimate is based on the last full edition of the Oxford English Dictionary from 1989.[219] Over half of these words are nouns, a quarter adjectives, and a seventh verbs. There is one count that puts the English vocabulary at about 1 million words—but that count presumably includes words such as Latin species names, scientific terminology, botanical terms, prefixed and suffixed words, jargon, foreign words of extremely limited English use, and technical acronyms.[220]
+
+Due to its status as an international language, English adopts foreign words quickly, and borrows vocabulary from many other sources. Early studies of English vocabulary by lexicographers, the scholars who formally study vocabulary, compile dictionaries, or both, were impeded by a lack of comprehensive data on actual vocabulary in use from good-quality linguistic corpora,[221] collections of actual written texts and spoken passages. Many statements published before the end of the 20th century about the growth of English vocabulary over time, the dates of first use of various words in English, and the sources of English vocabulary will have to be corrected as new computerised analysis of linguistic corpus data becomes available.[220][222]
+
+English forms new words from existing words or roots in its vocabulary through a variety of processes. One of the most productive processes in English is conversion,[223] using a word with a different grammatical role, for example using a noun as a verb or a verb as a noun. Another productive word-formation process is nominal compounding,[220][222] producing compound words such as babysitter or ice cream or homesick.[223] A process more common in Old English than in Modern English, but still productive in Modern English, is the use of derivational suffixes (-hood, -ness, -ing, -ility) to derive new words from existing words (especially those of Germanic origin) or stems (especially for words of Latin or Greek origin).
+
+Formation of new words, called neologisms, based on Greek and/or Latin roots (for example television or optometry) is a highly productive process in English and in most modern European languages, so much so that it is often difficult to determine in which language a neologism originated. For this reason, lexicographer Philip Gove attributed many such words to the "international scientific vocabulary" (ISV) when compiling Webster's Third New International Dictionary (1961). Another active word-formation process in English is acronyms,[224] words formed by pronouncing as a single word abbreviations of longer phrases (e.g. NATO, laser).
+
+Source languages of English vocabulary[6][225]
+
+English, besides forming new words from existing words and their roots, also borrows words from other languages. This adoption of words from other languages is commonplace in many world languages, but English has been especially open to borrowing of foreign words throughout the last 1,000 years.[226] The most commonly used words in English are West Germanic.[227] The words in English learned first by children as they learn to speak, particularly the grammatical words that dominate the word count of both spoken and written texts, are mainly the Germanic words inherited from the earliest periods of the development of Old English.[220]
+
+But one of the consequences of long language contact between French and English in all stages of their development is that the vocabulary of English has a very high percentage of "Latinate" words (derived from French, especially, and also from other Romance languages and Latin). French words from various periods of the development of French now make up one-third of the vocabulary of English.[228] Linguist Anthony Lacoudre estimated that over 40,000 English words are of French origin and may be understood without orthographical change by French speakers.[229] Words of Old Norse origin have entered the English language primarily from the contact between Old Norse and Old English during colonisation of eastern and northern England. Many of these words are part of English core vocabulary, such as egg and knife.[230]
+
+English has also borrowed many words directly from Latin, the ancestor of the Romance languages, during all stages of its development.[222][220] Many of these words had earlier been borrowed into Latin from Greek. Latin or Greek are still highly productive sources of stems used to form vocabulary of subjects learned in higher education such as the sciences, philosophy, and mathematics.[231] English continues to gain new loanwords and calques ("loan translations") from languages all over the world, and words from languages other than the ancestral Anglo-Saxon language make up about 60% of the vocabulary of English.[232]
+
+English has formal and informal speech registers; informal registers, including child-directed speech, tend to be made up predominantly of words of Anglo-Saxon origin, while the percentage of vocabulary that is of Latinate origin is higher in legal, scientific, and academic texts.[233][234]
+
+English has had a strong influence on the vocabulary of other languages.[228][235] The influence of English comes from such factors as opinion leaders in other countries knowing the English language, the role of English as a world lingua franca, and the large number of books and films that are translated from English into other languages.[236] That pervasive use of English leads to a conclusion in many places that English is an especially suitable language for expressing new ideas or describing new technologies. Among varieties of English, it is especially American English that influences other languages.[237] Some languages, such as Chinese, write words borrowed from English mostly as calques, while others, such as Japanese, readily take in English loanwords written in sound-indicating script.[238] Dubbed films and television programmes are an especially fruitful source of English influence on languages in Europe.[238]
+
+Since the ninth century, English has been written in a Latin alphabet (also called Roman alphabet). Earlier Old English texts in Anglo-Saxon runes are only short inscriptions. The great majority of literary works in Old English that survive to today are written in the Roman alphabet.[36] The modern English alphabet contains 26 letters of the Latin script: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z (which also have capital forms: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z).
+
+The spelling system, or orthography, of English is multi-layered, with elements of French, Latin, and Greek spelling on top of the native Germanic system.[239] Further complications have arisen through sound changes with which the orthography has not kept pace.[48] Compared to European languages for which official organisations have promoted spelling reforms, English has spelling that is a less consistent indicator of pronunciation, and standard spellings of words that are more difficult to guess from knowing how a word is pronounced.[240] There are also systematic spelling differences between British and American English. These situations have prompted proposals for spelling reform in English.[241]
+
+Although letters and speech sounds do not have a one-to-one correspondence in standard English spelling, spelling rules that take into account syllable structure, phonetic changes in derived words, and word accent are reliable for most English words.[242] Moreover, standard English spelling shows etymological relationships between related words that would be obscured by a closer correspondence between pronunciation and spelling, for example the words photograph, photography, and photographic,[242] or the words electricity and electrical. While few scholars agree with Chomsky and Halle (1968) that conventional English orthography is "near-optimal",[239] there is a rationale for current English spelling patterns.[243] The standard orthography of English is the most widely used writing system in the world.[244] Standard English spelling is based on a graphomorphemic segmentation of words into written clues of what meaningful units make up each word.[245]
+
+Readers of English can generally rely on the correspondence between spelling and pronunciation to be fairly regular for letters or digraphs used to spell consonant sounds. The letters b, d, f, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, w, y, z represent, respectively, the phonemes /b, d, f, h, dʒ, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, w, j, z/. The letters c and g normally represent /k/ and /ɡ/, but there is also a soft c pronounced /s/, and a soft g pronounced /dʒ/. The differences in the pronunciations of the letters c and g are often signalled by the following letters in standard English spelling. Digraphs used to represent phonemes and phoneme sequences include ch for /tʃ/, sh for /ʃ/, th for /θ/ or /ð/, ng for /ŋ/, qu for /kw/, and ph for /f/ in Greek-derived words. The single letter x is generally pronounced as /z/ in word-initial position and as /ks/ otherwise. There are exceptions to these generalisations, often the result of loanwords being spelled according to the spelling patterns of their languages of origin[242] or residues of proposals by scholars in the early period of Modern English to follow the spelling patterns of Latin for English words of Germanic origin.[246]
+
+For the vowel sounds of the English language, however, correspondences between spelling and pronunciation are more irregular. There are many more vowel phonemes in English than there are single vowel letters (a, e, i, o, u, w, y). As a result, some "long vowels" are often indicated by combinations of letters (like the oa in boat, the ow in how, and the ay in stay), or the historically based silent e (as in note and cake).[243]
+
+The consequence of this complex orthographic history is that learning to read can be challenging in English. It can take longer for school pupils to become independently fluent readers of English than of many other languages, including Italian, Spanish, and German.[247] Nonetheless, there is an advantage for learners of English reading in learning the specific sound-symbol regularities that occur in the standard English spellings of commonly used words.[242] Such instruction greatly reduces the risk of children experiencing reading difficulties in English.[248][249] Making primary school teachers more aware of the primacy of morpheme representation in English may help learners learn more efficiently to read and write English.[250]
+
+English writing also includes a system of punctuation marks that is similar to those used in most alphabetic languages around the world. The purpose of punctuation is to mark meaningful grammatical relationships in sentences to aid readers in understanding a text and to indicate features important for reading a text aloud.[251]
+
+Dialectologists identify many English dialects, which usually refer to regional varieties that differ from each other in terms of patterns of grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. The pronunciation of particular areas distinguishes dialects as separate regional accents. The major native dialects of English are often divided by linguists into the two extremely general categories of British English (BrE) and North American English (NAE).[252] There also exists a third common major grouping of English varieties: Southern Hemisphere English, the most prominent being Australian and New Zealand English.
+
+As the place where English first evolved, the British Isles, and particularly England, are home to the most diverse dialects. Within the United Kingdom, the Received Pronunciation (RP), an educated dialect of South East England, is traditionally used as the broadcast standard and is considered the most prestigious of the British dialects. The spread of RP (also known as BBC English) through the media has caused many traditional dialects of rural England to recede, as youths adopt the traits of the prestige variety instead of traits from local dialects. At the time of the Survey of English Dialects, grammar and vocabulary differed across the country, but a process of lexical attrition has led most of this variation to disappear.[253]
+
+Nonetheless, this attrition has mostly affected dialectal variation in grammar and vocabulary, and in fact, only 3 percent of the English population actually speak RP, the remainder speaking in regional accents and dialects with varying degrees of RP influence.[254] There is also variability within RP, particularly along class lines between Upper and Middle-class RP speakers and between native RP speakers and speakers who adopt RP later in life.[255] Within Britain, there is also considerable variation along lines of social class, and some traits though exceedingly common are considered "non-standard" and are associated with lower class speakers and identities. An example of this is H-dropping, which was historically a feature of lower-class London English, particularly Cockney, and can now be heard in the local accents of most parts of England—yet it remains largely absent in broadcasting and among the upper crust of British society.[256]
+
+English in England can be divided into four major dialect regions, Southwest English, South East English, Midlands English, and Northern English. Within each of these regions several local subdialects exist: Within the Northern region, there is a division between the Yorkshire dialects and the Geordie dialect spoken in Northumbria around Newcastle, and the Lancashire dialects with local urban dialects in Liverpool (Scouse) and Manchester (Mancunian). Having been the centre of Danish occupation during the Viking Invasions, Northern English dialects, particularly the Yorkshire dialect, retain Norse features not found in other English varieties.[257]
+
+Since the 15th century, southeastern England varieties have centred on London, which has been the centre from which dialectal innovations have spread to other dialects. In London, the Cockney dialect was traditionally used by the lower classes, and it was long a socially stigmatised variety. The spread of Cockney features across the south-east led the media to talk of Estuary English as a new dialect, but the notion was criticised by many linguists on the grounds that London had been influencing neighbouring regions throughout history.[258][259][260] Traits that have spread from London in recent decades include the use of intrusive R (drawing is pronounced drawring /ˈdrɔːrɪŋ/), t-glottalisation (Potter is pronounced with a glottal stop as Po'er /poʔʌ/), and the pronunciation of th- as /f/ (thanks pronounced fanks) or /v/ (bother pronounced bover).[261]
+
+Scots is today considered a separate language from English, but it has its origins in early Northern Middle English[262] and developed and changed during its history with influence from other sources, particularly Scots Gaelic and Old Norse. Scots itself has a number of regional dialects. And in addition to Scots, Scottish English comprises the varieties of Standard English spoken in Scotland; most varieties are Northern English accents, with some influence from Scots.[263]
+
+In Ireland, various forms of English have been spoken since the Norman invasions of the 11th century. In County Wexford, in the area surrounding Dublin, two extinct dialects known as Forth and Bargy and Fingallian developed as offshoots from Early Middle English, and were spoken until the 19th century. Modern Irish English, however, has its roots in English colonisation in the 17th century. Today Irish English is divided into Ulster English, the Northern Ireland dialect with strong influence from Scots, and various dialects of the Republic of Ireland. Like Scottish and most North American accents, almost all Irish accents preserve the rhoticity which has been lost in the dialects influenced by RP.[21][264]
+
+North American English is fairly homogeneous compared to British English. Today, American accent variation is often increasing at the regional level and decreasing at the very local level,[265] though most Americans still speak within a phonological continuum of similar accents,[266] known collectively as General American (GA), with differences hardly noticed even among Americans themselves (such as Midland and Western American English).[267][268][269] In most American and Canadian English dialects, rhoticity (or r-fulness) is dominant, with non-rhoticity (r-dropping) becoming associated with lower prestige and social class especially after World War II; this contrasts with the situation in England, where non-rhoticity has become the standard.[270]
+
+Separate from GA are American dialects with clearly distinct sound systems, historically including Southern American English, English of the coastal Northeast (famously including Eastern New England English and New York City English), and African American Vernacular English, all of which are historically non-rhotic. Canadian English, except for the Atlantic provinces and perhaps Quebec, may be classified under GA as well, but it often shows the raising of the vowels /aɪ/ and /aʊ/ before voiceless consonants, as well as distinct norms for written and pronunciation standards.[271]
+
+In Southern American English, the most populous American "accent group" outside of GA,[272] rhoticity now strongly prevails, replacing the region's historical non-rhotic prestige.[273][274][275] Southern accents are colloquially described as a "drawl" or "twang,"[276] being recognised most readily by the Southern Vowel Shift initiated by glide-deleting in the /aɪ/ vowel (e.g. pronouncing spy almost like spa), the "Southern breaking" of several front pure vowels into a gliding vowel or even two syllables (e.g. pronouncing the word "press" almost like "pray-us"),[277] the pin–pen merger, and other distinctive phonological, grammatical, and lexical features, many of which are actually recent developments of the 19th century or later.[278]
+
+Today spoken primarily by working- and middle-class African Americans, African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) is also largely non-rhotic and likely originated among enslaved Africans and African Americans influenced primarily by the non-rhotic, non-standard older Southern dialects. A minority of linguists,[279] contrarily, propose that AAVE mostly traces back to African languages spoken by the slaves who had to develop a pidgin or Creole English to communicate with slaves of other ethnic and linguistic origins.[280] AAVE's important commonalities with Southern accents suggests it developed into a highly coherent and homogeneous variety in the 19th or early 20th century. AAVE is commonly stigmatised in North America as a form of "broken" or "uneducated" English, as are white Southern accents, but linguists today recognise both as fully developed varieties of English with their own norms shared by a large speech community.[281][282]
+
+Since 1788, English has been spoken in Oceania, and Australian English has developed as a first language of the vast majority of the inhabitants of the Australian continent, its standard accent being General Australian. The English of neighbouring New Zealand has to a lesser degree become an influential standard variety of the language.[283] Australian and New Zealand English are each other's closest relatives with few differentiating characteristics, followed by South African English and the English of southeastern England, all of which have similarly non-rhotic accents, aside from some accents in the South Island of New Zealand. Australian and New Zealand English stand out for their innovative vowels: many short vowels are fronted or raised, whereas many long vowels have diphthongised. Australian English also has a contrast between long and short vowels, not found in most other varieties. Australian English grammar aligns closely to British and American English; like American English, collective plural subjects take on a singular verb (as in the government is rather than are).[284][285] New Zealand English uses front vowels that are often even higher than in Australian English.[286][287][288]
+
+The first significant exposure of the Philippines to the English language occurred in 1762 when the British occupied Manila during the Seven Years' War, but this was a brief episode that had no lasting influence. English later became more important and widespread during American rule between 1898 and 1946, and remains an official language of the Philippines. Today, the use of English is ubiquitous in the Philippines, from street signs and marquees, government documents and forms, courtrooms, the media and entertainment industries, the business sector, and other aspects of daily life. One such usage that is also prominent in the country is in speech, where most Filipinos from Manila would use or have been exposed to Taglish, a form of code-switching between Tagalog and English. A similar code-switching method is used by urban native speakers of Visayan languages called Bislish.
+
+English is spoken widely in southern Africa and is an official or co-official language in several countries. In South Africa, English has been spoken since 1820, co-existing with Afrikaans and various African languages such as the Khoe and Bantu languages. Today, about 9 percent of the South African population speaks South African English (SAE) as a first language. SAE is a non-rhotic variety, which tends to follow RP as a norm. It is alone among non-rhotic varieties in lacking intrusive r. There are different L2 varieties that differ based on the native language of the speakers.[289] Most phonological differences from RP are in the vowels.[290] Consonant differences include the tendency to pronounce /p, t, t͡ʃ, k/ without aspiration (e.g. pin pronounced [pɪn] rather than as [pʰɪn] as in most other varieties), while r is often pronounced as a flap [ɾ] instead of as the more common fricative.[291]
+
+Nigerian English is a dialect of English spoken in Nigeria.[292] It is based on British English, but in recent years, because of influence from the United States, some words of American English origin have made it into Nigerian English. Additionally, some new words and collocations have emerged from the language, which come from the need to express concepts specific to the culture of the nation (e.g. senior wife). Over 150 million Nigerians speak English.[293]
+
+Several varieties of English are also spoken in the Caribbean islands that were colonial possessions of Britain, including Jamaica, and the Leeward and Windward Islands and Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, the Cayman Islands, and Belize. Each of these areas is home both to a local variety of English and a local English based creole, combining English and African languages. The most prominent varieties are Jamaican English and Jamaican Creole. In Central America, English based creoles are spoken in on the Caribbean coasts of Nicaragua and Panama.[294] Locals are often fluent both in the local English variety and the local creole languages and code-switching between them is frequent, indeed another way to conceptualise the relationship between Creole and Standard varieties is to see a spectrum of social registers with the Creole forms serving as "basilect" and the more RP-like forms serving as the "acrolect", the most formal register.[295]
+
+Most Caribbean varieties are based on British English and consequently, most are non-rhotic, except for formal styles of Jamaican English which are often rhotic. Jamaican English differs from RP in its vowel inventory, which has a distinction between long and short vowels rather than tense and lax vowels as in Standard English. The diphthongs /ei/ and /ou/ are monophthongs [eː] and [oː] or even the reverse diphthongs [ie] and [uo] (e.g. bay and boat pronounced [bʲeː] and [bʷoːt]). Often word-final consonant clusters are simplified so that "child" is pronounced [t͡ʃail] and "wind" [win].[296][297][298]
+
+As a historical legacy, Indian English tends to take RP as its ideal, and how well this ideal is realised in an individual's speech reflects class distinctions among Indian English speakers. Indian English accents are marked by the pronunciation of phonemes such as /t/ and /d/ (often pronounced with retroflex articulation as [ʈ] and [ɖ]) and the replacement of /θ/ and /ð/ with dentals [t̪] and [d̪]. Sometimes Indian English speakers may also use spelling based pronunciations where the silent ⟨h⟩ found in words such as ghost is pronounced as an Indian voiced aspirated stop [ɡʱ].[299]
+
+Click on a coloured area to see an article about English in that country or region

en/2380.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,54 @@
+
+
+Phaseolus vulgaris, also known as the common bean[2] and French bean,[3] is a herbaceous annual plant grown worldwide for its edible dry seeds or unripe fruit (both commonly called beans). The main categories of common beans, on the basis of use, are dry beans (seeds harvested at complete maturity), snap beans (tender pods with reduced fibre harvested before the seed development phase) and shell (shelled) beans (seeds harvested at physiological maturity). Its leaf is also occasionally used as a vegetable and the straw as fodder. Its botanical classification, along with other Phaseolus species, is as a member of the legume family Fabaceae. Like most members of this family, common beans acquire the nitrogen they require through an association with rhizobia, which are nitrogen-fixing bacteria.
+
+The common bean is a highly variable species that has a long history of cultivation. All wild members of the species have a climbing habit,[4] but many cultivars are classified either as bush beans or dwarf beans, or as pole beans or climbing beans, depending on their style of growth. These include the kidney bean, the navy bean, the pinto bean, and the wax bean.[5] The other major types of commercially grown bean are the runner bean (Phaseolus coccineus) and the broad bean (Vicia faba). Beans are grown on every continent except Antarctica. Worldwide, 27 million tonnes of dried beans and 24 million tonnes of green beans were grown in 2016.[6] In 2016, Myanmar was the largest producer of dried beans, while China produced 79% of the world total of green beans.
+
+The wild P. vulgaris is native to the Americas.  It was originally believed that it had been domesticated separately in Mesoamerica and in the southern Andes region, giving the domesticated bean two gene pools.[7]  However, recent genetic analyses show that it was actually domesticated in Mesoamerica first, and traveled south, probably along with squash and maize (corn).  The three Mesoamerican crops constitute the "Three Sisters" central to indigenous North American agriculture.
+
+The common bean is a highly variable species with a long history. Bush varieties form erect bushes 20–60 cm (8–20 in) tall, while pole or running varieties form vines 2–3 m (7–10 ft) long. All varieties bear alternate, green or purple leaves, which are divided into three oval, smooth-edged leaflets, each 6–15 cm (2–6 in) long and 3–11 cm (1–4 in) wide. The white, pink, or purple flowers are about 1 cm long, and they give way to pods 8–20 cm (3–8 in) long and 1–1.5 cm wide. These may be green, yellow, black, or purple in color, each containing 4–6 beans. The beans are smooth, plump, kidney-shaped, up to 1.5 cm long, range widely in color, and are often mottled in two or more colors. Raw or undercooked beans contain a toxic protein called phytohaemagglutinin.[8]:254
+
+Similar to other beans, the common bean is high in starch, protein, and dietary fiber, and is an excellent source of iron, potassium, selenium, thiamine, vitamin B6, and folate.[citation needed]
+
+Dry beans will keep indefinitely if stored in a cool, dry place, but as time passes, their nutritive value and flavor degrade and cooking times lengthen. Dried beans are almost always cooked by boiling, often after being soaked in water for several hours. While the soaking is not strictly necessary, it shortens cooking time and results in more evenly textured beans. In addition, soaking beans removes 5 to 10% of the gas-producing sugars that can cause flatulence for some people.[9] The methods include simple overnight soaking and the power soak method in which beans are boiled for three minutes and then set aside for 2–4 hours. Before cooking, the soaking water is drained off and discarded. Dry common beans take longer to cook than most pulses: cooking times vary from one to four hours, but are substantially reduced with pressure cooking.
+
+In Mexico, Central America, and South America, the traditional spice used with beans is epazote, which is also said to aid digestion. In East Asia, a type of seaweed, kombu, is added to beans as they cook for the same purpose. Salt, sugar, and acidic foods such as tomatoes may harden uncooked beans, resulting in seasoned beans at the expense of slightly longer cooking times.
+
+Dry beans may also be bought cooked and canned as refried beans, or whole with water, salt, and sometimes sugar.
+
+The three commonly known types of green beans are string or snap beans, which may be round or have a flat pod; stringless or French beans, which lack a tough, fibrous string running along the length of the pod; and runner beans, which belong to a separate species, Phaseolus coccineus. Green beans may have a purple rather than green pod, which changes to green when cooked.[10] Wax beans are P. vulgaris beans that have a yellow[4] or white pod. Wax bean cultivars are commonly grown;[4] the plants are often of the bush or dwarf form.[4]
+
+As the name implies, snap beans break easily when the pod is bent, giving off a distinct audible snap sound. The pods of snap beans (green, yellow and purple in colour) are harvested when they are rapidly growing, fleshy, tender (not tough and stringy), bright in colour, and the seeds are small and underdeveloped (8 to 10 days after flowering).
+
+Compared to dry beans, green and wax beans provide less starch and protein and more vitamin A and vitamin C.[citation needed] Green beans and wax beans are often steamed, boiled, stir-fried, or baked in casseroles.
+
+Shell, shelled, or shelling beans are beans removed from their pods before being cooked or dried. Common beans can be used as shell beans, but the term also refers to other species of beans whose pods are not typically eaten, such as lima beans, soybeans, peas, and fava beans. Fresh shell beans are nutritionally similar to dry beans, but are prepared more like a vegetable, often being steamed, fried, or made into soups.[citation needed]
+
+The nuña is an Andean subspecies, P. v. subsp. nunas (formerly P. vulgaris Nuñas group), with round, multicolored seeds that resemble pigeon eggs. When cooked on high heat, the bean explodes, exposing the inner part, in the manner of popcorn and other puffed grains.[citation needed]
+
+Some scientists have proposed Mesoamerica as a possible origin for the common bean. Scientists disagree over whether the common bean was a product of one or multiple domestication events. Over time two diverse gene pools emerged: the Andean gene pool from Southern Peru to Northwest Argentina and the Mesoamerican gene pool between Mexico and Colombia.[11]
+
+Large-seeded varieties of the domesticated bean have been found in the highlands of Peru, dating to 2300 BC, and spreading to the coastal regions by around 500 BC.[12] Small-seeded varieties were found in sites in Mexico, dating to 300 BC, which then spread north and east of the Mississippi River by 1000 AD.[12]
+
+Many well-known bean cultivars and varieties belong to this species, and the list below is in no way exhaustive. Both bush and running (pole) cultivars/varieties exist. The colors and shapes of pods and seeds vary over a wide range.
+
+In 2016, world production of green beans was 23.6 million tonnes, led by China with 79% of the total (table). World dried bean production in 2016 was 26.8 million tonnes, with Myanmar, India, and Brazil as leading producers (table).
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The toxic compound phytohaemagglutinin, a lectin, is present in many common bean varieties, but is especially concentrated in red kidney beans. White kidney beans contain about a third as much toxin as the red variety; broad beans (Vicia faba) contain 5 to 10% as much as red kidney beans.[8]
+
+Phytohaemagglutinin can be deactivated by cooking beans for ten minutes at boiling point (100 °C, 212 °F). Insufficient cooking, such as in a slow cooker at 80 °C/ 176 °F, however, is not sufficient to deactivate all toxin.[27] To safely cook the beans, the U.S Food and Drug Administration recommends boiling for 30 minutes to ensure they reach a sufficient temperature for long enough to completely destroy the toxin.[28] For dry beans, the FDA also recommends an initial soak of at least 5 hours in water which should then be discarded.[8] Outbreaks of poisoning have been associated with cooking kidney beans in slow cookers.[8]
+
+The primary symptoms of phytohaemagglutinin poisoning are nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. Onset is from one to three hours after consumption of improperly prepared beans, and symptoms typically resolve within a few hours.[8] Consumption of as few as four or five raw, soaked kidney beans can cause symptoms.[8] Canned red kidney beans, though, are safe to use immediately, as they have already been cooked.[29][30][31]
+
+Beans are high in purines, which are metabolized to uric acid. Uric acid is not a toxin as such, but may promote the development or exacerbation of gout. However, more recent research has questioned this association, finding that moderate intake of purine-rich foods is not associated with increased risk of gout.[32]
+
+Bean leaves have been used to trap bedbugs in houses.[33] Microscopic hairs (trichomes) on the bean leaves entrap the insects.[33]
+
+From ancient times, beans were used as device in various methods of divination. Fortune-telling using beans is called favomancy.
+

en/2381.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,54 @@
+
+
+Phaseolus vulgaris, also known as the common bean[2] and French bean,[3] is a herbaceous annual plant grown worldwide for its edible dry seeds or unripe fruit (both commonly called beans). The main categories of common beans, on the basis of use, are dry beans (seeds harvested at complete maturity), snap beans (tender pods with reduced fibre harvested before the seed development phase) and shell (shelled) beans (seeds harvested at physiological maturity). Its leaf is also occasionally used as a vegetable and the straw as fodder. Its botanical classification, along with other Phaseolus species, is as a member of the legume family Fabaceae. Like most members of this family, common beans acquire the nitrogen they require through an association with rhizobia, which are nitrogen-fixing bacteria.
+
+The common bean is a highly variable species that has a long history of cultivation. All wild members of the species have a climbing habit,[4] but many cultivars are classified either as bush beans or dwarf beans, or as pole beans or climbing beans, depending on their style of growth. These include the kidney bean, the navy bean, the pinto bean, and the wax bean.[5] The other major types of commercially grown bean are the runner bean (Phaseolus coccineus) and the broad bean (Vicia faba). Beans are grown on every continent except Antarctica. Worldwide, 27 million tonnes of dried beans and 24 million tonnes of green beans were grown in 2016.[6] In 2016, Myanmar was the largest producer of dried beans, while China produced 79% of the world total of green beans.
+
+The wild P. vulgaris is native to the Americas.  It was originally believed that it had been domesticated separately in Mesoamerica and in the southern Andes region, giving the domesticated bean two gene pools.[7]  However, recent genetic analyses show that it was actually domesticated in Mesoamerica first, and traveled south, probably along with squash and maize (corn).  The three Mesoamerican crops constitute the "Three Sisters" central to indigenous North American agriculture.
+
+The common bean is a highly variable species with a long history. Bush varieties form erect bushes 20–60 cm (8–20 in) tall, while pole or running varieties form vines 2–3 m (7–10 ft) long. All varieties bear alternate, green or purple leaves, which are divided into three oval, smooth-edged leaflets, each 6–15 cm (2–6 in) long and 3–11 cm (1–4 in) wide. The white, pink, or purple flowers are about 1 cm long, and they give way to pods 8–20 cm (3–8 in) long and 1–1.5 cm wide. These may be green, yellow, black, or purple in color, each containing 4–6 beans. The beans are smooth, plump, kidney-shaped, up to 1.5 cm long, range widely in color, and are often mottled in two or more colors. Raw or undercooked beans contain a toxic protein called phytohaemagglutinin.[8]:254
+
+Similar to other beans, the common bean is high in starch, protein, and dietary fiber, and is an excellent source of iron, potassium, selenium, thiamine, vitamin B6, and folate.[citation needed]
+
+Dry beans will keep indefinitely if stored in a cool, dry place, but as time passes, their nutritive value and flavor degrade and cooking times lengthen. Dried beans are almost always cooked by boiling, often after being soaked in water for several hours. While the soaking is not strictly necessary, it shortens cooking time and results in more evenly textured beans. In addition, soaking beans removes 5 to 10% of the gas-producing sugars that can cause flatulence for some people.[9] The methods include simple overnight soaking and the power soak method in which beans are boiled for three minutes and then set aside for 2–4 hours. Before cooking, the soaking water is drained off and discarded. Dry common beans take longer to cook than most pulses: cooking times vary from one to four hours, but are substantially reduced with pressure cooking.
+
+In Mexico, Central America, and South America, the traditional spice used with beans is epazote, which is also said to aid digestion. In East Asia, a type of seaweed, kombu, is added to beans as they cook for the same purpose. Salt, sugar, and acidic foods such as tomatoes may harden uncooked beans, resulting in seasoned beans at the expense of slightly longer cooking times.
+
+Dry beans may also be bought cooked and canned as refried beans, or whole with water, salt, and sometimes sugar.
+
+The three commonly known types of green beans are string or snap beans, which may be round or have a flat pod; stringless or French beans, which lack a tough, fibrous string running along the length of the pod; and runner beans, which belong to a separate species, Phaseolus coccineus. Green beans may have a purple rather than green pod, which changes to green when cooked.[10] Wax beans are P. vulgaris beans that have a yellow[4] or white pod. Wax bean cultivars are commonly grown;[4] the plants are often of the bush or dwarf form.[4]
+
+As the name implies, snap beans break easily when the pod is bent, giving off a distinct audible snap sound. The pods of snap beans (green, yellow and purple in colour) are harvested when they are rapidly growing, fleshy, tender (not tough and stringy), bright in colour, and the seeds are small and underdeveloped (8 to 10 days after flowering).
+
+Compared to dry beans, green and wax beans provide less starch and protein and more vitamin A and vitamin C.[citation needed] Green beans and wax beans are often steamed, boiled, stir-fried, or baked in casseroles.
+
+Shell, shelled, or shelling beans are beans removed from their pods before being cooked or dried. Common beans can be used as shell beans, but the term also refers to other species of beans whose pods are not typically eaten, such as lima beans, soybeans, peas, and fava beans. Fresh shell beans are nutritionally similar to dry beans, but are prepared more like a vegetable, often being steamed, fried, or made into soups.[citation needed]
+
+The nuña is an Andean subspecies, P. v. subsp. nunas (formerly P. vulgaris Nuñas group), with round, multicolored seeds that resemble pigeon eggs. When cooked on high heat, the bean explodes, exposing the inner part, in the manner of popcorn and other puffed grains.[citation needed]
+
+Some scientists have proposed Mesoamerica as a possible origin for the common bean. Scientists disagree over whether the common bean was a product of one or multiple domestication events. Over time two diverse gene pools emerged: the Andean gene pool from Southern Peru to Northwest Argentina and the Mesoamerican gene pool between Mexico and Colombia.[11]
+
+Large-seeded varieties of the domesticated bean have been found in the highlands of Peru, dating to 2300 BC, and spreading to the coastal regions by around 500 BC.[12] Small-seeded varieties were found in sites in Mexico, dating to 300 BC, which then spread north and east of the Mississippi River by 1000 AD.[12]
+
+Many well-known bean cultivars and varieties belong to this species, and the list below is in no way exhaustive. Both bush and running (pole) cultivars/varieties exist. The colors and shapes of pods and seeds vary over a wide range.
+
+In 2016, world production of green beans was 23.6 million tonnes, led by China with 79% of the total (table). World dried bean production in 2016 was 26.8 million tonnes, with Myanmar, India, and Brazil as leading producers (table).
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The toxic compound phytohaemagglutinin, a lectin, is present in many common bean varieties, but is especially concentrated in red kidney beans. White kidney beans contain about a third as much toxin as the red variety; broad beans (Vicia faba) contain 5 to 10% as much as red kidney beans.[8]
+
+Phytohaemagglutinin can be deactivated by cooking beans for ten minutes at boiling point (100 °C, 212 °F). Insufficient cooking, such as in a slow cooker at 80 °C/ 176 °F, however, is not sufficient to deactivate all toxin.[27] To safely cook the beans, the U.S Food and Drug Administration recommends boiling for 30 minutes to ensure they reach a sufficient temperature for long enough to completely destroy the toxin.[28] For dry beans, the FDA also recommends an initial soak of at least 5 hours in water which should then be discarded.[8] Outbreaks of poisoning have been associated with cooking kidney beans in slow cookers.[8]
+
+The primary symptoms of phytohaemagglutinin poisoning are nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. Onset is from one to three hours after consumption of improperly prepared beans, and symptoms typically resolve within a few hours.[8] Consumption of as few as four or five raw, soaked kidney beans can cause symptoms.[8] Canned red kidney beans, though, are safe to use immediately, as they have already been cooked.[29][30][31]
+
+Beans are high in purines, which are metabolized to uric acid. Uric acid is not a toxin as such, but may promote the development or exacerbation of gout. However, more recent research has questioned this association, finding that moderate intake of purine-rich foods is not associated with increased risk of gout.[32]
+
+Bean leaves have been used to trap bedbugs in houses.[33] Microscopic hairs (trichomes) on the bean leaves entrap the insects.[33]
+
+From ancient times, beans were used as device in various methods of divination. Fortune-telling using beans is called favomancy.
+

en/2382.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,109 @@
+The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica include diatonic, chromatic, tremolo, octave, orchestral, and bass versions. A harmonica is played by using the mouth (lips and tongue) to direct air into or out of one (or more) holes along a mouthpiece. Behind each hole is a chamber containing at least one reed. A harmonica reed is a flat, elongated spring typically made of brass, stainless steel, or bronze, which is secured at one end over a slot that serves as an airway. When the free end is made to vibrate by the player's air, it alternately blocks and unblocks the airway to produce sound.
+
+Reeds are tuned to individual pitches. Tuning may involve changing a reed’s length, the weight near its free end, or the stiffness near its fixed end. Longer, heavier, and springier reeds produce deeper, lower sounds; shorter, lighter, and stiffer reeds make higher-pitched sounds. If, as on most modern harmonicas, a reed is affixed above or below its slot rather than in the plane of the slot, it responds more easily to air flowing in the direction that initially would push it into the slot, i.e., as a closing reed. This difference in response to air direction makes it possible to include both a blow reed and a draw reed in the same air chamber and to play them separately without relying on flaps of plastic or leather (valves, wind-savers) to block the nonplaying reed.
+
+An important technique in performance is bending, causing a drop in pitch by making embouchure adjustments.  Bending isolated reeds is possible, as on chromatic and other harmonica models with wind-savers, but also to both lower, and raise (overbend, overblow, overdraw) the pitch produced by pairs of reeds in the same chamber, as on a diatonic or other unvalved harmonica. Such two-reed pitch changes actually involve sound production by the normally silent reed, the opening reed (for instance, the blow reed while the player is drawing).
+
+The basic parts of the harmonica are the comb, reed plates, and cover plates.
+
+The comb is the main body of the instrument, which, when assembled with the reed plates, forms air chambers for the reeds. The term "comb" may originate from the similarity between this part of a harmonica and a hair comb. Harmonica combs were traditionally made from wood, but now are also made from plastic (ABS) or metal (including titanium for high-end instruments).  Some modern and experimental comb designs are complex in the way that they direct the air.
+
+Dispute exists among players about whether comb material affects the tone of a harmonica. Those saying no argue that unlike the soundboard of a piano or the top piece of a violin or guitar, a harmonica's comb is neither large enough nor able to vibrate freely enough to substantially augment or change the sound. Among those saying yes are those who are convinced by their ears. Few dispute, however, that comb surface smoothness and air tightness when mated with the reed plates can greatly affect tone and playability. The main advantage of a particular comb material over another one is its durability.[1] In particular, a wooden comb can absorb moisture from the player's breath and contact with the tongue. This can cause the comb to expand slightly, making the instrument uncomfortable to play, and to then contract, potentially compromising air tightness. Various types of wood and treatments have been devised to reduce the degree of this problem.
+
+An even more serious problem with wooden combs, especially in chromatic harmonicas (with their thin dividers between chambers), is that, as the combs expand and shrink over time, cracks can form in the combs, because the comb is held immobile by nails, resulting in disabling leakage. Serious players devote significant effort to restoring wood combs and sealing leaks. Some players used to soak wooden-combed harmonicas (diatonics, without wind-savers) in water to cause a slight expansion, which they intended to make the seal between the comb, reed plates, and covers more airtight. Modern wooden-combed harmonicas are less prone to swelling and contracting, but modern players still dip their harmonicas in water for the way it affects tone and ease of bending notes.
+
+The reed plate is a grouping of several reeds in a single housing. The reeds are usually made of brass, but steel, aluminium, and plastic are occasionally used. Individual reeds are usually riveted to the reed plate, but they may also be welded or screwed in place. Reeds fixed on the inner side of the reed plate (within the comb's air chamber) respond to blowing, while those fixed on the outer side respond to suction.
+
+Most harmonicas are constructed with the reed plates screwed or bolted to the comb or each other. A few brands still use the traditional method of nailing the reed plates to the comb. Some experimental and rare harmonicas also have had the reed plates held in place by tension, such as the WWII-era all-American models. If the plates are bolted to the comb, the reed plates can be replaced individually. This is useful because the reeds eventually go out of tune through normal use, and certain notes of the scale can fail more quickly than others.
+
+A notable exception to the traditional reed plate design is the all-plastic harmonicas designed by Finn Magnus in the 1950s, in which the reed and reed plate were molded out of a single piece of plastic. The Magnus design had the reeds, reed plates, and comb made of plastic and either molded or permanently glued together.
+
+Cover plates cover the reed plates and are usually made of metal, though wood and plastic have also been used. The choice of these is personal; because they project sound, they determine the tonal quality of the harmonica. Two types of cover plates are used: traditional open designs of stamped metal or plastic, which are simply there to be held; and enclosed designs (such as the Hohner Meisterklasse and Super 64, Suzuki Promaster and SCX), which offer a louder tonal quality. From these two basic types, a few modern designs have been created, such as the Hohner CBH-2016 chromatic and the Suzuki Overdrive diatonic, which have complex covers that allow for specific functions not usually available in the traditional design. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, harmonicas not uncommonly had  special features on the covers, such as bells, which could be rung by pushing a button.
+
+Wind-savers are one-way valves made from thin strips of plastic, knit paper, leather, or Teflon glued to the reed plate. They are typically found in chromatic harmonicas, chord harmonicas, and many octave-tuned harmonicas. Wind-savers are used when two reeds share a cell and leakage through the nonplaying reed would be significant. For example, when a draw note is played, the valve on the blow reed-slot is sucked shut, preventing air from leaking through the inactive blow reed. An exception to this is the now-discontinued Hohner XB-40, on which valves are placed not to isolate single reeds, but rather to isolate entire chambers from being active, a design that made playing traditional blues bends possible on all reeds.
+
+The mouthpiece is placed between the air chambers of the instrument and the player's mouth. This can be integral with the comb (the diatonic harmonicas; the Hohner Chrometta); part of the cover (as in Hohner's CX-12); or may be a separate unit, secured by screws, which is typical of chromatics. In many harmonicas, the mouthpiece is purely an ergonomic aid designed to make playing more comfortable. However, in the traditional slider-based chromatic harmonica, it is essential to the functioning of the instrument because it provides a groove for the slide.
+
+Since the 1950s, many blues harmonica players have amplified their instrument with microphones and tube amplifiers. One of the early innovators of this approach was Marion "Little Walter" Jacobs, who played the harmonica near a "Bullet" microphone marketed for use by radio taxi dispatchers. This gave his harmonica tone  a "punchy" midrange sound that could be heard above an electric guitar. Also, tube amplifiers produce a natural growling overdrive when cranked at higher volumes, which adds body, fullness, and "grit" to the sound. Little Walter also cupped his hands around the instrument, tightening the air around the harp, giving it a powerful, distorted sound, somewhat reminiscent of a saxophone, hence the term "Mississippi saxophone". Some harmonica players in folk use a regular vocal microphone, such as a Shure SM 58, for their harmonica, which gives a clean, natural sound.
+
+As technology in amplification has progressed, harmonica players have introduced other effects units to their rigs, as well, such as reverb, tremolo, delay, octave, additional overdrive pedals, and chorus effect. John Popper of Blues Traveler uses a customized microphone that encapsulates several of these effects into one handheld unit, as opposed to several units in sequence. Many harmonica players still prefer tube amplifiers to solid-state ones, owing to the perceived difference in tone generated by the vacuum tubes. Players perceive tubes as having a "warmer" tone and a more "natural" overdrive sound. Many amplifiers designed for electric guitar are also used by harmonica players, such as the Kalamazoo Model Two, Fender Bassman, and the Danelectro Commando. Some expensive, handmade boutique amplifiers, however, are built from the ground up with characteristics that are optimal for amplified harmonica.
+
+Harmonica players who play the instrument while performing on another instrument with their hands (e.g., an acoustic guitar) often use an accessory called a neck rack or harmonica holder to position the instrument in front of their mouths. A harmonica holder clamps the harmonica between two metal brackets, which are attached to a curved loop of metal that rests on the shoulders. The original harmonica racks were made from wire or coat hangers.  Models of harmonica racks vary widely by quality and ease of use, and  experimenting with more than one model of harmonica rack is often needed  to find one that feels suitable for each individual player. This device is used by folk musicians, one-man bands, and singer-songwriters such as Bob Dylan, Tom Harmon, Neil Young, Eddie Vedder, Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, and blues singers Jimmy Reed and John Hammond Jr.
+
+The chromatic harmonica uses a button-activated sliding bar to redirect air from the hole in the mouthpiece to the selected reed-plate, though one design—the "Machino-Tone"—controlled airflow by means of a lever-operated flap on the rear of the instrument. Also, a "hands-free" modification to the Hohner 270 (12-hole) lets the player shift the tones by moving the mouthpiece up and down with the lips, leaving the hands free to play another instrument. While the Richter-tuned 10-hole chromatic is intended to play in only one key, the 12-, 14-, and 16-hole models (which are tuned to equal temperament) allow the musician to play in any key desired with only one harmonica. This harp can be used for any style, including Celtic, classical, jazz, or blues (commonly in third position).
+
+Strictly speaking, diatonic denotes any harmonica designed to play in a single key—though the standard Richter-tuned harmonica diatonic can play other keys by forcing its reeds to play tones that are not part of its basic scale. Depending on the country, "diatonic harmonica" may mean either the tremolo harmonica (in East Asia) or blues harp (In Europe and North America). Other diatonic harmonicas include octave harmonicas.
+
+Here is the note layout for a standard diatonic in the key of G major:
+
+Each hole is the same interval (here, a perfect fifth) from its key of C counterpart; on the diatonic scale, a  G is a perfect fifth from C. The interval between keys can be used to find the note layout of any standard diatonic.
+
+The distinguishing feature of the tremolo-tuned harmonica is that it has two reeds per note, with one slightly sharp and the other slightly flat. This provides a unique wavering or warbling sound created by the two reeds being slightly out of tune with each other and the difference in their subsequent waveforms interacting with each other (its beat). The East Asian version, which can produce all 12 semitones, is used often in East Asian rock and pop music.
+
+Orchestral harmonicas are primarily designed for use in ensemble playing.
+
+There are eight kinds of orchestral melody harmonica; the most common are the horn harmonicas often found in East Asia. These consist of a single large comb with blow-only reed-plates on the top and bottom. Each reed sits inside a single cell in the comb. One version mimics the layout of a piano or mallet instrument, with the natural notes of a C diatonic scale in the lower reed plate and the sharps and flats in the upper reed plate in groups of two and three holes with gaps in between like the black keys of a piano. Another version has one "sharp" reed directly above its "natural" on the lower plate, with the same number of reeds on both plates (therefore including E♯ and B♯).
+
+Horn harmonicas are available in several pitch ranges, with the lowest pitched starting two octaves below middle C and the highest beginning on middle C itself; they usually cover a two- or three-octave range. They are chromatic instruments and are usually played in an East Asian harmonica orchestra instead of the "push-button" chromatic harmonica that is more common in the European and American tradition. Their reeds are often larger, and the enclosing "horn" gives them a different timbre, so that they often function in place of a brass section. In the past, they were referred to as horn harmonicas.
+
+The other type of orchestral melodic harmonica is the polyphonia, (though some are marked "chromatica"). These have all twelve chromatic notes laid out on the same row. In most cases, they have both blow and draw of the same tone, though the No. 7 is blow only, and the No. 261, also blow only, has two reeds per hole, tuned an octave apart (all these designations refer to products of M. Hohner).
+
+The chord harmonica has up to 48 chords: major, seventh, minor, augmented and diminished for ensemble playing. It is laid out in four-note clusters, each sounding a different chord on inhaling or exhaling. Typically each hole has two reeds for each note, tuned to one octave of each other. However, less expensive models often have only one reed per note. Quite a few orchestra harmonicas are also designed to serve as both bass and chord harmonica, with bass notes next to chord groupings. There are also other chord harmonicas, such as the Chordomonica (which operates similar to a chromatic harmonica), and the junior chord harmonicas (which typically provide six chords).
+
+The Suzuki SSCH-56 Compact Chord harmonica is a 48-chord harmonica built in a 14-hole chromatic harmonica enclosure. The first three holes play a major chord on blow and draw, with and without the slide. Holes 2, 3, and 4 play a diminished chord; holes 3, 4, and 5 play a minor chord; and holes 4, 5, and 6 play an augmented, for a total of sixteen chords. This pattern is repeated starting on hole 5, a whole step higher; and again starting on hole 9, for a total of 48 chords.
+
+The ChengGong harmonica[2] has a main body, and a sliding mouthpiece. The body is a 24-hole diatonic harmonica that ranges from B2 to D6 (covering 3 octaves). Its 11-hole mouthpiece can slide along the front of the harmonica, which gives numerous chord choices and voicings (seven triads, three 6th chords, seven 7th chords, and seven 9th chords, for a total of 24 chords). As well, it is capable of playing single-note melodies and double stops over a range of three diatonic octaves. Unlike conventional harmonicas, blowing and drawing produce the same notes because its tuning is closer to the note layout of a typical East Asian tremolo harmonica or the Polyphonias.
+
+The pitch pipe is a simple specialty harmonica that provides a reference pitch to singers and other instruments. The only difference between some early pitch-pipes and harmonicas is the name of the instrument, which reflected the maker's target audience. Chromatic pitch pipes, which are used by singers and choirs, give a full chromatic (12-note) octave. Pitch pipes are also sold for string players, such as violinists and guitarists; these pitch pipes usually provide the notes corresponding to the open strings.
+
+Vibrato is a technique commonly used while playing the harmonica and many other instruments, to give the note a 'shaking' sound. This technique can be accomplished in a number of ways. The most common way is to change how the harmonica is held. For example, the vibrato effect can be achieved by opening and closing the hands around the harmonica very rapidly. The vibrato might also be achieved via rapid glottal (vocal fold) opening and closing, especially on draws (inhalation) simultaneous to bending, or without bending. This obviates the need for cupping and waving the hands around the instrument during play. An effect similar to vibrato is that of the 'trill' (or 'roll', or 'warble, or 'shake'); this technique has the player move their lips between two holes very quickly, either by shaking the head in a rapid motion or moving the harmonica from side to side within the embouchure. This gives a quick pitch-alternating technique that is slightly more than vibrato and achieves the same aural effect on sustained notes, albeit by using two different tones instead of varying the amplitude of one.
+
+In addition to the 19 notes readily available on the diatonic harmonica, players can play other notes by adjusting their embouchure and forcing the reed to resonate at a different pitch. This technique is called bending, a term possibly borrowed from guitarists, who literally bend a string to subtly change the pitch. Bending also creates the glissandos characteristic of much blues harp and country harmonica playing. Bends are essential for most blues and rock harmonica due to the soulful sounds the instrument can bring out. The "wail" of the blues harp typically requires bending. In the 1970s, Howard Levy developed the over bending technique (also known as "overblowing" and "overdrawing".) Over Bending, combined with bending, allowed players to play the entire chromatic scale.
+
+In addition to playing the diatonic harmonica in its original key, it is also possible to play it in other keys by playing in other "positions" using different keynotes. Using just the basic notes on the instrument would mean playing in a specific mode for each position. For example the Mixolydian mode (root note is the second draw or third blow), produces a major dominant seventh key that is frequently used by blues players because it contains the harmonically rich dominant seventh note, while the Dorian mode (root note is four draw) produces a minor dominant seventh key. Harmonica players (especially blues players) have developed terminology around different "positions," which can be confusing to other musicians, for example the slang terminology for the most common positions (1st being 'straight', 2nd being 'cross', 3rd being 'slant', etc.).
+
+Another technique, seldom used to its full potential, is altering the size of the mouth cavity to emphasize certain natural overtones. When this technique is employed while playing chords, care must be taken in overtone selection as the overtones stemming from the non-root pitch can cause extreme dissonance.
+
+Harmonica players who amplify their instrument with microphones and tube amplifiers, such as blues harp players, also have a range of techniques that exploit properties of the microphone and the amplifier, such as changing the way the hands are cupped around the instrument and the microphone or rhythmically breathing or chanting into the microphone while playing.
+
+The harmonica was developed in Europe in the early part of the 19th century. Free-reed instruments like the Chinese sheng were fairly common in East Asia since ancient times. They became relatively well known in Europe after being introduced by the French Jesuit Jean Joseph Marie Amiot (1718–1793), who lived in Qing-era China.[3] Around 1820, free-reed designs began being created in Europe. Christian Friedrich Ludwig Buschmann is often cited as the inventor of the harmonica in 1821, but other inventors developed similar instruments at the same time.[4] In 1829, Charles Wheatstone developed a mouth-organ under the name "Aeolina" (inspired by the Aeolian harp).[5] Mouth-blown free-reed instruments appeared in the United States, South America, the United Kingdom and Europe at roughly the same time. These instruments were made for playing classical music.
+
+The harmonica first appeared in Vienna, where harmonicas with chambers were sold before 1824 (see also Anton Reinlein and Anton Haeckl). Richter tuning, invented by Joseph Richter (who also is credited with inventing the blow and draw mechanism), was created in 1826 and was eventually adopted nearly universally. In Germany, violin manufacturer Johann Georg Meisel from Klingenthal bought a harmonica with chambers (Kanzellen) at an exhibition in Braunschweig in 1824. He and the ironworker Langhammer copied the instruments in Graslitz three miles away; by 1827 they had produced hundreds of harmonicas. Many others followed in Germany and also nearby Bohemia that would later become Czechoslovakia. In 1829, Johann Wilhelm Rudolph Glier also began making harmonicas.
+
+In 1830, Christian Messner, a cloth maker and weaver from Trossingen, copied a harmonica his neighbour had brought from Vienna. He had such success that eventually his brother and some relatives also started to make harmonicas. From 1840 onwards, his nephew Christian Weiss was also involved in the business. By 1855, there were at least three harmonica-making businesses: C. A. Seydel Söhne, Christian Messner & Co., and Württ. Harmonikafabrik Ch. Weiss. (Currently, only C.A. Seydel is still in business.) Owing to competition between the harmonica factories in Trossingen and Klingenthal, machines were invented to punch the covers for the reeds.
+
+In 1857, Matthias Hohner, a clockmaker from Trossingen, started producing harmonicas. Eventually he became the first to mass-produce them. He used a mass-produced wooden comb that he had made by machine-cutting firms. By 1868, he began supplying the United States. By the 1920s, the diatonic harmonica had largely reached its modern form. Other types followed soon thereafter, including the various tremolo and octave harmonicas.
+
+By the late 19th century, harmonica production was a big business, having evolved into mass production. New designs were still developed in the 20th century, including the chromatic harmonica, first made by Hohner in 1924, the bass harmonica, and the chord harmonica. In the 21st century, radical new designs have been developed and are still being introduced into the market, such as the Suzuki Overdrive, Hohner XB-40, and the ill-fated Harrison B-Radical.
+
+Diatonic harmonicas were designed primarily for playing German and other European folk music and have succeeded well in those styles. Over time, the basic design and tuning proved adaptable to other types of music such as the blues, country, old-time and more. The harmonica was a success almost from the very start of production, and while the center of the harmonica business has shifted from Germany, the output of the various harmonica manufacturers is still very high. Major companies are now found in Germany (Seydel and Hohner – the dominant manufacturer in the world), Japan (Suzuki, Tombo – the manufacturer of the popular Lee Oskar harmonica, and Yamaha also made harmonicas until the 1970s), China (Huang, Easttop, Johnson, Leo Shi, Suzuki, Hohner, Swan, AXL), and Brazil (Hering, Bends). The United States had two significant harmonica manufacturers, and both were based in Union, New Jersey. One was Magnus Harmonica Corporation, whose founder Finn Magnus is credited with the development of plastic harmonica reeds. The other was Wm. Kratt Company, which, founded by German-American William Jacob "Bill" Kratt Sr., originally made pitch pipes and later, in 1952, secured a patent for combs made of plastic. Both companies ceased harmonica production. The only recent American contender in the harmonica market was Harrison Harmonicas, which folded in July 2011. It was announced soon thereafter that the rights to the Harrison design had been sold to another company to finish production of orders already placed. In October 2012, it was revealed that a Beloit, Wisconsin, investment corporation, R&R Opportunities, had bought the assets of Harrison Harmonicas and that a feasibility study was under way to assess the possibilities of continued production of the Harrison B-Radical harmonica. Recently, responding to increasingly demanding performance techniques, the market for high-quality instruments has grown.
+
+Some time before Hohner began manufacturing harmonicas in 1857, he shipped some to relatives who had emigrated to the United States. Its music rapidly became popular, and the country became an enormous market for Hohner's goods. US president Abraham Lincoln carried a harmonica in his pocket,[6] and harmonicas provided solace to soldiers on both the Union and Confederate sides of the American Civil War. Frontiersmen Wyatt Earp and Billy the Kid played the instrument, and it became a fixture of the American musical landscape.
+
+Harmonicas were heard on a handful of recordings in the early 1900s, generally labeled as a "mouth organ". The first jazz or traditional music recordings of harmonicas were made in the U.S. in the mid-1920s. Recordings known at the time as "race records", intended for the black market of the southern states, included solo recordings by DeFord Bailey and duo recordings with a guitarist (Hammie Nixon, Walter Horton, or Sonny Terry). Hillbilly styles were also recorded, intended for white audiences, by Frank Hutchison, Gwen Foster and several other musicians. There are also recordings featuring the harmonica in jug bands, of which the Memphis Jug Band is the most famous. But the harmonica still represented a toy instrument in those years and was associated with the poor. It is also during those years that musicians started experimenting with new techniques such as tongue-blocking, hand effects and the most important innovation of all, the second position, or cross-harp.
+
+A significant contributor to the expanding popularity of the harmonica was a New York-based radio program called the Hohner Harmony Hour, which taught listeners how to play. Listeners could play along with the program to increase their proficiency. The radio program gained wide popularity after the unveiling of the 1925 White House Christmas tree, which was adorned with fifty harmonicas.
+
+The harmonica's versatility brought it to the attention of classical musicians during the 1930s. American Larry Adler was one of the first harmonica players to perform major works written for the instrument by the composers Ralph Vaughan Williams, Malcolm Arnold, Darius Milhaud, and Arthur Benjamin.
+
+Harmonicas were in short supply in the United States during World War II. Wood and metal materials for harmonicas were in short supply because of military demand. Furthermore, the primary harmonica manufacturers were based in Germany and Japan, the enemies of the United States and the Allied forces in the war. During this time, Finn Haakon Magnus, a Danish-American factory worker and entrepreneur, developed and perfected the molded plastic harmonica. The plastic harmonica used molded plastic combs and far fewer pieces than traditional metal or wood harmonicas, which made the harmonica more economical to mass-produce and more sanitary. Though the plastic reeds in these harmonicas produced a less distinctive (and, to many ears, inferior) sound than their metallic counterparts, Magnus harmonicas and several imitators soon became commonplace, particularly among children.[7] The patent for the plastic comb, however, was awarded to William Kratt of Wm. Kratt Company in 1952. During World War II, the War Department allotted a rationed supply of brass to Kratt's factory so they could continue to produce harmonicas that the Red Cross distributed to American troops overseas to boost morale.
+
+In 1898, the harmonica was brought to Japan, where the Tremolo harmonica was the most popular instrument. After about 30 years, the Japanese developed scale tuning and semitone harmonicas that could play Japanese folk songs.
+
+In Europe and the United States, tremolo harmonica uses the Richter tuning, developed in Germany. In 1913, Shōgo Kawaguchi (川口章吾), known in Japan as the "Father of the harmonica", devised an alternate tuning, which is more suited to playing Japanese folk tunes. This tuning is also suited to local music throughout East Asia, and harmonicas using the tuning became popular in the region.
+
+Initial diatonic harmonica tunings were major key only. In 1931, Hiderō Satō (佐藤秀廊) announced the development of a minor key harmonica. There are two types of minor key tunings, "natural minor" suitable for folk and contemporary music, and Latin American music, and the "harmonic minor" suitable for some famous Japanese pieces.
+
+The harmonica started to gain popularity in Hong Kong in the 1930s.  Individual tremolo harmonica players from China moved to Hong Kong and established numerous harmonica organizations such as The Chinese Y.M.C.A. Harmonica Orchestra, the China Harmonica Society,[8] and the Heart String Harmonica Society. During the 1950s, chromatic harmonica became popular in Hong Kong, and players such as Larry Adler and John Sebastian Sr. were invited to perform.
+
+Local players such as Lau Mok (劉牧) and Fung On (馮安) promoted the chromatic harmonica. The chromatic harmonica gradually became the main instrument used by the Chinese Y.M.C.A. Harmonica Orchestra. The Chinese YMCA Harmonica Orchestra started in the 1960s, with 100 members, most of whom played harmonicas.[9] Non-harmonica instruments were also used, such as double bass, accordion, piano, and percussion such as timpani and xylophone.
+
+In the 1970s, the Haletone Harmonica Orchestra (曉彤口琴隊)[10] was set up at Wong Tai Sin Community Centre. Fung On and others continued to teach harmonica and also set up harmonica orchestras. In the 1980s, numbers of harmonica students steadily decreased. In the 1990s, harmonica players from Hong Kong began to participate in international harmonica competitions, including the World Harmonica Festival in Germany and the Asia Pacific Harmonica Festival. In the 2000s, the Hong Kong Harmonica Association (H.K.H.A.) (香港口琴協會) was established.
+
+The history of the harmonica in Taiwan began around 1945. By the 1980s, though, as living standards improved, many instruments once beyond the budgets of most Taiwanese started to become more accessible and popular in preference to the harmonica.
+
+Playing the harmonica requires inhaling and exhaling strongly against resistance. This action helps develop a strong diaphragm and deep breathing using the entire lung volume. Pulmonary specialists have noted that playing the harmonica resembles the kind of exercise used to rehabilitate COPD patients such as using a PFLEX inspiratory muscle trainer or the inspiratory spirometer. Learning to play a musical instrument also offers motivation in addition to the exercise component. Many pulmonary rehabilitation programs[specify] therefore have begun to incorporate the harmonica.[11][12][13][14]
+
+The concertina, diatonic and chromatic accordions and the melodica are all free-reed instruments that developed alongside the harmonica. Indeed, the similarities between harmonicas and so-called "diatonic" accordions or melodeons is such that in German the name for the former is "Mundharmonika" and the latter "Handharmonika," which translate as "mouth harmonica" and "hand harmonica." In Scandinavian languages, an accordion is called variants of "trekkspill" (pull play) or "trekkharmonika" whereas a harmonica is called "munnspill" (mouth play) or "mundharmonika" (mouth harmonica). The names for the two instruments in the Slavic languages are also either similar or identical. The harmonica shares similarities to all other free-reed instruments by virtue of the method of sound production.
+
+The glass harmonica has the word "harmonica" in its name, but it is not related to free-reed instruments. The glass harmonica is a musical instrument formed from a nested set of graduated glass cups mounted sideways on an axle. Each of the glass cups is tuned to a different note, and they are arranged in a scalar order. It is played by touching the rotating cups with wetted fingers, causing them to vibrate and produce a sustained "singing" tone.

en/2383.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,107 @@
+
+
+The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has a number of individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers.
+
+Harps have been known since antiquity in Asia, Africa and Europe, dating back at least as early as 3000 BCE. The instrument had great popularity in Europe during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, where it evolved into a wide range of variants with new technologies, and was disseminated to Europe's colonies, finding particular popularity in Latin America.
+
+Although some ancient members of the harp family died out in the Near East and South Asia, descendants of early harps are still played in Myanmar and parts of Africa, and other defunct variants in Europe and Asia have been utilized by musicians in the modern era.
+
+Harps vary globally in many ways. In terms of size, many smaller harps can be played on the lap, whereas larger harps are quite heavy and rest on the floor. Different harps may use strings of catgut, nylon, metal, or some combination.
+
+All harps have a neck, resonator, and strings, frame harps or triangular harps have a pillar at their long end to support the strings, while open harps, such as arch harps and bow harps, do not.
+
+Modern harps also vary in techniques used to extend the range and chromaticism of the strings (e.g., adding sharps and flats). On lever harps one adjusts a string's note mid-performance by flipping a lever, which shortens the string enough to raise the pitch by a chromatic sharp. On pedal harps depressing the pedal one step turns geared levers on the strings for all octaves of a single pitch; most allow a second step that turns a second set of levers. The pedal harp is a standard instrument in the orchestra of the Romantic music era (ca. 1800–1910 CE) and the 20th and 21st century music era.
+
+The earliest harps and lyres were found in Sumer, 3500 BCE,[2] and several harps were excavated from burial pits and royal tombs in Ur.[3] The oldest depictions of harps without a forepillar can be seen adjacent to the Near East, in the wall paintings of ancient Egyptian tombs in the Nile Valley, which date from as early as 3000 BCE.[4] These murals show an instrument that closely resembles the hunter's bow, without the pillar that we find in modern harps.
+[5]
+The chang flourished in Persia in many forms from its introduction, about 4000 BCE, until the 17th century.
+
+Around 1900 BCE arched harps in the Iraq-Iran region were replaced by angular harps with vertical or horizontal sound boxes.[6]
+
+By the start of the Common Era, "robust, vertical, angular harps", which had become predominant in the Hellenistic world, were cherished in the Sasanian court. In the last century of the Sasanian period, angular harps were redesigned to make them as light as possible ("light, vertical, angular harps"); while they became more elegant, they lost their structural rigidity. At the height of the Persian tradition of illustrated book production (1300–1600 CE), such light harps were still frequently depicted, although their use as musical instruments was reaching its end.[7]
+
+Mesolithic era paintings from Bhimbhetka shows harp playing. An arched harp made of wooden brackets and metal strings is depicted on an Indus seal.[8] The works of the Tamil Sangam literature describe the harp and its variants, as early as 200 BCE.[9] Variants were described ranging from 14 to 17 strings, and the instrument used by wandering minstrels for accompaniment.[10] Iconographic evidence in of the yaal appears in temple statues dated as early as 500 BCE[citation needed] One of the Sangam works, the Kallaadam recounts how the first yaaḻ harp was inspired by an archer's bow, when he heard the musical sound of its twang.[citation needed]
+
+Another early South Asian harp was the ancient veena; unlike the modern instrument of the same name, the ancient veena was a harp as opposed to the modern lute-type instrument also called a veena. Some Samudragupta gold coins show of the mid-4th century CE show (presumably) the king Samudragupta himself playing the instrument.[11] The ancient veena survives today in Burma, in the form of the saung harp still played there.[12]
+
+The harp was popular in ancient China and neighboring regions, though harps are largely extinct in East Asia in the modern day. The Chinese konghou harp is documented as early as the Spring and Autumn period (770–476 BCE), and became extinct during the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644 CE).[13] A similar harp, the gonghu was played in ancient Korea, documented as early as the Goguryeo period (37 BCE – 686 CE).[14]
+
+Harps are essentially triangular and made primarily of wood. Strings are made of gut or wire, often replaced in the modern day by nylon or metal. The top end of each string is secured on the crossbar or neck, where each will have a tuning peg or similar device to adjust the pitch. From the crossbar, the string runs down to the sounding board on the resonating body, where it is secured with a knot; on modern harps the string's hole is protected with an eyelet to limit wear on the wood. It is the distance between the tuning peg and the soundboard, as well as tension and weight of the string, which decide the pitch of the string. The body is hollow, and when a taut string is plucked, the body resonates, projecting sound.
+
+The longest side of the harp is called the column or pillar, though some earlier harps, such as a "bow harp", lack a pillar. On most harps the sole purpose of the pillar is to hold up the neck against the great strain of the strings. On harps which have pedals (largely the modern concert harp), the pillar is a hollow column and encloses the rods which adjust the pitches, which are levered by pressing pedals at the base of the instrument.
+
+On harps of earlier design, a given string can play only a single note without retuning. In many cases this means such a harp can only play in one key at a time and must be manually retuned to play in another key. Various remedies to this limitation evolved: the addition of extra strings to cover chromatic notes (sometimes in separate or angled rows distinct from the main row of strings), addition of small levers on the crossbar which when actuated raise the pitch of a string by a set interval (usually a semitone), or use of pedals at the base of the instrument which change the pitch of a string when pressed with the foot. These solutions increase the versatility of a harp at the cost of adding complexity, weight, and expense.
+
+While the angle and bow harps held popularity elsewhere, European harps favored the "pillar", a third structural member to support the far ends of the arch and soundbox.[15][16](p290)  A harp with a triangular three-part frame is depicted on 8th-century Pictish stones in Scotland[15][16](p290) and in manuscripts (e.g. the Utrecht Psalter) from early 9th-century France.[16] The curve of the harp's neck is a result of the proportional shortening of the basic triangular form to keep the strings equidistant; if the strings were proportionately distant they would be farther apart.
+
+As European harps evolved to play more complex music, a key consideration was some way to facilitate the quick changing of a string's pitch to be able to play more chromatic notes. By the Baroque period in Italy and Spain, more strings were added to allow for chromatic notes in more complex harps. In Germany in the second half of the 17th century, diatonic single-row harps were fitted with manually turned hooks which fretted individual strings to raise their pitch by a half step. In the 18th century, a link mechanism was developed connecting these hooks with pedals, leading to the invention of the single-action pedal harp.
+
+The first primitive form of pedal harps was developed in the Tyrol region of Austria. Jacob Hochbrucker was the next to design an improved pedal mechanism around 1720, followed in succession by Krumpholtz, Nadermann, and the Erard company, who came up with the double mechanism, in which a second row of hooks was installed along the neck, capable of raising the pitch of a string by either one or two half steps. While one course of European harps led to greater complexity, resulting largely in the modern pedal harp, other harping traditions maintained simpler diatonic instruments which survived and evolved into modern traditions.
+
+In the Americas, harps are widely but sparsely distributed, except in certain regions where the harp traditions are very strong. Such important centres include Mexico, the Andean region, Venezuela, and Paraguay. They are derived from the Baroque harps that were brought from Spain during the colonial period.[17] Detailed features vary from place to place.
+
+The Paraguayan harp is that country's national instrument, and has gained a worldwide reputation, with international influences alongside folk traditions. Paraguayan harps have around 36 strings, played with the fingernails, and with a narrowing spacing and lower tension than modern Western harps, and have a wide and deep soundbox which tapers to the top.[18]
+
+The harp is also found in Argentina,[19] though in Uruguay it was largely displaced in religious music by the organ by the end of the 18th century.[20] The harp is historically found in Brazil, but mostly in the south of the country.[21]
+
+The Andean harp (Quechua: arpa), also known as Peruan harp, or indigenous harp, is widespread among peoples living in highlands of the Andes: Quechua and Aymara, mainly in Peru, and also in Bolivia and Ecuador. Andean harp has relatively large size. Its distinguishing feature is significantly increased volume of the resonator box, which gives basses a special richness. Andean harp usually accompanies love dances and songs, such as huayno.[22] One of the most famous performers on the Andean harp was Juan Cayambe (Pimampiro Canton, Imbabura Province, Ecuador[23])
+
+Mexican "jarocha" harp music of Veracruz has also gained some international recognition, evident in the popularity of "la bamba".[original research?] The arpa jarocha is typically played while standing. In southern Mexico (Chiapas), there is a very different indigenous style of harp music.[24]
+
+In Venezuela, there are two distinct traditions, the arpa llanera and the arpa central (or arpa mirandina). The modern Venezuelan arpa llanera has 32 strings of nylon (originally, gut). The arpa central is strung with wire in the higher register.[25]
+
+A number of types of harps are found in Africa, predominantly not of the three-sided frame-harp type found in Europe. A number of these, referred to generically as African harps, are bow or angle harps, which lack forepillars joining the neck to the body.
+
+A number of harp-like instruments in Africa are not easily classified with European categories. Instruments like the West African kora and Mauritanian ardin are sometimes labeled as "spike harp", "bridge harp", or harp lute since their construction includes a bridge which holds the strings laterally, vice vertically entering the soundboard.[26]
+
+While lyres and zithers have persisted in the Middle East, most of the true harps of the region have become extinct, though some are undergoing initial revivals. The Turkish çeng was a nine-string harp in the Ottoman Empire which became extinct at the end of the 17th century,[27] but has undergone some revival and evolution since the late 20th century. A similar harp, the changi survives in the Svaneti region of Georgia.[28]
+
+In the remote and mountainous Nuristan province of Afghanistan the Kafir harp has been part of the musical traditional for many years.[29] In India, the bin-baia harp survives about the Padhar people of Madhya Pradesh.[28]
+
+The harp largely became extinct in East Asia by the 17th century; around the year 1000, harps like the vajra began to replace prior[clarification needed] harps.[30] A few examples survived to the modern era, particularly Myanmar's saung-gauk, which is considered the national instrument in that country. Though the ancient Chinese konghou has not been directly resurrected, the name has been revived and applied to a modern newly invented instrument based on the Western classical harp, but with the strings doubled back to form two notes per string, allowing advanced techniques such as note-bending.[citation needed]
+
+The concert harp is a technologically advanced instrument, particularly distinguished by its use of "pedals", foot-controlled devices which can alter the pitch of given strings, making it fully chromatic and thus able to play a wide body of classical repertoire. The pedal harp contains seven pedals that each affect the tuning of all strings of one pitch-class. The pedals, from left to right, are D, C, B on the left side and E, F, G, A on the right. Pedals were first introduced in 1697 by Jakob Hochbrucker of Bavaria.[31] In 1811 these were upgraded to the "double action" pedal system patented by Sébastien Erard.[32]
+
+The addition of pedals broadened the harp's abilities, allowing its gradual entry into the classical orchestra, largely beginning in the 19th century. The harp played little or no role in early classical music (being used only a handful of times by major composers such as Mozart and Beethoven), and its usage by Cesar Franck in his Symphony in D minor (1888) was described as "revolutionary" despite some body of prior classical usage.[33] In the 20th century, the pedal harp found use outside of classical music, entering musical comedy films in 1929 with Arthur "Harpo" Marx, jazz with Casper Reardon in 1934, [34] the Beatles 1967 single "She's Leaving Home", and several works by Björk which featured harpist Zeena Parkins. In the early 1980s, Swiss harpist Andreas Vollenweider exposed the concert harp to large new audiences with his popular new age/jazz albums and concert performances.[35][36]
+
+In the modern era, there is a family of mid-size harps, generally with nylon strings, and optionally with partial or full levers but without pedals. They range from two to six octaves, and are plucked with the fingers using a similar technique to the pedal harp. Though these harps evoke ties to historical European harps, their specifics are modern, and they are frequently referred to broadly as "Celtic harps" due to their region of revival and popular association, or more generically as "folk harps" due to their use in non-classical music, or as "lever harps" to contrast their modifying mechanism with the larger pedal harp.[37]
+
+The modern Celtic harp began to appear in the early 19th century in Ireland, contemporary with the dying-out of earlier forms of Gaelic harp. Dublin pedal harp maker John Egan developed a new type of harp which had gut strings and semitone mechanisms like an orchestral pedal harp; it was small and curved like the historical cláirseach or Irish harp, but its strings were of gut and the soundbox was much lighter.[38] In the 1890s a similar new harp was also developed in Scotland as part of a Gaelic cultural revival.[39] In the mid-20th century Jord Cochevelou developed a variant of the modern Celtic harp which he referred to as the "Breton Celtic harp"; his son Alan Stivell was to become the most influential Breton harper, and a strong influence in the broader world of the Celtic harp.
+
+A multi-course harp is a harp with more than one row of strings, as opposed to the more common "single course" harp. On a double-harp, the two rows generally run parallel to each other, one on either side of the neck, and are usually both diatonic (sometimes with levers) with identical notes.
+
+The triple harp originated in Italy in the 16th century, and arrived in Wales in the late 17th century where it established itself in the local tradition as the Welsh harp (telyn deires, "three-row harp").[40] The triple consists of two outer rows of identical diatonic strings with a third set of chromatic strings between them. These strings are off set to permit the harpist to reach past the outer row and pluck an inner string if a chromatic note is needed.
+
+Some harps, rather than using pedal or lever devices, achieve chromaticity by simply adding additional strings to cover the notes outside their diatonic home scale. The Welsh triple harp is one such instrument, and two other instruments employing this technique are the cross-strung harp and the inline chromatic harp.
+
+The cross-strung harp has one row of diatonic strings, and a separate row of chromatic notes, angled in an "X" shape so that the row which can be played by the right hand at the top may be played by the left hand at the bottom, and vice versa. This variant was first attested as the arpa de dos órdenes ("two-row harp") in Spain and Portugal, in the 17th century.[41]
+
+The inline chromatic harp is generally a single-course harp with all 12 notes of the chromatic scale appearing in a single row. Single course inline chromatic harps have been produced at least since 1902, when Karl Weigel of Hanover patented a model of inline chromatic harp.[42]
+
+Amplified (electro-acoustic) hollow body and solid body electric lever harps are produced by many harpmakers, including Lyon & Healy, Salvi, and Camac. They generally use individual piezo-electric sensors for each string, often in combination with small internal microphones to produce a mixed electrical signal. Hollow body instruments can also be played acoustically, while solid body instruments must be amplified.
+
+The late-20th century gravikord is a modern purpose-built electric double harp made of stainless steel based on the traditional West African kora.
+
+The modern English word harp comes from the Old English hearpe; akin to Old High German harpha.[43] A person who plays a pedal harp is called a "harpist";[44] a person who plays a folk-harp is called a "harper" or sometimes a "harpist";[45] either may be called a "harp-player", and the distinctions are not strict.
+
+A number of instruments that are not harps are none-the-less colloquially referred to as "harps". Chordophones like the aeolian harp (wind harp), the autoharp, the psaltery, as well as the piano and harpsichord, are not harps, but zithers, because their strings are parallel to their soundboard. Harps' strings rise approximately perpendicularly from the soundboard. Similarly, the many varieties of harp guitar and harp lute, while chordophones, belong to the lute family and are not true harps. All forms of the lyre and kithara are also not harps, but belong to the fourth family of ancient instruments under the chordophones, the lyres, closely related to the zither family.
+
+The term "harp" has also been applied to many instruments which are not even chordophones. The vibraphone was (and is still) sometimes referred to as the "vibraharp", though it has no strings and its sound is produced by striking metal bars. In blues music, the harmonica is often casually referred to as a "blues harp" or "harp", but it is a free reed wind instrument, not a stringed instrument, and is therefore not a true harp. The Jew's harp is neither Jewish nor a harp; it is a plucked idiophone and likewise not a stringed instrument. The laser harp is not a stringed instrument at all, but is a harp-shaped electronic instrument controller that has laser beams where harps have strings.
+
+The harp has been used as a political symbol of Ireland for centuries. Its origin is unknown but from the evidence of the ancient oral and written literature, it has been present in one form or another since at least the 6th century or before. According to tradition, Brian Boru, High King of Ireland (died at the Battle of Clontarf, 1014) played the harp, as did many of the gentry in the country during the period of the Gaelic Lordship of Ireland (ended c. 1607 with the Flight of the Earls following the Elizabethan Wars).[citation needed]
+
+In traditional Gaelic society every clan and chief of any consequence would have a resident harp player who would compose eulogies and elegies (later known as "planxties") in honour of the leader and chief men of the clan. The harp was adopted as a symbol of the Kingdom of Ireland on the coinage from 1542, and in the Royal Standard of King James VI and I in 1603 and continued to feature on all English and United Kingdom Royal Standards ever since, though the styles of the harps depicted differed in some respects. It was also used on the Commonwealth Jack of Oliver Cromwell, issued in 1649 and on the Protectorate Jack issued in 1658 as well as on the Lord Protector's Standard issued on the succession of Richard Cromwell in 1658. The harp is also traditionally used on the flag of Leinster.
+
+Since 1922, the government of Ireland has used a similar left-facing harp, based on the Trinity College Harp in the Library of Trinity College Dublin as its state symbol. It first appeared on the Great Seal of the Irish Free State, which in turn was replaced by the coat of arms, the Irish Presidential Standard and the Presidential Seal in the 1937 Constitution of Ireland. The harp emblem is used on official state seals and documents including the Irish passport and has appeared on Irish coinage from the Middle Ages to the current Irish imprints of euro coins. Irish companies such as Guinness since 1759, Harp Lager since 1960, Irish Independent since 1961 (originally in black but in green since 1972), and Ryanair since 1985 have all incorporated harps into their logos.
+
+The South Asian Tamil harp yaal is the symbol of City of Jaffna, Sri Lanka, whose legendary root originates from a harp player.[46]
+
+In the context of Christianity, heaven is sometimes symbolically depicted as populated by angels playing harps, giving the instrument associations of the sacred and heavenly. In the Bible, Genesis 4:21 says that Jubal, the first musician and son of Lamech, was 'the father of all who play' the harp and flute.[47][48][49]
+
+Many depictions of King David in Jewish art have him holding or playing a harp, such as a sculpture outside King David's tomb in Jerusalem."King David statue at King David's tomb". Jerusalem.com. photo gallery. Jerusalem.
+
+The harp is also used extensively as a corporate logo, by private companies and government organisations. The Irish beer Guinness uses a harp, facing right and less detailed than the version used on the state arms. Relatively new organisations also use the harp, but often modified to reflect a theme relevant to their organisation: Irish airline Ryanair uses a modified harp, and the Irish State Examinations Commission uses it with an educational theme. The harp appears in the logo for League of Ireland football team Finn Harps F.C., Donegal's senior soccer club and Scottish Premiership team Hibernian F.C.
+
+Other organisations in Ireland use the harp, but not always prominently; these include the National University of Ireland and the associated University College Dublin, and the Gaelic Athletic Association. In Northern Ireland the Police Service of Northern Ireland and Queen's University of Belfast use the harp as part of their identity.
+
+In Iraq, the football club Al-Shorta is nicknamed Al-Qeetharah (Assyrian Neo-Aramaic: "the harp"‎), and has a harp on its logo.

en/2384.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,62 @@
+
+
+Harriet Elisabeth Beecher Stowe (/stoʊ/; June 14, 1811 – July 1, 1896) was an American abolitionist and author. She came from the Beecher family, a famous religious family, and is best known for her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), which depicts the harsh conditions for enslaved African Americans. The book reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and Great Britain, energizing anti-slavery forces in the American North, while provoking widespread anger in the South. Stowe wrote 30 books, including novels, three travel memoirs, and collections of articles and letters. She was influential for both her writings and her public stances and debates on social issues of the day.
+
+Harriet Elisabeth Beecher was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, on June 14, 1811.[1] She was the sixth of 11 children [2] born to outspoken Calvinist preacher Lyman Beecher. Her mother was his first wife, Roxana (Foote), a deeply religious woman who died when Stowe was only five years old. Roxana's maternal grandfather was General Andrew Ward of the Revolutionary War. Her siblings included a sister, Catharine Beecher, who became an educator and author, as well as brothers who became ministers: including Henry Ward Beecher, who became a famous preacher and abolitionist, Charles Beecher, and Edward Beecher.[3]
+
+Harriet enrolled in the Hartford Female Seminary run by her older sister Catharine. There she received something girls seldom got, a traditional academic education, with a focus in the Classics, languages, and mathematics. Among her classmates was Sarah P. Willis, who later wrote under the pseudonym Fanny Fern.[4]
+
+In 1832, at the age of 21, Harriet Beecher moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, to join her father, who had become the president of Lane Theological Seminary. There, she also joined the Semi-Colon Club, a literary salon and social club whose members included the Beecher sisters, Caroline Lee Hentz, Salmon P. Chase (future governor of Ohio and Secretary of the Treasury under President Lincoln), Emily Blackwell and others.[5] Cincinnati's trade and shipping business on the Ohio River was booming, drawing numerous migrants from different parts of the country, including many escaped slaves, bounty hunters seeking them, and Irish immigrants who worked on the state's canals and railroads. In 1829 the ethnic Irish attacked blacks, wrecking areas of the city, trying to push out these competitors for jobs. Beecher met a number of African Americans who had suffered in those attacks, and their experience contributed to her later writing about slavery. Riots took place again in 1836 and 1841, driven also by native-born anti-abolitionists.[citation needed]
+
+Harriet was also influenced by the Lane Debates on Slavery. The biggest event ever to take place at Lane, it was the series of debates held on 18 days in February 1834, between colonization and abolition defenders, decisively won by Theodore Weld and other abolitionists. Elisabeth attended most of the debates.[6]:171 Her father and the trustees, afraid of more violence from anti-abolitionist whites, prohibited any further discussions of the topic. The result was a mass exodus of the Lane students, together with a supportive trustee and a professor, who moved as a group to the new Oberlin Collegiate Institute after its trustees agreed, by a close and acrimonious vote, to accept students regardless of "race", and to allow discussions of any topic.
+
+It was in the literary club at Lane that she met Rev. Calvin Ellis Stowe, a widower who was a professor of Biblical Literature at the seminary.[7] The two married at the Seminary on January 6, 1836.[8] He was an ardent critic of slavery, and the Stowes supported the Underground Railroad, temporarily housing several fugitive slaves in their home. Most slaves continued north to secure freedom in Canada. The Stowes had seven children together, including twin daughters.[citation needed]
+
+In 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Law, prohibiting assistance to fugitives and strengthening sanctions even in free states. At the time, Stowe had moved with her family to Brunswick, Maine, where her husband was now teaching at Bowdoin College. Their home near the campus is protected as a National Historic Landmark.[9]
+
+Stowe claimed to have a vision of a dying slave during a communion service at Brunswick's First Parish Church, which inspired her to write his story.[10] However, what more likely allowed her to empathize with slaves was the loss of her eighteen-month-old son, Samuel Charles Stowe. She even stated the following, "Having experienced losing someone so close to me, I can sympathize with all the poor, powerless slaves at the unjust auctions. You will always be in my heart Samuel Charles Stowe."[11] On March 9, 1850, Stowe wrote to Gamaliel Bailey, editor of the weekly anti-slavery journal The National Era, that she planned to write a story about the problem of slavery: "I feel now that the time is come when even a woman or a child who can speak a word for freedom and humanity is bound to speak... I hope every woman who can write will not be silent."[12]
+
+Shortly after in June 1851, when she was 40, the first installment of Uncle Tom's Cabin was published in serial form in the newspaper The National Era. She originally used the subtitle "The Man That Was A Thing", but it was soon changed to "Life Among the Lowly".[1] Installments were published weekly from June 5, 1851, to April 1, 1852.[12] For the newspaper serialization of her novel, Stowe was paid $400.[13] Uncle Tom's Cabin was published in book form on March 20, 1852, by John P. Jewett with an initial print run of 5,000 copies.[14] Each of its two volumes included three illustrations and a title-page designed by Hammatt Billings.[15] In less than a year, the book sold an unprecedented 300,000 copies.[16] By December, as sales began to wane, Jewett issued an inexpensive edition at 37½ cents each to stimulate sales.[17] Sales abroad, as in Britain where the book was a great success, earned Stowe nothing as there was no international copyright agreement in place during that era.[18] In late 1853 Stowe undertook a lecture tour of Britain and, to make up the royalties that she could not receive there, the Glasgow New Association for the Abolition of Slavery set up Uncle Tom's Offering.[19]
+
+According to Daniel R. Lincoln, the goal of the book was to educate Northerners on the realistic horrors of the things that were happening in the South. The other purpose was to try to make people in the South feel more empathetic towards the people they were forcing into slavery.[20]
+
+The book's emotional portrayal of the effects of slavery on individuals captured the nation's attention. Stowe showed that slavery touched all of society, beyond the people directly involved as masters, traders and slaves. Her novel added to the debate about abolition and slavery, and aroused opposition in the South. In the South, Stowe was depicted as out of touch, arrogant, and guilty of slander. Within a year, 300 babies in Boston alone were named Eva (one of the book's characters), and a play based on the book opened in New York in November.[21] Southerners quickly responded with numerous works of what are now called anti-Tom novels, seeking to portray Southern society and slavery in more positive terms. Many of these were bestsellers, although none matched the popularity of Stowe's work, which set publishing records.[citation needed]
+
+After the start of the Civil War, Stowe traveled to the capital, Washington, D.C., where she met President Abraham Lincoln on November 25, 1862.[22] Stowe's daughter, Hattie, reported, "It was a very droll time that we had at the White house I assure you... I will only say now that it was all very funny—and we were ready to explode with laughter all the while."[23] What Lincoln said is a minor mystery. Her son later reported that Lincoln greeted her by saying, "so you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war."[24] Her own accounts are vague, including the letter reporting the meeting to her husband: "I had a real funny interview with the President."[23]
+
+A year after the Civil War, Stowe purchased property near Jacksonville, Florida. In response to a newspaper article in 1873, she wrote, "I came to Florida the year after the war and held property in Duval County ever since. In all this time I have not received even an incivility from any native Floridian."[25]
+
+Stowe is controversial for her support of Elizabeth Campbell, Duchess of Argyll, whose father-in-law decades before was a leader in the Highland Clearances, the transformation of the remote Highlands of Scotland from a militia-based society to an agricultural one that supported far fewer people. The newly homeless moved to Canada, where very bitter accounts appeared. It was Stowe's assignment to refute them using evidence the Duchess provided, in Letter XVII Volume 1 of her travel memoir Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands.[26] Stowe was vulnerable when she seemed to defend the cruelties in Scotland as eagerly as she attacked the cruelties in the American South.[27]
+
+In 1868, Stowe became one of the first editors of Hearth and Home magazine, one of several new publications appealing to women; she departed after a year.[28] Stowe campaigned for the expansion of married women's rights, arguing in 1869 that:[29]
+
+[T]he position of a married woman ... is, in many respects, precisely similar to that of the negro slave. She can make no contract and hold no property; whatever she inherits or earns becomes at that moment the property of her husband.... Though he acquired a fortune through her, or though she earned a fortune through her talents, he is the sole master of it, and she cannot draw a penny....[I]n the English common law a married woman is nothing at all. She passes out of legal existence.
+
+In the 1870s, Stowe's brother Henry Ward Beecher was accused of adultery, and became the subject of a national scandal. Unable to bear the public attacks on her brother, Stowe again fled to Florida but asked family members to send her newspaper reports.[30] Through the affair, she remained loyal to her brother and believed he was innocent.[31]
+
+After her return to Connecticut, Mrs. Stowe was among the founders of the Hartford Art School, which later became part of the University of Hartford.
+
+Following the death of her husband, Calvin Stowe, in 1886, Harriet started rapidly to decline in health. By 1888, The Washington Post reported that as a result of dementia the 77-year-old Stowe started writing Uncle Tom's Cabin over again. She imagined that she was engaged in the original composition, and for several hours every day she industriously used pen and paper, inscribing passages of the book almost exactly word for word. This was done unconsciously from memory, the author imagining that she composed the matter as she went along. To her diseased mind the story was brand new, and she frequently exhausted herself with labor which she regarded as freshly created.[32]
+
+Mark Twain, a neighbor of Stowe's in Hartford, recalled her last years in the following passage of his autobiography:
+
+Her mind had decayed, and she was a pathetic figure. She wandered about all the day long in the care of a muscular Irish woman. Among the colonists of our neighborhood the doors always stood open in pleasant weather. Mrs. Stowe entered them at her own free will, and as she was always softly slippered and generally full of animal spirits, she was able to deal in surprises, and she liked to do it.  She would slip up behind a person who was deep in dreams and musings and fetch a war whoop that would jump that person out of his clothes.  And she had other moods.  Sometimes we would hear gentle music in the drawing-room and would find her there at the piano singing ancient and melancholy songs with infinitely touching effect.[33]
+
+Modern researchers now speculate that at the end of her life she was suffering from Alzheimer's disease.[34]
+
+Harriet Beecher Stowe died on July 1, 1896, in Hartford, Connecticut, 17 days after her 85th birthday.
+She is buried in the historic cemetery at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts,[35] along with her husband and their son Henry Ellis.
+
+Multiple landmarks are dedicated to the memory of Harriet Beecher Stowe, and are located in several states including Ohio, Florida, Maine and Connecticut.  The locations of these landmarks represent various periods of her life such as her father's house where she grew up, and where she wrote her most famous work.
+
+The Harriet Beecher Stowe House in Cincinnati, Ohio, is the former home of her father Lyman Beecher on the former campus of the Lane Seminary. Her father was a preacher who was greatly affected by the pro-slavery Cincinnati Riots of 1836. Harriet Beecher Stowe lived here until her marriage. It is open to the public and operated as a historical and cultural site, focusing on Harriet Beecher Stowe, the Lane Seminary and the Underground Railroad. The site also presents African-American history.[36]
+
+In the 1870s and 1880s, Stowe and her family wintered in Mandarin, Florida, now a neighborhood of modern consolidated Jacksonville, on the St. Johns River. Stowe wrote Palmetto Leaves while living in Mandarin, arguably an eloquent piece of promotional literature directed at Florida's potential Northern investors at the time.[37] The book was published in 1873 and describes Northeast Florida and its residents. In 1874, Stowe was honored by the governor of Florida as one of several northerners who had helped Florida's growth after the war. In addition to her writings inspiring tourists and settlers to the area, she helped establish a church and a school, and she helped promote oranges as a major state crop through her own orchards.[38] The school she helped establish in 1870 was an integrated school in Mandarin for children and adults. This predated the national movement toward integration by more than a half century. The marker commemorating the Stowe family is located across the street from the former site of their cottage. It is on the property of the Community Club, at the site of a church where Stowe's husband once served as a minister. The Church of our Saviour is an Episcopal Church founded in 1880 by a group of people who had gathered for Bible readings with Professor Calvin E. Stowe and his famous wife. The house was constructed in 1883 which contained the Stowe Memorial stained glass window, created by Louis Comfort Tiffany.[39]
+
+The Harriet Beecher Stowe House in Brunswick, Maine, is where Stowe lived when she wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin. Her husband was teaching theology at nearby Bowdoin College, and she regularly invited students from the college and friends to read and discuss the chapters before publication. Future Civil War general, and later Governor, Joshua Chamberlain was then a student at the college and later described the setting. "On these occasions," Chamberlain noted, "a chosen circle of friends, mostly young, were favored with the freedom of her house, the rallying point being, however, the reading before publication, of the successive chapters of her Uncle Tom's Cabin, and the frank discussion of them."[citation needed] In 2001, Bowdoin College purchased the house, together with a newer attached building, and was able to raise the substantial funds necessary to restore the house. It is now open to the public.
+
+The Harriet Beecher Stowe House in Hartford, Connecticut, is the house where Stowe lived for the last 23 years of her life. It was next door to the house of fellow author Mark Twain. In this 5,000 sq ft (460 m2) cottage-style house, there are many of Beecher Stowe's original items and items from the time period. In the research library, which is open to the public, there are numerous letters and documents from the Beecher family. The house is open to the public and offers house tours on the hour.[40]
+
+In 1833, during Stowe's time in Cincinnati, the city was afflicted with a serious cholera epidemic. To avoid illness, Stowe made a visit to Washington, Kentucky, a major community of the era just south of Maysville. She stayed with the Marshall Key family, one of whose daughters was a student at Lane Seminary. It is recorded that Mr. Key took her to see a slave auction, as they were frequently held in Maysville. Scholars believe she was strongly moved by the experience. The Marshall Key home still stands in Washington. Key was a prominent Kentuckian; his visitors also included Henry Clay and Daniel Webster.[41]
+
+The Uncle Tom's Cabin Historic Site is part of the restored Dawn Settlement at Dresden, Ontario, which is 20 miles east of Algonac, Michigan. The community for freed slaves founded by the Rev. Josiah Henson and other abolitionists in the 1830s has been restored. There's also a museum. Henson and the Dawn Settlement provided Stowe with the inspiration for Uncle Tom's Cabin.[42]

en/2385.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,62 @@
+
+
+Harriet Elisabeth Beecher Stowe (/stoʊ/; June 14, 1811 – July 1, 1896) was an American abolitionist and author. She came from the Beecher family, a famous religious family, and is best known for her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), which depicts the harsh conditions for enslaved African Americans. The book reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and Great Britain, energizing anti-slavery forces in the American North, while provoking widespread anger in the South. Stowe wrote 30 books, including novels, three travel memoirs, and collections of articles and letters. She was influential for both her writings and her public stances and debates on social issues of the day.
+
+Harriet Elisabeth Beecher was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, on June 14, 1811.[1] She was the sixth of 11 children [2] born to outspoken Calvinist preacher Lyman Beecher. Her mother was his first wife, Roxana (Foote), a deeply religious woman who died when Stowe was only five years old. Roxana's maternal grandfather was General Andrew Ward of the Revolutionary War. Her siblings included a sister, Catharine Beecher, who became an educator and author, as well as brothers who became ministers: including Henry Ward Beecher, who became a famous preacher and abolitionist, Charles Beecher, and Edward Beecher.[3]
+
+Harriet enrolled in the Hartford Female Seminary run by her older sister Catharine. There she received something girls seldom got, a traditional academic education, with a focus in the Classics, languages, and mathematics. Among her classmates was Sarah P. Willis, who later wrote under the pseudonym Fanny Fern.[4]
+
+In 1832, at the age of 21, Harriet Beecher moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, to join her father, who had become the president of Lane Theological Seminary. There, she also joined the Semi-Colon Club, a literary salon and social club whose members included the Beecher sisters, Caroline Lee Hentz, Salmon P. Chase (future governor of Ohio and Secretary of the Treasury under President Lincoln), Emily Blackwell and others.[5] Cincinnati's trade and shipping business on the Ohio River was booming, drawing numerous migrants from different parts of the country, including many escaped slaves, bounty hunters seeking them, and Irish immigrants who worked on the state's canals and railroads. In 1829 the ethnic Irish attacked blacks, wrecking areas of the city, trying to push out these competitors for jobs. Beecher met a number of African Americans who had suffered in those attacks, and their experience contributed to her later writing about slavery. Riots took place again in 1836 and 1841, driven also by native-born anti-abolitionists.[citation needed]
+
+Harriet was also influenced by the Lane Debates on Slavery. The biggest event ever to take place at Lane, it was the series of debates held on 18 days in February 1834, between colonization and abolition defenders, decisively won by Theodore Weld and other abolitionists. Elisabeth attended most of the debates.[6]:171 Her father and the trustees, afraid of more violence from anti-abolitionist whites, prohibited any further discussions of the topic. The result was a mass exodus of the Lane students, together with a supportive trustee and a professor, who moved as a group to the new Oberlin Collegiate Institute after its trustees agreed, by a close and acrimonious vote, to accept students regardless of "race", and to allow discussions of any topic.
+
+It was in the literary club at Lane that she met Rev. Calvin Ellis Stowe, a widower who was a professor of Biblical Literature at the seminary.[7] The two married at the Seminary on January 6, 1836.[8] He was an ardent critic of slavery, and the Stowes supported the Underground Railroad, temporarily housing several fugitive slaves in their home. Most slaves continued north to secure freedom in Canada. The Stowes had seven children together, including twin daughters.[citation needed]
+
+In 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Law, prohibiting assistance to fugitives and strengthening sanctions even in free states. At the time, Stowe had moved with her family to Brunswick, Maine, where her husband was now teaching at Bowdoin College. Their home near the campus is protected as a National Historic Landmark.[9]
+
+Stowe claimed to have a vision of a dying slave during a communion service at Brunswick's First Parish Church, which inspired her to write his story.[10] However, what more likely allowed her to empathize with slaves was the loss of her eighteen-month-old son, Samuel Charles Stowe. She even stated the following, "Having experienced losing someone so close to me, I can sympathize with all the poor, powerless slaves at the unjust auctions. You will always be in my heart Samuel Charles Stowe."[11] On March 9, 1850, Stowe wrote to Gamaliel Bailey, editor of the weekly anti-slavery journal The National Era, that she planned to write a story about the problem of slavery: "I feel now that the time is come when even a woman or a child who can speak a word for freedom and humanity is bound to speak... I hope every woman who can write will not be silent."[12]
+
+Shortly after in June 1851, when she was 40, the first installment of Uncle Tom's Cabin was published in serial form in the newspaper The National Era. She originally used the subtitle "The Man That Was A Thing", but it was soon changed to "Life Among the Lowly".[1] Installments were published weekly from June 5, 1851, to April 1, 1852.[12] For the newspaper serialization of her novel, Stowe was paid $400.[13] Uncle Tom's Cabin was published in book form on March 20, 1852, by John P. Jewett with an initial print run of 5,000 copies.[14] Each of its two volumes included three illustrations and a title-page designed by Hammatt Billings.[15] In less than a year, the book sold an unprecedented 300,000 copies.[16] By December, as sales began to wane, Jewett issued an inexpensive edition at 37½ cents each to stimulate sales.[17] Sales abroad, as in Britain where the book was a great success, earned Stowe nothing as there was no international copyright agreement in place during that era.[18] In late 1853 Stowe undertook a lecture tour of Britain and, to make up the royalties that she could not receive there, the Glasgow New Association for the Abolition of Slavery set up Uncle Tom's Offering.[19]
+
+According to Daniel R. Lincoln, the goal of the book was to educate Northerners on the realistic horrors of the things that were happening in the South. The other purpose was to try to make people in the South feel more empathetic towards the people they were forcing into slavery.[20]
+
+The book's emotional portrayal of the effects of slavery on individuals captured the nation's attention. Stowe showed that slavery touched all of society, beyond the people directly involved as masters, traders and slaves. Her novel added to the debate about abolition and slavery, and aroused opposition in the South. In the South, Stowe was depicted as out of touch, arrogant, and guilty of slander. Within a year, 300 babies in Boston alone were named Eva (one of the book's characters), and a play based on the book opened in New York in November.[21] Southerners quickly responded with numerous works of what are now called anti-Tom novels, seeking to portray Southern society and slavery in more positive terms. Many of these were bestsellers, although none matched the popularity of Stowe's work, which set publishing records.[citation needed]
+
+After the start of the Civil War, Stowe traveled to the capital, Washington, D.C., where she met President Abraham Lincoln on November 25, 1862.[22] Stowe's daughter, Hattie, reported, "It was a very droll time that we had at the White house I assure you... I will only say now that it was all very funny—and we were ready to explode with laughter all the while."[23] What Lincoln said is a minor mystery. Her son later reported that Lincoln greeted her by saying, "so you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war."[24] Her own accounts are vague, including the letter reporting the meeting to her husband: "I had a real funny interview with the President."[23]
+
+A year after the Civil War, Stowe purchased property near Jacksonville, Florida. In response to a newspaper article in 1873, she wrote, "I came to Florida the year after the war and held property in Duval County ever since. In all this time I have not received even an incivility from any native Floridian."[25]
+
+Stowe is controversial for her support of Elizabeth Campbell, Duchess of Argyll, whose father-in-law decades before was a leader in the Highland Clearances, the transformation of the remote Highlands of Scotland from a militia-based society to an agricultural one that supported far fewer people. The newly homeless moved to Canada, where very bitter accounts appeared. It was Stowe's assignment to refute them using evidence the Duchess provided, in Letter XVII Volume 1 of her travel memoir Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands.[26] Stowe was vulnerable when she seemed to defend the cruelties in Scotland as eagerly as she attacked the cruelties in the American South.[27]
+
+In 1868, Stowe became one of the first editors of Hearth and Home magazine, one of several new publications appealing to women; she departed after a year.[28] Stowe campaigned for the expansion of married women's rights, arguing in 1869 that:[29]
+
+[T]he position of a married woman ... is, in many respects, precisely similar to that of the negro slave. She can make no contract and hold no property; whatever she inherits or earns becomes at that moment the property of her husband.... Though he acquired a fortune through her, or though she earned a fortune through her talents, he is the sole master of it, and she cannot draw a penny....[I]n the English common law a married woman is nothing at all. She passes out of legal existence.
+
+In the 1870s, Stowe's brother Henry Ward Beecher was accused of adultery, and became the subject of a national scandal. Unable to bear the public attacks on her brother, Stowe again fled to Florida but asked family members to send her newspaper reports.[30] Through the affair, she remained loyal to her brother and believed he was innocent.[31]
+
+After her return to Connecticut, Mrs. Stowe was among the founders of the Hartford Art School, which later became part of the University of Hartford.
+
+Following the death of her husband, Calvin Stowe, in 1886, Harriet started rapidly to decline in health. By 1888, The Washington Post reported that as a result of dementia the 77-year-old Stowe started writing Uncle Tom's Cabin over again. She imagined that she was engaged in the original composition, and for several hours every day she industriously used pen and paper, inscribing passages of the book almost exactly word for word. This was done unconsciously from memory, the author imagining that she composed the matter as she went along. To her diseased mind the story was brand new, and she frequently exhausted herself with labor which she regarded as freshly created.[32]
+
+Mark Twain, a neighbor of Stowe's in Hartford, recalled her last years in the following passage of his autobiography:
+
+Her mind had decayed, and she was a pathetic figure. She wandered about all the day long in the care of a muscular Irish woman. Among the colonists of our neighborhood the doors always stood open in pleasant weather. Mrs. Stowe entered them at her own free will, and as she was always softly slippered and generally full of animal spirits, she was able to deal in surprises, and she liked to do it.  She would slip up behind a person who was deep in dreams and musings and fetch a war whoop that would jump that person out of his clothes.  And she had other moods.  Sometimes we would hear gentle music in the drawing-room and would find her there at the piano singing ancient and melancholy songs with infinitely touching effect.[33]
+
+Modern researchers now speculate that at the end of her life she was suffering from Alzheimer's disease.[34]
+
+Harriet Beecher Stowe died on July 1, 1896, in Hartford, Connecticut, 17 days after her 85th birthday.
+She is buried in the historic cemetery at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts,[35] along with her husband and their son Henry Ellis.
+
+Multiple landmarks are dedicated to the memory of Harriet Beecher Stowe, and are located in several states including Ohio, Florida, Maine and Connecticut.  The locations of these landmarks represent various periods of her life such as her father's house where she grew up, and where she wrote her most famous work.
+
+The Harriet Beecher Stowe House in Cincinnati, Ohio, is the former home of her father Lyman Beecher on the former campus of the Lane Seminary. Her father was a preacher who was greatly affected by the pro-slavery Cincinnati Riots of 1836. Harriet Beecher Stowe lived here until her marriage. It is open to the public and operated as a historical and cultural site, focusing on Harriet Beecher Stowe, the Lane Seminary and the Underground Railroad. The site also presents African-American history.[36]
+
+In the 1870s and 1880s, Stowe and her family wintered in Mandarin, Florida, now a neighborhood of modern consolidated Jacksonville, on the St. Johns River. Stowe wrote Palmetto Leaves while living in Mandarin, arguably an eloquent piece of promotional literature directed at Florida's potential Northern investors at the time.[37] The book was published in 1873 and describes Northeast Florida and its residents. In 1874, Stowe was honored by the governor of Florida as one of several northerners who had helped Florida's growth after the war. In addition to her writings inspiring tourists and settlers to the area, she helped establish a church and a school, and she helped promote oranges as a major state crop through her own orchards.[38] The school she helped establish in 1870 was an integrated school in Mandarin for children and adults. This predated the national movement toward integration by more than a half century. The marker commemorating the Stowe family is located across the street from the former site of their cottage. It is on the property of the Community Club, at the site of a church where Stowe's husband once served as a minister. The Church of our Saviour is an Episcopal Church founded in 1880 by a group of people who had gathered for Bible readings with Professor Calvin E. Stowe and his famous wife. The house was constructed in 1883 which contained the Stowe Memorial stained glass window, created by Louis Comfort Tiffany.[39]
+
+The Harriet Beecher Stowe House in Brunswick, Maine, is where Stowe lived when she wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin. Her husband was teaching theology at nearby Bowdoin College, and she regularly invited students from the college and friends to read and discuss the chapters before publication. Future Civil War general, and later Governor, Joshua Chamberlain was then a student at the college and later described the setting. "On these occasions," Chamberlain noted, "a chosen circle of friends, mostly young, were favored with the freedom of her house, the rallying point being, however, the reading before publication, of the successive chapters of her Uncle Tom's Cabin, and the frank discussion of them."[citation needed] In 2001, Bowdoin College purchased the house, together with a newer attached building, and was able to raise the substantial funds necessary to restore the house. It is now open to the public.
+
+The Harriet Beecher Stowe House in Hartford, Connecticut, is the house where Stowe lived for the last 23 years of her life. It was next door to the house of fellow author Mark Twain. In this 5,000 sq ft (460 m2) cottage-style house, there are many of Beecher Stowe's original items and items from the time period. In the research library, which is open to the public, there are numerous letters and documents from the Beecher family. The house is open to the public and offers house tours on the hour.[40]
+
+In 1833, during Stowe's time in Cincinnati, the city was afflicted with a serious cholera epidemic. To avoid illness, Stowe made a visit to Washington, Kentucky, a major community of the era just south of Maysville. She stayed with the Marshall Key family, one of whose daughters was a student at Lane Seminary. It is recorded that Mr. Key took her to see a slave auction, as they were frequently held in Maysville. Scholars believe she was strongly moved by the experience. The Marshall Key home still stands in Washington. Key was a prominent Kentuckian; his visitors also included Henry Clay and Daniel Webster.[41]
+
+The Uncle Tom's Cabin Historic Site is part of the restored Dawn Settlement at Dresden, Ontario, which is 20 miles east of Algonac, Michigan. The community for freed slaves founded by the Rev. Josiah Henson and other abolitionists in the 1830s has been restored. There's also a museum. Henson and the Dawn Settlement provided Stowe with the inspiration for Uncle Tom's Cabin.[42]

en/2386.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,88 @@
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling. The first novel in the Harry Potter series and Rowling's debut novel, it follows Harry Potter, a young wizard who discovers his magical heritage on his eleventh birthday, when he receives a letter of acceptance to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry makes close friends and a few enemies during his first year at the school, and with the help of his friends, Harry faces an attempted comeback by the dark wizard Lord Voldemort, who killed Harry's parents, but failed to kill Harry when he was just 15 months old.
+
+The book was first published in the United Kingdom on 26 June 1997 by Bloomsbury. It was published in the United States the following year by Scholastic Corporation under the title Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. It won most of the British book awards that were judged by children and other awards in the US. The book reached the top of the New York Times list of best-selling fiction in August 1999 and stayed near the top of that list for much of 1999 and 2000. It has been translated into at least 73 other languages, and has been made into a feature-length film of the same name, as have all six of its sequels.
+
+Most reviews were very favourable, commenting on Rowling's imagination, humour, simple, direct style and clever plot construction, although a few complained that the final chapters seemed rushed. The writing has been compared to that of Jane Austen, one of Rowling's favourite authors; Roald Dahl, whose works dominated children's stories before the appearance of Harry Potter; and the Ancient Greek story-teller Homer. While some commentators thought the book looked backwards to Victorian and Edwardian boarding school stories, others thought it placed the genre firmly in the modern world by featuring contemporary ethical and social issues, as well as overcoming obstacles like bullies.
+
+Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, along with the rest of the Harry Potter series, has been attacked by some religious groups and banned in some countries because of accusations that the novels promote witchcraft under the guise of a heroic, moral story.  Other religious commentators have written that the book exemplifies important viewpoints, including the power of self-sacrifice and the ways in which people's decisions shape their personalities. The series has been used as a source of object lessons in educational techniques, sociological analysis and marketing.
+
+Harry Potter has been living an ordinary life, constantly abused by his surly and cold aunt and uncle, Vernon and Petunia Dursley and bullied by their spoiled son Dudley since the death of his parents ten years prior. His life changes on the day of his eleventh birthday when he receives a letter of acceptance into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, delivered by a half-giant named Rubeus Hagrid after previous letters had been destroyed by Vernon and Petunia. Hagrid details Harry's past as the son of James and Lily Potter, who were a wizard and witch respectively, and how they were murdered by the most evil and powerful dark wizard of all time, Lord Voldemort, which resulted in the one-year-old Harry being sent to live with his aunt and uncle. Voldemort was not only unable to kill Harry, but his powers were also destroyed in the attempt, forcing him into exile and sparking Harry's immense fame among the magical community.
+
+Hagrid introduces Harry to the wizarding world by bringing him to Diagon Alley, a hidden street in London, where Harry uncovers a fortune left to him by his parents at Gringotts Wizarding Bank. He also receives a pet owl, Hedwig, various school supplies, and a wand (which he learns shares a core from the same source as Voldemort's wand). There, he is surprised to discover how famous he truly is among witches and wizards as "The Boy Who Lived". A month later, Harry leaves the Dursleys' home to catch the Hogwarts Express from King's Cross railway station's secret Hogwarts platform, Platform ​9 3⁄4. On the train, he quickly befriends fellow first-year Ronald Weasley and the two boys meet Hermione Granger, whose snobbiness and affinity for spells initially causes the two boys to dislike her. There, Harry also makes an enemy of yet another first-year, Draco Malfoy, who shows prejudice against Ron for his family's financial difficulties.
+
+Arriving at Hogwarts, the first-years are assigned by the magical Sorting Hat to Houses that best suit their personalities, the four Houses being Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. Harry hears from Ron about Slytherin's dark reputation which is known to house potential dark witches and wizards, and thus objects to being sorted into Slytherin despite the Hat claiming that Harry has potential to develop under that House. He winds up in Gryffindor with Ron and Hermione, while Draco is sorted into Slytherin like his family before him.
+
+As classes begin at Hogwarts, Harry discovers his innate talent for flying on broomsticks despite no prior experience, and is recruited into his House's team for Quidditch (a competitive wizards' sport sharing similarities to football, but played on flying broomsticks) as a Seeker. He also comes to dislike the school's Potions master, Severus Snape, who is also the Head of Slytherin House who acts with bias in favour of members of his House while perpetually looking for opportunities to fail Harry and his friends. Malfoy tricks Harry and Ron into a duel in the trophy room to get them out of their rooms at night and secretly tells Filch, the school's caretaker, where they will be. Hermione unintentionally is forced to come along after her failed attempts to stop them, and they find Gryffindor student Neville Longbottom asleep outside the common area because he had forgotten the password to get in. After realizing the duel was a set-up to get them in trouble, they run away. They then discover a huge three-headed dog standing guard over a trapdoor in a forbidden corridor. The school's Halloween celebrations are interrupted by the entrance of a troll into the school, which enters the girls' bathroom where Hermione was. However, she is saved by Harry and Ron and, as a result, Hermione is grateful and the three become best friends. Coupled with Snape's recent leg injury as well as behaviour, the recent events prompt Harry, Hermione and Ron to suspect him to be looking for a way to enter the trapdoor.
+
+Hermione forbids the boys from investigating for fear of expulsion, and instead makes Harry direct his attention to his first ever Quidditch game, where his broomstick begins to lose control and threatens to throw him off. This leads Hermione to suspect that Snape had jinxed Harry's broom, due to his strange behaviour during the match. After the excitement of winning the match has died down, Christmas arrives and Harry receives an invisibility cloak from an anonymous source claiming that the cloak belonged to Harry's father. Using the cloak to explore the school at night to investigate what is under the trapdoor, he discovers the Mirror of Erised, in which the viewer sees his or her deepest desires come true. Within the Mirror, Harry sees himself standing with both of his parents.
+
+A visit to Hagrid's hut at the foot of the school leads the trio to find a newspaper report stating there had been an attempted robbery of a Gringotts vault—the same vault that Hagrid and Harry had visited when the latter was getting his school supplies. A further indiscretion from Hagrid allows them to work out that the object kept under that trapdoor is a Philosopher's Stone, which grants its user immortality as well as the ability to turn any metal into pure gold. Harry is also informed by a centaur named Firenze in the forest that a plot to steal the Stone is being orchestrated by none other than Voldemort himself, who schemes to use it to be restored back to his body and return to power. When the school's headmaster Albus Dumbledore is lured from Hogwarts under false pretences, Harry, Hermione and Ron fear that the theft is imminent and descend through the trapdoor themselves.
+
+They encounter a series of obstacles, each of which requires unique skills possessed by one of the three, one of which requires Ron to sacrifice himself in a life-sized game of wizard's chess. In the final room, Harry, now alone, finds Quirinus Quirrell, the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, who reveals he had been the one working behind the scenes to kill Harry by first jinxing his broom and then letting a troll into the school, while Snape had been trying to protect Harry instead. Quirrell is helping Voldemort, whose face has sprouted on the back of Quirrell's head but is constantly concealed by his oversized turban, to attain the Philosopher's Stone so as to restore his body. Quirrell uses Harry to get past the final obstacle, the Mirror of Erised, by forcing him to stand before the Mirror. It recognises Harry's lack of greed for the Stone and surreptitiously deposits it into his pocket. As Quirrell attempts to seize the stone and kill Harry, his flesh burns on contact with the boy's skin and breaks into blisters. Harry's scar suddenly burns with pain and he passes out.
+
+Three days later, he awakens in the school's infirmary, where Dumbledore explains his survival against Voldemort is due to his mother's sacrificing her life in order for him to live. This left a powerful protective charm on Harry that lives in his blood, which caused Quirrell's hands to burn on contact with Harry due to him being possessed by hatred and greed. He also reveals himself as the one who sent Harry his father's invisibility cloak, while Quirrell has been left to die by Voldemort, who still lives, and the Stone has now been destroyed. The eventful school year ends at the final feast, during which Gryffindor wins the House Cup. Harry returns to Privet Drive for the summer, neglecting to tell the Dursleys that the use of spells is forbidden by under-aged wizards and witches and thus anticipating some fun and peace over the holidays.
+
+Other members of staff include the dumpy Herbology teacher and Head of Hufflepuff House Professor Sprout,  Professor Flitwick, the tiny and excitable Charms teacher, and Head of Ravenclaw House, the soporific History of Magic teacher, Professor Binns, a ghost who does not seem to have noticed his own death; and Madam Hooch, the Quidditch coach, who is strict, but a considerate and methodical teacher. The poltergeist Peeves wanders around the castle causing trouble wherever he can.
+
+In the book, Rowling introduces an eclectic cast of characters. The first character to be introduced is Vernon Dursley, Harry's uncle. Most of the actions centre on the eponymous hero Harry Potter, an orphan who escapes his miserable childhood with the Dursley family. Rowling imagined him as a "scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who didn't know he was a wizard",[2] and says she transferred part of her pain about losing her mother to him.[8] During the book, Harry makes two close friends, Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger. Ron is described by Rowling as the ultimate best friend, "always there when you need him".[4] Rowling has described Hermione as a "very logical, upright and good" character[5] with "a lot of insecurity and a great fear of failure beneath her swottiness".[5]
+
+Rowling also imagined a supporting cast of adults. The headmaster of Hogwarts is the powerful, but kind wizard Albus Dumbledore, who becomes Harry's confidant. Rowling described him as "epitome of goodness".[6] His right hand is severe Minerva McGonagall, who according to the author "under that gruff exterior" is "a bit of an old softy",[7] the friendly half-giant Rubeus Hagrid, who saved Harry from the Dursley family, and the sinister Severus Snape.[9] Professor Quirrell is also featured in the novel.
+
+The main antagonists are Draco Malfoy, an elitist, bullying classmate[10] and Lord Voldemort, the most powerful evil wizard who becomes disembodied when he tries to kill baby Harry. According to a 1999 interview with Rowling, the character of Voldemort was created as a literary foil for Harry, and his backstory was intentionally not fleshed-out at first:
+
+The basic idea... Harry, I saw Harry very very very clearly. Very vividly. And I knew he didn't know he was a wizard. [...] And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position to find out how that could be, that he wouldn't know what he was. [...] When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then he tried to kill Harry—he tried to curse him. [...] And—so—but for some mysterious reason, the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard, who has been in hiding ever since.[3]
+
+The book, which was Rowling's debut novel, was written between approximately June 1990 and some time in 1995. In 1990 Jo Rowling, as she preferred to be known,[a] wanted to move with her boyfriend to a flat in Manchester and in her words, "One weekend after flat hunting, I took the train back to London on my own and the idea for Harry Potter fell into my head... A scrawny, little, black-haired, bespectacled boy became more and more of a wizard to me... I began to write Philosopher's Stone that very evening. Although, the first couple of pages look nothing like the finished product."[8] Then Rowling's mother died and, to cope with her pain, Rowling transferred her own anguish to the orphan Harry.[8] Rowling spent six years working on Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and after it was accepted by Bloomsbury, she obtained a grant of £8,000 from the Scottish Arts Council, which enabled her to plan the sequels.[14] She sent the book to an agent and a publisher, and then the second agent she approached spent a year trying to sell the book to publishers, most of whom thought it was too long at about 90,000 words. Barry Cunningham, who was building a portfolio of distinctive fantasies by new authors for Bloomsbury Children's Books, recommended accepting the book,[15] and the eight-year-old daughter of Bloomsbury's chief executive said it was "so much better than anything else".[16]
+
+Bloomsbury accepted the book, paying Rowling a £2,500 advance,[17] and Cunningham sent proof copies to carefully chosen authors, critics and booksellers in order to obtain comments that could be quoted when the book was launched.[15] He was less concerned about the book's length than about its author's name, since the title sounded like a boys' book to him, and he believed boys preferred books by male authors. Rowling therefore adopted the nom de plume J.K. Rowling just before publication.[15] In June 1997, Bloomsbury published Philosopher's Stone with an initial print-run of 500 copies in hardback, three hundred of which were distributed to libraries.[18] Her original name, "Joanne Rowling", can be found in small print on the copyright page of this first British edition. (The 1998 first American edition would remove reference to "Joanne" completely.)[19] The short initial print run was standard for first novels, and Cunningham hoped booksellers would read the book and recommend it to customers.[15] Examples from this initial print run have sold for as much as US$33,460 in a 2007 Heritage Auction.[20]
+
+Lindsey Fraser, who had previously supplied one of the blurb comments,[15] wrote what is thought to be the first published review, in The Scotsman on 28 June 1997. She described Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone as "a hugely entertaining thriller" and Rowling as "a first-rate writer for children".[15][21] Another early review, in The Herald, said, "I have yet to find a child who can put it down." Newspapers outside Scotland started to notice the book, with glowing reviews in The Guardian, The Sunday Times and The Mail on Sunday, and in September 1997 Books for Keeps, a magazine that specialised in children's books, gave the novel four stars out of five.[15] The Mail on Sunday rated it as "the most imaginative debut since Roald Dahl"; a view echoed by the Sunday Times ("comparisons to Dahl are, this time, justified"), while The Guardian called it "a richly textured novel given lift-off by an inventive wit" and The Scotsman said it had "all the makings of a classic".[15]
+
+In 1997 the UK edition won a National Book Award and a gold medal in the 9- to 11-year-olds category of the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize.[22] The Smarties award, which is voted for by children, made the book well known within six months of publication, while most children's books have to wait for years.[15] The following year, Philosopher's Stone won almost all the other major British awards that were decided by children.[15][b] It was also shortlisted for children's books awards adjudicated by adults,[23] but did not win. Sandra Beckett commented that books which were popular with children were regarded as undemanding and as not of the highest literary standards – for example the literary establishment disdained the works of Dahl, an overwhelming favourite of children before the appearance of Rowling's books.[24] In 2003, the novel was listed at number 22 on the BBC's survey The Big Read.[25]
+
+Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone won two publishing industry awards given for sales rather than literary merit, the British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year and the Booksellers' Association / Bookseller Author of the Year.[15] By March 1999 UK editions had sold just over 300,000 copies,[26] and the story was still the UK's best-selling title in December 2001.[27] A Braille edition was published in May 1998 by the Scottish Braille Press.[28]
+
+Platform ​9 3⁄4 , from which the Hogwarts Express left London, was commemorated in the real-life King's Cross railway station with a sign and a trolley apparently passing through the wall.[29]
+
+Scholastic Corporation bought the U.S. rights at the Bologna Book Fair in April 1997 for US$105,000, an unusually high sum for a children's book.[15] Scholastic's Arthur Levine thought that "philosopher" sounded too archaic for readers[32] and after some discussion (including the proposed title "Harry Potter and the School of Magic"[33]), the American edition was published in September 1998[34] under the title Rowling suggested, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.[15] Rowling later said that she regretted this change and would have fought it if she had been in a stronger position at the time.[11] Philip Nel has pointed out that the change lost the connection with alchemy, and the meaning of some other terms changed in translation, for example from "crumpet" to "muffin". While Rowling accepted the change from both the British English "mum" and Seamus Finnigan's Irish variant "mam" to "mom" in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, she vetoed this change in the later books, which was then reversed in later editions of Philosopher's Stone. However, Nel considered that Scholastic's translations were considerably more sensitive than most of those imposed on British English books of the time, and that some other changes could be regarded as useful copyedits.[30] Since the British editions of early titles in the series were published months prior to the American versions, some American readers became familiar with the British English versions owing to having bought them from online retailers.[35]
+
+At first the most prestigious reviewers ignored the book, leaving it to book trade and library publications such as Kirkus Reviews and Booklist, which examined it only by the entertainment-oriented criteria of children's fiction. However, more penetrating specialist reviews (such as one by Cooperative Children's Book Center Choices, which pointed out the complexity, depth and consistency of the world that Rowling had built) attracted the attention of reviewers in major newspapers.[36] Although The Boston Globe and Michael Winerip in The New York Times complained that the final chapters were the weakest part of the book,[21][37] they and most other American reviewers gave glowing praise.[15][21]
+A year later, the US edition was selected as an American Library Association Notable Book, a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 1998, and a New York Public Library 1998 Best Book of the Year, and won Parenting Magazine's Book of the Year Award for 1998,[22] the School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, and the American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults.[15]
+
+In August 1999, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone topped the New York Times list of best-selling fiction,[38] and stayed near the top of the list for much of 1999 and 2000, until the New York Times split its list into children's and adult sections under pressure from other publishers who were eager to see their books given higher placings.[24][36] Publishers Weekly's report in December 2001 on cumulative sales of children's fiction placed Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone 19th among hardbacks (over 5 million copies) and 7th among paperbacks (over 6.6 million copies).[39]
+
+In May 2008, Scholastic announced the creation of a 10th Anniversary Edition of the book[40] that was released on 1 October 2008[41] to mark the tenth anniversary of the original American release.[40] For the fifteenth anniversary of the books, Scholastic re-released Sorcerer's Stone, along with the other six novels in the series, with new cover art by Kazu Kibuishi in 2013.[42][43][44]
+
+By mid-2008, official translations of the book had been published in 67 languages.[45][46] By November 2017, the book had been translated into 80 languages, the 80th being Lowland Scots.[47] It was translated by Matthew Fitt, who said that he was honoured to be the Scots translator, and that he "wanted to do it for a long time".[48] The translation is considered significant by Heart, who described it as "probably the most incredible version so far",[48] The Guardian, who believed that it "may just be the best of all",[49] and Stylist.[50] Bloomsbury have published translations in Latin and in Ancient Greek,[51][52] with the latter being described as "one of the most important pieces of Ancient Greek prose written in many centuries".[53]
+
+Philip Nel highlighted the influence of Jane Austen, whom Rowling has greatly admired since the age of twelve. Both novelists greatly encourage re-reading, because details that look insignificant foreshadow important events or characters much later in the story-line – for example Sirius Black is briefly mentioned near the beginning of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and then becomes a major character in the third to fifth books. Like Austen's heroines, Harry often has to re-examine his ideas near the ends of books. Some social behaviour in the Harry Potter books is remininiscent of Austen, for example the excited communal reading of letters. Both authors satirise social behaviour and give characters names that express their personalities. However in Nel's opinion Rowling's humour is more based on caricature and the names she invents are more like those found in Charles Dickens's stories,[21]:13–15 and Amanda Cockrell noted that many of these express their owners' traits through allusions that run from ancient Roman mythology to eighteenth-century German literature.[54] Rowling, like the Narnia series' author C.S. Lewis, thinks there is no rigid distinction between stories for children and for adults. Nel also noted that, like many good writers for children, Rowling combines literary genres‍—‌fantasy, young adult fiction, boarding school stories, Bildungsroman and many others.[21]:51–52
+
+Some reviewers compared Philosopher's Stone to the stories of Roald Dahl, who died in 1990. Many writers since the 1970s had been hailed as his successor, but none had attained anything near his popularity with children and, in a poll conducted shortly after the launch of Philosopher's Stone, seven of the ten most popular children's books were by Dahl, including the one in top place. The only other really popular children's author of the late 1990s was an American, R. L. Stine. Some of the story elements in Philosopher's Stone resembled parts of Dahl's stories. For example, the hero of James and the Giant Peach lost his parents and had to live with a pair of unpleasant aunts‍—‌one fat and one thin rather like Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, who treated Harry as a servant. However Harry Potter was a distinctive creation, able to take on the responsibilities of an adult while remaining a child inside.[15]
+
+Librarian Nancy Knapp and marketing professor Stephen Brown noted the liveliness and detail of descriptions, especially of shop scenes such as Diagon Alley.[22][55] Tad Brennan commented that Rowling's writing resembles that of Homer: "rapid, plain, and direct in expression."[53] Stephen King admired "the sort of playful details of which only British fantasists seem capable" and concluded that they worked because Rowling enjoys a quick giggle and then moves briskly forward.[56]
+
+Nicholas Tucker described the early Harry Potter books as looking back to Victorian and Edwardian children's stories: Hogwarts was an old-style boarding school in which the teachers addressed pupils formally by their surnames and were most concerned with the reputations of the houses with which they were associated; characters' personalities were plainly shown by their appearances, starting with the Dursleys; evil or malicious characters were to be crushed rather than reformed, including Argus Filch's cat Mrs Norris; and the hero, a mistreated orphan who found his true place in life, was charismatic and good at sports, but considerate and protective towards the weak.[57] Several other commentators have stated that the books present a highly stratified society including many social stereotypes.[58] However Karin Westerman drew parallels with 1990s Britain: a class system that was breaking down but defended by those whose power and status it upheld; the multi-ethnic composition of Hogwarts' students; the racial tensions between the various intelligent species; and school bullying.[59]
+
+Susan Hall wrote that there is no rule of law in the books, as the actions of Ministry of Magic officials are unconstrained by laws, accountability or any kind of legal challenge. This provides an opportunity for Voldemort to offer his own horrific version of order. As a side-effect Harry and Hermione, who were brought up in the highly regulated Muggle world, find solutions by thinking in ways unfamiliar to wizards. For example, Hermione notes that one obstacle to finding the Philosopher's Stone is a test of logic rather than magical power, and that most wizards have no chance of solving it.[60]
+
+Nel suggested that the unflattering characterisation of the extremely conventional, status-conscious, materialistic Dursleys was Rowling's reaction to the family policies of the British government in the early 1990s, which treated the married heterosexual couple as the "preferred norm", while the author was a single mother. Harry's relationships with adult and juvenile wizards are based on affection and loyalty. This is reflected in his happiness whenever he is a temporary member of the Weasley family throughout the series, and in his treatment of first Rubeus Hagrid and later Remus Lupin and Sirius Black as father-figures.[21]:13–15, 47–48[54]
+
+The second book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, was originally published in the UK on July 2, 1998 and later, in the US on June 2, 1999.[61][62] Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was then published a year later in the UK on July 8, 1999 and in the US on September 8, 1999.[61][62] Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was published on 8 July 2000 at the same time by Bloomsbury and Scholastic.[63] Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the longest book in the series at 766 pages in the UK version and 870 pages in the US version.[64] It was published worldwide in English on June 21, 2003.[65] Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was published on July 16, 2005 and sold 11 million copies in the first 24 hours of its worldwide release.[66][67] The seventh and final novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was published on July 21, 2007.[68] The book sold 11 million copies within 24 hours of its release: 2.7 million copies in the UK and 8.3 million in the US.[69]
+
+An illustrated version of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was released on October 6, 2015, with illustrations by Jim Kay.[70][71] The book carries over 100 illustrations and will be followed by illustrated versions of all seven books from the series by the same artist.
+
+In May 2020, a reading podcast by Spotify was created and entitled Harry Potter at Home: Readings. Each chapter is narrated by a celebrity guest from the Harry Potter and Wizarding World franchises.
+
+In 1999, Rowling sold the film rights of the first four Harry Potter books to Warner Bros. for a reported £1 million ($1.65 million in 1999).[72] Rowling demanded that the principal cast be kept strictly British but allowed for the casting of Irish actors such as the late Richard Harris as Dumbledore and of foreign actors as characters of the same nationalities in later books.[73] After extensive casting,[74] filming began in September 2000 at Leavesden Film Studios and in London, with production ending in July 2001.[75] Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was released in London on 14 November 2001.[76][77] Reviewers' comments were positive, as reflected by an 80% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes[78] and by a score of 64% at Metacritic, representing "generally favourable reviews".[79]
+
+Five unique video games by different developers were released between 2001 and 2003 by Electronic Arts, that were loosely based on the film and book:
+
+Writers on education and business subjects have used the book as an object lesson. Writing about clinical teaching in medical schools, Jennifer Conn contrasted Snape's technical expertise with his intimidating behaviour towards students. Quidditch coach Madam Hooch on the other hand, illustrated useful techniques in the teaching of physical skills, including breaking down complex actions into sequences of simple ones and helping students to avoid common errors.[94] Joyce Fields wrote that the books illustrate four of the five main topics in a typical first-year sociology class: "sociological concepts including culture, society, and socialisation; stratification and social inequality; social institutions; and social theory".[58]
+
+Stephen Brown noted that the early Harry Potter books, especially Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, were a runaway success despite inadequate and poorly organised marketing. Brown advised marketing executives to be less preoccupied with rigorous statistical analyses and the "analysis, planning, implementation, and control" model of management. Instead he recommended that they should treat the stories as "a marketing masterclass", full of enticing products and brand names.[55] For example, a real-world analogue of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans was introduced under licence in 2000 by toymaker Hasbro.[55][95]

en/2387.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,88 @@
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling. The first novel in the Harry Potter series and Rowling's debut novel, it follows Harry Potter, a young wizard who discovers his magical heritage on his eleventh birthday, when he receives a letter of acceptance to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry makes close friends and a few enemies during his first year at the school, and with the help of his friends, Harry faces an attempted comeback by the dark wizard Lord Voldemort, who killed Harry's parents, but failed to kill Harry when he was just 15 months old.
+
+The book was first published in the United Kingdom on 26 June 1997 by Bloomsbury. It was published in the United States the following year by Scholastic Corporation under the title Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. It won most of the British book awards that were judged by children and other awards in the US. The book reached the top of the New York Times list of best-selling fiction in August 1999 and stayed near the top of that list for much of 1999 and 2000. It has been translated into at least 73 other languages, and has been made into a feature-length film of the same name, as have all six of its sequels.
+
+Most reviews were very favourable, commenting on Rowling's imagination, humour, simple, direct style and clever plot construction, although a few complained that the final chapters seemed rushed. The writing has been compared to that of Jane Austen, one of Rowling's favourite authors; Roald Dahl, whose works dominated children's stories before the appearance of Harry Potter; and the Ancient Greek story-teller Homer. While some commentators thought the book looked backwards to Victorian and Edwardian boarding school stories, others thought it placed the genre firmly in the modern world by featuring contemporary ethical and social issues, as well as overcoming obstacles like bullies.
+
+Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, along with the rest of the Harry Potter series, has been attacked by some religious groups and banned in some countries because of accusations that the novels promote witchcraft under the guise of a heroic, moral story.  Other religious commentators have written that the book exemplifies important viewpoints, including the power of self-sacrifice and the ways in which people's decisions shape their personalities. The series has been used as a source of object lessons in educational techniques, sociological analysis and marketing.
+
+Harry Potter has been living an ordinary life, constantly abused by his surly and cold aunt and uncle, Vernon and Petunia Dursley and bullied by their spoiled son Dudley since the death of his parents ten years prior. His life changes on the day of his eleventh birthday when he receives a letter of acceptance into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, delivered by a half-giant named Rubeus Hagrid after previous letters had been destroyed by Vernon and Petunia. Hagrid details Harry's past as the son of James and Lily Potter, who were a wizard and witch respectively, and how they were murdered by the most evil and powerful dark wizard of all time, Lord Voldemort, which resulted in the one-year-old Harry being sent to live with his aunt and uncle. Voldemort was not only unable to kill Harry, but his powers were also destroyed in the attempt, forcing him into exile and sparking Harry's immense fame among the magical community.
+
+Hagrid introduces Harry to the wizarding world by bringing him to Diagon Alley, a hidden street in London, where Harry uncovers a fortune left to him by his parents at Gringotts Wizarding Bank. He also receives a pet owl, Hedwig, various school supplies, and a wand (which he learns shares a core from the same source as Voldemort's wand). There, he is surprised to discover how famous he truly is among witches and wizards as "The Boy Who Lived". A month later, Harry leaves the Dursleys' home to catch the Hogwarts Express from King's Cross railway station's secret Hogwarts platform, Platform ​9 3⁄4. On the train, he quickly befriends fellow first-year Ronald Weasley and the two boys meet Hermione Granger, whose snobbiness and affinity for spells initially causes the two boys to dislike her. There, Harry also makes an enemy of yet another first-year, Draco Malfoy, who shows prejudice against Ron for his family's financial difficulties.
+
+Arriving at Hogwarts, the first-years are assigned by the magical Sorting Hat to Houses that best suit their personalities, the four Houses being Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. Harry hears from Ron about Slytherin's dark reputation which is known to house potential dark witches and wizards, and thus objects to being sorted into Slytherin despite the Hat claiming that Harry has potential to develop under that House. He winds up in Gryffindor with Ron and Hermione, while Draco is sorted into Slytherin like his family before him.
+
+As classes begin at Hogwarts, Harry discovers his innate talent for flying on broomsticks despite no prior experience, and is recruited into his House's team for Quidditch (a competitive wizards' sport sharing similarities to football, but played on flying broomsticks) as a Seeker. He also comes to dislike the school's Potions master, Severus Snape, who is also the Head of Slytherin House who acts with bias in favour of members of his House while perpetually looking for opportunities to fail Harry and his friends. Malfoy tricks Harry and Ron into a duel in the trophy room to get them out of their rooms at night and secretly tells Filch, the school's caretaker, where they will be. Hermione unintentionally is forced to come along after her failed attempts to stop them, and they find Gryffindor student Neville Longbottom asleep outside the common area because he had forgotten the password to get in. After realizing the duel was a set-up to get them in trouble, they run away. They then discover a huge three-headed dog standing guard over a trapdoor in a forbidden corridor. The school's Halloween celebrations are interrupted by the entrance of a troll into the school, which enters the girls' bathroom where Hermione was. However, she is saved by Harry and Ron and, as a result, Hermione is grateful and the three become best friends. Coupled with Snape's recent leg injury as well as behaviour, the recent events prompt Harry, Hermione and Ron to suspect him to be looking for a way to enter the trapdoor.
+
+Hermione forbids the boys from investigating for fear of expulsion, and instead makes Harry direct his attention to his first ever Quidditch game, where his broomstick begins to lose control and threatens to throw him off. This leads Hermione to suspect that Snape had jinxed Harry's broom, due to his strange behaviour during the match. After the excitement of winning the match has died down, Christmas arrives and Harry receives an invisibility cloak from an anonymous source claiming that the cloak belonged to Harry's father. Using the cloak to explore the school at night to investigate what is under the trapdoor, he discovers the Mirror of Erised, in which the viewer sees his or her deepest desires come true. Within the Mirror, Harry sees himself standing with both of his parents.
+
+A visit to Hagrid's hut at the foot of the school leads the trio to find a newspaper report stating there had been an attempted robbery of a Gringotts vault—the same vault that Hagrid and Harry had visited when the latter was getting his school supplies. A further indiscretion from Hagrid allows them to work out that the object kept under that trapdoor is a Philosopher's Stone, which grants its user immortality as well as the ability to turn any metal into pure gold. Harry is also informed by a centaur named Firenze in the forest that a plot to steal the Stone is being orchestrated by none other than Voldemort himself, who schemes to use it to be restored back to his body and return to power. When the school's headmaster Albus Dumbledore is lured from Hogwarts under false pretences, Harry, Hermione and Ron fear that the theft is imminent and descend through the trapdoor themselves.
+
+They encounter a series of obstacles, each of which requires unique skills possessed by one of the three, one of which requires Ron to sacrifice himself in a life-sized game of wizard's chess. In the final room, Harry, now alone, finds Quirinus Quirrell, the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, who reveals he had been the one working behind the scenes to kill Harry by first jinxing his broom and then letting a troll into the school, while Snape had been trying to protect Harry instead. Quirrell is helping Voldemort, whose face has sprouted on the back of Quirrell's head but is constantly concealed by his oversized turban, to attain the Philosopher's Stone so as to restore his body. Quirrell uses Harry to get past the final obstacle, the Mirror of Erised, by forcing him to stand before the Mirror. It recognises Harry's lack of greed for the Stone and surreptitiously deposits it into his pocket. As Quirrell attempts to seize the stone and kill Harry, his flesh burns on contact with the boy's skin and breaks into blisters. Harry's scar suddenly burns with pain and he passes out.
+
+Three days later, he awakens in the school's infirmary, where Dumbledore explains his survival against Voldemort is due to his mother's sacrificing her life in order for him to live. This left a powerful protective charm on Harry that lives in his blood, which caused Quirrell's hands to burn on contact with Harry due to him being possessed by hatred and greed. He also reveals himself as the one who sent Harry his father's invisibility cloak, while Quirrell has been left to die by Voldemort, who still lives, and the Stone has now been destroyed. The eventful school year ends at the final feast, during which Gryffindor wins the House Cup. Harry returns to Privet Drive for the summer, neglecting to tell the Dursleys that the use of spells is forbidden by under-aged wizards and witches and thus anticipating some fun and peace over the holidays.
+
+Other members of staff include the dumpy Herbology teacher and Head of Hufflepuff House Professor Sprout,  Professor Flitwick, the tiny and excitable Charms teacher, and Head of Ravenclaw House, the soporific History of Magic teacher, Professor Binns, a ghost who does not seem to have noticed his own death; and Madam Hooch, the Quidditch coach, who is strict, but a considerate and methodical teacher. The poltergeist Peeves wanders around the castle causing trouble wherever he can.
+
+In the book, Rowling introduces an eclectic cast of characters. The first character to be introduced is Vernon Dursley, Harry's uncle. Most of the actions centre on the eponymous hero Harry Potter, an orphan who escapes his miserable childhood with the Dursley family. Rowling imagined him as a "scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who didn't know he was a wizard",[2] and says she transferred part of her pain about losing her mother to him.[8] During the book, Harry makes two close friends, Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger. Ron is described by Rowling as the ultimate best friend, "always there when you need him".[4] Rowling has described Hermione as a "very logical, upright and good" character[5] with "a lot of insecurity and a great fear of failure beneath her swottiness".[5]
+
+Rowling also imagined a supporting cast of adults. The headmaster of Hogwarts is the powerful, but kind wizard Albus Dumbledore, who becomes Harry's confidant. Rowling described him as "epitome of goodness".[6] His right hand is severe Minerva McGonagall, who according to the author "under that gruff exterior" is "a bit of an old softy",[7] the friendly half-giant Rubeus Hagrid, who saved Harry from the Dursley family, and the sinister Severus Snape.[9] Professor Quirrell is also featured in the novel.
+
+The main antagonists are Draco Malfoy, an elitist, bullying classmate[10] and Lord Voldemort, the most powerful evil wizard who becomes disembodied when he tries to kill baby Harry. According to a 1999 interview with Rowling, the character of Voldemort was created as a literary foil for Harry, and his backstory was intentionally not fleshed-out at first:
+
+The basic idea... Harry, I saw Harry very very very clearly. Very vividly. And I knew he didn't know he was a wizard. [...] And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position to find out how that could be, that he wouldn't know what he was. [...] When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then he tried to kill Harry—he tried to curse him. [...] And—so—but for some mysterious reason, the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard, who has been in hiding ever since.[3]
+
+The book, which was Rowling's debut novel, was written between approximately June 1990 and some time in 1995. In 1990 Jo Rowling, as she preferred to be known,[a] wanted to move with her boyfriend to a flat in Manchester and in her words, "One weekend after flat hunting, I took the train back to London on my own and the idea for Harry Potter fell into my head... A scrawny, little, black-haired, bespectacled boy became more and more of a wizard to me... I began to write Philosopher's Stone that very evening. Although, the first couple of pages look nothing like the finished product."[8] Then Rowling's mother died and, to cope with her pain, Rowling transferred her own anguish to the orphan Harry.[8] Rowling spent six years working on Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and after it was accepted by Bloomsbury, she obtained a grant of £8,000 from the Scottish Arts Council, which enabled her to plan the sequels.[14] She sent the book to an agent and a publisher, and then the second agent she approached spent a year trying to sell the book to publishers, most of whom thought it was too long at about 90,000 words. Barry Cunningham, who was building a portfolio of distinctive fantasies by new authors for Bloomsbury Children's Books, recommended accepting the book,[15] and the eight-year-old daughter of Bloomsbury's chief executive said it was "so much better than anything else".[16]
+
+Bloomsbury accepted the book, paying Rowling a £2,500 advance,[17] and Cunningham sent proof copies to carefully chosen authors, critics and booksellers in order to obtain comments that could be quoted when the book was launched.[15] He was less concerned about the book's length than about its author's name, since the title sounded like a boys' book to him, and he believed boys preferred books by male authors. Rowling therefore adopted the nom de plume J.K. Rowling just before publication.[15] In June 1997, Bloomsbury published Philosopher's Stone with an initial print-run of 500 copies in hardback, three hundred of which were distributed to libraries.[18] Her original name, "Joanne Rowling", can be found in small print on the copyright page of this first British edition. (The 1998 first American edition would remove reference to "Joanne" completely.)[19] The short initial print run was standard for first novels, and Cunningham hoped booksellers would read the book and recommend it to customers.[15] Examples from this initial print run have sold for as much as US$33,460 in a 2007 Heritage Auction.[20]
+
+Lindsey Fraser, who had previously supplied one of the blurb comments,[15] wrote what is thought to be the first published review, in The Scotsman on 28 June 1997. She described Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone as "a hugely entertaining thriller" and Rowling as "a first-rate writer for children".[15][21] Another early review, in The Herald, said, "I have yet to find a child who can put it down." Newspapers outside Scotland started to notice the book, with glowing reviews in The Guardian, The Sunday Times and The Mail on Sunday, and in September 1997 Books for Keeps, a magazine that specialised in children's books, gave the novel four stars out of five.[15] The Mail on Sunday rated it as "the most imaginative debut since Roald Dahl"; a view echoed by the Sunday Times ("comparisons to Dahl are, this time, justified"), while The Guardian called it "a richly textured novel given lift-off by an inventive wit" and The Scotsman said it had "all the makings of a classic".[15]
+
+In 1997 the UK edition won a National Book Award and a gold medal in the 9- to 11-year-olds category of the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize.[22] The Smarties award, which is voted for by children, made the book well known within six months of publication, while most children's books have to wait for years.[15] The following year, Philosopher's Stone won almost all the other major British awards that were decided by children.[15][b] It was also shortlisted for children's books awards adjudicated by adults,[23] but did not win. Sandra Beckett commented that books which were popular with children were regarded as undemanding and as not of the highest literary standards – for example the literary establishment disdained the works of Dahl, an overwhelming favourite of children before the appearance of Rowling's books.[24] In 2003, the novel was listed at number 22 on the BBC's survey The Big Read.[25]
+
+Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone won two publishing industry awards given for sales rather than literary merit, the British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year and the Booksellers' Association / Bookseller Author of the Year.[15] By March 1999 UK editions had sold just over 300,000 copies,[26] and the story was still the UK's best-selling title in December 2001.[27] A Braille edition was published in May 1998 by the Scottish Braille Press.[28]
+
+Platform ​9 3⁄4 , from which the Hogwarts Express left London, was commemorated in the real-life King's Cross railway station with a sign and a trolley apparently passing through the wall.[29]
+
+Scholastic Corporation bought the U.S. rights at the Bologna Book Fair in April 1997 for US$105,000, an unusually high sum for a children's book.[15] Scholastic's Arthur Levine thought that "philosopher" sounded too archaic for readers[32] and after some discussion (including the proposed title "Harry Potter and the School of Magic"[33]), the American edition was published in September 1998[34] under the title Rowling suggested, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.[15] Rowling later said that she regretted this change and would have fought it if she had been in a stronger position at the time.[11] Philip Nel has pointed out that the change lost the connection with alchemy, and the meaning of some other terms changed in translation, for example from "crumpet" to "muffin". While Rowling accepted the change from both the British English "mum" and Seamus Finnigan's Irish variant "mam" to "mom" in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, she vetoed this change in the later books, which was then reversed in later editions of Philosopher's Stone. However, Nel considered that Scholastic's translations were considerably more sensitive than most of those imposed on British English books of the time, and that some other changes could be regarded as useful copyedits.[30] Since the British editions of early titles in the series were published months prior to the American versions, some American readers became familiar with the British English versions owing to having bought them from online retailers.[35]
+
+At first the most prestigious reviewers ignored the book, leaving it to book trade and library publications such as Kirkus Reviews and Booklist, which examined it only by the entertainment-oriented criteria of children's fiction. However, more penetrating specialist reviews (such as one by Cooperative Children's Book Center Choices, which pointed out the complexity, depth and consistency of the world that Rowling had built) attracted the attention of reviewers in major newspapers.[36] Although The Boston Globe and Michael Winerip in The New York Times complained that the final chapters were the weakest part of the book,[21][37] they and most other American reviewers gave glowing praise.[15][21]
+A year later, the US edition was selected as an American Library Association Notable Book, a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 1998, and a New York Public Library 1998 Best Book of the Year, and won Parenting Magazine's Book of the Year Award for 1998,[22] the School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, and the American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults.[15]
+
+In August 1999, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone topped the New York Times list of best-selling fiction,[38] and stayed near the top of the list for much of 1999 and 2000, until the New York Times split its list into children's and adult sections under pressure from other publishers who were eager to see their books given higher placings.[24][36] Publishers Weekly's report in December 2001 on cumulative sales of children's fiction placed Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone 19th among hardbacks (over 5 million copies) and 7th among paperbacks (over 6.6 million copies).[39]
+
+In May 2008, Scholastic announced the creation of a 10th Anniversary Edition of the book[40] that was released on 1 October 2008[41] to mark the tenth anniversary of the original American release.[40] For the fifteenth anniversary of the books, Scholastic re-released Sorcerer's Stone, along with the other six novels in the series, with new cover art by Kazu Kibuishi in 2013.[42][43][44]
+
+By mid-2008, official translations of the book had been published in 67 languages.[45][46] By November 2017, the book had been translated into 80 languages, the 80th being Lowland Scots.[47] It was translated by Matthew Fitt, who said that he was honoured to be the Scots translator, and that he "wanted to do it for a long time".[48] The translation is considered significant by Heart, who described it as "probably the most incredible version so far",[48] The Guardian, who believed that it "may just be the best of all",[49] and Stylist.[50] Bloomsbury have published translations in Latin and in Ancient Greek,[51][52] with the latter being described as "one of the most important pieces of Ancient Greek prose written in many centuries".[53]
+
+Philip Nel highlighted the influence of Jane Austen, whom Rowling has greatly admired since the age of twelve. Both novelists greatly encourage re-reading, because details that look insignificant foreshadow important events or characters much later in the story-line – for example Sirius Black is briefly mentioned near the beginning of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and then becomes a major character in the third to fifth books. Like Austen's heroines, Harry often has to re-examine his ideas near the ends of books. Some social behaviour in the Harry Potter books is remininiscent of Austen, for example the excited communal reading of letters. Both authors satirise social behaviour and give characters names that express their personalities. However in Nel's opinion Rowling's humour is more based on caricature and the names she invents are more like those found in Charles Dickens's stories,[21]:13–15 and Amanda Cockrell noted that many of these express their owners' traits through allusions that run from ancient Roman mythology to eighteenth-century German literature.[54] Rowling, like the Narnia series' author C.S. Lewis, thinks there is no rigid distinction between stories for children and for adults. Nel also noted that, like many good writers for children, Rowling combines literary genres‍—‌fantasy, young adult fiction, boarding school stories, Bildungsroman and many others.[21]:51–52
+
+Some reviewers compared Philosopher's Stone to the stories of Roald Dahl, who died in 1990. Many writers since the 1970s had been hailed as his successor, but none had attained anything near his popularity with children and, in a poll conducted shortly after the launch of Philosopher's Stone, seven of the ten most popular children's books were by Dahl, including the one in top place. The only other really popular children's author of the late 1990s was an American, R. L. Stine. Some of the story elements in Philosopher's Stone resembled parts of Dahl's stories. For example, the hero of James and the Giant Peach lost his parents and had to live with a pair of unpleasant aunts‍—‌one fat and one thin rather like Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, who treated Harry as a servant. However Harry Potter was a distinctive creation, able to take on the responsibilities of an adult while remaining a child inside.[15]
+
+Librarian Nancy Knapp and marketing professor Stephen Brown noted the liveliness and detail of descriptions, especially of shop scenes such as Diagon Alley.[22][55] Tad Brennan commented that Rowling's writing resembles that of Homer: "rapid, plain, and direct in expression."[53] Stephen King admired "the sort of playful details of which only British fantasists seem capable" and concluded that they worked because Rowling enjoys a quick giggle and then moves briskly forward.[56]
+
+Nicholas Tucker described the early Harry Potter books as looking back to Victorian and Edwardian children's stories: Hogwarts was an old-style boarding school in which the teachers addressed pupils formally by their surnames and were most concerned with the reputations of the houses with which they were associated; characters' personalities were plainly shown by their appearances, starting with the Dursleys; evil or malicious characters were to be crushed rather than reformed, including Argus Filch's cat Mrs Norris; and the hero, a mistreated orphan who found his true place in life, was charismatic and good at sports, but considerate and protective towards the weak.[57] Several other commentators have stated that the books present a highly stratified society including many social stereotypes.[58] However Karin Westerman drew parallels with 1990s Britain: a class system that was breaking down but defended by those whose power and status it upheld; the multi-ethnic composition of Hogwarts' students; the racial tensions between the various intelligent species; and school bullying.[59]
+
+Susan Hall wrote that there is no rule of law in the books, as the actions of Ministry of Magic officials are unconstrained by laws, accountability or any kind of legal challenge. This provides an opportunity for Voldemort to offer his own horrific version of order. As a side-effect Harry and Hermione, who were brought up in the highly regulated Muggle world, find solutions by thinking in ways unfamiliar to wizards. For example, Hermione notes that one obstacle to finding the Philosopher's Stone is a test of logic rather than magical power, and that most wizards have no chance of solving it.[60]
+
+Nel suggested that the unflattering characterisation of the extremely conventional, status-conscious, materialistic Dursleys was Rowling's reaction to the family policies of the British government in the early 1990s, which treated the married heterosexual couple as the "preferred norm", while the author was a single mother. Harry's relationships with adult and juvenile wizards are based on affection and loyalty. This is reflected in his happiness whenever he is a temporary member of the Weasley family throughout the series, and in his treatment of first Rubeus Hagrid and later Remus Lupin and Sirius Black as father-figures.[21]:13–15, 47–48[54]
+
+The second book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, was originally published in the UK on July 2, 1998 and later, in the US on June 2, 1999.[61][62] Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was then published a year later in the UK on July 8, 1999 and in the US on September 8, 1999.[61][62] Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was published on 8 July 2000 at the same time by Bloomsbury and Scholastic.[63] Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the longest book in the series at 766 pages in the UK version and 870 pages in the US version.[64] It was published worldwide in English on June 21, 2003.[65] Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was published on July 16, 2005 and sold 11 million copies in the first 24 hours of its worldwide release.[66][67] The seventh and final novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was published on July 21, 2007.[68] The book sold 11 million copies within 24 hours of its release: 2.7 million copies in the UK and 8.3 million in the US.[69]
+
+An illustrated version of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was released on October 6, 2015, with illustrations by Jim Kay.[70][71] The book carries over 100 illustrations and will be followed by illustrated versions of all seven books from the series by the same artist.
+
+In May 2020, a reading podcast by Spotify was created and entitled Harry Potter at Home: Readings. Each chapter is narrated by a celebrity guest from the Harry Potter and Wizarding World franchises.
+
+In 1999, Rowling sold the film rights of the first four Harry Potter books to Warner Bros. for a reported £1 million ($1.65 million in 1999).[72] Rowling demanded that the principal cast be kept strictly British but allowed for the casting of Irish actors such as the late Richard Harris as Dumbledore and of foreign actors as characters of the same nationalities in later books.[73] After extensive casting,[74] filming began in September 2000 at Leavesden Film Studios and in London, with production ending in July 2001.[75] Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was released in London on 14 November 2001.[76][77] Reviewers' comments were positive, as reflected by an 80% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes[78] and by a score of 64% at Metacritic, representing "generally favourable reviews".[79]
+
+Five unique video games by different developers were released between 2001 and 2003 by Electronic Arts, that were loosely based on the film and book:
+
+Writers on education and business subjects have used the book as an object lesson. Writing about clinical teaching in medical schools, Jennifer Conn contrasted Snape's technical expertise with his intimidating behaviour towards students. Quidditch coach Madam Hooch on the other hand, illustrated useful techniques in the teaching of physical skills, including breaking down complex actions into sequences of simple ones and helping students to avoid common errors.[94] Joyce Fields wrote that the books illustrate four of the five main topics in a typical first-year sociology class: "sociological concepts including culture, society, and socialisation; stratification and social inequality; social institutions; and social theory".[58]
+
+Stephen Brown noted that the early Harry Potter books, especially Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, were a runaway success despite inadequate and poorly organised marketing. Brown advised marketing executives to be less preoccupied with rigorous statistical analyses and the "analysis, planning, implementation, and control" model of management. Instead he recommended that they should treat the stories as "a marketing masterclass", full of enticing products and brand names.[55] For example, a real-world analogue of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans was introduced under licence in 2000 by toymaker Hasbro.[55][95]

en/2388.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,88 @@
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling. The first novel in the Harry Potter series and Rowling's debut novel, it follows Harry Potter, a young wizard who discovers his magical heritage on his eleventh birthday, when he receives a letter of acceptance to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry makes close friends and a few enemies during his first year at the school, and with the help of his friends, Harry faces an attempted comeback by the dark wizard Lord Voldemort, who killed Harry's parents, but failed to kill Harry when he was just 15 months old.
+
+The book was first published in the United Kingdom on 26 June 1997 by Bloomsbury. It was published in the United States the following year by Scholastic Corporation under the title Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. It won most of the British book awards that were judged by children and other awards in the US. The book reached the top of the New York Times list of best-selling fiction in August 1999 and stayed near the top of that list for much of 1999 and 2000. It has been translated into at least 73 other languages, and has been made into a feature-length film of the same name, as have all six of its sequels.
+
+Most reviews were very favourable, commenting on Rowling's imagination, humour, simple, direct style and clever plot construction, although a few complained that the final chapters seemed rushed. The writing has been compared to that of Jane Austen, one of Rowling's favourite authors; Roald Dahl, whose works dominated children's stories before the appearance of Harry Potter; and the Ancient Greek story-teller Homer. While some commentators thought the book looked backwards to Victorian and Edwardian boarding school stories, others thought it placed the genre firmly in the modern world by featuring contemporary ethical and social issues, as well as overcoming obstacles like bullies.
+
+Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, along with the rest of the Harry Potter series, has been attacked by some religious groups and banned in some countries because of accusations that the novels promote witchcraft under the guise of a heroic, moral story.  Other religious commentators have written that the book exemplifies important viewpoints, including the power of self-sacrifice and the ways in which people's decisions shape their personalities. The series has been used as a source of object lessons in educational techniques, sociological analysis and marketing.
+
+Harry Potter has been living an ordinary life, constantly abused by his surly and cold aunt and uncle, Vernon and Petunia Dursley and bullied by their spoiled son Dudley since the death of his parents ten years prior. His life changes on the day of his eleventh birthday when he receives a letter of acceptance into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, delivered by a half-giant named Rubeus Hagrid after previous letters had been destroyed by Vernon and Petunia. Hagrid details Harry's past as the son of James and Lily Potter, who were a wizard and witch respectively, and how they were murdered by the most evil and powerful dark wizard of all time, Lord Voldemort, which resulted in the one-year-old Harry being sent to live with his aunt and uncle. Voldemort was not only unable to kill Harry, but his powers were also destroyed in the attempt, forcing him into exile and sparking Harry's immense fame among the magical community.
+
+Hagrid introduces Harry to the wizarding world by bringing him to Diagon Alley, a hidden street in London, where Harry uncovers a fortune left to him by his parents at Gringotts Wizarding Bank. He also receives a pet owl, Hedwig, various school supplies, and a wand (which he learns shares a core from the same source as Voldemort's wand). There, he is surprised to discover how famous he truly is among witches and wizards as "The Boy Who Lived". A month later, Harry leaves the Dursleys' home to catch the Hogwarts Express from King's Cross railway station's secret Hogwarts platform, Platform ​9 3⁄4. On the train, he quickly befriends fellow first-year Ronald Weasley and the two boys meet Hermione Granger, whose snobbiness and affinity for spells initially causes the two boys to dislike her. There, Harry also makes an enemy of yet another first-year, Draco Malfoy, who shows prejudice against Ron for his family's financial difficulties.
+
+Arriving at Hogwarts, the first-years are assigned by the magical Sorting Hat to Houses that best suit their personalities, the four Houses being Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. Harry hears from Ron about Slytherin's dark reputation which is known to house potential dark witches and wizards, and thus objects to being sorted into Slytherin despite the Hat claiming that Harry has potential to develop under that House. He winds up in Gryffindor with Ron and Hermione, while Draco is sorted into Slytherin like his family before him.
+
+As classes begin at Hogwarts, Harry discovers his innate talent for flying on broomsticks despite no prior experience, and is recruited into his House's team for Quidditch (a competitive wizards' sport sharing similarities to football, but played on flying broomsticks) as a Seeker. He also comes to dislike the school's Potions master, Severus Snape, who is also the Head of Slytherin House who acts with bias in favour of members of his House while perpetually looking for opportunities to fail Harry and his friends. Malfoy tricks Harry and Ron into a duel in the trophy room to get them out of their rooms at night and secretly tells Filch, the school's caretaker, where they will be. Hermione unintentionally is forced to come along after her failed attempts to stop them, and they find Gryffindor student Neville Longbottom asleep outside the common area because he had forgotten the password to get in. After realizing the duel was a set-up to get them in trouble, they run away. They then discover a huge three-headed dog standing guard over a trapdoor in a forbidden corridor. The school's Halloween celebrations are interrupted by the entrance of a troll into the school, which enters the girls' bathroom where Hermione was. However, she is saved by Harry and Ron and, as a result, Hermione is grateful and the three become best friends. Coupled with Snape's recent leg injury as well as behaviour, the recent events prompt Harry, Hermione and Ron to suspect him to be looking for a way to enter the trapdoor.
+
+Hermione forbids the boys from investigating for fear of expulsion, and instead makes Harry direct his attention to his first ever Quidditch game, where his broomstick begins to lose control and threatens to throw him off. This leads Hermione to suspect that Snape had jinxed Harry's broom, due to his strange behaviour during the match. After the excitement of winning the match has died down, Christmas arrives and Harry receives an invisibility cloak from an anonymous source claiming that the cloak belonged to Harry's father. Using the cloak to explore the school at night to investigate what is under the trapdoor, he discovers the Mirror of Erised, in which the viewer sees his or her deepest desires come true. Within the Mirror, Harry sees himself standing with both of his parents.
+
+A visit to Hagrid's hut at the foot of the school leads the trio to find a newspaper report stating there had been an attempted robbery of a Gringotts vault—the same vault that Hagrid and Harry had visited when the latter was getting his school supplies. A further indiscretion from Hagrid allows them to work out that the object kept under that trapdoor is a Philosopher's Stone, which grants its user immortality as well as the ability to turn any metal into pure gold. Harry is also informed by a centaur named Firenze in the forest that a plot to steal the Stone is being orchestrated by none other than Voldemort himself, who schemes to use it to be restored back to his body and return to power. When the school's headmaster Albus Dumbledore is lured from Hogwarts under false pretences, Harry, Hermione and Ron fear that the theft is imminent and descend through the trapdoor themselves.
+
+They encounter a series of obstacles, each of which requires unique skills possessed by one of the three, one of which requires Ron to sacrifice himself in a life-sized game of wizard's chess. In the final room, Harry, now alone, finds Quirinus Quirrell, the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, who reveals he had been the one working behind the scenes to kill Harry by first jinxing his broom and then letting a troll into the school, while Snape had been trying to protect Harry instead. Quirrell is helping Voldemort, whose face has sprouted on the back of Quirrell's head but is constantly concealed by his oversized turban, to attain the Philosopher's Stone so as to restore his body. Quirrell uses Harry to get past the final obstacle, the Mirror of Erised, by forcing him to stand before the Mirror. It recognises Harry's lack of greed for the Stone and surreptitiously deposits it into his pocket. As Quirrell attempts to seize the stone and kill Harry, his flesh burns on contact with the boy's skin and breaks into blisters. Harry's scar suddenly burns with pain and he passes out.
+
+Three days later, he awakens in the school's infirmary, where Dumbledore explains his survival against Voldemort is due to his mother's sacrificing her life in order for him to live. This left a powerful protective charm on Harry that lives in his blood, which caused Quirrell's hands to burn on contact with Harry due to him being possessed by hatred and greed. He also reveals himself as the one who sent Harry his father's invisibility cloak, while Quirrell has been left to die by Voldemort, who still lives, and the Stone has now been destroyed. The eventful school year ends at the final feast, during which Gryffindor wins the House Cup. Harry returns to Privet Drive for the summer, neglecting to tell the Dursleys that the use of spells is forbidden by under-aged wizards and witches and thus anticipating some fun and peace over the holidays.
+
+Other members of staff include the dumpy Herbology teacher and Head of Hufflepuff House Professor Sprout,  Professor Flitwick, the tiny and excitable Charms teacher, and Head of Ravenclaw House, the soporific History of Magic teacher, Professor Binns, a ghost who does not seem to have noticed his own death; and Madam Hooch, the Quidditch coach, who is strict, but a considerate and methodical teacher. The poltergeist Peeves wanders around the castle causing trouble wherever he can.
+
+In the book, Rowling introduces an eclectic cast of characters. The first character to be introduced is Vernon Dursley, Harry's uncle. Most of the actions centre on the eponymous hero Harry Potter, an orphan who escapes his miserable childhood with the Dursley family. Rowling imagined him as a "scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who didn't know he was a wizard",[2] and says she transferred part of her pain about losing her mother to him.[8] During the book, Harry makes two close friends, Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger. Ron is described by Rowling as the ultimate best friend, "always there when you need him".[4] Rowling has described Hermione as a "very logical, upright and good" character[5] with "a lot of insecurity and a great fear of failure beneath her swottiness".[5]
+
+Rowling also imagined a supporting cast of adults. The headmaster of Hogwarts is the powerful, but kind wizard Albus Dumbledore, who becomes Harry's confidant. Rowling described him as "epitome of goodness".[6] His right hand is severe Minerva McGonagall, who according to the author "under that gruff exterior" is "a bit of an old softy",[7] the friendly half-giant Rubeus Hagrid, who saved Harry from the Dursley family, and the sinister Severus Snape.[9] Professor Quirrell is also featured in the novel.
+
+The main antagonists are Draco Malfoy, an elitist, bullying classmate[10] and Lord Voldemort, the most powerful evil wizard who becomes disembodied when he tries to kill baby Harry. According to a 1999 interview with Rowling, the character of Voldemort was created as a literary foil for Harry, and his backstory was intentionally not fleshed-out at first:
+
+The basic idea... Harry, I saw Harry very very very clearly. Very vividly. And I knew he didn't know he was a wizard. [...] And so then I kind of worked backwards from that position to find out how that could be, that he wouldn't know what he was. [...] When he was one year old, the most evil wizard for hundreds and hundreds of years attempted to kill him. He killed Harry's parents, and then he tried to kill Harry—he tried to curse him. [...] And—so—but for some mysterious reason, the curse didn't work on Harry. So he's left with this lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead and the curse rebounded upon the evil wizard, who has been in hiding ever since.[3]
+
+The book, which was Rowling's debut novel, was written between approximately June 1990 and some time in 1995. In 1990 Jo Rowling, as she preferred to be known,[a] wanted to move with her boyfriend to a flat in Manchester and in her words, "One weekend after flat hunting, I took the train back to London on my own and the idea for Harry Potter fell into my head... A scrawny, little, black-haired, bespectacled boy became more and more of a wizard to me... I began to write Philosopher's Stone that very evening. Although, the first couple of pages look nothing like the finished product."[8] Then Rowling's mother died and, to cope with her pain, Rowling transferred her own anguish to the orphan Harry.[8] Rowling spent six years working on Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and after it was accepted by Bloomsbury, she obtained a grant of £8,000 from the Scottish Arts Council, which enabled her to plan the sequels.[14] She sent the book to an agent and a publisher, and then the second agent she approached spent a year trying to sell the book to publishers, most of whom thought it was too long at about 90,000 words. Barry Cunningham, who was building a portfolio of distinctive fantasies by new authors for Bloomsbury Children's Books, recommended accepting the book,[15] and the eight-year-old daughter of Bloomsbury's chief executive said it was "so much better than anything else".[16]
+
+Bloomsbury accepted the book, paying Rowling a £2,500 advance,[17] and Cunningham sent proof copies to carefully chosen authors, critics and booksellers in order to obtain comments that could be quoted when the book was launched.[15] He was less concerned about the book's length than about its author's name, since the title sounded like a boys' book to him, and he believed boys preferred books by male authors. Rowling therefore adopted the nom de plume J.K. Rowling just before publication.[15] In June 1997, Bloomsbury published Philosopher's Stone with an initial print-run of 500 copies in hardback, three hundred of which were distributed to libraries.[18] Her original name, "Joanne Rowling", can be found in small print on the copyright page of this first British edition. (The 1998 first American edition would remove reference to "Joanne" completely.)[19] The short initial print run was standard for first novels, and Cunningham hoped booksellers would read the book and recommend it to customers.[15] Examples from this initial print run have sold for as much as US$33,460 in a 2007 Heritage Auction.[20]
+
+Lindsey Fraser, who had previously supplied one of the blurb comments,[15] wrote what is thought to be the first published review, in The Scotsman on 28 June 1997. She described Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone as "a hugely entertaining thriller" and Rowling as "a first-rate writer for children".[15][21] Another early review, in The Herald, said, "I have yet to find a child who can put it down." Newspapers outside Scotland started to notice the book, with glowing reviews in The Guardian, The Sunday Times and The Mail on Sunday, and in September 1997 Books for Keeps, a magazine that specialised in children's books, gave the novel four stars out of five.[15] The Mail on Sunday rated it as "the most imaginative debut since Roald Dahl"; a view echoed by the Sunday Times ("comparisons to Dahl are, this time, justified"), while The Guardian called it "a richly textured novel given lift-off by an inventive wit" and The Scotsman said it had "all the makings of a classic".[15]
+
+In 1997 the UK edition won a National Book Award and a gold medal in the 9- to 11-year-olds category of the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize.[22] The Smarties award, which is voted for by children, made the book well known within six months of publication, while most children's books have to wait for years.[15] The following year, Philosopher's Stone won almost all the other major British awards that were decided by children.[15][b] It was also shortlisted for children's books awards adjudicated by adults,[23] but did not win. Sandra Beckett commented that books which were popular with children were regarded as undemanding and as not of the highest literary standards – for example the literary establishment disdained the works of Dahl, an overwhelming favourite of children before the appearance of Rowling's books.[24] In 2003, the novel was listed at number 22 on the BBC's survey The Big Read.[25]
+
+Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone won two publishing industry awards given for sales rather than literary merit, the British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year and the Booksellers' Association / Bookseller Author of the Year.[15] By March 1999 UK editions had sold just over 300,000 copies,[26] and the story was still the UK's best-selling title in December 2001.[27] A Braille edition was published in May 1998 by the Scottish Braille Press.[28]
+
+Platform ​9 3⁄4 , from which the Hogwarts Express left London, was commemorated in the real-life King's Cross railway station with a sign and a trolley apparently passing through the wall.[29]
+
+Scholastic Corporation bought the U.S. rights at the Bologna Book Fair in April 1997 for US$105,000, an unusually high sum for a children's book.[15] Scholastic's Arthur Levine thought that "philosopher" sounded too archaic for readers[32] and after some discussion (including the proposed title "Harry Potter and the School of Magic"[33]), the American edition was published in September 1998[34] under the title Rowling suggested, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.[15] Rowling later said that she regretted this change and would have fought it if she had been in a stronger position at the time.[11] Philip Nel has pointed out that the change lost the connection with alchemy, and the meaning of some other terms changed in translation, for example from "crumpet" to "muffin". While Rowling accepted the change from both the British English "mum" and Seamus Finnigan's Irish variant "mam" to "mom" in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, she vetoed this change in the later books, which was then reversed in later editions of Philosopher's Stone. However, Nel considered that Scholastic's translations were considerably more sensitive than most of those imposed on British English books of the time, and that some other changes could be regarded as useful copyedits.[30] Since the British editions of early titles in the series were published months prior to the American versions, some American readers became familiar with the British English versions owing to having bought them from online retailers.[35]
+
+At first the most prestigious reviewers ignored the book, leaving it to book trade and library publications such as Kirkus Reviews and Booklist, which examined it only by the entertainment-oriented criteria of children's fiction. However, more penetrating specialist reviews (such as one by Cooperative Children's Book Center Choices, which pointed out the complexity, depth and consistency of the world that Rowling had built) attracted the attention of reviewers in major newspapers.[36] Although The Boston Globe and Michael Winerip in The New York Times complained that the final chapters were the weakest part of the book,[21][37] they and most other American reviewers gave glowing praise.[15][21]
+A year later, the US edition was selected as an American Library Association Notable Book, a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 1998, and a New York Public Library 1998 Best Book of the Year, and won Parenting Magazine's Book of the Year Award for 1998,[22] the School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, and the American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults.[15]
+
+In August 1999, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone topped the New York Times list of best-selling fiction,[38] and stayed near the top of the list for much of 1999 and 2000, until the New York Times split its list into children's and adult sections under pressure from other publishers who were eager to see their books given higher placings.[24][36] Publishers Weekly's report in December 2001 on cumulative sales of children's fiction placed Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone 19th among hardbacks (over 5 million copies) and 7th among paperbacks (over 6.6 million copies).[39]
+
+In May 2008, Scholastic announced the creation of a 10th Anniversary Edition of the book[40] that was released on 1 October 2008[41] to mark the tenth anniversary of the original American release.[40] For the fifteenth anniversary of the books, Scholastic re-released Sorcerer's Stone, along with the other six novels in the series, with new cover art by Kazu Kibuishi in 2013.[42][43][44]
+
+By mid-2008, official translations of the book had been published in 67 languages.[45][46] By November 2017, the book had been translated into 80 languages, the 80th being Lowland Scots.[47] It was translated by Matthew Fitt, who said that he was honoured to be the Scots translator, and that he "wanted to do it for a long time".[48] The translation is considered significant by Heart, who described it as "probably the most incredible version so far",[48] The Guardian, who believed that it "may just be the best of all",[49] and Stylist.[50] Bloomsbury have published translations in Latin and in Ancient Greek,[51][52] with the latter being described as "one of the most important pieces of Ancient Greek prose written in many centuries".[53]
+
+Philip Nel highlighted the influence of Jane Austen, whom Rowling has greatly admired since the age of twelve. Both novelists greatly encourage re-reading, because details that look insignificant foreshadow important events or characters much later in the story-line – for example Sirius Black is briefly mentioned near the beginning of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and then becomes a major character in the third to fifth books. Like Austen's heroines, Harry often has to re-examine his ideas near the ends of books. Some social behaviour in the Harry Potter books is remininiscent of Austen, for example the excited communal reading of letters. Both authors satirise social behaviour and give characters names that express their personalities. However in Nel's opinion Rowling's humour is more based on caricature and the names she invents are more like those found in Charles Dickens's stories,[21]:13–15 and Amanda Cockrell noted that many of these express their owners' traits through allusions that run from ancient Roman mythology to eighteenth-century German literature.[54] Rowling, like the Narnia series' author C.S. Lewis, thinks there is no rigid distinction between stories for children and for adults. Nel also noted that, like many good writers for children, Rowling combines literary genres‍—‌fantasy, young adult fiction, boarding school stories, Bildungsroman and many others.[21]:51–52
+
+Some reviewers compared Philosopher's Stone to the stories of Roald Dahl, who died in 1990. Many writers since the 1970s had been hailed as his successor, but none had attained anything near his popularity with children and, in a poll conducted shortly after the launch of Philosopher's Stone, seven of the ten most popular children's books were by Dahl, including the one in top place. The only other really popular children's author of the late 1990s was an American, R. L. Stine. Some of the story elements in Philosopher's Stone resembled parts of Dahl's stories. For example, the hero of James and the Giant Peach lost his parents and had to live with a pair of unpleasant aunts‍—‌one fat and one thin rather like Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, who treated Harry as a servant. However Harry Potter was a distinctive creation, able to take on the responsibilities of an adult while remaining a child inside.[15]
+
+Librarian Nancy Knapp and marketing professor Stephen Brown noted the liveliness and detail of descriptions, especially of shop scenes such as Diagon Alley.[22][55] Tad Brennan commented that Rowling's writing resembles that of Homer: "rapid, plain, and direct in expression."[53] Stephen King admired "the sort of playful details of which only British fantasists seem capable" and concluded that they worked because Rowling enjoys a quick giggle and then moves briskly forward.[56]
+
+Nicholas Tucker described the early Harry Potter books as looking back to Victorian and Edwardian children's stories: Hogwarts was an old-style boarding school in which the teachers addressed pupils formally by their surnames and were most concerned with the reputations of the houses with which they were associated; characters' personalities were plainly shown by their appearances, starting with the Dursleys; evil or malicious characters were to be crushed rather than reformed, including Argus Filch's cat Mrs Norris; and the hero, a mistreated orphan who found his true place in life, was charismatic and good at sports, but considerate and protective towards the weak.[57] Several other commentators have stated that the books present a highly stratified society including many social stereotypes.[58] However Karin Westerman drew parallels with 1990s Britain: a class system that was breaking down but defended by those whose power and status it upheld; the multi-ethnic composition of Hogwarts' students; the racial tensions between the various intelligent species; and school bullying.[59]
+
+Susan Hall wrote that there is no rule of law in the books, as the actions of Ministry of Magic officials are unconstrained by laws, accountability or any kind of legal challenge. This provides an opportunity for Voldemort to offer his own horrific version of order. As a side-effect Harry and Hermione, who were brought up in the highly regulated Muggle world, find solutions by thinking in ways unfamiliar to wizards. For example, Hermione notes that one obstacle to finding the Philosopher's Stone is a test of logic rather than magical power, and that most wizards have no chance of solving it.[60]
+
+Nel suggested that the unflattering characterisation of the extremely conventional, status-conscious, materialistic Dursleys was Rowling's reaction to the family policies of the British government in the early 1990s, which treated the married heterosexual couple as the "preferred norm", while the author was a single mother. Harry's relationships with adult and juvenile wizards are based on affection and loyalty. This is reflected in his happiness whenever he is a temporary member of the Weasley family throughout the series, and in his treatment of first Rubeus Hagrid and later Remus Lupin and Sirius Black as father-figures.[21]:13–15, 47–48[54]
+
+The second book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, was originally published in the UK on July 2, 1998 and later, in the US on June 2, 1999.[61][62] Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was then published a year later in the UK on July 8, 1999 and in the US on September 8, 1999.[61][62] Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was published on 8 July 2000 at the same time by Bloomsbury and Scholastic.[63] Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the longest book in the series at 766 pages in the UK version and 870 pages in the US version.[64] It was published worldwide in English on June 21, 2003.[65] Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was published on July 16, 2005 and sold 11 million copies in the first 24 hours of its worldwide release.[66][67] The seventh and final novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was published on July 21, 2007.[68] The book sold 11 million copies within 24 hours of its release: 2.7 million copies in the UK and 8.3 million in the US.[69]
+
+An illustrated version of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was released on October 6, 2015, with illustrations by Jim Kay.[70][71] The book carries over 100 illustrations and will be followed by illustrated versions of all seven books from the series by the same artist.
+
+In May 2020, a reading podcast by Spotify was created and entitled Harry Potter at Home: Readings. Each chapter is narrated by a celebrity guest from the Harry Potter and Wizarding World franchises.
+
+In 1999, Rowling sold the film rights of the first four Harry Potter books to Warner Bros. for a reported £1 million ($1.65 million in 1999).[72] Rowling demanded that the principal cast be kept strictly British but allowed for the casting of Irish actors such as the late Richard Harris as Dumbledore and of foreign actors as characters of the same nationalities in later books.[73] After extensive casting,[74] filming began in September 2000 at Leavesden Film Studios and in London, with production ending in July 2001.[75] Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was released in London on 14 November 2001.[76][77] Reviewers' comments were positive, as reflected by an 80% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes[78] and by a score of 64% at Metacritic, representing "generally favourable reviews".[79]
+
+Five unique video games by different developers were released between 2001 and 2003 by Electronic Arts, that were loosely based on the film and book:
+
+Writers on education and business subjects have used the book as an object lesson. Writing about clinical teaching in medical schools, Jennifer Conn contrasted Snape's technical expertise with his intimidating behaviour towards students. Quidditch coach Madam Hooch on the other hand, illustrated useful techniques in the teaching of physical skills, including breaking down complex actions into sequences of simple ones and helping students to avoid common errors.[94] Joyce Fields wrote that the books illustrate four of the five main topics in a typical first-year sociology class: "sociological concepts including culture, society, and socialisation; stratification and social inequality; social institutions; and social theory".[58]
+
+Stephen Brown noted that the early Harry Potter books, especially Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, were a runaway success despite inadequate and poorly organised marketing. Brown advised marketing executives to be less preoccupied with rigorous statistical analyses and the "analysis, planning, implementation, and control" model of management. Instead he recommended that they should treat the stories as "a marketing masterclass", full of enticing products and brand names.[55] For example, a real-world analogue of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans was introduced under licence in 2000 by toymaker Hasbro.[55][95]

en/2389.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,62 @@
+
+
+Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling and the second novel in the Harry Potter series. The plot follows Harry's second year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, during which a series of messages on the walls of the school's corridors warn that the "Chamber of Secrets" has been opened and that the "heir of Slytherin" would kill all pupils who do not come from all-magical families. These threats are found after attacks that leave residents of the school petrified. Throughout the year, Harry and his friends Ron and Hermione investigate the attacks.
+
+The book was published in the United Kingdom on 2 July 1998 by Bloomsbury and later in the United States on 2 June 1999 by Scholastic Inc. Although Rowling says she found it difficult to finish the book, it won high praise and awards from critics, young readers, and the book industry, although some critics thought the story was perhaps too frightening for younger children. Much like with other novels in the series, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets triggered religious debates; some religious authorities have condemned its use of magical themes, whereas others have praised its emphasis on self-sacrifice and the way one's character is the result of one's choices.
+
+Several commentators have noted that personal identity is a strong theme in the book and that it addresses issues of racism through the treatment of non-human, non-magical, and non-living people. Some commentators regard the diary as a warning against uncritical acceptance of information from sources whose motives and reliability cannot be checked. Institutional authority is portrayed as self-serving and incompetent.
+
+The film adaptation of the novel, released in 2002, became (at that time) the fifth highest-grossing film ever and received generally favourable reviews. Video games loosely based on Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets were also released for several platforms, and most obtained favourable reviews.
+
+On Harry Potter's twelfth birthday, the Dursley family—Harry's uncle Vernon, aunt Petunia, and cousin Dudley—hold a dinner party for a potential client of Vernon's company. Uninvited, Harry, who has not been receiving any news from his school friends, is visited by a house-elf named Dobby. Dobby warns Harry not to return to Hogwarts, and has been intercepting the post from his friends. Failing to persuade Harry to not return to Hogwarts, Dobby uses magic to smash Petunia's dessert on the kitchen floor, framing Harry, who is not allowed to use magic outside school, in an attempt to get him expelled. The Ministry of Magic warns Harry against using more magic, but allows him to return at the start of the next year.
+
+Meanwhile, as his business deal has fallen through, Vernon locks Harry in his bedroom. Harry’s best friend Ron Weasley arrives with his twin brothers Fred and George in their father Arthur’s enchanted Ford Anglia. They rescue Harry, who stays at their family home, the Burrow, for the remainder of his holidays. Harry and the other Weasleys—mother Molly, third-eldest son Percy, and daughter Ginny (who has a crush on Harry)—travel to Diagon Alley. They meet Hermione Granger, Lucius Malfoy, father of Harry’s school nemesis Draco, and Gilderoy Lockhart, a conceited autobiographer appointed new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor after the death of Professor Quirrell. At King Cross station, Harry and Ron can't enter Platform 93⁄4. Having missed the Hogwarts Express they decide to fly Arthur’s car to the school, crashing into the Whomping Willow on the grounds, and damaging Ron's wand.
+
+Throughout the year, Harry learns that prejudiced wizards discriminate between people with “pure” blood (only wizarding heritage) and those of Muggle (non-magical) parentage. He also notices a voice only he can hear, seemingly coming from the walls of the school. During a deathday party for Gryffindor House’s ghost Nearly Headless Nick, Harry, Ron, and Hermione find the school caretaker Argus Filch’s petrified cat, Mrs. Norris, and a scrawled warning: “The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir, beware.”
+
+Rumours regarding the Chamber of Secrets begin circulatng. Harry discovers from Cuthbert Binns, the professor of History of Magic, that it allegedly houses a monster and was created by one of the school’s founders, Salazar Slytherin, after a disagreement with the other founders (Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, and Rowena Ravenclaw). Slytherin believed the school should exclude Muggle-born students, and built the chamber to that end. Supposedly, the Heir of Slytherin could open it and control the monster inside.
+
+During a Quidditch game, a Bludger chases Harry and breaks his arm. Attempting to mend it, Lockhart accidentally removes the arm's bones, forcing Harry to stay in the hospital wing overnight to heal. Dobby visits Harry in the night, confessing that he charmed the Bludger and sealed the gateway at King’s Cross and revealing that the Chamber of Secrets was opened before. Another attack occurs on first-year Gryffindor student Colin Creevey, giving rise to panic in Hogwarts. A duelling class is set up for the students (led by Lockhart and Potions master Severus Snape), during which it is revealed that Harry is a 'Parselmouth', having the rare ability to speak to snakes.
+
+This sparks rumours that Harry is the Heir of Slytherin, as Slytherin was also a Parselmouth. Another attack occurs on Hufflepuff second-year Justin Finch-Fletchley and Nearly Headless Nick, fueling the rumour. Harry, Ron, and Hermione begin to suspect Draco Malfoy is behind the attacks, given his family's connections with Slytherin house and open hostility toward Muggle-born students. To confirm this, Hermione concocts Polyjuice Potion, which allows Harry and Ron to impersonate Draco’s lackeys Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle. The disguised Harry and Ron interrogate Draco, discovering that Draco’s father told him little about the Chamber's previous opening, and that it occurred fifty years ago. Meanwhile, "Moaning" Myrtle Warren, a ghost that haunts a girls' bathroom provides a new clue, in the form of a diary deposited in her stall. The diary belonged to Tom Riddle, a student who witnessed a fellow student’s death when the Chamber was opened. Harry magically communicates with Riddle using the diary; Riddle claims Rubeus Hagrid, gamekeeper for Hogwarts, was to blame. When Hermione is attacked next, alongside a Ravenclaw prefect, the school is put on lockdown, and headmaster Albus Dumbledore and Hagrid are forced to leave.
+
+Following instructions Hagrid had left, Harry and Ron follow spiders into the Forbidden Forest. They find a massive Acromantula named Aragog, a monster blamed for the attacks fifty years before. Aragog denies its involvement, and tells them that spiders fear the real monster. Although Aragog attempts to feed Harry and Ron to its progeny, Arthur's Ford Anglia arrives and helps the boys escape. Visiting Hermione, they discover that she had deduced the monster's identity prior to her attack. The monster is a basilisk (hence Harry’s ability to understand it) that kills with a stare (although no one is dead because of various devices through which they indirectly saw the monster), feared by spiders. From Aragog's hints, Harry deduces that Myrtle was the student killed in the original attack. When Ginny is taken into the Chamber, Harry and Ron discover that the entrance to it is in Myrtle's bathroom. Harry, Ron, and Lockhart enter the Chamber. The dunderheaded professor, who confesses he is a fraud, attempts to erase the boys’ memories with Ron’s damaged wand, but instead erases his own and causes a rockfall separating Ron and Harry.
+
+Harry enters the Chamber of Secrets alone to find Ginny unconscious and Tom Riddle, who claims to be a memory preserved in his diary. Riddle claims to be the Heir of Slytherin; furthermore, his full name, Tom Marvolo Riddle, can be made into the anagram "I am Lord Voldemort". He had opened the Chamber before and framed Hagrid. By possessing Ginny through his diary, Riddle has been continuing what he started, and unleashes the basilisk against Harry. Harry shows loyalty to Dumbledore in this ordeal, which summons Dumbledore's phoenix Fawkes, who arrives with the Sorting Hat. Fawkes blinds the basilisk, allowing Harry to pull the Sword of Godric Gryffindor from the Sorting Hat and slay the creature, although he is poisoned in the process. As Riddle taunts the dying Harry, Fawkes' tears heal him, and he uses a basilisk fang to stab Riddle's diary. Both the diary and Riddle are destroyed, and Ginny is restored.
+
+Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Lockhart return to the main castle and reunite with McGonagall, Dumbledore, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. Ginny is reprieved by Dumbledore, who shows interest in the diary. Lucius Malfoy bursts in, furious about Dumbledore's return. He is accompanied by Dobby, who is the Malfoys' servant. Harry realizes that the diary had been in the Malfoys’ possession. To ensure the reopening of the Chamber of Secrets, Lucius, a follower of Voldemort, had slipped the diary into Ginny's cauldron when they met in Diagon Alley. Harry hides a sock in the diary and returns it to Lucius. By discarding the sock, which Dobby catches, Lucius unintentionally frees the house-elf from the Malfoys’ service. Lucius attacks Harry in revenge, but Dobby saves him. The petrified students are cured, Gryffindor wins the house cup again, Harry and Ron receive special awards, exams are cancelled, Hagrid returns, Lockhart is discharged, and Harry returns to Privet Drive in high spirits.
+
+Rowling found it difficult to finish Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets because she was afraid it would not live up to the expectations raised by Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. After delivering the manuscript to Bloomsbury on schedule, she took it back for six weeks of revision.[1]
+
+In early drafts of the book, the ghost Nearly Headless Nick sang a self-composed song explaining his condition and the circumstances of his unknown death. This was cut because the book's editor did not care for the poem, which has been subsequently published as an extra on J. K. Rowling's official website.[2] The family background of Dean Thomas was removed because Rowling and her publishers considered it an "unnecessary digression," and she considered Neville Longbottom's own journey of discovery "more important to the central plot."[3]
+
+Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was published in the UK on 2 July 1998 and in the US on 2 June 1999.[4][5] It immediately took first place in UK bestseller lists, displacing popular authors such as John Grisham, Tom Clancy,[1] and Terry Pratchett[6] and making Rowling the first author to win the British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year for two years in succession.[7] In June 1999, it went straight to the top of three US bestseller lists,[8] including inThe New York Times.[9]
+
+First edition printings had several errors, which were fixed in subsequent reprints.[10] Initially, Dumbledore said Voldemort was the last remaining ancestor of Salazar Slytherin instead of his descendant.[10] Gilderoy Lockhart's book on werewolves is entitled Weekends with Werewolves at one point and Wanderings with Werewolves later in the book.[11]
+
+Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was met with near-universal acclaim. In The Times, Deborah Loudon described it as a children's book that would be "re-read into adulthood" and highlighted its "strong plots, engaging characters, excellent jokes and a moral message which flows naturally from the story".[12] Fantasy author Charles de Lint agreed, and considered the second Harry Potter book to be just as good as Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, a rare achievement among series of books.[13] Thomas Wagner regarded the plot as very similar to that of the first book, based on searching for a secret hidden under the school. However, he enjoyed the parody of celebrities and their fans that centres round Gilderoy Lockhart, and approved of the book's handling of racism.[14] Tammy Nezol found the book more disturbing than its predecessor, particularly in the rash behaviour of Harry and his friends after Harry withholds information from Dumbledore, and in the human-like behaviour of the mandragoras used to make a potion that cures petrification. Nevertheless, she considered the second story as enjoyable as the first.[15]
+
+Mary Stuart thought the final conflict with Tom Riddle in the Chamber was almost as scary as in some of Stephen King's works, and perhaps too strong for young or timid children. She commented that "there are enough surprises and imaginative details thrown in as would normally fill five lesser books." Like other reviewers, she thought the book would give pleasure to both children and adult readers.[16] According to Philip Nel, the early reviews gave unalloyed praise while the later ones included some criticisms, although they still agreed that the book was outstanding.[17]
+
+Writing after all seven books had been published, Graeme Davis regarded Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as the weakest of the series, and agreed that the plot structure is much the same as in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. He described Fawkes's appearance to arm Harry and then to heal him as a deus ex machina: he said that the book does not explain how Fawkes knew where to find Harry; and Fawkes's timing had to be very precise, as arriving earlier would probably have prevented the battle with the basilisk, while arriving later would have been fatal to Harry and Ginny.[18]
+
+Rowling's Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was the recipient of several awards.[19] The American Library Association listed the novel among its 2000 Notable Children's Books,[20]
+as well as its Best Books for Young Adults.[21] In 1999, Booklist named Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as one of its Editors' Choices,[22] and as one of its Top Ten Fantasy Novels for Youth.[19] The Cooperative Children's Book Center made the novel a CCBC Choice of 2000 in the "Fiction for Children" category.[23] The novel also won Children's Book of the Year British Book Award,[24] and was shortlisted for the 1998 Guardian Children's Award and the 1998 Carnegie Award.[19]
+
+Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets won the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize 1998 Gold Medal in the 9–11 years division.[24] Rowling also won two other Nestlé Smarties Book Prizes for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The Scottish Arts Council awarded their first ever Children’s Book Award to the novel in 1999,[25] and it was also awarded Whitaker's Platinum Book Award in 2001.[19][26] In 2003, the novel was listed at number 23 on the BBC's survey The Big Read.[27]
+
+Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets continues to examine what makes a person who he or she is, which began in the first book. As well as maintaining that Harry's identity is shaped by his decisions rather than any aspect of his birth,[15][28] Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets provides contrasting characters who try to conceal their true personalities: as Tammy Nezol puts it, Gilderoy Lockhart "lacks any real identity" because he is nothing more than a charming liar.[15] Riddle also complicates Harry's struggle to understand himself by pointing out the similarities between the two: "both half-bloods, orphans raised by Muggles, probably the only two Parselmouths to come to Hogwarts since the great Slytherin."[29]
+
+Opposition to class, death and its impacts, experiencing adolescence, sacrifice, love, friendship, loyalty, prejudice, and racism are constant themes of the series. In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Harry's consideration and respect for others extends to the lowly, non-human Dobby and the ghost Nearly Headless Nick.[30] According to Marguerite Krause, achievements in the novel depend more on ingenuity and hard work than on natural talents.[31]
+
+Edward Duffy, associate professor at Marquette University, says that one of the central characters of Chamber of Secrets is Tom Riddle's enchanted diary, which takes control of Ginny Weasley – just as Riddle planned. Duffy suggests Rowling intended this as a warning against passively consuming information from sources that have their own agendas.[32] Although Bronwyn Williams and Amy Zenger regard the diary as more like an instant messaging or chat room system, they agree about the dangers of relying too much on the written word, which can camouflage the author, and they highlight a comical example, Lockhart's self-promoting books.[33]
+
+Immorality and the portrayal of authority as negative are significant themes in the novel. Marguerite Krause states there are few absolute moral rules in Harry Potter's world, for example Harry prefers to tell the truth, but lies whenever he considers it necessary – very like his enemy Draco Malfoy.[31] At the end of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Dumbledore retracts his promise to punish Harry, Ron, and Hermione if they break any more school rules – after Professor McGonagall estimates they have broken over 100 – and lavishly rewards them for ending the threat from the Chamber of Secrets.[34] Krause further states that authority figures and political institutions receive little respect from Rowling.[31] William MacNeil of Griffith University, Queensland, Australia states that the Minister for Magic is presented as a mediocrity.[35] In his article "Harry Potter and the Secular City", Ken Jacobson suggests the Ministry as a whole is portrayed as a tangle of bureaucratic empires, saying that "Ministry officials busy themselves with minutiae (e.g. standardising cauldron thicknesses) and coin politically correct euphemisms like 'non-magical community' (for Muggles) and 'memory modification' (for magical brainwashing)."[28]
+
+This novel implies it begins in 1992: the cake for Nearly-Headless Nick's 500th deathday party bears the words "Sir Nicholas De Mimsy Porpington died 31 October 1492".[36][37]
+
+Chamber of Secrets has many links with the sixth book of the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. In fact, Half-Blood Prince was the working title of Chamber of Secrets and Rowling says she originally intended to present some "crucial pieces of information" in the second book, but ultimately felt "this information's proper home was book six".[38] Some objects that play significant roles in Half-Blood Prince first appear in Chamber of Secrets: the Hand of Glory and the opal necklace that are on sale in Borgin and Burkes; a Vanishing Cabinet in Hogwarts that is damaged by Peeves the Poltergeist; and Tom Riddle's diary, which is later shown to be a Horcrux.[39] Additionally, these two novels are the ones with the most focus on Harry's relationship with Ginny Weasley.
+
+The film version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was released in 2002.[40] Chris Columbus directed the film,[41] and the screenplay was written by Steve Kloves. It became the third film to exceed $600 million in international box office sales, preceded by Titanic, released in 1997, and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, released in 2001.[42] The film was nominated for a Saturn Award for the Best Fantasy Film,[42][43] According to Metacritic, the film version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets received "generally favourable reviews" with an average score of 63%,[44] and another aggregator, Rotten Tomatoes, gave it a score of 82%.[41]
+
+Five unique video games by different developers were released between 2002 and 2003 by Electronic Arts, loosely based on the book:

en/239.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,278 @@
+In  plane geometry, an angle is the figure formed by two rays, called the sides of the angle, sharing a common endpoint, called the vertex of the angle.[1]
+Angles formed by two rays lie in a plane, but this plane does not have to be a Euclidean plane. Angles are also formed by the intersection of two planes in Euclidean and other spaces. These are called dihedral angles. Angles formed by the intersection of two curves in a plane are defined as the angle determined by the tangent rays at the point of intersection. Similar statements hold in space, for example, the spherical angle formed by two great circles on a sphere is the dihedral angle between the planes determined by the great circles.
+
+Angle is also used to designate the measure of an angle or of a rotation. This measure is the ratio of the length of a circular arc to its radius. In the case of a geometric angle, the arc is centered at the vertex and delimited by the sides. In the case of a rotation, the arc is centered at the center of the rotation and delimited by any other point and its image by the rotation.
+
+The word angle comes from the Latin word angulus, meaning "corner"; cognate words are the Greek ἀγκύλος (ankylοs), meaning "crooked, curved," and the English word "ankle". Both are connected with the Proto-Indo-European root *ank-, meaning "to bend" or "bow".[2]
+
+Euclid defines a plane angle as the inclination to each other, in a plane, of two lines which meet each other, and do not lie straight with respect to each other. According to Proclus an angle must be either a quality or a quantity, or a relationship. The first concept was used by Eudemus, who regarded an angle as a deviation from a straight line; the second by Carpus of Antioch, who regarded it as the interval or space between the intersecting lines; Euclid adopted the third concept, although his definitions of right, acute, and obtuse angles are certainly quantitative.[3]
+
+In mathematical expressions, it is common to use Greek letters (α, β, γ, θ, φ, . . . ) to serve as variables standing for the size of some angle. (To avoid confusion with its other meaning, the symbol π is typically not used for this purpose.) Lower case Roman letters (a, b, c, . . . ) are also used, as are upper case Roman letters in the context of polygons. See the figures in this article for examples.
+
+In geometric figures, angles may also be identified by the labels attached to the three points that define them. For example, the angle at vertex A enclosed by the rays AB and AC (i.e. the lines from point A to point B and point A to point C) is denoted ∠BAC (in Unicode U+2220 ∠ ANGLE) or 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+B
+A
+C
+
+^
+
+
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle {\widehat {\rm {BAC}}}}
+
+. Sometimes, where there is no risk of confusion, the angle may be referred to simply by its vertex ("angle A").
+
+Potentially, an angle denoted, say, ∠BAC might refer to any of four angles: the clockwise angle from B to C, the anticlockwise angle from B to C, the clockwise angle from C to B, or the anticlockwise angle from C to B, where the direction in which the angle is measured determines its sign (see Positive and negative angles). However, in many geometrical situations it is obvious from context that the positive angle less than or equal to 180 degrees is meant, and no ambiguity arises. Otherwise, a convention may be adopted so that ∠BAC always refers to the anticlockwise (positive) angle from B to C, and ∠CAB to the anticlockwise (positive) angle from C to B.
+
+There is some common terminology for angles, whose measure is always non-negative (see #Positive and negative angles):
+
+The names, intervals, and measured units are shown in a table below:
+
+When two straight lines intersect at a point, four angles are formed. Pairwise these angles are named according to their location relative to each other.
+
+A transversal is a line that intersects a pair of (often parallel) lines and is associated with alternate interior angles, corresponding angles, interior angles, and exterior angles.[8]
+
+There are three special angle pairs which involve the summation of angles:
+
+
+
+The size of a geometric angle is usually characterized by the magnitude of the smallest rotation that maps one of the rays into the other. Angles that have the same size are said to be equal or congruent or equal in measure.
+
+In some contexts, such as identifying a point on a circle or describing the orientation of an object in two dimensions relative to a reference orientation, angles that differ by an exact multiple of a full turn are effectively equivalent.  In other contexts, such as identifying a point on a spiral curve or describing the cumulative rotation of an object in two dimensions relative to a reference orientation, angles that differ by a non-zero multiple of a full turn are not equivalent.
+
+In order to measure an angle θ, a circular arc centered at the vertex of the angle is drawn, e.g. with a pair of compasses. The ratio of the length s of the arc by the radius r of the circle is the measure of the angle in radians.
+
+The measure of the angle in another angular unit is then obtained by multiplying its measure in radians by the scaling factor k/2π, where k is the measure of a complete turn in the chosen unit (for example 360 for degrees or 400 for gradians):
+
+The value of θ thus defined is independent of the size of the circle: if the length of the radius is changed then the arc length changes in the same proportion, so the ratio s/r is unaltered. (Proof. The formula above can be rewritten as k = θr/s. One turn, for which θ = n units, corresponds to an arc equal in length to the circle's circumference, which is 2πr, so s = 2πr. Substituting n for θ and 2πr for s in the formula, results in k = nr/2πr = n/2π.) [nb 1]
+
+The angle addition postulate states that if B is in the interior of angle AOC, then
+
+The measure of the angle AOC is the sum of the measure of angle AOB and the measure of angle BOC. In this postulate it does not matter in which unit the angle is measured as long as each angle is measured in the same unit.
+
+Units used to represent angles are listed below in descending magnitude order. Of these units, the degree and the radian are by far the most commonly used.  Angles expressed in radians are dimensionless for the purposes of dimensional analysis.
+
+Most units of angular measurement are defined such that one turn  (i.e. one full circle) is equal to n units, for some whole number n.  The two exceptions are the radian and the diameter part.
+
+Although the definition of the measurement of an angle does not support the concept of a negative angle, it is frequently useful to impose a convention that allows positive and negative angular values to represent orientations and/or rotations in opposite directions relative to some reference.
+
+In a two-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system, an angle is typically defined by its two sides, with its vertex at the origin. The initial side is on the positive x-axis, while the other side or terminal side is defined by the measure from the initial side in radians, degrees, or turns. With positive angles representing rotations toward the positive y-axis and negative angles representing rotations toward the negative y-axis.  When Cartesian coordinates are represented by standard position, defined by the x-axis rightward and the y-axis upward, positive rotations are anticlockwise and negative rotations are clockwise.
+
+In many contexts, an angle of −θ is effectively equivalent to an angle of "one full turn minus θ". For example, an orientation represented as  −45° is effectively equivalent to an orientation represented as 360° − 45° or 315°.  Although the final position is the same, a physical rotation (movement) of  −45° is not the same as a rotation of 315° (for example, the rotation of a person holding a broom resting on a dusty floor would leave visually different traces of swept regions on the floor).
+
+In three-dimensional geometry, "clockwise" and "anticlockwise" have no absolute meaning, so the direction of positive and negative angles must be defined relative to some reference, which is typically a vector passing through the angle's vertex and perpendicular to the plane in which the rays of the angle lie.
+
+In navigation, bearings or azimuth are measured relative to north.  By convention, viewed from above, bearing angles are positive clockwise, so a bearing of 45° corresponds to a north-east orientation. Negative bearings are not used in navigation, so a north-west orientation corresponds to a bearing of 315°.
+
+There are several alternatives to measuring the size of an angle by the angle of rotation.
+The grade of a slope, or gradient is equal to the tangent of the angle, or sometimes (rarely) the sine. A gradient is often expressed as a percentage. For very small values (less than 5%), the grade of a slope is approximately the measure of the angle in radians.
+
+In rational geometry the spread between two lines is defined as the square of the sine of the angle between the lines. As the sine of an angle and the sine of its supplementary angle are the same, any angle of rotation that maps one of the lines into the other leads to the same value for the spread between the lines.
+
+Astronomers measure angular separation of objects in degrees from their point of observation.
+
+These measurements clearly depend on the individual subject, and the above should be treated as rough rule of thumb approximations only.
+
+The angle between a line and a curve (mixed angle) or between two intersecting curves (curvilinear angle) is defined to be the angle between the tangents at the point of intersection. Various names (now rarely, if ever, used) have been given to particular cases:—amphicyrtic (Gr. ἀμφί, on both sides, κυρτός, convex) or cissoidal (Gr. κισσός, ivy), biconvex; xystroidal or sistroidal (Gr. ξυστρίς, a tool for scraping), concavo-convex; amphicoelic (Gr. κοίλη, a hollow) or angulus lunularis, biconcave.[19]
+
+The ancient Greek mathematicians knew how to bisect an angle (divide it into two angles of equal measure) using only a compass and straightedge, but could only trisect certain angles. In 1837 Pierre Wantzel showed that for most angles this construction cannot be performed.
+
+In the Euclidean space, the angle θ between two Euclidean vectors u and v is related to their dot product and their lengths by the formula
+
+This formula supplies an easy method to find the angle between two planes (or curved surfaces) from their normal vectors and between skew lines from their vector equations.
+
+To define angles in an abstract real inner product space, we replace the Euclidean dot product ( · ) by the inner product 
+
+
+
+⟨
+⋅
+,
+⋅
+⟩
+
+
+{\displaystyle \langle \cdot ,\cdot \rangle }
+
+, i.e.
+
+In a complex inner product space, the expression for the cosine above may give non-real values, so it is replaced with
+
+or, more commonly, using the absolute value, with
+
+The latter definition ignores the direction of the vectors and thus describes the angle between one-dimensional subspaces 
+
+
+
+span
+⁡
+(
+
+u
+
+)
+
+
+{\displaystyle \operatorname {span} (\mathbf {u} )}
+
+ and 
+
+
+
+span
+⁡
+(
+
+v
+
+)
+
+
+{\displaystyle \operatorname {span} (\mathbf {v} )}
+
+ spanned by the vectors 
+
+
+
+
+u
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle \mathbf {u} }
+
+ and 
+
+
+
+
+v
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle \mathbf {v} }
+
+ correspondingly.
+
+The definition of the angle between one-dimensional subspaces 
+
+
+
+span
+⁡
+(
+
+u
+
+)
+
+
+{\displaystyle \operatorname {span} (\mathbf {u} )}
+
+ and  
+
+
+
+span
+⁡
+(
+
+v
+
+)
+
+
+{\displaystyle \operatorname {span} (\mathbf {v} )}
+
+ given by
+
+in a Hilbert space can be extended to subspaces of any finite dimensions. Given two subspaces 
+
+
+
+
+
+U
+
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle {\mathcal {U}}}
+
+, 
+
+
+
+
+
+W
+
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle {\mathcal {W}}}
+
+ with 
+
+
+
+dim
+⁡
+(
+
+
+U
+
+
+)
+:=
+k
+≤
+dim
+⁡
+(
+
+
+W
+
+
+)
+:=
+l
+
+
+{\displaystyle \dim({\mathcal {U}}):=k\leq \dim({\mathcal {W}}):=l}
+
+, this leads to a definition of 
+
+
+
+k
+
+
+{\displaystyle k}
+
+ angles called canonical or principal angles between subspaces.
+
+In Riemannian geometry, the metric tensor is used to define the angle between two tangents. Where U and V are tangent vectors and gij are the components of the metric tensor G,
+
+A hyperbolic angle is an argument of a hyperbolic function just as the circular angle is the argument of a circular function. The comparison can be visualized as the size of the openings of a hyperbolic sector and a circular sector since the areas of these sectors correspond to the angle magnitudes in each case. Unlike the circular angle, the hyperbolic angle is unbounded. When the circular and hyperbolic functions are viewed as infinite series in their angle argument, the circular ones are just alternating series forms of the hyperbolic functions. This weaving of the two types of angle and function was explained by Leonhard Euler in Introduction to the Analysis of the Infinite.
+
+In geography, the location of any point on the Earth can be identified using a geographic coordinate system. This system specifies the latitude and longitude of any location in terms of angles subtended at the centre of the Earth, using the equator and (usually) the Greenwich meridian as references.
+
+In astronomy, a given point on the celestial sphere (that is, the apparent position of an astronomical object) can be identified using any of several astronomical coordinate systems, where the references vary according to the particular system. Astronomers measure the angular separation of two stars by imagining two lines through the centre of the Earth, each intersecting one of the stars. The angle between those lines can be measured, and is the angular separation between the two stars.
+
+In both geography and astronomy, a sighting direction can be specified in terms of a vertical angle such as altitude /elevation with respect to the horizon as well as the azimuth with respect to north.
+
+Astronomers also measure the apparent size of objects as an angular diameter. For example, the full moon has an angular diameter of approximately 0.5°, when viewed from Earth. One could say, "The Moon's diameter subtends an angle of half a degree." The small-angle formula can be used to convert such an angular measurement into a distance/size ratio.
+
+Attribution

en/2390.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,62 @@
+
+
+Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling and the second novel in the Harry Potter series. The plot follows Harry's second year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, during which a series of messages on the walls of the school's corridors warn that the "Chamber of Secrets" has been opened and that the "heir of Slytherin" would kill all pupils who do not come from all-magical families. These threats are found after attacks that leave residents of the school petrified. Throughout the year, Harry and his friends Ron and Hermione investigate the attacks.
+
+The book was published in the United Kingdom on 2 July 1998 by Bloomsbury and later in the United States on 2 June 1999 by Scholastic Inc. Although Rowling says she found it difficult to finish the book, it won high praise and awards from critics, young readers, and the book industry, although some critics thought the story was perhaps too frightening for younger children. Much like with other novels in the series, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets triggered religious debates; some religious authorities have condemned its use of magical themes, whereas others have praised its emphasis on self-sacrifice and the way one's character is the result of one's choices.
+
+Several commentators have noted that personal identity is a strong theme in the book and that it addresses issues of racism through the treatment of non-human, non-magical, and non-living people. Some commentators regard the diary as a warning against uncritical acceptance of information from sources whose motives and reliability cannot be checked. Institutional authority is portrayed as self-serving and incompetent.
+
+The film adaptation of the novel, released in 2002, became (at that time) the fifth highest-grossing film ever and received generally favourable reviews. Video games loosely based on Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets were also released for several platforms, and most obtained favourable reviews.
+
+On Harry Potter's twelfth birthday, the Dursley family—Harry's uncle Vernon, aunt Petunia, and cousin Dudley—hold a dinner party for a potential client of Vernon's company. Uninvited, Harry, who has not been receiving any news from his school friends, is visited by a house-elf named Dobby. Dobby warns Harry not to return to Hogwarts, and has been intercepting the post from his friends. Failing to persuade Harry to not return to Hogwarts, Dobby uses magic to smash Petunia's dessert on the kitchen floor, framing Harry, who is not allowed to use magic outside school, in an attempt to get him expelled. The Ministry of Magic warns Harry against using more magic, but allows him to return at the start of the next year.
+
+Meanwhile, as his business deal has fallen through, Vernon locks Harry in his bedroom. Harry’s best friend Ron Weasley arrives with his twin brothers Fred and George in their father Arthur’s enchanted Ford Anglia. They rescue Harry, who stays at their family home, the Burrow, for the remainder of his holidays. Harry and the other Weasleys—mother Molly, third-eldest son Percy, and daughter Ginny (who has a crush on Harry)—travel to Diagon Alley. They meet Hermione Granger, Lucius Malfoy, father of Harry’s school nemesis Draco, and Gilderoy Lockhart, a conceited autobiographer appointed new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor after the death of Professor Quirrell. At King Cross station, Harry and Ron can't enter Platform 93⁄4. Having missed the Hogwarts Express they decide to fly Arthur’s car to the school, crashing into the Whomping Willow on the grounds, and damaging Ron's wand.
+
+Throughout the year, Harry learns that prejudiced wizards discriminate between people with “pure” blood (only wizarding heritage) and those of Muggle (non-magical) parentage. He also notices a voice only he can hear, seemingly coming from the walls of the school. During a deathday party for Gryffindor House’s ghost Nearly Headless Nick, Harry, Ron, and Hermione find the school caretaker Argus Filch’s petrified cat, Mrs. Norris, and a scrawled warning: “The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir, beware.”
+
+Rumours regarding the Chamber of Secrets begin circulatng. Harry discovers from Cuthbert Binns, the professor of History of Magic, that it allegedly houses a monster and was created by one of the school’s founders, Salazar Slytherin, after a disagreement with the other founders (Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, and Rowena Ravenclaw). Slytherin believed the school should exclude Muggle-born students, and built the chamber to that end. Supposedly, the Heir of Slytherin could open it and control the monster inside.
+
+During a Quidditch game, a Bludger chases Harry and breaks his arm. Attempting to mend it, Lockhart accidentally removes the arm's bones, forcing Harry to stay in the hospital wing overnight to heal. Dobby visits Harry in the night, confessing that he charmed the Bludger and sealed the gateway at King’s Cross and revealing that the Chamber of Secrets was opened before. Another attack occurs on first-year Gryffindor student Colin Creevey, giving rise to panic in Hogwarts. A duelling class is set up for the students (led by Lockhart and Potions master Severus Snape), during which it is revealed that Harry is a 'Parselmouth', having the rare ability to speak to snakes.
+
+This sparks rumours that Harry is the Heir of Slytherin, as Slytherin was also a Parselmouth. Another attack occurs on Hufflepuff second-year Justin Finch-Fletchley and Nearly Headless Nick, fueling the rumour. Harry, Ron, and Hermione begin to suspect Draco Malfoy is behind the attacks, given his family's connections with Slytherin house and open hostility toward Muggle-born students. To confirm this, Hermione concocts Polyjuice Potion, which allows Harry and Ron to impersonate Draco’s lackeys Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle. The disguised Harry and Ron interrogate Draco, discovering that Draco’s father told him little about the Chamber's previous opening, and that it occurred fifty years ago. Meanwhile, "Moaning" Myrtle Warren, a ghost that haunts a girls' bathroom provides a new clue, in the form of a diary deposited in her stall. The diary belonged to Tom Riddle, a student who witnessed a fellow student’s death when the Chamber was opened. Harry magically communicates with Riddle using the diary; Riddle claims Rubeus Hagrid, gamekeeper for Hogwarts, was to blame. When Hermione is attacked next, alongside a Ravenclaw prefect, the school is put on lockdown, and headmaster Albus Dumbledore and Hagrid are forced to leave.
+
+Following instructions Hagrid had left, Harry and Ron follow spiders into the Forbidden Forest. They find a massive Acromantula named Aragog, a monster blamed for the attacks fifty years before. Aragog denies its involvement, and tells them that spiders fear the real monster. Although Aragog attempts to feed Harry and Ron to its progeny, Arthur's Ford Anglia arrives and helps the boys escape. Visiting Hermione, they discover that she had deduced the monster's identity prior to her attack. The monster is a basilisk (hence Harry’s ability to understand it) that kills with a stare (although no one is dead because of various devices through which they indirectly saw the monster), feared by spiders. From Aragog's hints, Harry deduces that Myrtle was the student killed in the original attack. When Ginny is taken into the Chamber, Harry and Ron discover that the entrance to it is in Myrtle's bathroom. Harry, Ron, and Lockhart enter the Chamber. The dunderheaded professor, who confesses he is a fraud, attempts to erase the boys’ memories with Ron’s damaged wand, but instead erases his own and causes a rockfall separating Ron and Harry.
+
+Harry enters the Chamber of Secrets alone to find Ginny unconscious and Tom Riddle, who claims to be a memory preserved in his diary. Riddle claims to be the Heir of Slytherin; furthermore, his full name, Tom Marvolo Riddle, can be made into the anagram "I am Lord Voldemort". He had opened the Chamber before and framed Hagrid. By possessing Ginny through his diary, Riddle has been continuing what he started, and unleashes the basilisk against Harry. Harry shows loyalty to Dumbledore in this ordeal, which summons Dumbledore's phoenix Fawkes, who arrives with the Sorting Hat. Fawkes blinds the basilisk, allowing Harry to pull the Sword of Godric Gryffindor from the Sorting Hat and slay the creature, although he is poisoned in the process. As Riddle taunts the dying Harry, Fawkes' tears heal him, and he uses a basilisk fang to stab Riddle's diary. Both the diary and Riddle are destroyed, and Ginny is restored.
+
+Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Lockhart return to the main castle and reunite with McGonagall, Dumbledore, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. Ginny is reprieved by Dumbledore, who shows interest in the diary. Lucius Malfoy bursts in, furious about Dumbledore's return. He is accompanied by Dobby, who is the Malfoys' servant. Harry realizes that the diary had been in the Malfoys’ possession. To ensure the reopening of the Chamber of Secrets, Lucius, a follower of Voldemort, had slipped the diary into Ginny's cauldron when they met in Diagon Alley. Harry hides a sock in the diary and returns it to Lucius. By discarding the sock, which Dobby catches, Lucius unintentionally frees the house-elf from the Malfoys’ service. Lucius attacks Harry in revenge, but Dobby saves him. The petrified students are cured, Gryffindor wins the house cup again, Harry and Ron receive special awards, exams are cancelled, Hagrid returns, Lockhart is discharged, and Harry returns to Privet Drive in high spirits.
+
+Rowling found it difficult to finish Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets because she was afraid it would not live up to the expectations raised by Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. After delivering the manuscript to Bloomsbury on schedule, she took it back for six weeks of revision.[1]
+
+In early drafts of the book, the ghost Nearly Headless Nick sang a self-composed song explaining his condition and the circumstances of his unknown death. This was cut because the book's editor did not care for the poem, which has been subsequently published as an extra on J. K. Rowling's official website.[2] The family background of Dean Thomas was removed because Rowling and her publishers considered it an "unnecessary digression," and she considered Neville Longbottom's own journey of discovery "more important to the central plot."[3]
+
+Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was published in the UK on 2 July 1998 and in the US on 2 June 1999.[4][5] It immediately took first place in UK bestseller lists, displacing popular authors such as John Grisham, Tom Clancy,[1] and Terry Pratchett[6] and making Rowling the first author to win the British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year for two years in succession.[7] In June 1999, it went straight to the top of three US bestseller lists,[8] including inThe New York Times.[9]
+
+First edition printings had several errors, which were fixed in subsequent reprints.[10] Initially, Dumbledore said Voldemort was the last remaining ancestor of Salazar Slytherin instead of his descendant.[10] Gilderoy Lockhart's book on werewolves is entitled Weekends with Werewolves at one point and Wanderings with Werewolves later in the book.[11]
+
+Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was met with near-universal acclaim. In The Times, Deborah Loudon described it as a children's book that would be "re-read into adulthood" and highlighted its "strong plots, engaging characters, excellent jokes and a moral message which flows naturally from the story".[12] Fantasy author Charles de Lint agreed, and considered the second Harry Potter book to be just as good as Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, a rare achievement among series of books.[13] Thomas Wagner regarded the plot as very similar to that of the first book, based on searching for a secret hidden under the school. However, he enjoyed the parody of celebrities and their fans that centres round Gilderoy Lockhart, and approved of the book's handling of racism.[14] Tammy Nezol found the book more disturbing than its predecessor, particularly in the rash behaviour of Harry and his friends after Harry withholds information from Dumbledore, and in the human-like behaviour of the mandragoras used to make a potion that cures petrification. Nevertheless, she considered the second story as enjoyable as the first.[15]
+
+Mary Stuart thought the final conflict with Tom Riddle in the Chamber was almost as scary as in some of Stephen King's works, and perhaps too strong for young or timid children. She commented that "there are enough surprises and imaginative details thrown in as would normally fill five lesser books." Like other reviewers, she thought the book would give pleasure to both children and adult readers.[16] According to Philip Nel, the early reviews gave unalloyed praise while the later ones included some criticisms, although they still agreed that the book was outstanding.[17]
+
+Writing after all seven books had been published, Graeme Davis regarded Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as the weakest of the series, and agreed that the plot structure is much the same as in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. He described Fawkes's appearance to arm Harry and then to heal him as a deus ex machina: he said that the book does not explain how Fawkes knew where to find Harry; and Fawkes's timing had to be very precise, as arriving earlier would probably have prevented the battle with the basilisk, while arriving later would have been fatal to Harry and Ginny.[18]
+
+Rowling's Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was the recipient of several awards.[19] The American Library Association listed the novel among its 2000 Notable Children's Books,[20]
+as well as its Best Books for Young Adults.[21] In 1999, Booklist named Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as one of its Editors' Choices,[22] and as one of its Top Ten Fantasy Novels for Youth.[19] The Cooperative Children's Book Center made the novel a CCBC Choice of 2000 in the "Fiction for Children" category.[23] The novel also won Children's Book of the Year British Book Award,[24] and was shortlisted for the 1998 Guardian Children's Award and the 1998 Carnegie Award.[19]
+
+Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets won the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize 1998 Gold Medal in the 9–11 years division.[24] Rowling also won two other Nestlé Smarties Book Prizes for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The Scottish Arts Council awarded their first ever Children’s Book Award to the novel in 1999,[25] and it was also awarded Whitaker's Platinum Book Award in 2001.[19][26] In 2003, the novel was listed at number 23 on the BBC's survey The Big Read.[27]
+
+Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets continues to examine what makes a person who he or she is, which began in the first book. As well as maintaining that Harry's identity is shaped by his decisions rather than any aspect of his birth,[15][28] Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets provides contrasting characters who try to conceal their true personalities: as Tammy Nezol puts it, Gilderoy Lockhart "lacks any real identity" because he is nothing more than a charming liar.[15] Riddle also complicates Harry's struggle to understand himself by pointing out the similarities between the two: "both half-bloods, orphans raised by Muggles, probably the only two Parselmouths to come to Hogwarts since the great Slytherin."[29]
+
+Opposition to class, death and its impacts, experiencing adolescence, sacrifice, love, friendship, loyalty, prejudice, and racism are constant themes of the series. In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Harry's consideration and respect for others extends to the lowly, non-human Dobby and the ghost Nearly Headless Nick.[30] According to Marguerite Krause, achievements in the novel depend more on ingenuity and hard work than on natural talents.[31]
+
+Edward Duffy, associate professor at Marquette University, says that one of the central characters of Chamber of Secrets is Tom Riddle's enchanted diary, which takes control of Ginny Weasley – just as Riddle planned. Duffy suggests Rowling intended this as a warning against passively consuming information from sources that have their own agendas.[32] Although Bronwyn Williams and Amy Zenger regard the diary as more like an instant messaging or chat room system, they agree about the dangers of relying too much on the written word, which can camouflage the author, and they highlight a comical example, Lockhart's self-promoting books.[33]
+
+Immorality and the portrayal of authority as negative are significant themes in the novel. Marguerite Krause states there are few absolute moral rules in Harry Potter's world, for example Harry prefers to tell the truth, but lies whenever he considers it necessary – very like his enemy Draco Malfoy.[31] At the end of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Dumbledore retracts his promise to punish Harry, Ron, and Hermione if they break any more school rules – after Professor McGonagall estimates they have broken over 100 – and lavishly rewards them for ending the threat from the Chamber of Secrets.[34] Krause further states that authority figures and political institutions receive little respect from Rowling.[31] William MacNeil of Griffith University, Queensland, Australia states that the Minister for Magic is presented as a mediocrity.[35] In his article "Harry Potter and the Secular City", Ken Jacobson suggests the Ministry as a whole is portrayed as a tangle of bureaucratic empires, saying that "Ministry officials busy themselves with minutiae (e.g. standardising cauldron thicknesses) and coin politically correct euphemisms like 'non-magical community' (for Muggles) and 'memory modification' (for magical brainwashing)."[28]
+
+This novel implies it begins in 1992: the cake for Nearly-Headless Nick's 500th deathday party bears the words "Sir Nicholas De Mimsy Porpington died 31 October 1492".[36][37]
+
+Chamber of Secrets has many links with the sixth book of the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. In fact, Half-Blood Prince was the working title of Chamber of Secrets and Rowling says she originally intended to present some "crucial pieces of information" in the second book, but ultimately felt "this information's proper home was book six".[38] Some objects that play significant roles in Half-Blood Prince first appear in Chamber of Secrets: the Hand of Glory and the opal necklace that are on sale in Borgin and Burkes; a Vanishing Cabinet in Hogwarts that is damaged by Peeves the Poltergeist; and Tom Riddle's diary, which is later shown to be a Horcrux.[39] Additionally, these two novels are the ones with the most focus on Harry's relationship with Ginny Weasley.
+
+The film version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was released in 2002.[40] Chris Columbus directed the film,[41] and the screenplay was written by Steve Kloves. It became the third film to exceed $600 million in international box office sales, preceded by Titanic, released in 1997, and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, released in 2001.[42] The film was nominated for a Saturn Award for the Best Fantasy Film,[42][43] According to Metacritic, the film version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets received "generally favourable reviews" with an average score of 63%,[44] and another aggregator, Rotten Tomatoes, gave it a score of 82%.[41]
+
+Five unique video games by different developers were released between 2002 and 2003 by Electronic Arts, loosely based on the book:

en/2391.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,62 @@
+
+
+Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling and the second novel in the Harry Potter series. The plot follows Harry's second year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, during which a series of messages on the walls of the school's corridors warn that the "Chamber of Secrets" has been opened and that the "heir of Slytherin" would kill all pupils who do not come from all-magical families. These threats are found after attacks that leave residents of the school petrified. Throughout the year, Harry and his friends Ron and Hermione investigate the attacks.
+
+The book was published in the United Kingdom on 2 July 1998 by Bloomsbury and later in the United States on 2 June 1999 by Scholastic Inc. Although Rowling says she found it difficult to finish the book, it won high praise and awards from critics, young readers, and the book industry, although some critics thought the story was perhaps too frightening for younger children. Much like with other novels in the series, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets triggered religious debates; some religious authorities have condemned its use of magical themes, whereas others have praised its emphasis on self-sacrifice and the way one's character is the result of one's choices.
+
+Several commentators have noted that personal identity is a strong theme in the book and that it addresses issues of racism through the treatment of non-human, non-magical, and non-living people. Some commentators regard the diary as a warning against uncritical acceptance of information from sources whose motives and reliability cannot be checked. Institutional authority is portrayed as self-serving and incompetent.
+
+The film adaptation of the novel, released in 2002, became (at that time) the fifth highest-grossing film ever and received generally favourable reviews. Video games loosely based on Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets were also released for several platforms, and most obtained favourable reviews.
+
+On Harry Potter's twelfth birthday, the Dursley family—Harry's uncle Vernon, aunt Petunia, and cousin Dudley—hold a dinner party for a potential client of Vernon's company. Uninvited, Harry, who has not been receiving any news from his school friends, is visited by a house-elf named Dobby. Dobby warns Harry not to return to Hogwarts, and has been intercepting the post from his friends. Failing to persuade Harry to not return to Hogwarts, Dobby uses magic to smash Petunia's dessert on the kitchen floor, framing Harry, who is not allowed to use magic outside school, in an attempt to get him expelled. The Ministry of Magic warns Harry against using more magic, but allows him to return at the start of the next year.
+
+Meanwhile, as his business deal has fallen through, Vernon locks Harry in his bedroom. Harry’s best friend Ron Weasley arrives with his twin brothers Fred and George in their father Arthur’s enchanted Ford Anglia. They rescue Harry, who stays at their family home, the Burrow, for the remainder of his holidays. Harry and the other Weasleys—mother Molly, third-eldest son Percy, and daughter Ginny (who has a crush on Harry)—travel to Diagon Alley. They meet Hermione Granger, Lucius Malfoy, father of Harry’s school nemesis Draco, and Gilderoy Lockhart, a conceited autobiographer appointed new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor after the death of Professor Quirrell. At King Cross station, Harry and Ron can't enter Platform 93⁄4. Having missed the Hogwarts Express they decide to fly Arthur’s car to the school, crashing into the Whomping Willow on the grounds, and damaging Ron's wand.
+
+Throughout the year, Harry learns that prejudiced wizards discriminate between people with “pure” blood (only wizarding heritage) and those of Muggle (non-magical) parentage. He also notices a voice only he can hear, seemingly coming from the walls of the school. During a deathday party for Gryffindor House’s ghost Nearly Headless Nick, Harry, Ron, and Hermione find the school caretaker Argus Filch’s petrified cat, Mrs. Norris, and a scrawled warning: “The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir, beware.”
+
+Rumours regarding the Chamber of Secrets begin circulatng. Harry discovers from Cuthbert Binns, the professor of History of Magic, that it allegedly houses a monster and was created by one of the school’s founders, Salazar Slytherin, after a disagreement with the other founders (Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, and Rowena Ravenclaw). Slytherin believed the school should exclude Muggle-born students, and built the chamber to that end. Supposedly, the Heir of Slytherin could open it and control the monster inside.
+
+During a Quidditch game, a Bludger chases Harry and breaks his arm. Attempting to mend it, Lockhart accidentally removes the arm's bones, forcing Harry to stay in the hospital wing overnight to heal. Dobby visits Harry in the night, confessing that he charmed the Bludger and sealed the gateway at King’s Cross and revealing that the Chamber of Secrets was opened before. Another attack occurs on first-year Gryffindor student Colin Creevey, giving rise to panic in Hogwarts. A duelling class is set up for the students (led by Lockhart and Potions master Severus Snape), during which it is revealed that Harry is a 'Parselmouth', having the rare ability to speak to snakes.
+
+This sparks rumours that Harry is the Heir of Slytherin, as Slytherin was also a Parselmouth. Another attack occurs on Hufflepuff second-year Justin Finch-Fletchley and Nearly Headless Nick, fueling the rumour. Harry, Ron, and Hermione begin to suspect Draco Malfoy is behind the attacks, given his family's connections with Slytherin house and open hostility toward Muggle-born students. To confirm this, Hermione concocts Polyjuice Potion, which allows Harry and Ron to impersonate Draco’s lackeys Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle. The disguised Harry and Ron interrogate Draco, discovering that Draco’s father told him little about the Chamber's previous opening, and that it occurred fifty years ago. Meanwhile, "Moaning" Myrtle Warren, a ghost that haunts a girls' bathroom provides a new clue, in the form of a diary deposited in her stall. The diary belonged to Tom Riddle, a student who witnessed a fellow student’s death when the Chamber was opened. Harry magically communicates with Riddle using the diary; Riddle claims Rubeus Hagrid, gamekeeper for Hogwarts, was to blame. When Hermione is attacked next, alongside a Ravenclaw prefect, the school is put on lockdown, and headmaster Albus Dumbledore and Hagrid are forced to leave.
+
+Following instructions Hagrid had left, Harry and Ron follow spiders into the Forbidden Forest. They find a massive Acromantula named Aragog, a monster blamed for the attacks fifty years before. Aragog denies its involvement, and tells them that spiders fear the real monster. Although Aragog attempts to feed Harry and Ron to its progeny, Arthur's Ford Anglia arrives and helps the boys escape. Visiting Hermione, they discover that she had deduced the monster's identity prior to her attack. The monster is a basilisk (hence Harry’s ability to understand it) that kills with a stare (although no one is dead because of various devices through which they indirectly saw the monster), feared by spiders. From Aragog's hints, Harry deduces that Myrtle was the student killed in the original attack. When Ginny is taken into the Chamber, Harry and Ron discover that the entrance to it is in Myrtle's bathroom. Harry, Ron, and Lockhart enter the Chamber. The dunderheaded professor, who confesses he is a fraud, attempts to erase the boys’ memories with Ron’s damaged wand, but instead erases his own and causes a rockfall separating Ron and Harry.
+
+Harry enters the Chamber of Secrets alone to find Ginny unconscious and Tom Riddle, who claims to be a memory preserved in his diary. Riddle claims to be the Heir of Slytherin; furthermore, his full name, Tom Marvolo Riddle, can be made into the anagram "I am Lord Voldemort". He had opened the Chamber before and framed Hagrid. By possessing Ginny through his diary, Riddle has been continuing what he started, and unleashes the basilisk against Harry. Harry shows loyalty to Dumbledore in this ordeal, which summons Dumbledore's phoenix Fawkes, who arrives with the Sorting Hat. Fawkes blinds the basilisk, allowing Harry to pull the Sword of Godric Gryffindor from the Sorting Hat and slay the creature, although he is poisoned in the process. As Riddle taunts the dying Harry, Fawkes' tears heal him, and he uses a basilisk fang to stab Riddle's diary. Both the diary and Riddle are destroyed, and Ginny is restored.
+
+Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Lockhart return to the main castle and reunite with McGonagall, Dumbledore, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. Ginny is reprieved by Dumbledore, who shows interest in the diary. Lucius Malfoy bursts in, furious about Dumbledore's return. He is accompanied by Dobby, who is the Malfoys' servant. Harry realizes that the diary had been in the Malfoys’ possession. To ensure the reopening of the Chamber of Secrets, Lucius, a follower of Voldemort, had slipped the diary into Ginny's cauldron when they met in Diagon Alley. Harry hides a sock in the diary and returns it to Lucius. By discarding the sock, which Dobby catches, Lucius unintentionally frees the house-elf from the Malfoys’ service. Lucius attacks Harry in revenge, but Dobby saves him. The petrified students are cured, Gryffindor wins the house cup again, Harry and Ron receive special awards, exams are cancelled, Hagrid returns, Lockhart is discharged, and Harry returns to Privet Drive in high spirits.
+
+Rowling found it difficult to finish Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets because she was afraid it would not live up to the expectations raised by Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. After delivering the manuscript to Bloomsbury on schedule, she took it back for six weeks of revision.[1]
+
+In early drafts of the book, the ghost Nearly Headless Nick sang a self-composed song explaining his condition and the circumstances of his unknown death. This was cut because the book's editor did not care for the poem, which has been subsequently published as an extra on J. K. Rowling's official website.[2] The family background of Dean Thomas was removed because Rowling and her publishers considered it an "unnecessary digression," and she considered Neville Longbottom's own journey of discovery "more important to the central plot."[3]
+
+Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was published in the UK on 2 July 1998 and in the US on 2 June 1999.[4][5] It immediately took first place in UK bestseller lists, displacing popular authors such as John Grisham, Tom Clancy,[1] and Terry Pratchett[6] and making Rowling the first author to win the British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year for two years in succession.[7] In June 1999, it went straight to the top of three US bestseller lists,[8] including inThe New York Times.[9]
+
+First edition printings had several errors, which were fixed in subsequent reprints.[10] Initially, Dumbledore said Voldemort was the last remaining ancestor of Salazar Slytherin instead of his descendant.[10] Gilderoy Lockhart's book on werewolves is entitled Weekends with Werewolves at one point and Wanderings with Werewolves later in the book.[11]
+
+Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was met with near-universal acclaim. In The Times, Deborah Loudon described it as a children's book that would be "re-read into adulthood" and highlighted its "strong plots, engaging characters, excellent jokes and a moral message which flows naturally from the story".[12] Fantasy author Charles de Lint agreed, and considered the second Harry Potter book to be just as good as Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, a rare achievement among series of books.[13] Thomas Wagner regarded the plot as very similar to that of the first book, based on searching for a secret hidden under the school. However, he enjoyed the parody of celebrities and their fans that centres round Gilderoy Lockhart, and approved of the book's handling of racism.[14] Tammy Nezol found the book more disturbing than its predecessor, particularly in the rash behaviour of Harry and his friends after Harry withholds information from Dumbledore, and in the human-like behaviour of the mandragoras used to make a potion that cures petrification. Nevertheless, she considered the second story as enjoyable as the first.[15]
+
+Mary Stuart thought the final conflict with Tom Riddle in the Chamber was almost as scary as in some of Stephen King's works, and perhaps too strong for young or timid children. She commented that "there are enough surprises and imaginative details thrown in as would normally fill five lesser books." Like other reviewers, she thought the book would give pleasure to both children and adult readers.[16] According to Philip Nel, the early reviews gave unalloyed praise while the later ones included some criticisms, although they still agreed that the book was outstanding.[17]
+
+Writing after all seven books had been published, Graeme Davis regarded Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as the weakest of the series, and agreed that the plot structure is much the same as in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. He described Fawkes's appearance to arm Harry and then to heal him as a deus ex machina: he said that the book does not explain how Fawkes knew where to find Harry; and Fawkes's timing had to be very precise, as arriving earlier would probably have prevented the battle with the basilisk, while arriving later would have been fatal to Harry and Ginny.[18]
+
+Rowling's Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was the recipient of several awards.[19] The American Library Association listed the novel among its 2000 Notable Children's Books,[20]
+as well as its Best Books for Young Adults.[21] In 1999, Booklist named Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as one of its Editors' Choices,[22] and as one of its Top Ten Fantasy Novels for Youth.[19] The Cooperative Children's Book Center made the novel a CCBC Choice of 2000 in the "Fiction for Children" category.[23] The novel also won Children's Book of the Year British Book Award,[24] and was shortlisted for the 1998 Guardian Children's Award and the 1998 Carnegie Award.[19]
+
+Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets won the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize 1998 Gold Medal in the 9–11 years division.[24] Rowling also won two other Nestlé Smarties Book Prizes for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The Scottish Arts Council awarded their first ever Children’s Book Award to the novel in 1999,[25] and it was also awarded Whitaker's Platinum Book Award in 2001.[19][26] In 2003, the novel was listed at number 23 on the BBC's survey The Big Read.[27]
+
+Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets continues to examine what makes a person who he or she is, which began in the first book. As well as maintaining that Harry's identity is shaped by his decisions rather than any aspect of his birth,[15][28] Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets provides contrasting characters who try to conceal their true personalities: as Tammy Nezol puts it, Gilderoy Lockhart "lacks any real identity" because he is nothing more than a charming liar.[15] Riddle also complicates Harry's struggle to understand himself by pointing out the similarities between the two: "both half-bloods, orphans raised by Muggles, probably the only two Parselmouths to come to Hogwarts since the great Slytherin."[29]
+
+Opposition to class, death and its impacts, experiencing adolescence, sacrifice, love, friendship, loyalty, prejudice, and racism are constant themes of the series. In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Harry's consideration and respect for others extends to the lowly, non-human Dobby and the ghost Nearly Headless Nick.[30] According to Marguerite Krause, achievements in the novel depend more on ingenuity and hard work than on natural talents.[31]
+
+Edward Duffy, associate professor at Marquette University, says that one of the central characters of Chamber of Secrets is Tom Riddle's enchanted diary, which takes control of Ginny Weasley – just as Riddle planned. Duffy suggests Rowling intended this as a warning against passively consuming information from sources that have their own agendas.[32] Although Bronwyn Williams and Amy Zenger regard the diary as more like an instant messaging or chat room system, they agree about the dangers of relying too much on the written word, which can camouflage the author, and they highlight a comical example, Lockhart's self-promoting books.[33]
+
+Immorality and the portrayal of authority as negative are significant themes in the novel. Marguerite Krause states there are few absolute moral rules in Harry Potter's world, for example Harry prefers to tell the truth, but lies whenever he considers it necessary – very like his enemy Draco Malfoy.[31] At the end of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Dumbledore retracts his promise to punish Harry, Ron, and Hermione if they break any more school rules – after Professor McGonagall estimates they have broken over 100 – and lavishly rewards them for ending the threat from the Chamber of Secrets.[34] Krause further states that authority figures and political institutions receive little respect from Rowling.[31] William MacNeil of Griffith University, Queensland, Australia states that the Minister for Magic is presented as a mediocrity.[35] In his article "Harry Potter and the Secular City", Ken Jacobson suggests the Ministry as a whole is portrayed as a tangle of bureaucratic empires, saying that "Ministry officials busy themselves with minutiae (e.g. standardising cauldron thicknesses) and coin politically correct euphemisms like 'non-magical community' (for Muggles) and 'memory modification' (for magical brainwashing)."[28]
+
+This novel implies it begins in 1992: the cake for Nearly-Headless Nick's 500th deathday party bears the words "Sir Nicholas De Mimsy Porpington died 31 October 1492".[36][37]
+
+Chamber of Secrets has many links with the sixth book of the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. In fact, Half-Blood Prince was the working title of Chamber of Secrets and Rowling says she originally intended to present some "crucial pieces of information" in the second book, but ultimately felt "this information's proper home was book six".[38] Some objects that play significant roles in Half-Blood Prince first appear in Chamber of Secrets: the Hand of Glory and the opal necklace that are on sale in Borgin and Burkes; a Vanishing Cabinet in Hogwarts that is damaged by Peeves the Poltergeist; and Tom Riddle's diary, which is later shown to be a Horcrux.[39] Additionally, these two novels are the ones with the most focus on Harry's relationship with Ginny Weasley.
+
+The film version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was released in 2002.[40] Chris Columbus directed the film,[41] and the screenplay was written by Steve Kloves. It became the third film to exceed $600 million in international box office sales, preceded by Titanic, released in 1997, and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, released in 2001.[42] The film was nominated for a Saturn Award for the Best Fantasy Film,[42][43] According to Metacritic, the film version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets received "generally favourable reviews" with an average score of 63%,[44] and another aggregator, Rotten Tomatoes, gave it a score of 82%.[41]
+
+Five unique video games by different developers were released between 2002 and 2003 by Electronic Arts, loosely based on the book:

en/2392.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,62 @@
+
+
+Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling and the second novel in the Harry Potter series. The plot follows Harry's second year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, during which a series of messages on the walls of the school's corridors warn that the "Chamber of Secrets" has been opened and that the "heir of Slytherin" would kill all pupils who do not come from all-magical families. These threats are found after attacks that leave residents of the school petrified. Throughout the year, Harry and his friends Ron and Hermione investigate the attacks.
+
+The book was published in the United Kingdom on 2 July 1998 by Bloomsbury and later in the United States on 2 June 1999 by Scholastic Inc. Although Rowling says she found it difficult to finish the book, it won high praise and awards from critics, young readers, and the book industry, although some critics thought the story was perhaps too frightening for younger children. Much like with other novels in the series, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets triggered religious debates; some religious authorities have condemned its use of magical themes, whereas others have praised its emphasis on self-sacrifice and the way one's character is the result of one's choices.
+
+Several commentators have noted that personal identity is a strong theme in the book and that it addresses issues of racism through the treatment of non-human, non-magical, and non-living people. Some commentators regard the diary as a warning against uncritical acceptance of information from sources whose motives and reliability cannot be checked. Institutional authority is portrayed as self-serving and incompetent.
+
+The film adaptation of the novel, released in 2002, became (at that time) the fifth highest-grossing film ever and received generally favourable reviews. Video games loosely based on Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets were also released for several platforms, and most obtained favourable reviews.
+
+On Harry Potter's twelfth birthday, the Dursley family—Harry's uncle Vernon, aunt Petunia, and cousin Dudley—hold a dinner party for a potential client of Vernon's company. Uninvited, Harry, who has not been receiving any news from his school friends, is visited by a house-elf named Dobby. Dobby warns Harry not to return to Hogwarts, and has been intercepting the post from his friends. Failing to persuade Harry to not return to Hogwarts, Dobby uses magic to smash Petunia's dessert on the kitchen floor, framing Harry, who is not allowed to use magic outside school, in an attempt to get him expelled. The Ministry of Magic warns Harry against using more magic, but allows him to return at the start of the next year.
+
+Meanwhile, as his business deal has fallen through, Vernon locks Harry in his bedroom. Harry’s best friend Ron Weasley arrives with his twin brothers Fred and George in their father Arthur’s enchanted Ford Anglia. They rescue Harry, who stays at their family home, the Burrow, for the remainder of his holidays. Harry and the other Weasleys—mother Molly, third-eldest son Percy, and daughter Ginny (who has a crush on Harry)—travel to Diagon Alley. They meet Hermione Granger, Lucius Malfoy, father of Harry’s school nemesis Draco, and Gilderoy Lockhart, a conceited autobiographer appointed new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor after the death of Professor Quirrell. At King Cross station, Harry and Ron can't enter Platform 93⁄4. Having missed the Hogwarts Express they decide to fly Arthur’s car to the school, crashing into the Whomping Willow on the grounds, and damaging Ron's wand.
+
+Throughout the year, Harry learns that prejudiced wizards discriminate between people with “pure” blood (only wizarding heritage) and those of Muggle (non-magical) parentage. He also notices a voice only he can hear, seemingly coming from the walls of the school. During a deathday party for Gryffindor House’s ghost Nearly Headless Nick, Harry, Ron, and Hermione find the school caretaker Argus Filch’s petrified cat, Mrs. Norris, and a scrawled warning: “The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir, beware.”
+
+Rumours regarding the Chamber of Secrets begin circulatng. Harry discovers from Cuthbert Binns, the professor of History of Magic, that it allegedly houses a monster and was created by one of the school’s founders, Salazar Slytherin, after a disagreement with the other founders (Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, and Rowena Ravenclaw). Slytherin believed the school should exclude Muggle-born students, and built the chamber to that end. Supposedly, the Heir of Slytherin could open it and control the monster inside.
+
+During a Quidditch game, a Bludger chases Harry and breaks his arm. Attempting to mend it, Lockhart accidentally removes the arm's bones, forcing Harry to stay in the hospital wing overnight to heal. Dobby visits Harry in the night, confessing that he charmed the Bludger and sealed the gateway at King’s Cross and revealing that the Chamber of Secrets was opened before. Another attack occurs on first-year Gryffindor student Colin Creevey, giving rise to panic in Hogwarts. A duelling class is set up for the students (led by Lockhart and Potions master Severus Snape), during which it is revealed that Harry is a 'Parselmouth', having the rare ability to speak to snakes.
+
+This sparks rumours that Harry is the Heir of Slytherin, as Slytherin was also a Parselmouth. Another attack occurs on Hufflepuff second-year Justin Finch-Fletchley and Nearly Headless Nick, fueling the rumour. Harry, Ron, and Hermione begin to suspect Draco Malfoy is behind the attacks, given his family's connections with Slytherin house and open hostility toward Muggle-born students. To confirm this, Hermione concocts Polyjuice Potion, which allows Harry and Ron to impersonate Draco’s lackeys Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle. The disguised Harry and Ron interrogate Draco, discovering that Draco’s father told him little about the Chamber's previous opening, and that it occurred fifty years ago. Meanwhile, "Moaning" Myrtle Warren, a ghost that haunts a girls' bathroom provides a new clue, in the form of a diary deposited in her stall. The diary belonged to Tom Riddle, a student who witnessed a fellow student’s death when the Chamber was opened. Harry magically communicates with Riddle using the diary; Riddle claims Rubeus Hagrid, gamekeeper for Hogwarts, was to blame. When Hermione is attacked next, alongside a Ravenclaw prefect, the school is put on lockdown, and headmaster Albus Dumbledore and Hagrid are forced to leave.
+
+Following instructions Hagrid had left, Harry and Ron follow spiders into the Forbidden Forest. They find a massive Acromantula named Aragog, a monster blamed for the attacks fifty years before. Aragog denies its involvement, and tells them that spiders fear the real monster. Although Aragog attempts to feed Harry and Ron to its progeny, Arthur's Ford Anglia arrives and helps the boys escape. Visiting Hermione, they discover that she had deduced the monster's identity prior to her attack. The monster is a basilisk (hence Harry’s ability to understand it) that kills with a stare (although no one is dead because of various devices through which they indirectly saw the monster), feared by spiders. From Aragog's hints, Harry deduces that Myrtle was the student killed in the original attack. When Ginny is taken into the Chamber, Harry and Ron discover that the entrance to it is in Myrtle's bathroom. Harry, Ron, and Lockhart enter the Chamber. The dunderheaded professor, who confesses he is a fraud, attempts to erase the boys’ memories with Ron’s damaged wand, but instead erases his own and causes a rockfall separating Ron and Harry.
+
+Harry enters the Chamber of Secrets alone to find Ginny unconscious and Tom Riddle, who claims to be a memory preserved in his diary. Riddle claims to be the Heir of Slytherin; furthermore, his full name, Tom Marvolo Riddle, can be made into the anagram "I am Lord Voldemort". He had opened the Chamber before and framed Hagrid. By possessing Ginny through his diary, Riddle has been continuing what he started, and unleashes the basilisk against Harry. Harry shows loyalty to Dumbledore in this ordeal, which summons Dumbledore's phoenix Fawkes, who arrives with the Sorting Hat. Fawkes blinds the basilisk, allowing Harry to pull the Sword of Godric Gryffindor from the Sorting Hat and slay the creature, although he is poisoned in the process. As Riddle taunts the dying Harry, Fawkes' tears heal him, and he uses a basilisk fang to stab Riddle's diary. Both the diary and Riddle are destroyed, and Ginny is restored.
+
+Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Lockhart return to the main castle and reunite with McGonagall, Dumbledore, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. Ginny is reprieved by Dumbledore, who shows interest in the diary. Lucius Malfoy bursts in, furious about Dumbledore's return. He is accompanied by Dobby, who is the Malfoys' servant. Harry realizes that the diary had been in the Malfoys’ possession. To ensure the reopening of the Chamber of Secrets, Lucius, a follower of Voldemort, had slipped the diary into Ginny's cauldron when they met in Diagon Alley. Harry hides a sock in the diary and returns it to Lucius. By discarding the sock, which Dobby catches, Lucius unintentionally frees the house-elf from the Malfoys’ service. Lucius attacks Harry in revenge, but Dobby saves him. The petrified students are cured, Gryffindor wins the house cup again, Harry and Ron receive special awards, exams are cancelled, Hagrid returns, Lockhart is discharged, and Harry returns to Privet Drive in high spirits.
+
+Rowling found it difficult to finish Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets because she was afraid it would not live up to the expectations raised by Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. After delivering the manuscript to Bloomsbury on schedule, she took it back for six weeks of revision.[1]
+
+In early drafts of the book, the ghost Nearly Headless Nick sang a self-composed song explaining his condition and the circumstances of his unknown death. This was cut because the book's editor did not care for the poem, which has been subsequently published as an extra on J. K. Rowling's official website.[2] The family background of Dean Thomas was removed because Rowling and her publishers considered it an "unnecessary digression," and she considered Neville Longbottom's own journey of discovery "more important to the central plot."[3]
+
+Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was published in the UK on 2 July 1998 and in the US on 2 June 1999.[4][5] It immediately took first place in UK bestseller lists, displacing popular authors such as John Grisham, Tom Clancy,[1] and Terry Pratchett[6] and making Rowling the first author to win the British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year for two years in succession.[7] In June 1999, it went straight to the top of three US bestseller lists,[8] including inThe New York Times.[9]
+
+First edition printings had several errors, which were fixed in subsequent reprints.[10] Initially, Dumbledore said Voldemort was the last remaining ancestor of Salazar Slytherin instead of his descendant.[10] Gilderoy Lockhart's book on werewolves is entitled Weekends with Werewolves at one point and Wanderings with Werewolves later in the book.[11]
+
+Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was met with near-universal acclaim. In The Times, Deborah Loudon described it as a children's book that would be "re-read into adulthood" and highlighted its "strong plots, engaging characters, excellent jokes and a moral message which flows naturally from the story".[12] Fantasy author Charles de Lint agreed, and considered the second Harry Potter book to be just as good as Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, a rare achievement among series of books.[13] Thomas Wagner regarded the plot as very similar to that of the first book, based on searching for a secret hidden under the school. However, he enjoyed the parody of celebrities and their fans that centres round Gilderoy Lockhart, and approved of the book's handling of racism.[14] Tammy Nezol found the book more disturbing than its predecessor, particularly in the rash behaviour of Harry and his friends after Harry withholds information from Dumbledore, and in the human-like behaviour of the mandragoras used to make a potion that cures petrification. Nevertheless, she considered the second story as enjoyable as the first.[15]
+
+Mary Stuart thought the final conflict with Tom Riddle in the Chamber was almost as scary as in some of Stephen King's works, and perhaps too strong for young or timid children. She commented that "there are enough surprises and imaginative details thrown in as would normally fill five lesser books." Like other reviewers, she thought the book would give pleasure to both children and adult readers.[16] According to Philip Nel, the early reviews gave unalloyed praise while the later ones included some criticisms, although they still agreed that the book was outstanding.[17]
+
+Writing after all seven books had been published, Graeme Davis regarded Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as the weakest of the series, and agreed that the plot structure is much the same as in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. He described Fawkes's appearance to arm Harry and then to heal him as a deus ex machina: he said that the book does not explain how Fawkes knew where to find Harry; and Fawkes's timing had to be very precise, as arriving earlier would probably have prevented the battle with the basilisk, while arriving later would have been fatal to Harry and Ginny.[18]
+
+Rowling's Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was the recipient of several awards.[19] The American Library Association listed the novel among its 2000 Notable Children's Books,[20]
+as well as its Best Books for Young Adults.[21] In 1999, Booklist named Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as one of its Editors' Choices,[22] and as one of its Top Ten Fantasy Novels for Youth.[19] The Cooperative Children's Book Center made the novel a CCBC Choice of 2000 in the "Fiction for Children" category.[23] The novel also won Children's Book of the Year British Book Award,[24] and was shortlisted for the 1998 Guardian Children's Award and the 1998 Carnegie Award.[19]
+
+Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets won the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize 1998 Gold Medal in the 9–11 years division.[24] Rowling also won two other Nestlé Smarties Book Prizes for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The Scottish Arts Council awarded their first ever Children’s Book Award to the novel in 1999,[25] and it was also awarded Whitaker's Platinum Book Award in 2001.[19][26] In 2003, the novel was listed at number 23 on the BBC's survey The Big Read.[27]
+
+Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets continues to examine what makes a person who he or she is, which began in the first book. As well as maintaining that Harry's identity is shaped by his decisions rather than any aspect of his birth,[15][28] Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets provides contrasting characters who try to conceal their true personalities: as Tammy Nezol puts it, Gilderoy Lockhart "lacks any real identity" because he is nothing more than a charming liar.[15] Riddle also complicates Harry's struggle to understand himself by pointing out the similarities between the two: "both half-bloods, orphans raised by Muggles, probably the only two Parselmouths to come to Hogwarts since the great Slytherin."[29]
+
+Opposition to class, death and its impacts, experiencing adolescence, sacrifice, love, friendship, loyalty, prejudice, and racism are constant themes of the series. In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Harry's consideration and respect for others extends to the lowly, non-human Dobby and the ghost Nearly Headless Nick.[30] According to Marguerite Krause, achievements in the novel depend more on ingenuity and hard work than on natural talents.[31]
+
+Edward Duffy, associate professor at Marquette University, says that one of the central characters of Chamber of Secrets is Tom Riddle's enchanted diary, which takes control of Ginny Weasley – just as Riddle planned. Duffy suggests Rowling intended this as a warning against passively consuming information from sources that have their own agendas.[32] Although Bronwyn Williams and Amy Zenger regard the diary as more like an instant messaging or chat room system, they agree about the dangers of relying too much on the written word, which can camouflage the author, and they highlight a comical example, Lockhart's self-promoting books.[33]
+
+Immorality and the portrayal of authority as negative are significant themes in the novel. Marguerite Krause states there are few absolute moral rules in Harry Potter's world, for example Harry prefers to tell the truth, but lies whenever he considers it necessary – very like his enemy Draco Malfoy.[31] At the end of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Dumbledore retracts his promise to punish Harry, Ron, and Hermione if they break any more school rules – after Professor McGonagall estimates they have broken over 100 – and lavishly rewards them for ending the threat from the Chamber of Secrets.[34] Krause further states that authority figures and political institutions receive little respect from Rowling.[31] William MacNeil of Griffith University, Queensland, Australia states that the Minister for Magic is presented as a mediocrity.[35] In his article "Harry Potter and the Secular City", Ken Jacobson suggests the Ministry as a whole is portrayed as a tangle of bureaucratic empires, saying that "Ministry officials busy themselves with minutiae (e.g. standardising cauldron thicknesses) and coin politically correct euphemisms like 'non-magical community' (for Muggles) and 'memory modification' (for magical brainwashing)."[28]
+
+This novel implies it begins in 1992: the cake for Nearly-Headless Nick's 500th deathday party bears the words "Sir Nicholas De Mimsy Porpington died 31 October 1492".[36][37]
+
+Chamber of Secrets has many links with the sixth book of the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. In fact, Half-Blood Prince was the working title of Chamber of Secrets and Rowling says she originally intended to present some "crucial pieces of information" in the second book, but ultimately felt "this information's proper home was book six".[38] Some objects that play significant roles in Half-Blood Prince first appear in Chamber of Secrets: the Hand of Glory and the opal necklace that are on sale in Borgin and Burkes; a Vanishing Cabinet in Hogwarts that is damaged by Peeves the Poltergeist; and Tom Riddle's diary, which is later shown to be a Horcrux.[39] Additionally, these two novels are the ones with the most focus on Harry's relationship with Ginny Weasley.
+
+The film version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was released in 2002.[40] Chris Columbus directed the film,[41] and the screenplay was written by Steve Kloves. It became the third film to exceed $600 million in international box office sales, preceded by Titanic, released in 1997, and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, released in 2001.[42] The film was nominated for a Saturn Award for the Best Fantasy Film,[42][43] According to Metacritic, the film version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets received "generally favourable reviews" with an average score of 63%,[44] and another aggregator, Rotten Tomatoes, gave it a score of 82%.[41]
+
+Five unique video games by different developers were released between 2002 and 2003 by Electronic Arts, loosely based on the book:

en/2393.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,62 @@
+
+
+Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling and the second novel in the Harry Potter series. The plot follows Harry's second year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, during which a series of messages on the walls of the school's corridors warn that the "Chamber of Secrets" has been opened and that the "heir of Slytherin" would kill all pupils who do not come from all-magical families. These threats are found after attacks that leave residents of the school petrified. Throughout the year, Harry and his friends Ron and Hermione investigate the attacks.
+
+The book was published in the United Kingdom on 2 July 1998 by Bloomsbury and later in the United States on 2 June 1999 by Scholastic Inc. Although Rowling says she found it difficult to finish the book, it won high praise and awards from critics, young readers, and the book industry, although some critics thought the story was perhaps too frightening for younger children. Much like with other novels in the series, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets triggered religious debates; some religious authorities have condemned its use of magical themes, whereas others have praised its emphasis on self-sacrifice and the way one's character is the result of one's choices.
+
+Several commentators have noted that personal identity is a strong theme in the book and that it addresses issues of racism through the treatment of non-human, non-magical, and non-living people. Some commentators regard the diary as a warning against uncritical acceptance of information from sources whose motives and reliability cannot be checked. Institutional authority is portrayed as self-serving and incompetent.
+
+The film adaptation of the novel, released in 2002, became (at that time) the fifth highest-grossing film ever and received generally favourable reviews. Video games loosely based on Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets were also released for several platforms, and most obtained favourable reviews.
+
+On Harry Potter's twelfth birthday, the Dursley family—Harry's uncle Vernon, aunt Petunia, and cousin Dudley—hold a dinner party for a potential client of Vernon's company. Uninvited, Harry, who has not been receiving any news from his school friends, is visited by a house-elf named Dobby. Dobby warns Harry not to return to Hogwarts, and has been intercepting the post from his friends. Failing to persuade Harry to not return to Hogwarts, Dobby uses magic to smash Petunia's dessert on the kitchen floor, framing Harry, who is not allowed to use magic outside school, in an attempt to get him expelled. The Ministry of Magic warns Harry against using more magic, but allows him to return at the start of the next year.
+
+Meanwhile, as his business deal has fallen through, Vernon locks Harry in his bedroom. Harry’s best friend Ron Weasley arrives with his twin brothers Fred and George in their father Arthur’s enchanted Ford Anglia. They rescue Harry, who stays at their family home, the Burrow, for the remainder of his holidays. Harry and the other Weasleys—mother Molly, third-eldest son Percy, and daughter Ginny (who has a crush on Harry)—travel to Diagon Alley. They meet Hermione Granger, Lucius Malfoy, father of Harry’s school nemesis Draco, and Gilderoy Lockhart, a conceited autobiographer appointed new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor after the death of Professor Quirrell. At King Cross station, Harry and Ron can't enter Platform 93⁄4. Having missed the Hogwarts Express they decide to fly Arthur’s car to the school, crashing into the Whomping Willow on the grounds, and damaging Ron's wand.
+
+Throughout the year, Harry learns that prejudiced wizards discriminate between people with “pure” blood (only wizarding heritage) and those of Muggle (non-magical) parentage. He also notices a voice only he can hear, seemingly coming from the walls of the school. During a deathday party for Gryffindor House’s ghost Nearly Headless Nick, Harry, Ron, and Hermione find the school caretaker Argus Filch’s petrified cat, Mrs. Norris, and a scrawled warning: “The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir, beware.”
+
+Rumours regarding the Chamber of Secrets begin circulatng. Harry discovers from Cuthbert Binns, the professor of History of Magic, that it allegedly houses a monster and was created by one of the school’s founders, Salazar Slytherin, after a disagreement with the other founders (Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, and Rowena Ravenclaw). Slytherin believed the school should exclude Muggle-born students, and built the chamber to that end. Supposedly, the Heir of Slytherin could open it and control the monster inside.
+
+During a Quidditch game, a Bludger chases Harry and breaks his arm. Attempting to mend it, Lockhart accidentally removes the arm's bones, forcing Harry to stay in the hospital wing overnight to heal. Dobby visits Harry in the night, confessing that he charmed the Bludger and sealed the gateway at King’s Cross and revealing that the Chamber of Secrets was opened before. Another attack occurs on first-year Gryffindor student Colin Creevey, giving rise to panic in Hogwarts. A duelling class is set up for the students (led by Lockhart and Potions master Severus Snape), during which it is revealed that Harry is a 'Parselmouth', having the rare ability to speak to snakes.
+
+This sparks rumours that Harry is the Heir of Slytherin, as Slytherin was also a Parselmouth. Another attack occurs on Hufflepuff second-year Justin Finch-Fletchley and Nearly Headless Nick, fueling the rumour. Harry, Ron, and Hermione begin to suspect Draco Malfoy is behind the attacks, given his family's connections with Slytherin house and open hostility toward Muggle-born students. To confirm this, Hermione concocts Polyjuice Potion, which allows Harry and Ron to impersonate Draco’s lackeys Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle. The disguised Harry and Ron interrogate Draco, discovering that Draco’s father told him little about the Chamber's previous opening, and that it occurred fifty years ago. Meanwhile, "Moaning" Myrtle Warren, a ghost that haunts a girls' bathroom provides a new clue, in the form of a diary deposited in her stall. The diary belonged to Tom Riddle, a student who witnessed a fellow student’s death when the Chamber was opened. Harry magically communicates with Riddle using the diary; Riddle claims Rubeus Hagrid, gamekeeper for Hogwarts, was to blame. When Hermione is attacked next, alongside a Ravenclaw prefect, the school is put on lockdown, and headmaster Albus Dumbledore and Hagrid are forced to leave.
+
+Following instructions Hagrid had left, Harry and Ron follow spiders into the Forbidden Forest. They find a massive Acromantula named Aragog, a monster blamed for the attacks fifty years before. Aragog denies its involvement, and tells them that spiders fear the real monster. Although Aragog attempts to feed Harry and Ron to its progeny, Arthur's Ford Anglia arrives and helps the boys escape. Visiting Hermione, they discover that she had deduced the monster's identity prior to her attack. The monster is a basilisk (hence Harry’s ability to understand it) that kills with a stare (although no one is dead because of various devices through which they indirectly saw the monster), feared by spiders. From Aragog's hints, Harry deduces that Myrtle was the student killed in the original attack. When Ginny is taken into the Chamber, Harry and Ron discover that the entrance to it is in Myrtle's bathroom. Harry, Ron, and Lockhart enter the Chamber. The dunderheaded professor, who confesses he is a fraud, attempts to erase the boys’ memories with Ron’s damaged wand, but instead erases his own and causes a rockfall separating Ron and Harry.
+
+Harry enters the Chamber of Secrets alone to find Ginny unconscious and Tom Riddle, who claims to be a memory preserved in his diary. Riddle claims to be the Heir of Slytherin; furthermore, his full name, Tom Marvolo Riddle, can be made into the anagram "I am Lord Voldemort". He had opened the Chamber before and framed Hagrid. By possessing Ginny through his diary, Riddle has been continuing what he started, and unleashes the basilisk against Harry. Harry shows loyalty to Dumbledore in this ordeal, which summons Dumbledore's phoenix Fawkes, who arrives with the Sorting Hat. Fawkes blinds the basilisk, allowing Harry to pull the Sword of Godric Gryffindor from the Sorting Hat and slay the creature, although he is poisoned in the process. As Riddle taunts the dying Harry, Fawkes' tears heal him, and he uses a basilisk fang to stab Riddle's diary. Both the diary and Riddle are destroyed, and Ginny is restored.
+
+Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Lockhart return to the main castle and reunite with McGonagall, Dumbledore, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. Ginny is reprieved by Dumbledore, who shows interest in the diary. Lucius Malfoy bursts in, furious about Dumbledore's return. He is accompanied by Dobby, who is the Malfoys' servant. Harry realizes that the diary had been in the Malfoys’ possession. To ensure the reopening of the Chamber of Secrets, Lucius, a follower of Voldemort, had slipped the diary into Ginny's cauldron when they met in Diagon Alley. Harry hides a sock in the diary and returns it to Lucius. By discarding the sock, which Dobby catches, Lucius unintentionally frees the house-elf from the Malfoys’ service. Lucius attacks Harry in revenge, but Dobby saves him. The petrified students are cured, Gryffindor wins the house cup again, Harry and Ron receive special awards, exams are cancelled, Hagrid returns, Lockhart is discharged, and Harry returns to Privet Drive in high spirits.
+
+Rowling found it difficult to finish Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets because she was afraid it would not live up to the expectations raised by Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. After delivering the manuscript to Bloomsbury on schedule, she took it back for six weeks of revision.[1]
+
+In early drafts of the book, the ghost Nearly Headless Nick sang a self-composed song explaining his condition and the circumstances of his unknown death. This was cut because the book's editor did not care for the poem, which has been subsequently published as an extra on J. K. Rowling's official website.[2] The family background of Dean Thomas was removed because Rowling and her publishers considered it an "unnecessary digression," and she considered Neville Longbottom's own journey of discovery "more important to the central plot."[3]
+
+Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was published in the UK on 2 July 1998 and in the US on 2 June 1999.[4][5] It immediately took first place in UK bestseller lists, displacing popular authors such as John Grisham, Tom Clancy,[1] and Terry Pratchett[6] and making Rowling the first author to win the British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year for two years in succession.[7] In June 1999, it went straight to the top of three US bestseller lists,[8] including inThe New York Times.[9]
+
+First edition printings had several errors, which were fixed in subsequent reprints.[10] Initially, Dumbledore said Voldemort was the last remaining ancestor of Salazar Slytherin instead of his descendant.[10] Gilderoy Lockhart's book on werewolves is entitled Weekends with Werewolves at one point and Wanderings with Werewolves later in the book.[11]
+
+Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was met with near-universal acclaim. In The Times, Deborah Loudon described it as a children's book that would be "re-read into adulthood" and highlighted its "strong plots, engaging characters, excellent jokes and a moral message which flows naturally from the story".[12] Fantasy author Charles de Lint agreed, and considered the second Harry Potter book to be just as good as Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, a rare achievement among series of books.[13] Thomas Wagner regarded the plot as very similar to that of the first book, based on searching for a secret hidden under the school. However, he enjoyed the parody of celebrities and their fans that centres round Gilderoy Lockhart, and approved of the book's handling of racism.[14] Tammy Nezol found the book more disturbing than its predecessor, particularly in the rash behaviour of Harry and his friends after Harry withholds information from Dumbledore, and in the human-like behaviour of the mandragoras used to make a potion that cures petrification. Nevertheless, she considered the second story as enjoyable as the first.[15]
+
+Mary Stuart thought the final conflict with Tom Riddle in the Chamber was almost as scary as in some of Stephen King's works, and perhaps too strong for young or timid children. She commented that "there are enough surprises and imaginative details thrown in as would normally fill five lesser books." Like other reviewers, she thought the book would give pleasure to both children and adult readers.[16] According to Philip Nel, the early reviews gave unalloyed praise while the later ones included some criticisms, although they still agreed that the book was outstanding.[17]
+
+Writing after all seven books had been published, Graeme Davis regarded Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as the weakest of the series, and agreed that the plot structure is much the same as in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. He described Fawkes's appearance to arm Harry and then to heal him as a deus ex machina: he said that the book does not explain how Fawkes knew where to find Harry; and Fawkes's timing had to be very precise, as arriving earlier would probably have prevented the battle with the basilisk, while arriving later would have been fatal to Harry and Ginny.[18]
+
+Rowling's Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was the recipient of several awards.[19] The American Library Association listed the novel among its 2000 Notable Children's Books,[20]
+as well as its Best Books for Young Adults.[21] In 1999, Booklist named Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as one of its Editors' Choices,[22] and as one of its Top Ten Fantasy Novels for Youth.[19] The Cooperative Children's Book Center made the novel a CCBC Choice of 2000 in the "Fiction for Children" category.[23] The novel also won Children's Book of the Year British Book Award,[24] and was shortlisted for the 1998 Guardian Children's Award and the 1998 Carnegie Award.[19]
+
+Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets won the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize 1998 Gold Medal in the 9–11 years division.[24] Rowling also won two other Nestlé Smarties Book Prizes for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The Scottish Arts Council awarded their first ever Children’s Book Award to the novel in 1999,[25] and it was also awarded Whitaker's Platinum Book Award in 2001.[19][26] In 2003, the novel was listed at number 23 on the BBC's survey The Big Read.[27]
+
+Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets continues to examine what makes a person who he or she is, which began in the first book. As well as maintaining that Harry's identity is shaped by his decisions rather than any aspect of his birth,[15][28] Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets provides contrasting characters who try to conceal their true personalities: as Tammy Nezol puts it, Gilderoy Lockhart "lacks any real identity" because he is nothing more than a charming liar.[15] Riddle also complicates Harry's struggle to understand himself by pointing out the similarities between the two: "both half-bloods, orphans raised by Muggles, probably the only two Parselmouths to come to Hogwarts since the great Slytherin."[29]
+
+Opposition to class, death and its impacts, experiencing adolescence, sacrifice, love, friendship, loyalty, prejudice, and racism are constant themes of the series. In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Harry's consideration and respect for others extends to the lowly, non-human Dobby and the ghost Nearly Headless Nick.[30] According to Marguerite Krause, achievements in the novel depend more on ingenuity and hard work than on natural talents.[31]
+
+Edward Duffy, associate professor at Marquette University, says that one of the central characters of Chamber of Secrets is Tom Riddle's enchanted diary, which takes control of Ginny Weasley – just as Riddle planned. Duffy suggests Rowling intended this as a warning against passively consuming information from sources that have their own agendas.[32] Although Bronwyn Williams and Amy Zenger regard the diary as more like an instant messaging or chat room system, they agree about the dangers of relying too much on the written word, which can camouflage the author, and they highlight a comical example, Lockhart's self-promoting books.[33]
+
+Immorality and the portrayal of authority as negative are significant themes in the novel. Marguerite Krause states there are few absolute moral rules in Harry Potter's world, for example Harry prefers to tell the truth, but lies whenever he considers it necessary – very like his enemy Draco Malfoy.[31] At the end of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Dumbledore retracts his promise to punish Harry, Ron, and Hermione if they break any more school rules – after Professor McGonagall estimates they have broken over 100 – and lavishly rewards them for ending the threat from the Chamber of Secrets.[34] Krause further states that authority figures and political institutions receive little respect from Rowling.[31] William MacNeil of Griffith University, Queensland, Australia states that the Minister for Magic is presented as a mediocrity.[35] In his article "Harry Potter and the Secular City", Ken Jacobson suggests the Ministry as a whole is portrayed as a tangle of bureaucratic empires, saying that "Ministry officials busy themselves with minutiae (e.g. standardising cauldron thicknesses) and coin politically correct euphemisms like 'non-magical community' (for Muggles) and 'memory modification' (for magical brainwashing)."[28]
+
+This novel implies it begins in 1992: the cake for Nearly-Headless Nick's 500th deathday party bears the words "Sir Nicholas De Mimsy Porpington died 31 October 1492".[36][37]
+
+Chamber of Secrets has many links with the sixth book of the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. In fact, Half-Blood Prince was the working title of Chamber of Secrets and Rowling says she originally intended to present some "crucial pieces of information" in the second book, but ultimately felt "this information's proper home was book six".[38] Some objects that play significant roles in Half-Blood Prince first appear in Chamber of Secrets: the Hand of Glory and the opal necklace that are on sale in Borgin and Burkes; a Vanishing Cabinet in Hogwarts that is damaged by Peeves the Poltergeist; and Tom Riddle's diary, which is later shown to be a Horcrux.[39] Additionally, these two novels are the ones with the most focus on Harry's relationship with Ginny Weasley.
+
+The film version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was released in 2002.[40] Chris Columbus directed the film,[41] and the screenplay was written by Steve Kloves. It became the third film to exceed $600 million in international box office sales, preceded by Titanic, released in 1997, and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, released in 2001.[42] The film was nominated for a Saturn Award for the Best Fantasy Film,[42][43] According to Metacritic, the film version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets received "generally favourable reviews" with an average score of 63%,[44] and another aggregator, Rotten Tomatoes, gave it a score of 82%.[41]
+
+Five unique video games by different developers were released between 2002 and 2003 by Electronic Arts, loosely based on the book: