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+Sudan (/suːˈdɑːn/;[10][11] Arabic: السودان‎ as-Sūdān), officially the Republic of the Sudan[12]  (Arabic: جمهورية السودان‎ Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. Bordered by Egypt to the north, Libya to the northwest, Chad to the west, the Central African Republic to the southwest, South Sudan to the south, Ethiopia to the southeast, Eritrea to the east, and the Red Sea to the northeast. Sudan has a population of 43 million (2018 estimate)[13] and occupies 1,886,068 square kilometres (728,215 square miles), making it Africa's third-largest country and also the third-largest in the Arab world. It was the largest country in Africa and the Arab world by area before the secession of South Sudan in 2011.[14]
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+Sudan's history goes back to the Pharaonic period, witnessing the Kingdom of Kerma (c. 2500–1500 BC), the subsequent rule of the Egyptian New Kingdom (c. 1500 BC–1070 BC) and the rise of the Kingdom of Kush (c. 785 BC–350 AD), which would in turn control Egypt itself for nearly a century. After the fall of Kush, the Nubians formed the three Christian kingdoms of Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia, with the latter two lasting until around 1500. Between the 14th and 15th centuries much of Sudan was settled by Arab nomads. From the 16th–19th centuries, central and eastern Sudan were dominated by the Funj sultanate, while Darfur ruled the west and the Ottomans the far north. This period saw extensive Islamisation and Arabisation.
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+From 1820 to 1874 the entirety of Sudan was conquered by the Muhammad Ali dynasty. Between 1881 and 1885, the harsh Egyptian reign was eventually met with a successful revolt led by the self-proclaimed Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad, resulting in the establishment of the Caliphate of Omdurman. This state was eventually toppled in 1898 by the British, who would then govern Sudan together with Egypt.[15]
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+The 20th century saw the growth of Sudanese nationalism and in 1953 Britain granted Sudan self-government. Independence was proclaimed on 1 January 1956. Since independence, Sudan has been ruled by a series of unstable parliamentary governments and military regimes. Under Jaafar Nimeiry, Sudan instituted Islamic law in 1983.[16] This exacerbated the rift between the Islamic north, the seat of the government and the Animists and Christians in the south. Differences in language, religion, and political power erupted in a civil war between government forces, strongly influenced by the National Islamic Front (NIF), and the southern rebels, whose most influential faction was the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), eventually concluding in the independence of South Sudan in 2011.[17] Between 1989 and 2019, Sudan experienced a 30-year-long military dictatorship led by Omar al-Bashir accused of widespread human rights abuses including torture, persecution of minorities and notably, ethnic genocide due to its role in the War in the Darfur region that broke out in 2003. Overall, the regime's actions killed between 300,000 and 400,000 people. Protests erupted in late 2018, demanding Bashir's resignation, which resulted in a successful coup d'état on April 11, 2019.[18]
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+The country's name Sudan is a name given to a geographical region to the south of the Sahara, stretching from Western Africa to eastern Central Africa. The name derives from the Arabic bilād as-sūdān (بلاد السودان), or the "Land of the Blacks".[19] The name is one of several toponyms sharing similar etymologies, ultimately meaning "land of the blacks" or similar meanings, in reference to the dark skin of the inhabitants. Initially, the term "Sudanese" had a negative connotation in Sudan due to its association with black Africans. The idea of "Sudanese" nationalism goes back to the 1930s and 1940s, when it was popularised by young intellectuals.[20]
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+By the eighth millennium BC, people of a Neolithic culture had settled into a sedentary way of life there in fortified mudbrick villages, where they supplemented hunting and fishing on the Nile with grain gathering and cattle herding.[21] Neolithic peoples created cemeteries such as R12. During the fifth millennium BC, migrations from the drying Sahara brought neolithic people into the Nile Valley along with agriculture. The population that resulted from this cultural and genetic mixing developed a social hierarchy over the next centuries which became the Kingdom of Kush (with the capital at Kerma) at 1700 BC. Anthropological and archaeological research indicate that during the predynastic period Nubia and Nagadan Upper Egypt were ethnically, and culturally nearly identical, and thus, simultaneously evolved systems of pharaonic kingship by 3300 BC.[22]
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+The Kingdom of Kush was an ancient Nubian state centered on the confluences of the Blue Nile and White Nile, and the Atbarah River and the Nile River. It was established after the Bronze Age collapse and the disintegration of the New Kingdom of Egypt, centered at Napata in its early phase[23].
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+After King Kashta ("the Kushite") invaded Egypt in the eighth century BC, the Kushite kings ruled as pharaohs of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt for a century before being defeated and driven out by the Assyrians. At the height of their glory, the Kushites conquered an empire that stretched from what is now known as South Kordofan to the Sinai. Pharaoh Piye attempted to expand the empire into the Near East but was thwarted by the Assyrian king Sargon II.
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+The Kingdom of Kush is mentioned in the Bible as having saved the Israelites from the wrath of the Assyrians, although disease among the besiegers was the main reason for the failure to take the city.[24][page needed]
+The war that took place between Pharaoh Taharqa and the Assyrian king Sennacherib was a decisive event in western history, with the Nubians being defeated in their attempts to gain a foothold in the Near East by Assyria. Sennacherib's successor Esarhaddon went further and invaded Egypt itself to secure his control of the Levant. This succeeded, as he managed to expel Taharqa from Lower Egypt. Taharqa fled back to Upper Egypt and Nubia, where he died two years later. Lower Egypt came under Assyrian vassalage but proved unruly, unsuccessfully rebelling against the Assyrians. Then, the king Tantamani, a successor of Taharqa, made a final determined attempt to regain Lower Egypt from the newly re-instated Assyrian vassal Necho I. He managed to retake Memphis killing Necho in the process and besieged cities in the Nile Delta. Ashurbanipal, who had succeeded Esarhaddon,  sent a large army in Egypt to regain control. He routed Tantamani near Memphis and, pursuing him, sacked Thebes. Although the Assyrians immediately departed Upper Egypt after these events, weakened, Thebes peacefully submitted itself to Necho's son Psamtik I less than a decade later. This ended all hopes of a revival of the Nubian Empire, which rather continued in the form of a smaller kingdom centered on Napata. The city was raided by the Egyptian c. 590 BC and the Kushite resettled in Meroë.
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+During Classical Antiquity, the Nubian capital was still at Meroë. In ancient Greek geography, the Meroitic kingdom was known as Ethiopia (a term also used earlier by the Assyrians when encountering the Nubians). The civilization of Kush was among the first in the world to use iron smelting technology. The Nubian kingdom at Meroë persisted until the mid-fourth century AD.
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+On the turn of the fifth century the Blemmyes established a short-lived state in Upper Egypt and Lower Nubia, probably centered around Talmis (Kalabsha), but before 450 they were already driven out of the Nile Valley by the Nobatians. The latter eventually founded a kingdom on their own, Nobatia.[26]
+By the 6th century there were in total three Nubian kingdoms: Nobatia in the north, which had its capital at Pachoras (Faras); the central kingdom, Makuria centred at Tungul (Old Dongola), about 13 kilometres (8 miles) south of modern Dongola; and Alodia, in the heartland of the old Kushitic kingdom, which had its capital at Soba (now a suburb of modern-day Khartoum).[27] Still in the sixth century they converted to Christianity.[28] In the seventh century, probably at some point between 628 and 642, Nobatia was incorporated into Makuria.[29]
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+Between 639 and 641 the Muslim Arabs of the Rashidun Caliphate conquered Byzantine Egypt. In 641 or 642 and again in 652 they invaded Nubia but were repelled, making the Nubians one of the few who managed to defeat the Arabs during the Islamic expansion. Afterwards the Makurian king and the Arabs agreed on a unique non-aggression pact that also included an annual exchange of gifts, thus acknowledging Makuria's independence.[30] While the Arabs failed to conquer Nubia they began to settle east of the Nile, where they eventually founded several port towns[31] and intermarried with the local Beja.[32]
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+From the mid 8th-mid 11th century the political power and cultural development of Christian Nubia peaked.[33] In 747 Makuria invaded Egypt, which at this time belonged to the declining Umayyads,[34] and it did so again in the early 960s, when it pushed as far north as Akhmim.[35] Makuria maintained close dynastic ties with Alodia, perhaps resulting in the temporary unification of the two kingdoms into one state.[36] The culture of the medieval Nubians has been described as "Afro-Byzantine",[37] but was also increasingly influenced by Arab culture.[38] The state organisation was extremely centralised,[39] being based on the Byzantine bureaucracy of the 6th and 7th centuries.[40] Arts flourished in the form of pottery paintings[41] and especially wall paintings.[42] The Nubians developed an own alphabet for their language, Old Nobiin, basing it on the Coptic alphabet, while also utilizing Greek, Coptic and Arabic.[43] Women enjoyed high social status: they had access to education, could own, buy and sell land and often used their wealth to endow churches and church paintings.[44] Even the royal succession was matrilineal, with the son of the king's sister being the rightful heir.[45]
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+From the late 11th/12th century, Makuria's capital Dongola was in decline, and Alodia's capital declined in the 12th century as well.[46] In the 14th and 15th centuries Bedouin tribes overran most of Sudan,[47] migrating to the Butana, the Gezira, Kordofan and Darfur.[48] In 1365 a civil war forced the Makurian court to flee to Gebel Adda in Lower Nubia, while Dongola was destroyed and left to the Arabs. Afterwards Makuria continued to exist only as a petty kingdom.[49] After the prosperous[50] reign of king Joel (fl. 1463–1484) Makuria collapsed.[51] Coastal areas from southern Sudan up to the port city of Suakin was succeeded by the Adal Sultanate in the fifteenth century.[52][53] To the south, the kingdom of Alodia fell to either the Arabs, commanded by tribal leader Abdallah Jamma, or the Funj, an African people originating from the south.[54] Datings range from the 9th century after the Hijra (c. 1396–1494),[55] the late 15th century,[56] 1504[57] to 1509.[58] An alodian rump state might have survived in the form of the kingdom of Fazughli, lasting until 1685.[59]
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+In 1504 the Funj are recorded to have founded the Kingdom of Sennar, in which Abdallah Jamma's realm was incorporated.[61] By 1523, when Jewish traveller David Reubeni visited Sudan, the Funj state already extended as far north as Dongola.[62] Meanwhile, Islam began to be preached on the Nile by Sufi holymen who settled there in the 15th and 16th centuries[63] and by David Reubeni's visit king Amara Dunqas, previously a Pagan or nominal Christian, was recorded to be Muslim.[64] However, the Funj would retain un-Islamic customs like the divine kingship or the consummation of alcohol until the 18th century.[65] Sudanese folk Islam preserved many rituals stemming from Christian traditions until the recent past.[66]
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+Soon the Funj came in conflict with the Ottomans, who had occupied Suakin around 1526[67] and eventually pushed south along the Nile, reaching the third Nile cataract area in 1583/1584. A subsequent Ottoman attempt to capture Dongola was repelled by the Funj in 1585.[68] Afterwards, Hannik, located just south of the third cataract, would mark the border between the two states.[69] The aftermath of the Ottoman invasion saw the attempted usurpation of Ajib, a minor king of northern Nubia. While the Funj eventually killed him in 1611/1612 his successors, the Abdallab, were granted to govern everything north of the confluence of Blue and White Niles with considerable autonomy.[70]
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+During the 17th century the Funj state reached its widest extent,[71] but in the following century it began to decline.[72] A coup in 1718 brought a dynastic change,[73] while another one in 1761–1762[74] resulted in the Hamaj regency, where the Hamaj (a people from the Ethiopian borderlands) effectively ruled while the Funj sultans were their mere puppets.[75] Shortly afterwards the sultanate began to fragment;[76] by the early 19th century it was essentially restricted to the Gezira.[77]
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+The coup of 1718 kicked off a policy of pursuing a more orthodox Islam, which in turn promoted the Arabisation of the state.[78] In order to legitimise their rule over their Arab subjects the Funj began to propagate an Umayyad descend.[79] North of the confluence of the Blue and White Niles, as far downstream as Al Dabbah, the Nubians adopted the tribal identity of the Arab Jaalin.[80] Until the 19th century Arabic had succeeded in becoming the dominant language of central riverine Sudan[81][82][83] and most of Kordofan.[84]
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+West of the Nile, in Darfur, the Islamic period saw at first the rise of the Tunjur kingdom, which replaced the old Daju kingdom in the 15th century[85] and extended as far west as Wadai.[86] The Tunjur people were probably Arabised Berbers and, their ruling elite at least, Muslims.[87] In the 17th century the Tunjur were driven from power by the Fur Keira sultanate.[86] The Keira state, nominally Muslim since the reign of Sulayman Solong (r. c. 1660–1680),[88] was initially a small kingdom in northern Jebel Marra,[89] but expanded west- and northwards in the early 18th century[90] and eastwards under the rule of Muhammad Tayrab (r. 1751–1786),[91] peaking in the conquest of Kordofan in 1785.[92] The apogee of this empire, now roughly the size of present-day Nigeria,[92] would last until 1821.[91]
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+In 1821, the Ottoman ruler of Egypt, Muhammad Ali of Egypt, had invaded and conquered northern Sudan. Although technically the Vali of Egypt under the Ottoman Empire, Muhammad Ali styled himself as Khedive of a virtually independent Egypt. Seeking to add Sudan to his domains, he sent his third son Ismail (not to be confused with Ismaʻil Pasha mentioned later) to conquer the country, and subsequently incorporate it into Egypt. With the exception of the Shaiqiya and the Darfur sultanate in Kordofan, he was met without resistance. The Egyptian policy of conquest was expanded and intensified by Ibrahim Pasha's son, Ismaʻil, under whose reign most of the remainder of modern-day Sudan was conquered.
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+The Egyptian authorities made significant improvements to the Sudanese infrastructure (mainly in the north), especially with regard to irrigation and cotton production. In 1879, the Great Powers forced the removal of Ismail and established his son Tewfik Pasha in his place. Tewfik's corruption and mismanagement resulted in the 'Urabi revolt, which threatened the Khedive's survival. Tewfik appealed for help to the British, who subsequently occupied Egypt in 1882. Sudan was left in the hands of the Khedivial government, and the mismanagement and corruption of its officials.[93][94]
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+During the Khedivial period, dissent had spread due to harsh taxes imposed on most activities. Taxation on irrigation wells and farming lands were so high most farmers abandoned their farms and livestock. During the 1870s, European initiatives against the slave trade had an adverse impact on the economy of northern Sudan, precipitating the rise of Mahdist forces.[95] Muhammad Ahmad ibn Abd Allah, the Mahdi (Guided One), offered to the ansars (his followers) and those who surrendered to him a choice between adopting Islam or being killed. The Mahdiyah (Mahdist regime) imposed traditional Sharia Islamic laws.
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+From his announcement of the Mahdiyya in June 1881 until the fall of Khartoum in January 1885, Muhammad Ahmad led a successful military campaign against the Turco-Egyptian government of the Sudan, known as the Turkiyah. Muhammad Ahmad died on 22 June 1885, a mere six months after the conquest of Khartoum. After a power struggle amongst his deputies, Abdallahi ibn Muhammad, with the help primarily of the Baggara of western Sudan, overcame the opposition of the others and emerged as unchallenged leader of the Mahdiyah. After consolidating his power, Abdallahi ibn Muhammad assumed the title of Khalifa (successor) of the Mahdi, instituted an administration, and appointed Ansar (who were usually Baggara) as emirs over each of the several provinces.
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+Regional relations remained tense throughout much of the Mahdiyah period, largely because of the Khalifa's brutal methods to extend his rule throughout the country. In 1887, a 60,000-man Ansar army invaded Ethiopia, penetrating as far as Gondar. In March 1889, king Yohannes IV of Ethiopia marched on Metemma; however, after Yohannes fell in battle, the Ethiopian forces withdrew. Abd ar Rahman an Nujumi, the Khalifa's general, attempted an invasion of Egypt in 1889, but British-led Egyptian troops defeated the Ansar at Tushkah. The failure of the Egyptian invasion broke the spell of the Ansar's invincibility. The Belgians prevented the Mahdi's men from conquering Equatoria, and in 1893, the Italians repelled an Ansar attack at Agordat (in Eritrea) and forced the Ansar to withdraw from Ethiopia.
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+In the 1890s, the British sought to re-establish their control over Sudan, once more officially in the name of the Egyptian Khedive, but in actuality treating the country as a British colony. By the early 1890s, British, French and Belgian claims had converged at the Nile headwaters. Britain feared that the other powers would take advantage of Sudan's instability to acquire territory previously annexed to Egypt. Apart from these political considerations, Britain wanted to establish control over the Nile to safeguard a planned irrigation dam at Aswan. Herbert Kitchener led military campaigns against the Mahdist Sudan from 1896 to 1898. Kitchener's campaigns culminated in a decisive victory in the Battle of Omdurman on 2 September 1898.
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+In 1899, Britain and Egypt reached an agreement under which Sudan was run by a governor-general appointed by Egypt with British consent.[96] In reality, Sudan was effectively administered as a Crown colony. The British were keen to reverse the process, started under Muhammad Ali Pasha, of uniting the Nile Valley under Egyptian leadership and sought to frustrate all efforts aimed at further uniting the two countries.[citation needed]
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+Under the Delimitation, Sudan's border with Abyssinia was contested by raiding tribesmen trading slaves, breaching boundaries of the law.  In 1905 Local chieftain Sultan Yambio reluctant to the end gave up the struggle with British forces that had occupied the Kordofan region, finally ending the lawlessness. The continued British administration of Sudan fuelled an increasingly strident nationalist backlash, with Egyptian nationalist leaders determined to force Britain to recognise a single independent union of Egypt and Sudan. With a formal end to Ottoman rule in 1914, Sir Reginald Wingate was sent that December to occupy Sudan as the new Military Governor. Hussein Kamel was declared Sultan of Egypt and Sudan, as was his brother and successor, Fuad I. They continued upon their insistence of a single Egyptian-Sudanese state even when the Sultanate of Egypt was retitled as the Kingdom of Egypt and Sudan, but it was Saad Zaghloul who continued to be frustrated in the ambitions until his death in 1927.[97]
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+From 1924 until independence in 1956, the British had a policy of running Sudan as two essentially separate territories, the north and south. The assassination of a Governor-General of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan in Cairo was the causative factor; it brought demands of the newly elected Wafd government from colonial forces. A permanent establishment of two battalions in Khartoum was renamed the Sudan Defence Force acting as under the government, replacing the former garrison of Egyptian army soldiers, saw action afterwards during the Walwal Incident.[98] The Wafdist parliamentary majority had rejected Sarwat Pasha's accommodation plan with Austen Chamberlain in London; yet Cairo still needed the money. The Sudanese Government's revenue had reached a peak in 1928 at £6.6 million, thereafter the Wafdist disruptions, and Italian borders incursions from Somaliland, London decided to reduce expenditure during the Great Depression. Cotton and gum exports were dwarfed by the necessity to import almost everything from Britain leading to a balance of payments deficit at Khartoum.[99]
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+In July 1936 the Liberal Constitutional leader, Muhammed Mahmoud was persuaded to bring Wafd delegates to London to sign the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty, "the beginning of a new stage in Anglo-Egyptian relations", wrote Anthony Eden.[100] The British Army was allowed to return to Sudan to protect the Canal Zone. They were able to find training facilities, and the RAF was free to fly over Egyptian territory. It did not, however, resolve the problem of Sudan: the Sudanese Intelligentsia agitated for a return to metropolitan rule, conspiring with Germany's agents.[101]
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+Mussolini made it clear that he could not invade Abyssinia without first conquering Egypt and Sudan; they intended unification of Libya with Italian East Africa. The British Imperial General Staff prepared for military defence of the region, which was thin on the ground.[102] The British ambassador blocked Italian attempts to secure a Non-Aggression Treaty with Egypt-Sudan. But Mahmoud was a supporter of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem; the region was caught between the Empire's efforts to save the Jews, and moderate Arab calls to halt migration.[103]
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+The Sudanese Government was directly involved militarily in the East African Campaign. Formed in 1925, the Sudan Defence Force played an active part in responding to incursions early in World War Two.  Italian troops occupied Kassala and other border areas from Italian Somaliland during 1940.  In 1942, the SDF also played a part in the invasion of the Italian colony by British and Commonwealth forces.  The last British governor-general was Robert George Howe.
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+The Egyptian revolution of 1952 finally heralded the beginning of the march towards Sudanese independence. Having abolished the monarchy in 1953, Egypt's new leaders, Mohammed Naguib, whose mother was Sudanese, and later Gamal Abdel Nasser, believed the only way to end British domination in Sudan was for Egypt to officially abandon its claims of sovereignty. In addition Nasser knew it would be difficult for Egypt to govern an impoverished Sudan after its independence. The British on the other hand continued their political and financial support for the Mahdist successor, Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi, whom it was believed would resist Egyptian pressure for Sudanese independence.  Rahman was capable of this, but his regime was plagued by political ineptitude, which garnered a colossal loss of support in northern and central Sudan. Both Egypt and Britain sensed a great instability fomenting, and thus opted to allow both Sudanese regions, north and south to have a free vote on whether they wished independence or a British withdrawal.
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+A polling process was carried out resulting in composition of a democratic parliament and Ismail al-Azhari was elected first Prime Minister and led the first modern Sudanese government.[104] On 1 January 1956, in a special ceremony held at the People's Palace, the Egyptian and British flags were lowered and the new Sudanese flag, composed of green, blue and yellow stripes, was raised in their place by the prime minister Ismail al-Azhari.
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+Dissatisfaction culminated in a second coup d'état on 25 May 1969. The coup leader, Col. Gaafar Nimeiry, became prime minister, and the new regime abolished parliament and outlawed all political parties. Disputes between Marxist and non-Marxist elements within the ruling military coalition resulted in a briefly successful coup in July 1971, led by the Sudanese Communist Party. Several days later, anti-communist military elements restored Nimeiry to power.
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+In 1972, the Addis Ababa Agreement led to a cessation of the north–south civil war and a degree of self-rule. This led to ten years hiatus in the civil war but an end to American investment in the Jonglei Canal project.  This had been considered absolutely essential to irrigate the Upper Nile region and to prevent an environmental catastrophe and wide-scale famine among the local tribes, most especially the Dinka. In the civil war that followed their homeland was raided, looted, pillaged and burned.  Many of the tribe were murdered in a bloody civil war that raged for over 20 years.
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+Until the early 1970s, Sudan's agricultural output was mostly dedicated to internal consumption. In 1972, the Sudanese government became more pro-Western, and made plans to export food and cash crops. However, commodity prices declined throughout the 1970s causing economic problems for Sudan. At the same time, debt servicing costs, from the money spent mechanizing agriculture, rose. In 1978, the IMF negotiated a Structural Adjustment Program with the government. This further promoted the mechanised export agriculture sector. This caused great hardship for the pastoralists of Sudan (see Nuba peoples). In 1976, the Ansars had mounted a bloody but unsuccessful coup attempt. But in July 1977, President Nimeiry met with Ansar leader Sadiq al-Mahdi, opening the way for a possible reconciliation. Hundreds of political prisoners were released, and in August a general amnesty was announced for all oppositionists.
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+On 30 June 1989, Colonel Omar al-Bashir led a bloodless military coup.[105] The new military government suspended political parties and introduced an Islamic legal code on the national level.[106] Later al-Bashir carried out purges and executions in the upper ranks of the army, the banning of associations, political parties, and independent newspapers, and the imprisonment of leading political figures and journalists.[107] On 16 October 1993, al-Bashir appointed himself "President" and disbanded the Revolutionary Command Council. The executive and legislative powers of the council were taken by al-Bashir.[108]
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+In the 1996 general election, he was the only candidate by law to run for election.[109] Sudan became a one-party state under the National Congress Party (NCP).[110] During the 1990s, Hassan al-Turabi, then Speaker of the National Assembly, reached out to Islamic fundamentalist groups, invited Osama bin Laden to the country.[111] The United States subsequently listed Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism.[112] Following Al Qaeda's bombing of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania the U.S. launched Operation Infinite Reach and targeted the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory which the U.S. government falsely believed was producing chemical weapons for the terrorist group. Al-Turabi's influence began to wane, others in favour of more pragmatic leadership tried to change Sudan's international isolation.[113] The country worked to appease its critics by expelling members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and encouraging bin Laden to leave.[114]
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+Before the 2000 presidential election, al-Turabi introduced a bill to reduce the President's powers, prompting al-Bashir to order a dissolution and declare a state of emergency.  When al-Turabi urged a boycott of the President's re-election campaign signing agreement with Sudan People's Liberation Army, al-Bashir suspected they were plotting to overthrow the government.[115] Hassan al-Turabi was jailed later the same year.[116]
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+In February 2003, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) groups in Darfur took up arms, accusing the Sudanese government of oppressing non-Arab Sudanese in favor of Sudanese Arabs, precipitating the War in Darfur. The conflict has since been described as a genocide,[117] and the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague has issued two arrest warrants for al-Bashir.[118][119] Arabic-speaking nomadic militias known as the Janjaweed stand accused of many atrocities.
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+On 9 January 2005, the government signed the Nairobi Comprehensive Peace Agreement with the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) with the objective of ending the Second Sudanese Civil War.  The United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) was established under the UN Security Council Resolution 1590 to support its implementation. The peace agreement was a prerequisite to the 2011 referendum: the result was a unanimous vote in favour of secession of South Sudan; the region of Abyei will hold its own referendum at a future date.
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+The Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) was the primary member of the Eastern Front, a coalition of rebel groups operating in eastern Sudan. After the peace agreement, their place was taken in February 2004 after the merger of the larger Hausa and Beja Congress with the smaller Rashaida Free Lions.[120] A peace agreement between the Sudanese government and the Eastern Front was signed on 14 October 2006, in Asmara.  On 5 May 2006, the Darfur Peace Agreement was signed, aiming at ending the three-year-long conflict.[121] The Chad–Sudan Conflict (2005–2007) had erupted after the Battle of Adré triggered a declaration of war by Chad.[122] The leaders of Sudan and Chad signed an agreement in Saudi Arabia on 3 May 2007 to stop fighting from the Darfur conflict spilling along their countries' 1,000-kilometre (600 mi) border.[123]
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+In July 2007 the country was hit by devastating floods,[124] with over 400,000 people being directly affected.[125] Since 2009, a series of ongoing conflicts between rival nomadic tribes in Sudan and South Sudan have caused a large number of civilian casualties.
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+The Sudanese conflict in South Kordofan and Blue Nile in the early 2010s between the Army of Sudan and the Sudan Revolutionary Front started as a dispute over the oil-rich region of Abyei in the months leading up to South Sudanese independence in 2011, though it is also related to civil war in Darfur that is nominally resolved. The events would later be known as the Sudanese Intifada, which would end only in 2013 after al-Bashir promised he would not seek re-election in 2015. He later broke his promise and sought re-election in 2015, winning through a boycott from the opposition who believed that the elections would not be free and fair. Voter turnout was at a low 46%.[126]
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+On 13 January 2017, US president Barack Obama signed an Executive Order that lifted many sanctions placed against Sudan and assets of its government held abroad. On 6 October 2017, the following US president Donald Trump lifted most of the remaining sanctions against the country and its petroleum, export-import, and property industries.[127]
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+On 19 December 2018, massive protests began after a government decision to triple the price of goods at a time when the country was suffering an acute shortage of foreign currency and inflation of 70 percent.[128] In addition, President al-Bashir, who had been in power for more than 30 years, refused to step down, resulting in the convergence of opposition groups to form a united coalition. The government retaliated by arresting more than 800 opposition figures and protesters, leading to the death of approximately 40 people according to the Human Rights Watch,[129] although the number was much higher than that according to local and civilian reports. The protests continued after the overthrow of his government on 11 April 2019 after a massive sit-in in front of the Sudanese Armed Forces main headquarters, after which the chiefs of staff decided to intervene and they ordered the arrest of President al-Bashir and declared a three-month state of emergency.[130][131][132] Over 100 people died on the third of June after security forces dispersed the sit-in using tear gas and live ammunition in what is known as the Khartoum massacre [133], resulting in Sudan's suspension from the African Union.[134] Sudan's youth had been reported to be driving the protests.[135] The protests came to an end when the Forces for Freedom and Change (an alliance of groups organizing the protests) and Transitional Military Council (the ruling military government) signed the July 2019 Political Agreement and the August 2019 Draft Constitutional Declaration.[136][137]
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+The transitional institutions and procedures included the creation of a joint military-civilian Sovereignty Council of Sudan as head of state, a new Chief Justice of Sudan as head of the judiciary branch of power, Nemat Abdullah Khair, and a new prime minister.  The new Prime Minister, Abdalla Hamdok, a 61-year-old economist who worked previously for the UN Economic Commission for Africa, was sworn in on 21 August. He initiated talks with the IMF and World Bank aimed at stabilising the economy, which was in dire straits because of shortages of food, fuel and hard currency. Hamdok estimated that US$10bn over two years would suffice to halt the panic, and said that over 70% of the 2018 budget had been spent on civil war-related measures. The governments of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had invested significant sums supporting the military council since Bashir's ouster.[138] On 3 September, Hamdok appointed 14 civilian ministers, including the first female foreign minister and the first Coptic Christian, also a woman.[139][140]
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+Sudan is situated in northern Africa, with an 853 km (530 mi) coastline bordering the Red Sea.[141] It has land borders with Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Chad, and Libya. With an area of 1,886,068 km2 (728,215 sq mi), it is the third-largest country on the continent (after Algeria and Democratic Republic of the Congo) and the sixteenth-largest in the world.
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+Sudan lies between latitudes 8° and 23°N. The terrain is generally flat plains, broken by several mountain ranges. In the west, the Deriba Caldera (3,042 m or 9,980 ft), located in the Marrah Mountains, is the highest point in Sudan. In the east are the Red Sea Hills.[142]
+
+The Blue Nile and White Nile rivers meet in Khartoum to form the Nile, which flows northwards through Egypt to the Mediterranean Sea. The Blue Nile's course through Sudan is nearly 800 km (497 mi) long and is joined by the Dinder and Rahad Rivers between Sennar and Khartoum. The White Nile within Sudan has no significant tributaries.
+
+There are several dams on the Blue and White Niles. Among them are the Sennar and Roseires Dams on the Blue Nile, and the Jebel Aulia Dam on the White Nile. There is also Lake Nubia on the Sudanese-Egyptian border.
+
+Rich mineral resources are available in Sudan including asbestos, chromite, cobalt, copper, gold, granite, gypsum, iron, kaolin, lead, manganese, mica, natural gas, nickel, petroleum, silver, tin, uranium and zinc.[143]
+
+The amount of rainfall increases towards the south. The central and the northern part have extremely dry, desert areas such as the Nubian Desert to the northeast and the Bayuda Desert to the east; in the south, there are grasslands and tropical savanna. Sudan's rainy season lasts for about four months (June to September) in the north, and up to six months (May to October) in the south.
+
+The dry regions are plagued by sandstorms, known as haboob, which can completely block out the sun. In the northern and western semi-desert areas, people rely on the scant rainfall for basic agriculture and many are nomadic, travelling with their herds of sheep and camels. Nearer the River Nile, there are well-irrigated farms growing cash crops.[144] The sunshine duration is very high all over the country but especially in deserts where it could soar to over 4,000 h per year.
+
+Desertification is a serious problem in Sudan.[145] There is also concern over soil erosion. Agricultural expansion, both public and private, has proceeded without conservation measures. The consequences have manifested themselves in the form of deforestation, soil desiccation, and the lowering of soil fertility and the water table.[146]
+
+The nation's wildlife is threatened by poaching. As of 2001, twenty-one mammal species and nine bird species are endangered, as well as two species of plants. Critically endangered species include: the waldrapp, northern white rhinoceros, tora hartebeest, slender-horned gazelle, and hawksbill turtle. The Sahara oryx has become extinct in the wild.[147]
+
+The politics of Sudan formally took place within the framework of a federal representative democratic republic until April 2019, when President Omar al-Bashir's regime was overthrown in a military coup led by Vice President Ahmed Awad Ibn Auf. As an initial step he established the Transitional Military Council to manage the country's internal affairs. He also suspended the constitution and dissolved the bicameral parliament — the National Legislature, with its National Assembly (lower chamber) and the Council of States (upper chamber). Ibn Auf however, remained in office for only a single day and then resigned, with the leadership of the Transitional Military Council then being handed to Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. On 4 August 2019, a new Constitutional Declaration was signed between the representatives of the Transitional Military Council and the Forces of Freedom and Change, and on 21 August 2019 the Transitional Military Council was officially replaced as head of state by an 11-member Sovereignty Council, and as head of government by a civilian Prime Minister.
+
+The legal system in Sudan is based on Islamic Sharia law. The 2005 Naivasha Agreement, ending the civil war between north and south Sudan, established some protections for non-Muslims in Khartoum. Sudan's application of Sharia law is geographically inconsistent.[148]
+
+Stoning remains a judicial punishment in Sudan. Between 2009 and 2012, several women were sentenced to death by stoning.[149][150][151] Flogging is a legal punishment. Between 2009 and 2014, many people were sentenced to 40–100 lashes.[152][153][154][155][156][157] In August 2014, several Sudanese men died in custody after being flogged.[158][159][160] 53 Christians were flogged in 2001.[161] Sudan's public order law allows police officers to publicly whip women who are accused of public indecency.[162]
+
+Crucifixion is a legal punishment. In 2002, 88 people were sentenced to death for crimes relating to murder, armed robbery, and participating in ethnic clashes, Amnesty International wrote that they could be executed by either hanging or crucifixion.[163]
+
+International Court of Justice jurisdiction is accepted, though with reservations. Under the terms of the Naivasha Agreement, Islamic law did not apply in South Sudan.[164] Since the secession of South Sudan there is some uncertainty as to whether Sharia law will now apply to the non-Muslim minorities present in Sudan, especially because of contradictory statements by al-Bashir on the matter.[165]
+
+The judicial branch of the Sudanese government consists of a Constitutional Court of nine justices, the National Supreme Court, the Court of Cassation,[166] and other national courts; the National Judicial Service Commission provides overall management for the judiciary.
+
+Sudan has abolished the apostasy law, public flogging and alcohol ban for non-Muslims as of 12 July 2020. The draft of a new law was passed in early July. Sudan also criminalized the Female genital mutilation with a punishment of up to 3 years in jail.[167]
+
+Sudan has had a troubled relationship with many of its neighbours and much of the international community, owing to what is viewed as its radical Islamic stance. For much of the 1990s, Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia formed an ad-hoc alliance called the "Front Line States" with support from the United States to check the influence of the National Islamic Front government. The Sudanese Government supported anti-Ugandan rebel groups such as the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).[168]
+
+As the National Islamic Front regime in Khartoum gradually emerged as a real threat to the region and the world, the U.S. began to list Sudan on its list of State Sponsors of Terrorism. After the US listed Sudan as a state sponsor of terrorism, the NIF decided to develop relations with Iraq, and later Iran, the two most controversial countries in the region.
+
+From the mid-1990s, Sudan gradually began to moderate its positions as a result of increased U.S. pressure following the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings, in Tanzania and Kenya, and the new development of oil fields previously in rebel hands. Sudan also has a territorial dispute with Egypt over the Hala'ib Triangle. Since 2003, the foreign relations of Sudan had centered on the support for ending the Second Sudanese Civil War and condemnation of government support for militias in the war in Darfur.
+
+Sudan has extensive economic relations with China. China obtains ten percent of its oil from Sudan. According to a former Sudanese government minister, China is Sudan's largest supplier of arms.[169]
+
+In December 2005, Sudan became one of the few states to recognise Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara.[170]
+
+In 2015, Sudan participated in the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen against the Shia Houthis and forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh,[171] who was deposed in the 2011 uprising.[172]
+
+In June 2019, Sudan was suspended from the African Union over orders to violently confront pro-democracy protesters, which left over 100 civilians dead.[citation needed]
+
+In July 2019, UN ambassadors of 37 countries, including Sudan, have signed a joint letter to the UNHRC defending China's treatment of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region.[173]
+
+The Sudanese Armed Forces is the regular forces of Sudan and is divided into five branches: the Sudanese Army, Sudanese Navy (including the Marine Corps), Sudanese Air Force, Border Patrol and the Internal Affairs Defence Force, totalling about 200,000 troops.  The military of Sudan has become a well-equipped fighting force; a result of increasing local production of heavy and advanced arms.  These forces are under the command of the National Assembly and its strategic principles include defending Sudan's external borders and preserving internal security.
+
+Since the Darfur crisis in 2004, safe-keeping the central government from the armed resistance and rebellion of paramilitary rebel groups such as the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) have been important priorities. While not official, the Sudanese military also uses nomad militias, the most prominent being the Janjaweed, in executing a counter-insurgency war.[174] Somewhere between 200,000[175] and 400,000[12][176][177] people have died in the violent struggles.
+
+Several UN agents are operating in Sudan such as the World Food Program (WFP); the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO); the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP); the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO); the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF); the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR); the United Nations Mine Service (UNMAS), the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the World Bank. Also present is the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).[178][179]
+
+Since Sudan has experienced civil war for many years, many non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are also involved in humanitarian efforts to help internally displaced people. The NGOs are working in every corner of Sudan, especially in the southern part and western parts. During the civil war, international nongovernmental organisations such as the Red Cross were operating mostly in the south but based in the capital Khartoum.[180] The attention of NGOs shifted shortly after the war broke out in the western part of Sudan known as Darfur. The most visible organisation in South Sudan is the Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) consortium.[181] Some international trade organisations categorise Sudan as part of the Greater Horn of Africa[182]
+
+Even though most of the international organisations are substantially concentrated in both South Sudan and the Darfur region, some of them are working in the northern part as well. For example, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization is successfully operating in Khartoum, the capital. It is mainly funded by the European Union and recently opened more vocational training. The Canadian International Development Agency is operating largely in northern Sudan.[183]
+
+Since 1983, a combination of civil war and famine has taken the lives of nearly two million people in Sudan.[184] It is estimated that as many as 200,000 people had been taken into slavery during the Second Sudanese Civil War.[185]
+
+Sudan ranks 172 of 180 countries in terms of freedom of the press according to Reporters Without Borders.  More curbs of press freedom to report official corruption are planned.[186]
+
+Muslims who convert to Christianity can face the death penalty for apostasy, see Persecution of Christians in Sudan and the death sentence against Mariam Yahia Ibrahim Ishag (who actually was raised as Christian). According to a 2013 UNICEF report, 88% of women in Sudan had undergone female genital mutilation.[187] Sudan's Personal Status law on marriage has been criticised for restricting women's rights and allowing child marriage.[188][189] Evidence suggests that support for female genital mutilation remains high, especially among rural and less well educated groups, although it has been declining in recent years.[190] Homosexuality is illegal; as of July 2020 it was no longer a capital offense, with the highest punishment being life imprisonment.[191]
+
+A report published by Human Rights Watch in 2018 revealed that Sudan has made no meaningful attempts to provide accountability for past and current violations. The report documented human rights abuses against civilians in Darfur, southern Kordofan, and Blue Nile. During 2018, the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) used excessive force to disperse protests and detained dozens of activists and opposition members. Moreover, the Sudanese forces blocked United Nations-African Union Hybrid Operation[192] and other international relief and aid agencies to access to displaced people and conflict-ridden areas in Darfur.[193]
+
+A letter dated 14 August 2006, from the executive director of Human Rights Watch found that the Sudanese government is both incapable of protecting its own citizens in Darfur and unwilling to do so, and that its militias are guilty of crimes against humanity. The letter added that these human-rights abuses have existed since 2004.[194] Some reports attribute part of the violations to the rebels as well as the government and the Janjaweed. The U.S. State Department's human-rights report issued in March 2007 claims that "[a]ll parties to the conflagration committed serious abuses, including widespread killing of civilians, rape as a tool of war, systematic torture, robbery and recruitment of child soldiers."[195]
+
+Over 2.8 million civilians have been displaced and the death toll is estimated at 300,000 killed.[196] Both government forces and militias allied with the government are known to attack not only civilians in Darfur, but also humanitarian workers. Sympathisers of rebel groups are arbitrarily detained, as are foreign journalists, human-rights defenders, student activists and displaced people in and around Khartoum, some of whom face torture. The rebel groups have also been accused in a report issued by the U.S. government of attacking humanitarian workers and of killing innocent civilians.[197] According to UNICEF, in 2008, there were as many as 6,000 child soldiers in Darfur.[198]
+
+Sudan is divided into 18 states (wilayat, sing. wilayah). They are further divided into 133 districts.
+
+In addition to the states, there also exist regional administrative bodies established by peace agreements between the central government and rebel groups.
+
+In 2010, Sudan was considered the 17th-fastest-growing economy[201] in the world and the rapid development of the country largely from oil profits even when facing international sanctions was noted by The New York Times in a 2006 article.[202] Because of the secession of South Sudan, which contained over 80 percent of Sudan's oilfields, Sudan entered a phase of stagflation, GDP growth slowed to 3.4 percent in 2014, 3.1 percent in 2015 and is projected to recover slowly to 3.7 percent in 2016 while inflation remained as high as 21.8% as of 2015[update].[203] Sudan's GDP fell from US$123.053 billion in 2017 to US$40.852 billion in 2018.[204]
+
+Even with the oil profits before the secession of South Sudan, Sudan still faced formidable economic problems, and its growth was still a rise from a very low level of per capita output. The economy of Sudan has been steadily growing over the 2000s, and according to a World Bank report the overall growth in GDP in 2010 was 5.2 percent compared to 2009 growth of 4.2 percent.[12] This growth was sustained even during the war in Darfur and period of southern autonomy preceding South Sudan's independence.[205][206]
+Oil was Sudan's main export, with production increasing dramatically during the late 2000s, in the years before South Sudan gained independence in July 2011. With rising oil revenues, the Sudanese economy was booming, with a growth rate of about nine percent in 2007. The independence of oil-rich South Sudan, however, placed most major oilfields out of the Sudanese government's direct control and oil production in Sudan fell from around 450,000 barrels per day (72,000 m3/d) to under 60,000 barrels per day (9,500 m3/d). Production has since recovered to hover around 250,000 barrels per day (40,000 m3/d) for 2014–15.[207]
+
+In order to export oil, South Sudan relies on a pipeline to Port Sudan on Sudan's Red Sea coast, as South Sudan is a landlocked country, as well as the oil refining facilities in Sudan. In August 2012, Sudan and South Sudan agreed a deal to transport South Sudanese oil through Sudanese pipelines to Port Sudan.[208]
+
+The People's Republic of China is one of Sudan's major trading partners, China owns a 40 percent share in the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Company.[209] The country also sells Sudan small arms, which have been used in military operations such as the conflicts in Darfur and South Kordofan.[210]
+
+While historically agriculture remains the main source of income and employment hiring of over 80 percent of Sudanese, and makes up a third of the economic sector, oil production drove most of Sudan's post-2000 growth. Currently, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is working hand in hand with Khartoum government to implement sound macroeconomic policies. This follows a turbulent period in the 1980s when debt-ridden Sudan's relations with the IMF and World Bank soured, culminating in its eventual suspension from the IMF.[211][page needed] The program has been in place since the early 1990s, and also work-out exchange rate and reserve of foreign exchange.[12] Since 1997, Sudan has been implementing the macroeconomic reforms recommended by the International Monetary Fund.[citation needed]
+
+Agricultural production remains Sudan's most-important sector, employing 80 percent of the workforce and contributing 39 percent of GDP, but most farms remain rain-fed and susceptible to drought. Instability, adverse weather and weak world-agricultural prices ensures that much of the population will remain at or below the poverty line for years.[citation needed]
+
+The Merowe Dam, also known as Merowe Multi-Purpose Hydro Project or Hamdab Dam, is a large construction project in northern Sudan, about 350 kilometres (220 mi) north of the capital, Khartoum. It is situated on the River Nile, close to the Fourth Cataract where the river divides into multiple smaller branches with large islands in between. Merowe is a city about 40 kilometres (25 mi) downstream from the dam's construction site.
+
+The main purpose of the dam will be the generation of electricity. Its dimensions make it the largest contemporary hydropower project in Africa. The construction of the dam was finished December 2008, supplying more than 90 percent of the population with electricity. Other gas-powered generating stations are operational in Khartoum State and other states.
+
+According to the Corruptions Perception Index, Sudan is one of the most corrupt nations in the world.[212] According to the Global Hunger Index of 2013, Sudan has an GHI indicator value of 27.0 indicating that the nation has an 'Alarming Hunger Situation.' It is rated the fifth hungriest nation in the world.[213] According to the 2015 Human Development Index (HDI) Sudan ranked the 167th place in human development, indicating Sudan still has one of the lowest human development rates in the world.[214] In 2014, 45% of the population lives on less than US$3.20 per day, up from 43% in 2009.[215]
+
+In Sudan's 2008 census, the population of northern, western and eastern Sudan was recorded to be over 30 million.[218] This puts present estimates of the population of Sudan after the secession of South Sudan at a little over 30 million people. This is a significant increase over the past two decades, as the 1983 census put the total population of Sudan, including present-day South Sudan, at 21.6 million.[219] The population of Greater Khartoum (including Khartoum, Omdurman, and Khartoum North) is growing rapidly and was recorded to be 5.2 million.
+
+Aside from being a refugee-generating country, Sudan also hosts a large population of refugees from other countries. According to UNHCR statistics, more than 1.1 million refugees and asylum seekers lived in Sudan in August, 2019. The majority of this population came from South Sudan (858,607 people), Eritrea (123,413), Syria (93,502), Ethiopia (14,201), the Central African Republic (11,713) and Chad (3,100). Apart from these, the UNHCR report 1,864,195 Internally Displaced Persons (IDP's).[220] Sudan is a party to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.
+
+The Arab presence is estimated at 70% of the Sudanese population and they are mostly Arabized Nubians.[12] Others include North Sudan Nubians, Zurga (South and West Sudan), and Copts.[221][222]
+
+Sudan has 597 groups that speak over 400 different languages and dialects.[223] Sudanese Arabs are by far the largest ethnic group in Sudan. They are almost entirely Muslims; while the majority speak Sudanese Arabic, some other Arab tribes speak different Arabic dialects like Awadia and Fadnia tribes and Bani Arak tribes who speak Najdi Arabic; and Beni Ḥassān, Al-Ashraf and Rashaida who speak Hejazi Arabic. In addition, the Western province comprises various ethnic groups, while a few Arab Bedouin of the northern Rizeigat and others who speak Sudanese Arabic share the same culture and backgrounds of the Sudanese Arabs.
+
+The majority of Arabised and indigenous tribes like the Fur, Zaghawa, Borgo, Masalit and some Baggara ethnic groups, who speak Chadian Arabic, show less cultural integration because of cultural, linguistic and genealogical variations with other Arab and Arabised tribes.[224]
+
+Sudanese Arabs of Northern and Eastern parts descend primarily from migrants from the Arabian Peninsula and intermarriages with the pre-existing indigenous populations of Sudan, especially the Nubian people, who also share a common history with Egypt. Additionally, a few pre-Islamic Arabian tribes existed in Sudan from earlier migrations into the region from Western Arabia, although most Arabs in Sudan are dated from migrations after the 12th century.[225]
+
+The vast majority of Arab tribes in Sudan migrated into the Sudan in the 12th century, intermarried with the indigenous Nubian and other African populations and introduced Islam.[226]
+
+Sudan consists of numerous other non-Arabic groups, such as the Masalit, Zaghawa, Fulani, Northern Nubians, Nuba, and the Beja people.
+
+There is also a small, but prominent Greek community.
+
+Approximately 70 languages are native to Sudan.[227]
+
+Sudanese Arabic is the most widely spoken language in the country. It is the variety of Arabic, an Afroasiatic language of the Semitic branch spoken throughout Sudan. The dialect has borrowed much vocabulary from local Nilo-Saharan languages (Nobiin, Fur, Zaghawa, Mabang). This has resulted in a variety of Arabic that is unique to Sudan, reflecting the way in which the country has been influenced by Nilotic, Arab, and western cultures. Few nomads in Sudan still have similar accents to the ones in Saudi Arabia. Other important languages include Beja (Bedawi) along the Red Sea, with perhaps two million speakers. It is the language from the Afroasiatic family's Cushitic branch that is today spoken in the territory. The second most spoken language in eastern Sudan is the Tigre language, spoken by the other portion of the Beja, the Bani-amir and by the Tigre people.[citation needed]
+
+As with South Sudan, a number of Nilo-Saharan languages are also spoken in Sudan. Fur speakers inhabit the west (Darfur), with perhaps a million speakers. There are likewise various Nubian languages along the Nile in the north. The most linguistically diverse region in the country is the Nuba Hills area in Kordofan, inhabited by speakers of multiple language families, with Darfur and other border regions being second.
+
+The Niger–Congo family is represented by many of the Kordofanian languages, and Indo-European by Domari (Gypsy) and English. Historically, Old Nubian, Greek, and Coptic were the languages of Christian Nubia, while Meroitic was the language of the Kingdom of Kush, which conquered Egypt.
+
+Sudan also has multiple regional sign languages, which are not mutually intelligible. A 2009 proposal for a unified Sudanese Sign Language had been worked out, but was not widely known.[228]
+
+Prior to 2005, Arabic was the nation's sole official language.[229] In the 2005 constitution, Sudan's official languages became Arabic and English.[230]
+
+
+
+At the 2011 division which split off South Sudan, over 97% of the population in the remaining Sudan adheres to Islam.[233] Most Muslims are divided between two groups: Sufi and Salafi (Ansar Al Sunnah) Muslims. Two popular divisions of Sufism, the Ansar and the Khatmia, are associated with the opposition Umma and Democratic Unionist parties, respectively. Only the Darfur region has traditionally been bereft of the Sufi brotherhoods common in the rest of the country.[234]
+
+Long-established groups of Coptic Orthodox and Greek Orthodox Christians exist in Khartoum and other northern cities. Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox communities also exist in Khartoum and eastern Sudan, largely made up of refugees and migrants from the past few decades. The Sudan Evangelical Presbyterian Church also has membership.[along with which others within current borders?]
+
+Religious identity plays a role in the country's political divisions. Northern and western Muslims have dominated the country's political and economic system since independence. The NCP draws much of its support from Islamists, Salafis/Wahhabis and other conservative Arab Muslims in the north. The Umma Party has traditionally attracted Arab followers of the Ansar sect of Sufism as well as non-Arab Muslims from Darfur and Kordofan. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) includes both Arab and non-Arab Muslims in the north and east, especially those in the Khatmia Sufi sect.
+
+Sudanese culture melds the behaviors, practices, and beliefs of about 578 ethnic groups, communicating in 145 different languages, in a region microcosmic of Africa, with geographic extremes varying from sandy desert to tropical forest. Recent evidence suggests that while most citizens of the country identify strongly with both Sudan and their religion, Arab and African supranational identities are much more polarising and contested.[235]
+
+Sudan has a rich and unique musical culture that has been through chronic instability and repression during the modern history of Sudan. Beginning with the imposition of strict Salafi interpretation of sharia law in 1989, many of the country's most prominent poets, like Mahjoub Sharif, were imprisoned while others, like Mohammed el Amin (returned to Sudan in the mid-1990s) and Mohammed Wardi (returned to Sudan 2003), fled to Cairo. Traditional music suffered too, with traditional Zār ceremonies being interrupted and drums confiscated [1]. At the same time European militaries contributed to the development of Sudanese music by introducing new instruments and styles; military bands, especially the Scottish bagpipes, were renowned, and set traditional music to military march music. The march March Shulkawi No 1, is an example, set to the sounds of the Shilluk. Northern Sudan listens to different music than the rest of Sudan. A type of music called Aldlayib uses a musical instrument called the Tambur. The Tambur has five strings and is made from wood and makes music accompanied by the voices of human applause and singing artists. This music has a perfect blend that gives the area of the Northern State a special character.
+
+The cinema of Sudan began with cinematography by the British colonial presence in the early 20th century. After independence in 1956, a vigorous documentary film tradition was established, but financial pressures and serious constraints imposed by the Islamist government led to the decline of filmmaking from the 1990s onwards. Since the 2010s, several initiatives have shown an encouraging revival of filmmaking and public interest in film shows and festivals, albeit limited mainly to Khartoum.
+
+The use of photography in Sudan goes back to the 1880s and the Anglo-Egyptian rule. As in other countries, the growing importance of photography for mass media like newspapers, as well as for amateur photographers led to a wider photographic documentation and use of photographs in Sudan during the 20th century and beyond. In the 21st century, photography in Sudan has undergone important changes, mainly due to digital photography and distribution through social media and the internet.
+
+The most popular sports in Sudan are athletics (track and field) and football.[citation needed] Though not as successful as football, basketball, handball, and volleyball are also popular in Sudan. In the 1960s and 1970s, the national basketball team finished among the continent's top teams.[citation needed] Nowadays, it is only a minor force.
+
+Sudanese football has a long history. Sudan was one of the four African nations – the others being Egypt, Ethiopia and South Africa – which formed African football. Sudan hosted the first African Cup of Nations in 1956, and has won the African Cup of Nations once, in 1970. Two years later, the Sudan's National Football Team participated in the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. The nation's capital is home to the Khartoum League, which is considered to be the oldest football league in Africa.[citation needed]
+
+Sudanese football teams such as Al-Hilal, Al-Merrikh, and Abdelgadir Osman FC are among the nation's strongest teams. Other teams like Khartoum, El-Neel, Al-Nidal El-Nahud and Hay-Al Arab, are also starting to grow in popularity.
+
+Most Sudanese wear either traditional or western attire. A traditional garb widely worn by Sudanese men is the galabiya, which is a loose-fitting, long-sleeved, collarless ankle-length garment also common to Egypt. The galabiya is often accompanied by a large turban and a scarf, and the garment may be white, colored, striped, and made of fabric varying in thickness, depending on the season of the year and personal preferences.
+
+The most common dress for Sudanese women is the thobe or thawb, pronounced tobe in Sudanese dialect. The thobe is a white or colorful long, one piece cloth that women wrap around their inner garments, usually covering their head and hair.
+
+Due to a 1991 penal code (Public Order Law), women were not allowed to wear trousers in public, because it was interpreted as an "obscene outfit." The punishment for wearing trousers could be up to 40 lashes, but after being found guilty in 2009, one woman was fined the equivalent of 200 U.S. dollars instead.[152][236]
+
+Education in Sudan is free and compulsory for children aged 6 to 13 years, although more than 40% of children are not going to schools due to the economic situation. Environmental and social factors also increase the difficulty of getting to school, especially for girls.[237] Primary education consists of eight years, followed by three years of secondary education. The former educational ladder 6 + 3 + 3 was changed in 1990. The primary language at all levels is Arabic. Schools are concentrated in urban areas; many in the west have been damaged or destroyed by years of civil war. In 2001 the World Bank estimated that primary enrollment was 46 percent of eligible pupils and 21 percent of secondary students. Enrollment varies widely, falling below 20 percent in some provinces. The literacy rate is 70.2% of total population, male: 79.6%, female: 60.8%.[12]
+
+Sudan has around 25–30 universities; instruction is primarily in Arabic. Education at the secondary and university levels has been seriously hampered by the requirement that most males perform military service before completing their education.[238] In addition, the "Islamisation" encouraged by president Al-Bashir alienated many researchers: the official language of instruction in universities was changed from English to Arabic and Islamic courses became mandatory. Internal science funding withered.[239] According to UNESCO, more than 3,000 Sudanese researchers left the country between 2002 and 2014. By 2013, the country had a mere 19 researchers for every 100,000 citizens, or 1/30 the ratio of Egypt, according to the Sudanese National Centre for Research. In 2015, Sudan published only about 500 scientific papers.[239] For comparison, Poland, a country of similar population size, publishes on the order of 10,000 papers per year.[240]
+
+Sudan has a life expectancy of 65.1 years according to the latest data for the year 2019 from the macrotrends.[241] Infant mortality in 2016 was 44.8 per 1,000.[242]
+
+UNICEF estimates that 87% of Sudanese women and girls between the ages of 15 to 49 have had female genital mutilation performed on them.[243]
+
+Lat. and Long. 15°37′59″N 32°31′59″E / 15.63306°N 32.53306°E / 15.63306; 32.53306 (Khartoum)
+
+Click on a coloured area to see an article about English in that country or region
+
+Coordinates: 15°N 032°E / 15°N 32°E / 15; 32

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+Pain is a distressing feeling often caused by intense or damaging stimuli. The International Association for the Study of Pain's widely used definition defines pain as "An unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with, or resembling that associated with, actual or potential tissue damage".[1] In medical diagnosis, pain is regarded as a symptom of an underlying condition.
+
+Pain motivates the individual to withdraw from damaging situations, to protect a damaged body part while it heals, and to avoid similar experiences in the future.[2] Most pain resolves once the noxious stimulus is removed and the body has healed, but it may persist despite removal of the stimulus and apparent healing of the body. Sometimes pain arises in the absence of any detectable stimulus, damage or disease.[3]
+
+Pain is the most common reason for physician consultation in most developed countries.[4][5] It is a major symptom in many medical conditions, and can interfere with a person's quality of life and general functioning.[6] Simple pain medications are useful in 20% to 70% of cases.[7] Psychological factors such as social support, hypnotic suggestion, cognitive behavioral therapy, excitement, or distraction can affect pain's intensity or unpleasantness.[8][9] In some debates regarding physician-assisted suicide or euthanasia, pain has been used as an argument to permit people who are terminally ill to end their lives.[10]
+
+Pain is usually transitory, lasting only until the noxious stimulus is removed or the underlying damage or pathology has healed, but some painful conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis, peripheral neuropathy, cancer and idiopathic pain, may persist for years. Pain that lasts a long time is called chronic or persistent, and pain that resolves quickly is called acute. Traditionally, the distinction between acute and chronic pain has relied upon an arbitrary interval of time between onset and resolution; the two most commonly used markers being 3 months and 6 months since the onset of pain,[11] though some theorists and researchers have placed the transition from acute to chronic pain at 12 months.[12]:93 Others apply acute to pain that lasts less than 30 days, chronic to pain of more than six months' duration, and subacute to pain that lasts from one to six months.[13]  A popular alternative definition of chronic pain, involving no arbitrarily fixed durations, is "pain that extends beyond the expected period of healing".[11] Chronic pain may be classified as cancer pain or else as benign.[13]
+
+Allodynia is pain experienced in response to a normally painless stimulus.[14]  It has no biological function and is classified by stimuli into dynamic mechanical, punctate and static.[14][15] In osteoarthritis, NGF has been identified as being involved in allodynia.[15] The extent and intensity of sensation can be assessed through locating trigger points and the region of sensation, as well as utilising phantom maps.[14]
+
+Phantom pain is pain felt in a part of the body that has been amputated, or from which the brain no longer receives signals. It is a type of neuropathic pain.[16]
+
+The prevalence of phantom pain in upper limb amputees is nearly 82%, and in lower limb amputees is 54%.[16] One study found that eight days after amputation, 72% of patients had phantom limb pain, and six months later, 67% reported it.[17][18] Some amputees experience continuous pain that varies in intensity or quality; others experience several bouts of pain per day, or it may reoccur less often. It is often described as shooting, crushing, burning or cramping. If the pain is continuous for a long period, parts of the intact body may become sensitized, so that touching them evokes pain in the phantom limb. Phantom limb pain may accompany urination or defecation.[19]:61–9
+
+Local anesthetic injections into the nerves or sensitive areas of the stump may relieve pain for days, weeks, or sometimes permanently, despite the drug wearing off in a matter of hours; and small injections of hypertonic saline into the soft tissue between vertebrae produces local pain that radiates into the phantom limb for ten minutes or so and may be followed by hours, weeks or even longer of partial or total relief from phantom pain. Vigorous vibration or electrical stimulation of the stump, or current from electrodes surgically implanted onto the spinal cord, all produce relief in some patients.[19]:61–9
+
+Mirror box therapy produces the illusion of movement and touch in a phantom limb which in turn may cause a reduction in pain.[20]
+
+Paraplegia, the loss of sensation and voluntary motor control after serious spinal cord damage, may be accompanied by girdle pain at the level of the spinal cord damage, visceral pain evoked by a filling bladder or bowel, or, in five to ten per cent of paraplegics, phantom body pain in areas of complete sensory loss. This phantom body pain is initially described as burning or tingling but may evolve into severe crushing or pinching pain, or the sensation of fire running down the legs or of a knife twisting in the flesh. Onset may be immediate or may not occur until years after the disabling injury. Surgical treatment rarely provides lasting relief.[19]:61–9
+
+Breakthrough pain is transitory pain that comes on suddenly and is not alleviated by the patient's regular pain management. It is common in cancer patients who often have background pain that is generally well-controlled by medications, but who also sometimes experience bouts of severe pain that from time to time "breaks through" the medication. The characteristics of breakthrough cancer pain vary from person to person and according to the cause. Management of breakthrough pain can entail intensive use of opioids, including fentanyl.[21][22]
+
+The ability to experience pain is essential for protection from injury, and recognition of the presence of injury. Episodic analgesia may occur under special circumstances, such as in the excitement of sport or war: a soldier on the battlefield may feel no pain for many hours from a traumatic amputation or other severe injury.[23]
+
+Although unpleasantness is an essential part of the IASP definition of pain,[24] it is possible to induce a state described as intense pain devoid of unpleasantness in some patients, with morphine injection or psychosurgery.[25] Such patients report that they have pain but are not bothered by it; they recognize the sensation of pain but suffer little, or not at all.[26] Indifference to pain can also rarely be present from birth; these people have normal nerves on medical investigations, and find pain unpleasant, but do not avoid repetition of the pain stimulus.[27]
+
+Insensitivity to pain may also result from abnormalities in the nervous system. This is usually the result of acquired damage to the nerves, such as spinal cord injury, diabetes mellitus (diabetic neuropathy), or leprosy in countries where that disease is prevalent.[28] These individuals are at risk of tissue damage and infection due to undiscovered injuries. People with diabetes-related nerve damage, for instance, sustain poorly-healing foot ulcers as a result of decreased sensation.[29]
+
+A much smaller number of people are insensitive to pain due to an inborn abnormality of the nervous system, known as "congenital insensitivity to pain".[27] Children with this condition incur carelessly-repeated damage to their tongues, eyes, joints, skin, and muscles. Some die before adulthood, and others have a reduced life expectancy.[citation needed] Most people with congenital insensitivity to pain have one of five hereditary sensory and autonomic neuropathies (which includes familial dysautonomia and congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis).[30] These conditions feature decreased sensitivity to pain together with other neurological abnormalities, particularly of the autonomic nervous system.[27][30] A very rare syndrome with isolated congenital insensitivity to pain has been linked with mutations in the SCN9A gene, which codes for a sodium channel (Nav1.7) necessary in conducting pain nerve stimuli.[31]
+
+Experimental subjects challenged by acute pain and patients in chronic pain experience impairments in attention control, working memory, mental flexibility, problem solving, and information processing speed.[32] Acute and chronic pain are also associated with increased depression, anxiety, fear, and anger.[33]
+
+If I have matters right, the consequences of pain will include direct physical distress, unemployment, financial difficulties, marital disharmony, and difficulties in concentration and attention…
+
+Although pain is considered to be aversive and unpleasant and is therefore usually avoided, a meta-analysis which summarized and evaluated numerous studies from various psychological disciplines, found a reduction in negative affect. Across studies, participants that were subjected to acute physical pain in the laboratory subsequently reported feeling better than those in non-painful control conditions, a finding which was also reflected in physiological parameters.[35] A potential mechanism to explain this effect is provided by the opponent-process theory.
+
+Before the relatively recent discovery of neurons and their role in pain, various different body functions were proposed to account for pain. There were several competing early theories of pain among the ancient Greeks: Hippocrates believed that it was due to an imbalance in vital fluids.[36] In the 11th century, Avicenna theorized that there were a number of feeling senses including touch, pain and titillation.[37]
+
+In 1644, René Descartes theorized that pain was a disturbance that passed down along nerve fibers until the disturbance reached the brain.[36][38] Descartes's work, along with Avicenna's, prefigured the 19th-century development of specificity theory. Specificity theory saw pain as "a specific sensation, with its own sensory apparatus independent of touch and other senses".[39] Another theory that came to prominence in the 18th and 19th centuries was intensive theory, which conceived of pain not as a unique sensory modality, but an emotional state produced by stronger than normal stimuli such as intense light, pressure or temperature.[40] By the mid-1890s, specificity was backed mostly by physiologists and physicians, and the intensive theory was mostly backed by psychologists. However, after a series of clinical observations by Henry Head and experiments by Max von Frey, the psychologists migrated to specificity almost en masse, and by century's end, most textbooks on physiology and psychology were presenting pain specificity as fact.[37][39]
+
+Wilhelm Erb's (1874) "intensive" theory, that a pain signal can be generated by intense enough stimulation of any sensory receptor, has been soundly disproved. Some sensory fibers do not differentiate between noxious and non-noxious stimuli, while others, nociceptors, respond only to noxious, high intensity stimuli. At the peripheral end of the nociceptor, noxious stimuli generate currents that, above a given threshold, send signals along the nerve fiber to the spinal cord. The "specificity" (whether it responds to thermal, chemical or mechanical features of its environment) of a nociceptor is determined by which ion channels it expresses at its peripheral end. Dozens of different types of nociceptor ion channels have so far been identified, and their exact functions are still being determined.[41]
+
+The pain signal travels from the periphery to the spinal cord along an A-delta or C fiber. Because the A-delta fiber is thicker than the C fiber, and is thinly sheathed in an electrically insulating material (myelin), it carries its signal faster (5–30 m/s) than the unmyelinated C fiber (0.5–2 m/s).[42] Pain evoked by the A-delta fibers is described as sharp and is felt first. This is followed by a duller pain, often described as burning, carried by the C fibers.[43] These "first order" neurons enter the spinal cord via Lissauer's tract.
+
+These A-delta and C fibers connect with "second order" nerve fibers in the central gelatinous substance of the spinal cord (laminae II and III of the dorsal horns). The second order fibers then cross the cord via the anterior white commissure and ascend in the spinothalamic tract. Before reaching the brain, the spinothalamic tract splits into the lateral, neospinothalamic tract and the medial, paleospinothalamic tract.[44]
+
+Second order, spinal cord fibers dedicated to carrying A-delta fiber pain signals, and others that carry both A-delta and C fiber pain signals to the thalamus have been identified. Other spinal cord fibers, known as wide dynamic range neurons, respond to A-delta and C fibers, but also to the large A-beta fibers that carry touch, pressure and vibration signals.[42] Pain-related activity in the thalamus spreads to the insular cortex (thought to embody, among other things, the feeling that distinguishes pain from other homeostatic emotions such as itch and nausea) and anterior cingulate cortex (thought to embody, among other things, the affective/motivational element, the unpleasantness of pain).[45] Pain that is distinctly located also activates primary and secondary somatosensory cortex.[46]
+
+In 1955, DC Sinclair and G Weddell developed peripheral pattern theory, based on a 1934 suggestion by John Paul Nafe. They proposed that all skin fiber endings (with the exception of those innervating hair cells) are identical, and that pain is produced by intense stimulation of these fibers.[39] Another 20th-century theory was gate control theory, introduced by Ronald Melzack and Patrick Wall in the 1965 Science article "Pain Mechanisms: A New Theory".[47] The authors proposed that both thin (pain) and large diameter (touch, pressure, vibration) nerve fibers carry information from the site of injury to two destinations in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord, and that the more large fiber activity relative to thin fiber activity at the inhibitory cell, the less pain is felt.[38]
+
+In 1968 Ronald Melzack and Kenneth Casey described chronic pain in terms of its three dimensions:
+
+They theorized that pain intensity (the sensory discriminative dimension) and unpleasantness (the affective-motivational dimension) are not simply determined by the magnitude of the painful stimulus, but "higher" cognitive activities can influence perceived intensity and unpleasantness. Cognitive activities "may affect both sensory and affective experience or they may modify primarily the affective-motivational dimension. Thus, excitement in games or war appears to block both dimensions of pain, while suggestion and placebos may modulate the affective-motivational dimension and leave the sensory-discriminative dimension relatively undisturbed." (p. 432) The paper ends with a call to action: "Pain can be treated not only by trying to cut down the sensory input by anesthetic block, surgical intervention and the like, but also by influencing the motivational-affective and cognitive factors as well." (p. 435)
+
+Pain is part of the body's defense system, producing a reflexive retraction from the painful stimulus, and tendencies to protect the affected body part while it heals, and avoid that harmful situation in the future.[48][49] It is an important part of animal life, vital to healthy survival. People with congenital insensitivity to pain have reduced life expectancy.[27]
+
+In The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, biologist Richard Dawkins addresses the question of why pain should have the quality of being painful. He describes the alternative as a mental raising of a "red flag". To argue why that red flag might be insufficient, Dawkins argues that drives must compete with one other within living beings. The most "fit" creature would be the one whose pains are well balanced. Those pains which mean certain death when ignored will become the most powerfully felt. The relative intensities of pain, then, may resemble the relative importance of that risk to our ancestors.[a] This resemblance will not be perfect, however, because natural selection can be a poor designer. This may have maladaptive results such as supernormal stimuli.[50]
+
+Pain, however, does not only wave a "red flag" within living beings but may also act as a warning sign and a call for help to other living beings. Especially in humans who readily helped each other in case of sickness or injury throughout their evolutionary history, pain might be shaped by natural selection to be a credible and convincing signal of need for relief, help, and care.[51]
+
+Idiopathic pain (pain that persists after the trauma or pathology has healed, or that arises without any apparent cause) may be an exception to the idea that pain is helpful to survival, although some psychodynamic psychologists argue that such pain is psychogenic, enlisted as a protective distraction to keep dangerous emotions unconscious.[52]
+
+In pain science, thresholds are measured by gradually increasing the intensity of a stimulus in a procedure called quantitative sensory testing which involves such stimuli as electric current, thermal (heat or cold), mechanical (pressure, touch, vibration), ischemic, or chemical stimuli applied to the subject to evoke a response.[53] The "pain perception threshold" is the point at which the subject begins to feel pain, and the "pain threshold intensity" is the stimulus intensity at which the stimulus begins to hurt. The "pain tolerance threshold" is reached when the subject acts to stop the pain.[53]
+
+A person's self-report is the most reliable measure of pain.[54][55][56]  Some health care professionals may underestimate pain severity.[57] A definition of pain widely employed in nursing, emphasizing its subjective nature and the importance of believing patient reports, was introduced by Margo McCaffery in 1968: "Pain is whatever the experiencing person says it is, existing whenever he says it does".[58] To assess intensity, the patient may be asked to locate their pain on a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 being no pain at all, and 10 the worst pain they have ever felt. Quality can be established by having the patient complete the McGill Pain Questionnaire indicating which words best describe their pain.[6]
+
+The visual analogue scale is a common, reproducible tool in the assessment of pain and pain relief.[59] The scale is a continuous line anchored by verbal descriptors, one for each extreme of pain where a higher score indicates greater pain intensity. It is usually 10 cm in length with no intermediate descriptors as to avoid marking of scores around a preferred numeric value. When applied as a pain descriptor, these anchors are often 'no pain' and 'worst imaginable pain". Cut-offs for pain classification have been recommended as no pain (0-4mm), mild pain (5-44mm), moderate pain (45-74mm) and severe pain (75-100mm).[60]
+[check quotation syntax]
+
+The Multidimensional Pain Inventory (MPI) is a questionnaire designed to assess the psychosocial state of a person with chronic pain. Combining the MPI characterization of the person with their IASP five-category pain profile is recommended for deriving the most useful case description.[11]
+
+Non-verbal people cannot use words to tell others that they are experiencing pain.  However, they may be able to communicate through other means, such as blinking, pointing, or nodding.[61]
+
+With a non-communicative person, observation becomes critical, and specific behaviors can be monitored as pain indicators. Behaviors such as facial grimacing and guarding (trying to protect part of the body from being bumped or touched) indicate pain, as well as an increase or decrease in vocalizations, changes in routine behavior patterns and mental status changes. Patients experiencing pain may exhibit withdrawn social behavior and possibly experience a decreased appetite and decreased nutritional intake. A change in condition that deviates from baseline, such as moaning with movement or when manipulating a body part, and limited range of motion are also potential pain indicators. In patients who possess language but are incapable of expressing themselves effectively, such as those with dementia, an increase in confusion or display of aggressive behaviors or agitation may signal that discomfort exists, and further assessment is necessary.  Changes in behavior may be noticed by caregivers who are familiar with the person's normal behavior.[61]
+
+Infants do feel pain, but lack the language needed to report it, and so communicate distress by crying. A non-verbal pain assessment should be conducted involving the parents, who will notice changes in the infant which may not be obvious to the health care provider. Pre-term babies are more sensitive to painful stimuli than those carried to full term.[62]
+
+Another approach, when pain is suspected, is to give the person treatment for pain, and then watch to see whether the suspected indicators of pain subside.[61]
+
+The way in which one experiences and responds to pain is related to sociocultural characteristics, such as gender, ethnicity, and age.[63][64] An aging adult may not respond to pain in the same way that a younger person might. Their ability to recognize pain may be blunted by illness or the use of medication. Depression may also keep older adult from reporting they are in pain. Decline in self-care may also indicate the older adult is experiencing pain. They may be reluctant to report pain because they do not want to be perceived as weak, or may feel it is impolite or shameful to complain, or they may feel the pain is a form of deserved punishment.[65][66]
+
+Cultural barriers may also affect the likelihood of reporting pain. Sufferers may feel that certain treatments go against their religious beliefs. They may not report pain because they feel it is a sign that death is near. Many people fear the stigma of addiction, and avoid pain treatment so as not to be prescribed potentially addicting drugs. Many Asians do not want to lose respect in society by admitting they are in pain and need help, believing the pain should be borne in silence, while other cultures feel they should report pain immediately to receive immediate relief.[62]
+
+Gender can also be a perceived factor in reporting pain. Gender differences can be the result of social and cultural expectations, with women expected to be more emotional and show pain, and men more stoic.[62] As a result, female pain is often stigmatized, leading to less urgent treatment of women based on social expectations of their ability to accurately report it.[67]  This leads to extended emergency room wait times for women and frequent dismissal of their ability to accurately report pain.[68][69]
+
+Pain is a symptom of many medical conditions. Knowing the time of onset, location, intensity, pattern of occurrence (continuous, intermittent, etc.), exacerbating and relieving factors, and quality (burning, sharp, etc.) of the pain will help the examining physician to accurately diagnose the problem. For example, chest pain described as extreme heaviness may indicate myocardial infarction, while chest pain described as tearing may indicate aortic dissection.[70][71]
+
+Functional magnetic resonance imaging brain scanning has been used to measure pain, and correlates well with self-reported pain.[72][73][74]
+
+Nociceptive pain is caused by stimulation of sensory nerve fibers that respond to stimuli approaching or exceeding harmful intensity (nociceptors), and may be classified according to the mode of noxious stimulation. The most common categories are "thermal" (e.g. heat or cold), "mechanical" (e.g. crushing, tearing, shearing, etc.) and "chemical" (e.g. iodine in a cut or chemicals released during inflammation). Some nociceptors respond to more than one of these modalities and are consequently designated polymodal.
+
+Nociceptive pain may also be classed according to the site of origin and divided into "visceral", "deep somatic" and "superficial somatic" pain. Visceral structures (e.g., the heart, liver and intestines) are highly sensitive to stretch, ischemia and inflammation, but relatively insensitive to other stimuli that normally evoke pain in other structures, such as burning and cutting. Visceral pain is diffuse, difficult to locate and often referred to a distant, usually superficial, structure. It may be accompanied by nausea and vomiting and may be described as sickening, deep, squeezing, and dull.[75] Deep somatic pain is initiated by stimulation of nociceptors in ligaments, tendons, bones, blood vessels, fasciae and muscles, and is dull, aching, poorly-localized pain. Examples include sprains and broken bones. Superficial somatic pain is initiated by activation of nociceptors in the skin or other superficial tissue, and is sharp, well-defined and clearly located. Examples of injuries that produce superficial somatic pain include minor wounds and minor (first degree) burns.[12]
+
+Neuropathic pain is caused by damage or disease affecting any part of the nervous system involved in bodily feelings (the somatosensory system).[76] Neuropathic pain may be divided into peripheral, central, or mixed (peripheral and central) neuropathic pain. Peripheral neuropathic pain is often described as "burning", "tingling", "electrical", "stabbing", or "pins and needles".[77] Bumping the "funny bone" elicits acute peripheral neuropathic pain.
+
+Nociplastic pain is pain characterized by a changed nociception (but without evidence of real or threatened tissue damage, or without disease or damage in the somatosensory system).[78]
+
+This applies, for example, to fibromyalgia patients.
+
+Psychogenic pain, also called psychalgia or somatoform pain, is pain caused, increased, or prolonged by mental, emotional, or behavioral factors.[79] Headache, back pain, and stomach pain are sometimes diagnosed as psychogenic.[79] Sufferers are often stigmatized, because both medical professionals and the general public tend to think that pain from a psychological source is not "real". However, specialists consider that it is no less actual or hurtful than pain from any other source.[25]
+
+People with long-term pain frequently display psychological disturbance, with elevated scores on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory scales of hysteria, depression and hypochondriasis (the "neurotic triad"). Some investigators have argued that it is this neuroticism that causes acute pain to turn chronic, but clinical evidence points the other direction, to chronic pain causing neuroticism. When long-term pain is relieved by therapeutic intervention, scores on the neurotic triad and anxiety fall, often to normal levels. Self-esteem, often low in chronic pain patients, also shows improvement once pain has resolved.[19]:31–2
+
+Inadequate treatment of pain is widespread throughout surgical wards, intensive care units, and accident and emergency departments, in general practice, in the management of all forms of chronic pain including cancer pain, and in end of life care.[80][81][82][83][84][85][86]  This neglect extends to all ages, from newborns to medically frail elderly.[87][88] African and Hispanic Americans are more likely than others to suffer unnecessarily while in the care of a physician;[89][90] and women's pain is more likely to be undertreated than men's.[91]
+
+The International Association for the Study of Pain advocates that the relief of pain should be recognized as a human right, that chronic pain should be considered a disease in its own right, and that pain medicine should have the full status of a medical specialty.[92] It is a specialty only in China and Australia at this time.[93] Elsewhere, pain medicine is a subspecialty under disciplines such as anesthesiology, physiatry, neurology, palliative medicine and psychiatry.[94] In 2011, Human Rights Watch alerted that tens of millions of people worldwide are still denied access to inexpensive medications for severe pain.[95]
+
+Acute pain is usually managed with medications such as analgesics and anesthetics.[96] Caffeine when added to pain medications such as ibuprofen, may provide some additional benefit.[97][98] Ketamine can be used instead of opioids for short term pain.[99] Management of chronic pain, however, is more difficult, and may require the coordinated efforts of a pain management team, which typically includes medical practitioners, clinical pharmacists, clinical psychologists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners.[100]
+
+
+
+Sugar (sucrose) when taken by mouth reduces pain in newborn babies undergoing some medical procedures (a lancing of the heel, venipuncture, and intramuscular injections). Sugar does not remove pain from circumcision, and it is unknown if sugar reduces pain for other procedures.[101]
+Sugar did not affect pain-related electrical activity in the brains of newborns one second after the heel lance procedure.[102] Sweet liquid by mouth moderately reduces the rate and duration of crying caused by immunization injection in children between one and twelve months of age.[103]
+
+Individuals with more social support experience less cancer pain, take less pain medication, report less labor pain and are less likely to use epidural anesthesia during childbirth, or suffer from chest pain after coronary artery bypass surgery.[8]
+
+Suggestion can significantly affect pain intensity. About 35% of people report marked relief after receiving a saline injection they believed to be morphine. This placebo effect is more pronounced in people who are prone to anxiety, and so anxiety reduction may account for some of the effect, but it does not account for all of it. Placebos are more effective for intense pain than mild pain; and they produce progressively weaker effects with repeated administration.[19]:26–8 It is possible for many with chronic pain to become so absorbed in an activity or entertainment that the pain is no longer felt, or is greatly diminished.[19]:22–3
+
+Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has been shown effective for improving quality of life in those with chronic pain but the reduction in suffering is modest, and the CBT method was not shown to have any effect on outcome.[104] Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) may also be effective in the treatment of chronic pain,[105] as may mindfulness-based pain management (MBPM).[106][107][108]
+
+A number of meta-analyses have found clinical hypnosis to be effective in controlling pain associated with diagnostic and surgical procedures in both adults and children, as well as pain associated with cancer and childbirth.[109] A 2007 review of 13 studies found evidence for the efficacy of hypnosis in the reduction of chronic pain under some conditions, though the number of patients enrolled in the studies was low, raising issues related to the statistical power to detect group differences, and most lacked credible controls for placebo or expectation. The authors concluded that "although the findings provide support for the general applicability of hypnosis in the treatment of chronic pain, considerably more research will be needed to fully determine the effects of hypnosis for different chronic-pain conditions."[110]
+
+An analysis of the 13 highest quality studies of pain treatment with acupuncture, published in January 2009, concluded there was little difference in the effect of real, faked and no acupuncture.[111] However, more recent reviews have found some benefit.[112][113][114] Additionally, there is tentative evidence for a few herbal medicines.[115] There has been some interest in the relationship between vitamin D and pain, but the evidence so far from controlled trials for such a relationship, other than in osteomalacia, is inconclusive.[116]
+
+For chronic (long-term) lower back pain, spinal manipulation produces tiny, clinically insignificant, short-term improvements in pain and function, compared sham therapy and other interventions.[117] Spinal manipulation produces the same outcome as other treatments, such as general practitioner care, pain-relief drugs, physical therapy, and exercise, for acute (short-term) lower back pain.[117]
+
+Pain is the main reason for visiting an emergency department in more than 50% of cases,[118] and is present in 30% of family practice visits.[119]  Several epidemiological studies have reported widely varying prevalence rates for chronic pain, ranging from 12 to 80% of the population.[120] It becomes more common as people approach death. A study of 4,703 patients found that 26% had pain in the last two years of life, increasing to 46% in the last month.[121]
+
+A survey of 6,636 children (0–18 years of age) found that, of the 5,424 respondents, 54% had experienced pain in the preceding three months. A quarter reported having experienced recurrent or continuous pain for three months or more, and a third of these reported frequent and intense pain. The intensity of chronic pain was higher for girls, and girls' reports of chronic pain increased markedly between ages 12 and 14.[122]
+
+In 1994, responding to the need for a more useful system for describing chronic pain, the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) classified pain according to specific characteristics:
+
+However, this system has been criticized by Clifford J. Woolf and others as inadequate for guiding research and treatment.[124][non-primary source needed]
+Woolf suggests three classes of pain:
+
+The nature or meaning of physical pain has been diversely understood by religious or secular traditions from antiquity to modern times.[126][127]
+
+Physical pain is an important political topic in relation to various issues, including pain management policy, drug control, animal rights or animal welfare, torture, and pain compliance. In various contexts, the deliberate infliction of pain in the form of corporal punishment is used as retribution for an offence, or for the purpose of disciplining or reforming a wrongdoer, or to deter attitudes or behaviour deemed unacceptable. The slow slicing, or death by a thousand cuts, was a form of execution in China reserved for crimes viewed as especially severe, such as high treason or patricide. In some cultures, extreme practices such as mortification of the flesh or painful rites of passage are highly regarded. For example, the Sateré-Mawé people of Brazil use intentional bullet ant stings as part of their initiation rites to become warriors.[128]
+
+The most reliable method for assessing pain in most humans is by asking a question: a person may report pain that cannot be detected by any known physiological measure. However, like infants, animals cannot answer questions about whether they feel pain; thus the defining criterion for pain in humans cannot be applied to them. Philosophers and scientists have responded to this difficulty in a variety of ways.  René Descartes for example argued that animals lack consciousness and therefore do not experience pain and suffering in the way that humans do.[129] Bernard Rollin of Colorado State University, the principal author of two U.S. federal laws regulating pain relief for animals,[b] writes that researchers remained unsure into the 1980s as to whether animals experience pain, and that veterinarians trained in the U.S. before 1989 were simply taught to ignore animal pain.[131] In his interactions with scientists and other veterinarians, he was regularly asked to "prove" that animals are conscious, and to provide "scientifically acceptable" grounds for claiming that they feel pain.[131] Carbone writes that the view that animals feel pain differently is now a minority view.[citation needed] Academic reviews of the topic are more equivocal, noting that although the argument that animals have at least simple conscious thoughts and feelings has strong support,[132] some critics continue to question how reliably animal mental states can be determined.[129][133] The ability of invertebrate species of animals, such as insects, to feel pain and suffering is also unclear.[134][135][136]
+
+The presence of pain in an animal cannot be known for certain, but it can be inferred through physical and behavioral reactions.[137] Specialists currently believe that all vertebrates can feel pain, and that certain invertebrates, like the octopus, may also.[134][138][139] As for other animals, plants, or other entities, their ability to feel physical pain is at present a question beyond scientific reach, since no mechanism is known by which they could have such a feeling. In particular, there are no known nociceptors in groups such as plants, fungi, and most insects,[140] except for instance in fruit flies.[141]
+
+In vertebrates, endogenous opioids are neuromodulators that moderate pain by interacting with opioid receptors.[142] Opioids and opioid receptors occur naturally in crustaceans and, although at present no certain conclusion can be drawn,[143] their presence indicates that lobsters may be able to experience pain.[143][144] Opioids may mediate their pain in the same way as in vertebrates.[144] Veterinary medicine uses, for actual or potential animal pain, the same analgesics and anesthetics as used in humans.[145]
+
+First attested in English in 1297, the word peyn comes from the Old French peine, in turn from Latin poena meaning "punishment, penalty"[146] (in L.L. also meaning "torment, hardship, suffering") and that from Greek ποινή (poine), generally meaning "price paid, penalty, punishment".[147][148]
+

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+Sulfur (in British English, sulphur) is a chemical element with the symbol S and atomic number 16. It is abundant, multivalent and nonmetallic. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms form cyclic octatomic molecules with a chemical formula S8. Elemental sulfur is a bright yellow, crystalline solid at room temperature.
+
+Sulfur is the tenth most common element by mass in the universe, and the fifth most common on Earth. Though sometimes found in pure, native form, sulfur on Earth usually occurs as sulfide and sulfate minerals. Being abundant in native form, sulfur was known in ancient times, being mentioned for its uses in ancient India, ancient Greece, China, and Egypt. Historically and in literature sulfur is also called brimstone,[4] which means "burning stone".[5] Today, almost all elemental sulfur is produced as a byproduct of removing sulfur-containing contaminants from natural gas and petroleum. The greatest commercial use of the element is the production of sulfuric acid for sulfate and phosphate fertilizers, and other chemical processes. The element sulfur is used in matches, insecticides, and fungicides. Many sulfur compounds are odoriferous, and the smells of odorized natural gas, skunk scent, grapefruit, and garlic are due to organosulfur compounds. Hydrogen sulfide gives the characteristic odor to rotting eggs and other biological processes.
+
+Sulfur is an essential element for all life, but almost always in the form of organosulfur compounds or metal sulfides. Three amino acids (cysteine, cystine, and methionine) and two vitamins (biotin and thiamine) are organosulfur compounds. Many cofactors also contain sulfur, including glutathione, thioredoxin, and iron–sulfur proteins. Disulfides, S–S bonds, confer mechanical strength and insolubility of the protein keratin, found in outer skin, hair, and feathers. Sulfur is one of the core chemical elements needed for biochemical functioning and is an elemental macronutrient for all living organisms.
+
+Sulfur forms several polyatomic molecules.  The best-known allotrope is octasulfur, cyclo-S8. The point group of cyclo-S8 is D4d and its dipole moment is 0 D.[6] Octasulfur is a soft, bright-yellow solid that is odorless, but impure samples have an odor similar to that of matches.[7] It melts at 115.21 °C (239.38 °F), boils at 444.6 °C (832.3 °F) and sublimes easily.[4] At 95.2 °C (203.4 °F), below its melting temperature, cyclo-octasulfur changes from α-octasulfur to the β-polymorph.[8] The structure of the S8 ring is virtually unchanged by this phase change, which affects the intermolecular interactions. Between its melting and boiling temperatures, octasulfur changes its allotrope again, turning from β-octasulfur to γ-sulfur, again accompanied by a lower density but increased viscosity due to the formation of polymers.[8] At higher temperatures, the viscosity decreases as depolymerization occurs. Molten sulfur assumes a dark red color above 200 °C (392 °F). The density of sulfur is about 2 g/cm3, depending on the allotrope; all of the stable allotropes are excellent electrical insulators.
+
+Sulfur burns with a blue flame with formation of sulfur dioxide, which has a suffocating and irritating odor. Sulfur is insoluble in water but soluble in carbon disulfide and, to a lesser extent, in other nonpolar organic solvents, such as benzene and toluene. The first and second ionization energies of sulfur are 999.6 and 2252 kJ/mol, respectively. Despite such figures, the +2 oxidation state is rare, with +4 and +6 being more common. The fourth and sixth ionization energies are 4556 and 8495.8 kJ/mol, the magnitude of the figures caused by electron transfer between orbitals; these states are only stable with strong oxidants such as fluorine, oxygen, and chlorine.[citation needed]
+Sulfur reacts with nearly all other elements with the exception of the noble gases, even with the notoriously unreactive metal iridium (yielding iridium disulfide).[9] Some of those reactions need elevated temperatures.[10]
+
+Sulfur has 23 known isotopes, four of which are stable: 32S (94.99%±0.26%), 33S (0.75%±0.02%), 34S (4.25%±0.24%), and 36S (0.01%±0.01%).[11][12] Other than 35S, with a half-life of 87 days and formed in cosmic ray spallation of 40Ar, the radioactive isotopes of sulfur have half-lives less than 3 hours.
+
+When sulfide minerals are precipitated, isotopic equilibration among solids and liquid may cause small differences in the δ34S values of co-genetic minerals. The differences between minerals can be used to estimate the temperature of equilibration. The δ13C and δ34S of coexisting carbonate minerals and sulfides can be used to determine the pH and oxygen fugacity of the ore-bearing fluid during ore formation.
+
+In most forest ecosystems, sulfate is derived mostly from the atmosphere; weathering of ore minerals and evaporites contribute some sulfur. Sulfur with a distinctive isotopic composition has been used to identify pollution sources, and enriched sulfur has been added as a tracer in hydrologic studies. Differences in the natural abundances can be used in systems where there is sufficient variation in the 34S of ecosystem components. Rocky Mountain lakes thought to be dominated by atmospheric sources of sulfate have been found to have characteristic 34S values from lakes believed to be dominated by watershed sources of sulfate.
+
+32S is created inside massive stars, at a depth where the temperature exceeds 2.5×109 K, by the fusion of one nucleus of silicon plus one nucleus of helium.[13] As this nuclear reaction is part of the alpha process that produces elements in abundance, sulfur is the 10th most common element in the universe.
+
+Sulfur, usually as sulfide, is present in many types of meteorites. Ordinary chondrites contain on average 2.1% sulfur, and carbonaceous chondrites may contain as much as 6.6%. It is normally present as troilite (FeS), but there are exceptions, with carbonaceous chondrites containing free sulfur, sulfates and other sulfur compounds.[14] The distinctive colors of Jupiter's volcanic moon Io are attributed to various forms of molten, solid, and gaseous sulfur.[15]
+
+It is the fifth most common element by mass in the Earth. Elemental sulfur can be found near hot springs and volcanic regions in many parts of the world, especially along the Pacific Ring of Fire; such volcanic deposits are currently mined in Indonesia, Chile, and Japan. These deposits are polycrystalline, with the largest documented single crystal measuring 22×16×11 cm.[16] Historically, Sicily was a major source of sulfur in the Industrial Revolution.[17] Lakes of molten sulfur up to ~200 m in diameter have been found on the sea floor, associated with submarine volcanoes, at depths where the boiling point of water is higher than the melting point of sulfur.[18]
+
+Native sulfur is synthesised by anaerobic bacteria acting on sulfate minerals such as gypsum in salt domes.[19][20] Significant deposits in salt domes occur along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, and in evaporites in eastern Europe and western Asia. Native sulfur may be produced by geological processes alone. Fossil-based sulfur deposits from salt domes were once the basis for commercial production in the United States, Russia, Turkmenistan, and Ukraine.[21] Currently, commercial production is still carried out in the Osiek mine in Poland. Such sources are now of secondary commercial importance, and most are no longer worked.
+
+Common naturally occurring sulfur compounds include the sulfide minerals, such as pyrite (iron sulfide), cinnabar (mercury sulfide), galena (lead sulfide), sphalerite (zinc sulfide), and stibnite (antimony sulfide); and the sulfate minerals, such as gypsum (calcium sulfate), alunite (potassium aluminium sulfate), and barite (barium sulfate). On Earth, just as upon Jupiter's moon Io, elemental sulfur occurs naturally in volcanic emissions, including emissions from hydrothermal vents.
+
+Common oxidation states of sulfur range from −2 to +6. Sulfur forms stable compounds with all elements except the noble gases.
+
+Sulfur forms over 30 solid allotropes, more than any other element.[22] Besides S8, several other rings are known.[23] Removing one atom from the crown gives S7, which is more of a deep yellow than the S8. HPLC analysis of "elemental sulfur" reveals an equilibrium mixture of mainly S8, but with S7 and small amounts of S6.[24] Larger rings have been prepared, including S12 and S18.[25][26]
+
+Amorphous or "plastic" sulfur is produced by rapid cooling of molten sulfur—for example, by pouring it into cold water. X-ray crystallography studies show that the amorphous form may have a helical structure with eight atoms per turn. The long coiled polymeric molecules make the brownish substance elastic, and in bulk this form has the feel of crude rubber. This form is metastable at room temperature and gradually reverts to crystalline molecular allotrope, which is no longer elastic. This process happens within a matter of hours to days, but can be rapidly catalyzed.
+
+Sulfur polycations, S82+, S42+ and S162+ are produced when sulfur is reacted with mild oxidising agents in a strongly acidic solution.[27] The colored solutions produced by dissolving sulfur in oleum were first reported as early as 1804 by C.F. Bucholz, but the cause of the color and the structure of the polycations involved was only determined in the late 1960s. S82+ is deep blue, S42+ is yellow and S162+ is red.[8]
+
+The radical anion S3− gives the blue color of the mineral lapis lazuli.
+
+Treatment of sulfur with hydrogen gives hydrogen sulfide. When dissolved in water, hydrogen sulfide is mildly acidic:[4]
+
+Hydrogen sulfide gas and the hydrosulfide anion are extremely toxic to mammals, due to their inhibition of the oxygen-carrying capacity of hemoglobin and certain cytochromes in a manner analogous to cyanide and azide (see below, under precautions).
+
+Reduction of elemental sulfur gives polysulfides, which consist of chains of sulfur atoms terminated with S− centers:
+
+This reaction highlights a distinctive property of sulfur: its ability to catenate (bind to itself by formation of chains). Protonation of these polysulfide anions produces the polysulfanes, H2Sx where x= 2, 3, and 4.[29] Ultimately, reduction of sulfur produces sulfide salts:
+
+The interconversion of these species is exploited in the sodium-sulfur battery.
+
+The principal sulfur oxides are obtained by burning sulfur:
+
+Multiple sulfur oxides are known; the sulfur-rich oxides include sulfur monoxide, disulfur monoxide, disulfur dioxides, and higher oxides containing peroxo groups.
+
+Sulfur forms sulfur oxoacids, some of which cannot be isolated and are only known through the salts. Sulfur dioxide and sulfites (SO2−3) are related to the unstable sulfurous acid (H2SO3). Sulfur trioxide and sulfates (SO2−4) are related to sulfuric acid (H2SO4). Sulfuric acid and SO3 combine to give oleum, a solution of pyrosulfuric acid (H2S2O7) in sulfuric acid.
+
+Thiosulfate salts (S2O2−3), sometimes referred as "hyposulfites", used in photographic fixing (hypo) and as reducing agents, feature sulfur in two oxidation states. Sodium dithionite (Na2S2O4), contains the more highly reducing dithionite anion (S2O2−4).
+
+Several sulfur halides are important to modern industry. Sulfur hexafluoride is a dense gas used as an insulator gas in high voltage transformers; it is also a nonreactive and nontoxic propellant for pressurized containers. Sulfur tetrafluoride is a rarely used organic reagent that is highly toxic.[30] Sulfur dichloride and disulfur dichloride are important industrial chemicals. Sulfuryl chloride and chlorosulfuric acid are derivatives of sulfuric acid; thionyl chloride (SOCl2) is a common reagent in organic synthesis.[31]
+
+An important S–N compound is the cage tetrasulfur tetranitride (S4N4). Heating this compound gives polymeric sulfur nitride ((SN)x), which has metallic properties even though it does not contain any metal atoms. Thiocyanates contain the SCN− group. Oxidation of thiocyanate gives thiocyanogen, (SCN)2 with the connectivity NCS-SCN. Phosphorus sulfides are numerous, the most important commercially being the cages P4S10 and P4S3.[32][33]
+
+The principal ores of copper, zinc, nickel, cobalt, molybdenum, and other metals are sulfides. These materials tend to be dark-colored semiconductors that are not readily attacked by water or even many acids. They are formed, both geochemically and in the laboratory, by the reaction of hydrogen sulfide with metal salts. The mineral galena (PbS) was the first demonstrated semiconductor and was used as a signal rectifier in the cat's whiskers of early crystal radios. The iron sulfide called pyrite, the so-called "fool's gold", has the formula FeS2.[34] Processing these ores, usually by roasting, is costly and environmentally hazardous. Sulfur corrodes many metals through tarnishing.
+
+Allicin, a chemical compound in garlic
+
+(R)-cysteine, an amino acid containing a thiol group
+
+Methionine, an amino acid containing a thioether
+
+Diphenyl disulfide, a representative disulfide
+
+Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid, a surfactant
+
+Dibenzothiophene, a component of crude oil
+
+Penicillin, an antibiotic where "R" is the variable group
+
+Some of the main classes of sulfur-containing organic compounds include the following:[35]
+
+Compounds with carbon-sulfur multiple bonds are uncommon, an exception being carbon disulfide, a volatile colorless liquid that is structurally similar to carbon dioxide. It is used as a reagent to make the polymer rayon and many organosulfur compounds. Unlike carbon monoxide, carbon monosulfide is stable only as an extremely dilute gas, found between solar systems.[36]
+
+Organosulfur compounds are responsible for some of the unpleasant odors of decaying organic matter. They are widely known as the odorant in domestic natural gas, garlic odor, and skunk spray. Not all organic sulfur compounds smell unpleasant at all concentrations: the sulfur-containing monoterpenoid (grapefruit mercaptan) in small concentrations is the characteristic scent of grapefruit, but has a generic thiol odor at larger concentrations. Sulfur mustard, a potent vesicant, was used in World War I as a disabling agent.[37]
+
+Sulfur-sulfur bonds are a structural component used to stiffen rubber, similar to the disulfide bridges that rigidify proteins (see biological below). In the most common type of industrial "curing" or hardening and strengthening of natural rubber, elemental sulfur is heated with the rubber to the point that chemical reactions form disulfide bridges between isoprene units of the polymer. This process, patented in 1843, made rubber a major industrial product, especially in automobile tires. Because of the heat and sulfur, the process was named vulcanization, after the Roman god of the forge and volcanism.
+
+Being abundantly available in native form, sulfur was known in ancient times and is referred to in the Torah (Genesis). English translations of the Bible commonly referred to burning sulfur as "brimstone", giving rise to the term "fire-and-brimstone" sermons, in which listeners are reminded of the fate of eternal damnation that await the unbelieving and unrepentant. It is from this part of the Bible that Hell is implied to "smell of sulfur" (likely due to its association with volcanic activity). According to the Ebers Papyrus, a sulfur ointment was used in ancient Egypt to treat granular eyelids. Sulfur was used for fumigation in preclassical Greece;[38] this is mentioned in the Odyssey.[39] Pliny the Elder discusses sulfur in book 35 of his Natural History, saying that its best-known source is the island of Melos. He mentions its use for fumigation, medicine, and bleaching cloth.[40]
+
+A natural form of sulfur known as shiliuhuang (石硫黄) was known in China since the 6th century BC and found in Hanzhong.[41] By the 3rd century, the Chinese discovered that sulfur could be extracted from pyrite.[41] Chinese Daoists were interested in sulfur's flammability and its reactivity with certain metals, yet its earliest practical uses were found in traditional Chinese medicine.[41] A Song dynasty military treatise of 1044 AD described various formulas for Chinese black powder, which is a mixture of potassium nitrate (KNO3), charcoal, and sulfur. It remains an ingredient of black gunpowder.
+
+Indian alchemists, practitioners of "the science of chemicals" (sanskrit rasaśāstra, रसशास्त्र), wrote extensively about the use of sulfur in alchemical operations with mercury, from the eighth century AD onwards.[42] In the rasaśāstra tradition, sulfur is called "the smelly" (sanskrit gandhaka, गन्धक).
+
+Early European alchemists gave sulfur a unique alchemical symbol, a triangle at the top of a cross. In traditional skin treatment, elemental sulfur was used (mainly in creams) to alleviate such conditions as scabies, ringworm, psoriasis, eczema, and acne. The mechanism of action is unknown—though elemental sulfur does oxidize slowly to sulfurous acid, which is (through the action of sulfite) a mild reducing and antibacterial agent.[43][44][45]
+
+In 1777, Antoine Lavoisier helped convince the scientific community that sulfur was an element, not a compound.
+
+Sulfur deposits in Sicily were the dominant source for more than a century. By the late 18th century, about 2,000 tonnes per year of sulfur were imported into Marseilles, France, for the production of sulfuric acid for use in the Leblanc process. In industrializing Britain, with the repeal of tariffs on salt in 1824, demand for sulfur from Sicily surged upward. The increasing British control and exploitation of the mining, refining, and transportation of the sulfur, coupled with the failure of this lucrative export to transform Sicily's backward and impoverished economy, led to the Sulfur Crisis of 1840, when King Ferdinand II gave a monopoly of the sulfur industry to a French firm, violating an earlier 1816 trade agreement with Britain. A peaceful solution was eventually negotiated by France.[47][48]
+
+In 1867, elemental sulfur was discovered in underground deposits in Louisiana and Texas. The highly successful Frasch process was developed to extract this resource.[49]
+
+In the late 18th century, furniture makers used molten sulfur to produce decorative inlays in their craft. Because of the sulfur dioxide produced during the process of melting sulfur, the craft of sulfur inlays was soon abandoned. Molten sulfur is sometimes still used for setting steel bolts into drilled concrete holes where high shock resistance is desired for floor-mounted equipment attachment points. Pure powdered sulfur was used as a medicinal tonic and laxative.[21] With the advent of the contact process, the majority of sulfur today is used to make sulfuric acid for a wide range of uses, particularly fertilizer.[50]
+
+Sulfur is derived from the Latin word sulpur, which was Hellenized to sulphur in the erroneous belief that the Latin word came from Greek. This spelling was later reinterpreted as representing an /f/ sound and resulted in the spelling sulfur, which appears in Latin toward the end of the Classical period. The true Greek word for sulfur, θεῖον, is the source of the international chemical prefix thio-. In 12th-century Anglo-French, it was sulfre. In the 14th century, the erroneously Hellenized Latin -ph- was restored in Middle English sulphre. By the 15th century, both full Latin spelling variants sulfur and sulphur became common in English. The parallel f~ph spellings continued in Britain until the 19th century, when the word was standardized as sulphur.[51] On the other hand, sulfur was the form chosen in the United States, whereas Canada uses both. The IUPAC adopted the spelling sulfur in 1990 or 1971, depending on the source cited,[52] as did the Nomenclature Committee of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 1992, restoring the spelling sulfur to Britain.[53] Oxford Dictionaries note that "in chemistry and other technical uses ... the -f- spelling is now the standard form for this and related words in British as well as US contexts, and is increasingly used in general contexts as well."[54]
+
+Sulfur may be found by itself and historically was usually obtained in this form; pyrite has also been a source of sulfur.[55] In volcanic regions in Sicily, in ancient times, it was found on the surface of the Earth, and the "Sicilian process" was used: sulfur deposits were piled and stacked in brick kilns built on sloping hillsides, with airspaces between them. Then, some sulfur was pulverized, spread over the stacked ore and ignited, causing the free sulfur to melt down the hills. Eventually the surface-borne deposits played out, and miners excavated veins that ultimately dotted the Sicilian landscape with labyrinthine mines. Mining was unmechanized and labor-intensive, with pickmen freeing the ore from the rock, and mine-boys or carusi carrying baskets of ore to the surface, often through a mile or more of tunnels. Once the ore was at the surface, it was reduced and extracted in smelting ovens. The conditions in Sicilian sulfur mines were horrific, prompting Booker T. Washington to write "I am not prepared just now to say to what extent I believe in a physical hell in the next world, but a sulphur mine in Sicily is about the nearest thing to hell that I expect to see in this life."[56]
+
+Elemental sulfur was extracted from salt domes (in which it sometimes occurs in nearly pure form) until the late 20th century. Sulfur is now produced as a side product of other industrial processes such as in oil refining, in which sulfur is undesired. As a mineral, native sulfur under salt domes is thought to be a fossil mineral resource, produced by the action of anaerobic bacteria on sulfate deposits. It was removed from such salt-dome mines mainly by the Frasch process.[21] In this method, superheated water was pumped into a native sulfur deposit to melt the sulfur, and then compressed air returned the 99.5% pure melted product to the surface. Throughout the 20th century this procedure produced elemental sulfur that required no further purification. Due to a limited number of such sulfur deposits and the high cost of working them, this process for mining sulfur has not been employed in a major way anywhere in the world since 2002.[57][58]
+
+Today, sulfur is produced from petroleum, natural gas, and related fossil resources, from which it is obtained mainly as hydrogen sulfide. Organosulfur compounds, undesirable impurities in petroleum, may be upgraded by subjecting them to hydrodesulfurization, which cleaves the C–S bonds:[57][58]
+
+The resulting hydrogen sulfide from this process, and also as it occurs in natural gas, is converted into elemental sulfur by the Claus process. This process entails oxidation of some hydrogen sulfide to sulfur dioxide and then the comproportionation of the two:[57][58]
+
+Owing to the high sulfur content of the Athabasca Oil Sands, stockpiles of elemental sulfur from this process now exist throughout Alberta, Canada.[59] Another way of storing sulfur is as a binder for concrete, the resulting product having many desirable properties (see sulfur concrete).[60] Sulfur is still mined from surface deposits in poorer nations with volcanoes, such as Indonesia, and worker conditions have not improved much since Booker T. Washington's days.[61]
+
+The world production of sulfur in 2011 amounted to 69 million tonnes (Mt), with more than 15 countries contributing more than 1 Mt each. Countries producing more than 5 Mt are China (9.6), US (8.8), Canada (7.1) and Russia (7.1).[62] Production has been slowly increasing from 1900 to 2010; the price was unstable in the 1980s and around 2010.[63]
+
+Elemental sulfur is used mainly as a precursor to other chemicals. Approximately 85% (1989) is converted to sulfuric acid (H2SO4):
+
+In 2010, the United States produced more sulfuric acid than any other inorganic industrial chemical.[63] The principal use for the acid is the extraction of phosphate ores for the production of fertilizer manufacturing. Other applications of sulfuric acid include oil refining, wastewater processing, and mineral extraction.[21]
+
+Sulfur reacts directly with methane to give carbon disulfide, which is used to manufacture cellophane and rayon.[21] One of the uses of elemental sulfur is in vulcanization of rubber, where polysulfide chains crosslink organic polymers. Large quantities of sulfites are used to bleach paper and to preserve dried fruit. Many surfactants and detergents (e.g. sodium lauryl sulfate) are sulfate derivatives. Calcium sulfate, gypsum, (CaSO4·2H2O) is mined on the scale of 100 million tonnes each year for use in Portland cement and fertilizers.
+
+When silver-based photography was widespread, sodium and ammonium thiosulfate were widely used as "fixing agents". Sulfur is a component of gunpowder ("black powder").
+
+Sulfur is increasingly used as a component of fertilizers. The most important form of sulfur for fertilizer is the mineral calcium sulfate. Elemental sulfur is hydrophobic (not soluble in water) and cannot be used directly by plants. Over time, soil bacteria can convert it to soluble derivatives, which can then be used by plants. Sulfur improves the efficiency of other essential plant nutrients, particularly nitrogen and phosphorus.[64] Biologically produced sulfur particles are naturally hydrophilic due to a biopolymer coating and are easier to disperse over the land in a spray of diluted slurry, resulting in a faster uptake.
+
+The botanical requirement for sulfur equals or exceeds the requirement for phosphorus. It is an essential nutrient for plant growth, root nodule formation of legumes, and immunity and defense systems. Sulfur deficiency has become widespread in many countries in Europe.[65][66][67] Because atmospheric inputs of sulfur continue to decrease, the deficit in the sulfur input/output is likely to increase unless sulfur fertilizers are used. Atmospheric inputs of sulfur decrease because of actions taken to limit acid rains.[68][64]
+
+Organosulfur compounds are used in pharmaceuticals, dyestuffs, and agrochemicals. Many drugs contain sulfur; early examples being antibacterial sulfonamides, known as sulfa drugs. Sulfur is a part of many bacterial defense molecules. Most β-lactam antibiotics, including the penicillins, cephalosporins and monolactams contain sulfur.[35]
+
+Magnesium sulfate, known as Epsom salts when in hydrated crystal form, can be used as a laxative, a bath additive, an exfoliant, magnesium supplement for plants, or (when in dehydrated form) as a desiccant.
+
+Elemental sulfur is one of the oldest fungicides and pesticides. "Dusting sulfur", elemental sulfur in powdered form, is a common fungicide for grapes, strawberry, many vegetables and several other crops. It has a good efficacy against a wide range of powdery mildew diseases as well as black spot. In organic production, sulfur is the most important fungicide. It is the only fungicide used in organically farmed apple production against the main disease apple scab under colder conditions. Biosulfur (biologically produced elemental sulfur with hydrophilic characteristics) can also be used for these applications.
+
+Standard-formulation dusting sulfur is applied to crops with a sulfur duster or from a dusting plane. Wettable sulfur is the commercial name for dusting sulfur formulated with additional ingredients to make it water miscible.[69][70] It has similar applications and is used as a fungicide against mildew and other mold-related problems with plants and soil.
+
+Elemental sulfur powder is used as an "organic" (i.e., "green") insecticide (actually an acaricide) against ticks and mites. A common method of application is dusting the clothing or limbs with sulfur powder.
+
+A diluted solution of lime sulfur (made by combining calcium hydroxide with elemental sulfur in water) is used as a dip for pets to destroy ringworm (fungus), mange, and other dermatoses and parasites.
+
+Sulfur candles of almost pure sulfur were burned to fumigate structures and wine barrels, but are now considered too toxic for residences.
+
+Small amounts of sulfur dioxide gas addition (or equivalent potassium metabisulfite addition) to fermented wine to produce traces of sulfurous acid (produced when SO2 reacts with water) and its sulfite salts in the mixture, has been called "the most powerful tool in winemaking".[71] After the yeast-fermentation stage in winemaking, sulfites absorb oxygen and inhibit aerobic bacterial growth that otherwise would turn ethanol into acetic acid, souring the wine. Without this preservative step, indefinite refrigeration of the product before consumption is usually required. Similar methods go back into antiquity but modern historical mentions of the practice go to the fifteenth century. The practice is used by large industrial wine producers and small organic wine producers alike.
+
+Sulfur dioxide and various sulfites have been used for their antioxidant antibacterial preservative properties in many other parts of the food industry. The practice has declined since reports of an allergy-like reaction of some persons to sulfites in foods.
+
+Sulfur (specifically octasulfur, S8) is used in pharmaceutical skin preparations for the treatment of acne and other conditions. It acts as a keratolytic agent and also kills bacteria, fungi, scabies mites, and other parasites.[72] Precipitated sulfur and colloidal sulfur are used, in form of lotions, creams, powders, soaps, and bath additives, for the treatment of acne vulgaris, acne rosacea, and seborrhoeic dermatitis.[73]
+
+Common adverse effects include irritation of the skin at the application site, such as dryness, stinging, itching and peeling.[74]
+
+Sulfur can be used to create decorative inlays in wooden furniture. After a design has been cut into the wood, molten sulfur is poured in and then scraped away so it is flush. Sulfur inlays were particularly popular in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, notably amongst Pennsylvania German cabinetmakers. The practice soon died out, as less toxic and flammable substances were substituted. However, some modern craftsmen have occasionally revived the technique in the creation of replica pieces.[75][76]
+
+Sulfur is an essential component of all living cells. It is either the seventh or eighth most abundant element in the human body by weight, about equal in abundance to potassium, and slightly greater than sodium and chlorine. A 70 kg (150 lb) human body contains about 140 grams of sulfur.
+
+In plants and animals, the amino acids cysteine and methionine contain most of the sulfur, and the element is present in all polypeptides, proteins, and enzymes that contain these amino acids. In humans, methionine is an essential amino acid that must be ingested. However, save for the vitamins biotin and thiamine, cysteine and all sulfur-containing compounds in the human body can be synthesized from methionine. The enzyme sulfite oxidase is needed for the metabolism of methionine and cysteine in humans and animals.
+
+Disulfide bonds (S-S bonds) between cysteine residues in peptide chains are very important in protein assembly and structure. These covalent bonds between peptide chains confer extra toughness and rigidity.[77] For example, the high strength of feathers and hair is due in part to the high content of S-S bonds with cysteine and sulfur. Eggs are high in sulfur to nourish feather formation in chicks, and the characteristic odor of rotting eggs is due to hydrogen sulfide. The high disulfide bond content of hair and feathers contributes to their indigestibility and to their characteristic disagreeable odor when burned.
+
+Homocysteine and taurine are other sulfur-containing acids that are similar in structure, but not coded by DNA, and are not part of the primary structure of proteins. Many important cellular enzymes use prosthetic groups ending with -SH moieties to handle reactions involving acyl-containing biochemicals: two common examples from basic metabolism are coenzyme A and alpha-lipoic acid.[77] Two of the 13 classical vitamins, biotin, and thiamine, contain sulfur, with the latter being named for its sulfur content.
+
+In intracellular chemistry, sulfur operates as a carrier of reducing hydrogen and its electrons for cellular repair of oxidation. Reduced glutathione, a sulfur-containing tripeptide, is a reducing agent through its sulfhydryl (-SH) moiety derived from cysteine. The thioredoxins, a class of small proteins essential to all known life, use neighboring pairs of reduced cysteines to work as general protein reducing agents, with similar effect.
+
+Methanogenesis, the route to most of the world's methane, is a multistep biochemical transformation of carbon dioxide. This conversion requires several organosulfur cofactors. These include coenzyme M, CH3SCH2CH2SO3−, the immediate precursor to methane.[78]
+
+Metalloproteins in which the active site is a transition metal complex bound to sulphur atoms are essential components of enzymes involved in electron transfer processes. Examples include blue copper proteins and nitrous oxide reductase. The function of these enzymes is dependent on the fact that the transition metal ion can undergo redox reactions.Other examples include iron–sulfur clusters as well as many copper, nickel, and iron proteins. Most pervasive are the ferrodoxins, which serve as electron shuttles in cells. In bacteria, the important nitrogenase enzymes contains an Fe–Mo–S cluster and is a catalyst that performs the important function of nitrogen fixation, converting atmospheric nitrogen to ammonia that can be used by microorganisms and plants to make proteins, DNA, RNA, alkaloids, and the other organic nitrogen compounds necessary for life.[79]
+
+The sulfur cycle was the first of the biogeochemical cycles to be discovered. In the 1880s, while studying Beggiatoa (a bacterium living in a sulfur rich environment), Sergei Winogradsky found that it oxidized hydrogen sulfide (H2S) as an energy source, forming intracellular sulfur droplets. Winogradsky referred to this form of metabolism as inorgoxidation (oxidation of inorganic compounds). He continued to study it together with Selman Waksman until the 1950s.
+
+Sulfur oxidizers can use as energy sources reduced sulfur compounds, including hydrogen sulfide, elemental sulfur, sulfite, thiosulfate, and various polythionates (e.g., tetrathionate).[80] They depend on enzymes such as sulfur oxygenase and sulfite oxidase to oxidize sulfur to sulfate. Some lithotrophs can even use the energy contained in sulfur compounds to produce sugars, a process known as chemosynthesis. Some bacteria and archaea use hydrogen sulfide in place of water as the electron donor in chemosynthesis, a process similar to photosynthesis that produces sugars and utilizes oxygen as the electron acceptor. The photosynthetic green sulfur bacteria and purple sulfur bacteria and some lithotrophs use elemental oxygen to carry out such oxidization of hydrogen sulfide to produce elemental sulfur (S0), oxidation state= 0. Primitive bacteria that live around deep ocean volcanic vents oxidize hydrogen sulfide in this way with oxygen; the giant tube worm is an example of a large organism that uses hydrogen sulfide (via bacteria) as food to be oxidized.
+
+The so-called sulfate-reducing bacteria, by contrast, "breathe sulfate" instead of oxygen. They use organic compounds or molecular hydrogen as the energy source. They use sulfur as the electron acceptor, and reduce various oxidized sulfur compounds back into sulfide, often into hydrogen sulfide. They can grow on other partially oxidized sulfur compounds (e.g. thiosulfates, thionates, polysulfides, sulfites). The hydrogen sulfide produced by these bacteria is responsible for some of the smell of intestinal gases (flatus) and decomposition products.
+
+Sulfur is absorbed by plants roots from soil as sulfate and transported as a phosphate ester. Sulfate is reduced to sulfide via sulfite before it is incorporated into cysteine and other organosulfur compounds.[81]
+
+Elemental sulfur is non-toxic, as are most of the soluble sulfate salts, such as Epsom salts. Soluble sulfate salts are poorly absorbed and laxative. When injected parenterally, they are freely filtered by the kidneys and eliminated with very little toxicity in multi-gram amounts.
+
+When sulfur burns in air, it produces sulfur dioxide. In water, this gas produces sulfurous acid and sulfites; sulfites are antioxidants that inhibit growth of aerobic bacteria and a useful food additive in small amounts. At high concentrations these acids harm the lungs, eyes, or other tissues. In organisms without lungs such as insects or plants, sulfite in high concentration prevents respiration.
+
+Sulfur trioxide (made by catalysis from sulfur dioxide) and sulfuric acid are similarly highly acidic and corrosive in the presence of water. Sulfuric acid is a strong dehydrating agent that can strip available water molecules and water components from sugar and organic tissue.[84]
+
+The burning of coal and/or petroleum by industry and power plants generates sulfur dioxide (SO2) that reacts with atmospheric water and oxygen to produce sulfuric acid (H2SO4) and sulfurous acid (H2SO3). These acids are components of acid rain, lowering the pH of soil and freshwater bodies, sometimes resulting in substantial damage to the environment and chemical weathering of statues and structures. Fuel standards increasingly require that fuel producers extract sulfur from fossil fuels to prevent acid rain formation. This extracted and refined sulfur represents a large portion of sulfur production. In coal-fired power plants, flue gases are sometimes purified. More modern power plants that use synthesis gas extract the sulfur before they burn the gas.
+
+Hydrogen sulfide is as toxic as hydrogen cyanide,[clarification needed] and kills by the same mechanism (inhibition of the respiratory enzyme cytochrome oxidase),[85] though hydrogen sulfide is less likely to cause surprise poisonings from small inhaled amounts because of its disagreeable odor. Hydrogen sulfide quickly deadens the sense of smell and a victim may breathe increasing quantities without noticing the increase until severe symptoms cause death. Dissolved sulfide and hydrosulfide salts are toxic by the same mechanism.
+
+Sigel, Astrid; Freisinger, Eva; Sigel, Roland K.O., eds. (2020). Transition Metals and Sulfur: A Strong Relationship for Life. Guest Editors Martha E Sosa Torres and Peter M.H.Kroneck. Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter. pp. xlv+455. ISBN 978-3-11-058889-7.

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+Soup is a primarily liquid food, generally served warm or hot (but may be cool or cold), that is made by combining ingredients of meat or vegetables with stock, or water. Hot soups are additionally characterized by boiling solid ingredients in liquids in a pot until the flavors are extracted, forming a broth. Soups are similar to stews, and in some cases there may not be a clear distinction between the two; however, soups generally have more liquid (broth) than stews.[1]
+
+In traditional French cuisine, soups are classified into two main groups: clear soups and thick soups. The established French classifications of clear soups are bouillon and consommé. Thick soups are classified depending upon the type of thickening agent used: purées are vegetable soups thickened with starch; bisques are made from puréed shellfish or vegetables thickened with cream; cream soups may be thickened with béchamel sauce; and veloutés are thickened with eggs, butter, and cream. Other ingredients commonly used to thicken soups and broths include egg,[2] rice, lentils, flour, and grains; many popular soups also include pumpkin, carrots, potatoes, pig's trotters and bird's nests.
+
+Other types of soup include fruit soups, dessert soups, pulse soups like split pea, cold soups and other styles.
+
+Evidence of the existence of soup can be found as far back as about 20,000 BC.[3] Boiling was not a common cooking technique until the invention of waterproof containers (which probably came in the form of clay vessels). Animal hides and watertight baskets of bark or reeds were used before this. To boil the water hot rocks were used. This method was also used to cook acorns and other plants.
+
+The word soup comes from French soupe ("soup", "broth"), which comes through Vulgar Latin suppa ("bread soaked in broth") from a Germanic source, from which also comes the word "sop", a piece of bread used to soak up soup or a thick stew.
+
+The word restaurant (meaning "[something] restoring") was first used in France in the 16th century, to refer to a highly concentrated, inexpensive soup, sold by street vendors, that was advertised as an antidote to physical exhaustion. In 1765, a Parisian entrepreneur opened a shop specializing in such soups. This prompted the use of the modern word restaurant for the eating establishments.
+
+In the US, the first colonial cookbook was published by William Parks in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1742, based on Eliza Smith's The Compleat Housewife; or Accomplished Gentlewoman's Companion, and it included several recipes for soups and bisques. A 1772 cookbook, The Frugal Housewife, contained an entire chapter on the topic. English cooking dominated early colonial cooking; but as new immigrants arrived from other countries, other national soups gained popularity. In particular, German immigrants living in Pennsylvania were famous for their potato soups. In 1794, Jean Baptiste Gilbert Payplat dis Julien, a refugee from the French Revolution, opened an eating establishment in Boston called "The Restorator", and became known as the "Prince of Soups". The first American cooking pamphlet dedicated to soup recipes was written in 1882 by Emma Ewing: Soups and Soup Making.
+
+Portable soup was devised in the 18th century by boiling seasoned meat until a thick, resinous syrup was left that could be dried and stored for months at a time.
+
+Commercial soup became popular with the invention of canning in the 19th century, and today a great variety of canned and dried soups are on the market.
+
+Canned soup can be condensed, in which case it is prepared by adding water (or sometimes milk) or it can be "ready-to-eat", meaning that no additional liquid is needed before eating. Condensed soup (invented in 1897 by John T. Dorrance, a chemist with the Campbell Soup Company[4][5]) allows soup to be packaged into a smaller can and sold at a lower price than other canned soups. The soup is usually doubled in volume by adding a "can full" of water or milk, about 10 US fluid ounces (300 ml). The "ready-to-eat" variant can be prepared by simply heating the contents of the can on a kitchen stove or in a microwave oven, rather than actually cooking anything. Such soups can be used as a base for homemade soups, with the consumer adding anything from a few vegetables to eggs, meat, cream or pasta.
+
+Since the 1990s, the canned soup market has burgeoned, with non-condensed soups marketed as "ready-to-eat", so they require no additional liquid to prepare.[citation needed] Microwaveable bowls have expanded the "ready-to-eat" canned soup market even more, offering convenience (especially in workplaces), and making for popular lunch items. In response to concerns over the negative health effects of excessive salt intake, some soup manufacturers have introduced reduced-salt versions of popular soups.[6]
+
+Today, Campbell's Tomato (introduced in 1897), Cream of Mushroom, and Chicken Noodle (introduced in 1934) are three of the most popular soups in America. Americans consume approximately 2.5 billion bowls of these three soups alone each year.[4] Other popular brands of soup include Progresso.
+
+Dry soup mixes are sold by many manufacturers, and are reconstituted with hot water; other fresh ingredients may then be added.
+
+The first dried soup was bouillon cubes; the earlier meat extract did not require refrigeration, but was a viscous liquid.
+
+East Asian-style instant noodle soups include ramen and seasonings, and are marketed as a convenient and inexpensive instant meal, requiring only hot water for preparation.[7]
+
+Western-style dried soups include vegetable, chicken base, potato, pasta and cheese flavors.
+
+In French cuisine, soup is often served before other dishes in a meal. In 1970, Richard Olney gave the place of the entrée in a French full menu: "A dinner that begins with a soup and runs through a fish course, an entrée, a sorbet, a roast, salad, cheese and dessert, and that may be accompanied by from three to six wines, presents a special problem of orchestration".[8]
+
+Fruit soups are prepared using fruit as a primary ingredient, and may be served warm or cold depending on the recipe. Many varieties of fruit soups exist, and they may be prepared based upon the availability of seasonal fruit.
+
+Cold soups are a particular variation on the traditional soup, wherein the temperature when served is kept at or below room temperature. They may be sweet or savory. In summer, sweet cold soups can form part of a dessert tray. An example of a savory chilled soup is gazpacho, a chilled vegetable-based soup originating from Spain.[9] Vichyssoise is a cold purée of potatoes, leeks, and cream.
+
+A feature of East Asian soups not normally found in Western cuisine is the use of tofu in soups. Many traditional East Asian soups are typically broths, "clear soups", or starch thickened soups.
+
+In the English language, the word soup has developed several uses in phrase.
+
+Tom yum
+
+Seafood chowder
+
+Borscht
+
+Vegetable beef barley soup
+
+Chicken pasta soup
+
+Chunky tomato soup
+
+A thick pea soup garnished with a tortilla accent
+
+Cream of asparagus soup
+
+Cheese soup

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+
+World electricity generation by source in 2017. Total generation was 26 PWh.[1]
+
+Renewable energy is energy that is collected from renewable resources, which are naturally replenished on a human timescale, such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, waves, and geothermal heat.[3] Renewable energy often provides energy in four important areas: electricity generation, air and water heating/cooling, transportation, and rural (off-grid) energy services.[4]
+
+Based on REN21's 2017 report, renewables contributed 19.3% to humans' global energy consumption and 24.5% to their generation of electricity in 2015 and 2016, respectively. This energy consumption is divided as 8.9% coming from traditional biomass, 4.2% as heat energy (modern biomass, geothermal and solar heat), 3.9% from hydroelectricity and the remaining 2.2% is electricity from wind, solar, geothermal, and other forms of biomass. Worldwide investments in renewable technologies amounted to more than US$286 billion in 2015.[5] In 2017, worldwide investments in renewable energy amounted to US$279.8 billion with China accounting for US$126.6 billion or 45% of the global investments, the United States for US$40.5 billion and Europe for US$40.9 billion.[6] Globally there are an estimated 7.7 million jobs associated with the renewable energy industries, with solar photovoltaics being the largest renewable employer.[7] Renewable energy systems are rapidly becoming more efficient and cheaper and their share of total energy consumption is increasing.[8] As of 2019, more than two-thirds of worldwide newly installed electricity capacity was renewable.[9] Growth in consumption of coal and oil could end by 2020 due to increased uptake of renewables and natural gas.[10][11]
+
+At the national level, at least 30 nations around the world already have renewable energy contributing more than 20 percent of energy supply. National renewable energy markets are projected to continue to grow strongly in the coming decade and beyond.[12]
+Some places and at least two countries, Iceland and Norway, generate all their electricity using renewable energy already, and many other countries have the set a goal to reach 100% renewable energy in the future.[13]
+At least 47 nations around the world already have over 50 percent of electricity from renewable resources.[14][15][16] Renewable energy resources exist over wide geographical areas, in contrast to fossil fuels, which are concentrated in a limited number of countries. Rapid deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies is resulting in significant energy security, climate change mitigation, and economic benefits.[17] In international public opinion surveys there is strong support for promoting renewable sources such as solar power and wind power.[18][19]
+
+While many renewable energy projects are large-scale, renewable technologies are also suited to rural and remote areas and developing countries, where energy is often crucial in human development.[20] As most of renewable energy technologies provide electricity, renewable energy deployment is often applied in conjunction with further electrification, which has several benefits: electricity can be converted to heat (where necessary generating higher temperatures than fossil fuels), can be converted into mechanical energy with high efficiency, and is clean at the point of consumption.[21][22] In addition, electrification with renewable energy is more efficient and therefore leads to significant reductions in primary energy requirements.[23]
+
+Renewable energy flows involve natural phenomena such as sunlight, wind, tides, plant growth, and geothermal heat, as the International Energy Agency explains:[24]
+
+Renewable energy is derived from natural processes that are replenished constantly. In its various forms, it derives directly from the sun, or from heat generated deep within the earth. Included in the definition is electricity and heat generated from solar, wind, ocean, hydropower, biomass, geothermal resources, and biofuels and hydrogen derived from renewable resources.
+
+Renewable energy resources and significant opportunities for energy efficiency exist over wide geographical areas, in contrast to other energy sources, which are concentrated in a limited number of countries. Rapid deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency, and technological diversification of energy sources, would result in significant energy security and economic benefits.[17] It would also reduce environmental pollution such as air pollution caused by burning of fossil fuels and improve public health, reduce premature mortalities due to pollution and save associated health costs that amount to several hundred billion dollars annually only in the United States.[25] Renewable energy sources, that derive their energy from the sun, either directly or indirectly, such as hydro and wind, are expected to be capable of supplying humanity energy for almost another 1 billion years, at which point the predicted increase in heat from the Sun is expected to make the surface of the Earth too hot for liquid water to exist.[26][27][28]
+
+Climate change and global warming concerns, coupled with the continuing fall in the costs of some renewable energy equipment, such as wind turbines and solar panels, are driving increased use of renewables.[18] New government spending, regulation and policies helped the industry weather the global financial crisis better than many other sectors.[29] As of 2019[update], however, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency, renewables overall share in the energy mix (including power, heat and transport) needs to grow six times faster, in order to keep the rise in average global temperatures "well below" 2.0 °C (3.6 °F) during the present century, compared to pre-industrial levels.[30]
+
+As of 2011, small solar PV systems provide electricity to a few million households, and micro-hydro configured into mini-grids serves many more. Over 44 million households use biogas made in household-scale digesters for lighting and/or cooking, and more than 166 million households rely on a new generation of more-efficient biomass cookstoves.[31] [needs update] United Nations' eighth Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said that renewable energy has the ability to lift the poorest nations to new levels of prosperity.[32] At the national level, at least 30 nations around the world already have renewable energy contributing more than 20% of energy supply. National renewable energy markets are projected to continue to grow strongly in the coming decade and beyond, and some 120 countries have various policy targets for longer-term shares of renewable energy, including a 20% target of all electricity generated for the European Union by 2020. Some countries have much higher long-term policy targets of up to 100% renewables. Outside Europe, a diverse group of 20 or more other countries target renewable energy shares in the 2020–2030 time frame that range from 10% to 50%.[12]
+
+Renewable energy often displaces conventional fuels in four areas: electricity generation, hot water/space heating, transportation, and rural (off-grid) energy services:[4]
+
+Prior to the development of coal in the mid 19th century, nearly all energy used was renewable. Almost without a doubt the oldest known use of renewable energy, in the form of traditional biomass to fuel fires, dates from more than a million years ago. Use of biomass for fire did not become commonplace until many hundreds of thousands of years later.[37] Probably the second oldest usage of renewable energy is harnessing the wind in order to drive ships over water. This practice can be traced back some 7000 years, to ships in the Persian Gulf and on the Nile.[38] From hot springs, geothermal energy has been used for bathing since Paleolithic times and for space heating since ancient Roman times.[39] Moving into the time of recorded history, the primary sources of traditional renewable energy were human labor, animal power, water power, wind, in grain crushing windmills, and firewood, a traditional biomass.
+
+In the 1860s and 1870s there were already fears that civilization would run out of fossil fuels and the need was felt for a better source. In 1873 Professor Augustin Mouchot wrote:
+
+The time will arrive when the industry of Europe will cease to find those natural resources, so necessary for it. Petroleum springs and coal mines are not inexhaustible but are rapidly diminishing in many places.  Will man, then, return to the power of water and wind? Or will he emigrate where the most powerful source of heat sends its rays to all?  History will show what will come.[40]
+
+In 1885, Werner von Siemens, commenting on the discovery of the photovoltaic effect in the solid state, wrote:
+
+In conclusion, I would say that however great the scientific importance of this discovery may be, its practical value will be no less obvious when we reflect that the supply of solar energy is both without limit and without cost, and that it will continue to pour down upon us for countless ages after all the coal deposits of the earth have been exhausted and forgotten.[41]
+
+Max Weber mentioned the end of fossil fuel in the concluding paragraphs of his Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus (The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism), published in 1905.[42] Development of solar engines continued until the outbreak of World War I. The importance of solar energy was recognized in a 1911 Scientific American article: "in the far distant future, natural fuels having been exhausted [solar power] will remain as the only means of existence of the human race".[43]
+
+The theory of peak oil was published in 1956.[44] In the 1970s environmentalists promoted the development of renewable energy both as a replacement for the eventual depletion of oil, as well as for an escape from dependence on oil, and the first electricity-generating wind turbines appeared. Solar had long been used for heating and cooling, but solar panels were too costly to build solar farms until 1980.[45]
+
+In 2018, worldwide installed capacity of wind power was 564��GW.[47]
+
+Air flow can be used to run wind turbines. Modern utility-scale wind turbines range from around 600 kW to 9 MW of rated power. The power available from the wind is a function of the cube of the wind speed, so as wind speed increases, power output increases up to the maximum output for the particular turbine.[48] Areas where winds are stronger and more constant, such as offshore and high-altitude sites, are preferred locations for wind farms. Typically, full load hours of wind turbines vary between 16 and 57 percent annually, but might be higher in particularly favorable offshore sites.[49]
+
+Wind-generated electricity met nearly 4% of global electricity demand in 2015, with nearly 63 GW of new wind power capacity installed. Wind energy was the leading source of new capacity in Europe, the US and Canada, and the second largest in China. In Denmark, wind energy met more than 40% of its electricity demand while Ireland, Portugal and Spain each met nearly 20%.
+
+Globally, the long-term technical potential of wind energy is believed to be five times total current global energy production, or 40 times current electricity demand, assuming all practical barriers needed were overcome. This would require wind turbines to be installed over large areas, particularly in areas of higher wind resources, such as offshore. As offshore wind speeds average ~90% greater than that of land, so offshore resources can contribute substantially more energy than land-stationed turbines.[50]
+
+In 2017, worldwide renewable hydropower capacity was 1,154 GW.[15]
+
+Since water is about 800 times denser than air, even a slow flowing stream of water, or moderate sea swell, can yield considerable amounts of energy. There are many forms of water energy:
+
+Hydropower is produced in 150 countries, with the Asia-Pacific region generating 32 percent of global hydropower in 2010. For countries having the largest percentage of electricity from renewables, the top 50 are primarily hydroelectric. China is the largest hydroelectricity producer, with 721 terawatt-hours of production in 2010, representing around 17 percent of domestic electricity use. There are now three hydroelectricity stations larger than 10 GW: the Three Gorges Dam in China, Itaipu Dam across the Brazil/Paraguay border, and Guri Dam in Venezuela.[54]
+
+Wave power, which captures the energy of ocean surface waves, and tidal power, converting the energy of tides, are two forms of hydropower with future potential; however, they are not yet widely employed commercially. A demonstration project operated by the Ocean Renewable Power Company on the coast of Maine, and connected to the grid, harnesses tidal power from the Bay of Fundy, location of world's highest tidal flow. Ocean thermal energy conversion, which uses the temperature difference between cooler deep and warmer surface waters, currently has no economic feasibility.[55][56]
+
+In 2017, global installed solar capacity was 390 GW.[15]
+
+Solar energy, radiant light and heat from the sun, is harnessed using a range of ever-evolving technologies such as solar heating, photovoltaics, concentrated solar power (CSP), concentrator photovoltaics (CPV), solar architecture and artificial photosynthesis.[58][59] Solar technologies are broadly characterized as either passive solar or active solar depending on the way they capture, convert, and distribute solar energy. Passive solar techniques include orienting a building to the Sun, selecting materials with favorable thermal mass or light dispersing properties, and designing spaces that naturally circulate air. Active solar technologies encompass solar thermal energy, using solar collectors for heating, and solar power, converting sunlight into electricity either directly using photovoltaics (PV), or indirectly using concentrated solar power (CSP).
+
+A photovoltaic system converts light into electrical direct current (DC) by taking advantage of the photoelectric effect.[60] Solar PV has turned into a multi-billion, fast-growing industry, continues to improve its cost-effectiveness, and has the most potential of any renewable technologies together with CSP.[61][62] Concentrated solar power (CSP) systems use lenses or mirrors and tracking systems to focus a large area of sunlight into a small beam. Commercial concentrated solar power plants were first developed in the 1980s. CSP-Stirling has by far the highest efficiency among all solar energy technologies.
+
+In 2011, the International Energy Agency said that "the development of affordable, inexhaustible and clean solar energy technologies will have huge longer-term benefits. It will increase countries' energy security through reliance on an indigenous, inexhaustible and mostly import-independent resource, enhance sustainability, reduce pollution, lower the costs of mitigating climate change, and keep fossil fuel prices lower than otherwise. These advantages are global. Hence the additional costs of the incentives for early deployment should be considered learning investments; they must be wisely spent and need to be widely shared".[58] Italy has the largest proportion of solar electricity in the world; in 2015, solar supplied 7.7% of electricity demand in Italy.[63] In 2017, after another year of rapid growth, solar generated approximately 2% of global power, or 460 TWh.[64]
+
+Global geothermal capacity in 2017 was 12.9 GW.[15]
+
+High temperature geothermal energy is from thermal energy generated and stored in the Earth. Thermal energy is the energy that determines the temperature of matter. Earth's geothermal energy originates from the original formation of the planet and from radioactive decay of minerals (in currently uncertain[65] but possibly roughly equal[66] proportions). The geothermal gradient, which is the difference in temperature between the core of the planet and its surface, drives a continuous conduction of thermal energy in the form of heat from the core to the surface. The adjective geothermal originates from the Greek roots geo, meaning earth, and thermos, meaning heat.
+
+The heat that is used for geothermal energy can be from deep within the Earth, all the way down to Earth's core – 4,000 miles (6,400 km) down. At the core, temperatures may reach over 9,000 °F (5,000 °C). Heat conducts from the core to surrounding rock. Extremely high temperature and pressure cause some rock to melt, which is commonly known as magma. Magma convects upward since it is lighter than the solid rock. This magma then heats rock and water in the crust, sometimes up to 700 °F (371 °C).[67]
+
+Low temperature geothermal[35] refers to the use of the outer crust of the Earth as a thermal battery to facilitate renewable thermal energy for heating and cooling buildings, and other refrigeration and industrial uses. In this form of geothermal, a geothermal heat pump and ground-coupled heat exchanger are used together to move heat energy into the Earth (for cooling) and out of the Earth (for heating) on a varying seasonal basis. Low temperature geothermal (generally referred to as "GHP") is an increasingly important renewable technology because it both reduces total annual energy loads associated with heating and cooling, and it also flattens the electric demand curve eliminating the extreme summer and winter peak electric supply requirements. Thus low temperature geothermal/GHP is becoming an increasing national priority with multiple tax credit support[68] and focus as part of the ongoing movement toward net zero energy.[36]
+
+Bioenergy global capacity in 2017 was 109 GW.[15]
+
+Biomass is biological material derived from living, or recently living organisms. It most often refers to plants or plant-derived materials which are specifically called lignocellulosic biomass.[69] As an energy source, biomass can either be used directly via combustion to produce heat, or indirectly after converting it to various forms of biofuel. Conversion of biomass to biofuel can be achieved by different methods which are broadly classified into: thermal, chemical, and biochemical methods. Wood remains the largest biomass energy source today;[70] examples include forest residues – such as dead trees, branches and tree stumps –, yard clippings, wood chips and even municipal solid waste. In the second sense, biomass includes plant or animal matter that can be converted into fibers or other industrial chemicals, including biofuels. Industrial biomass can be grown from numerous types of plants, including miscanthus, switchgrass, hemp, corn, poplar, willow, sorghum, sugarcane, bamboo,[71] and a variety of tree species, ranging from eucalyptus to oil palm (palm oil).
+
+Plant energy is produced by crops specifically grown for use as fuel that offer high biomass output per hectare with low input energy.[72] The grain can be used for liquid transportation fuels while the straw can be burned to produce heat or electricity. Plant biomass can also be degraded from cellulose to glucose through a series of chemical treatments, and the resulting sugar can then be used as a first generation biofuel.
+
+Biomass can be converted to other usable forms of energy such as methane gas[73] or transportation fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel. Rotting garbage, and agricultural and human waste, all release methane gas – also called landfill gas or biogas. Crops, such as corn and sugarcane, can be fermented to produce the transportation fuel, ethanol. Biodiesel, another transportation fuel, can be produced from left-over food products such as vegetable oils and animal fats.[74] Also, biomass to liquids (BTLs) and cellulosic ethanol are still under research.[75][76] There is a great deal of research involving algal fuel or algae-derived biomass due to the fact that it is a non-food resource and can be produced at rates 5 to 10 times those of other types of land-based agriculture, such as corn and soy. Once harvested, it can be fermented to produce biofuels such as ethanol, butanol, and methane, as well as biodiesel and hydrogen. The biomass used for electricity generation varies by region. Forest by-products, such as wood residues, are common in the United States. Agricultural waste is common in Mauritius (sugar cane residue) and Southeast Asia (rice husks). Animal husbandry residues, such as poultry litter, are common in the United Kingdom.[77]
+
+Biofuels include a wide range of fuels which are derived from biomass. The term covers solid, liquid, and gaseous fuels.[78] Liquid biofuels include bioalcohols, such as bioethanol, and oils, such as biodiesel. Gaseous biofuels include biogas, landfill gas and synthetic gas. Bioethanol is an alcohol made by fermenting the sugar components of plant materials and it is made mostly from sugar and starch crops. These include maize, sugarcane and, more recently, sweet sorghum. The latter crop is particularly suitable for growing in dryland conditions, and is being investigated by International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics for its potential to provide fuel, along with food and animal feed, in arid parts of Asia and Africa.[79]
+
+With advanced technology being developed, cellulosic biomass, such as trees and grasses, are also used as feedstocks for ethanol production. Ethanol can be used as a fuel for vehicles in its pure form, but it is usually used as a gasoline additive to increase octane and improve vehicle emissions. Bioethanol is widely used in the United States and in Brazil. The energy costs for producing bio-ethanol are almost equal to, the energy yields from bio-ethanol. However, according to the European Environment Agency, biofuels do not address global warming concerns.[80] Biodiesel is made from vegetable oils, animal fats or recycled greases. It can be used as a fuel for vehicles in its pure form, or more commonly as a diesel additive to reduce levels of particulates, carbon monoxide, and hydrocarbons from diesel-powered vehicles. Biodiesel is produced from oils or fats using transesterification and is the most common biofuel in Europe. Biofuels provided 2.7% of the world's transport fuel in 2010.[81]
+
+Biomass, biogas and biofuels are burned to produce heat/power and in doing so harm the environment. Pollutants such as sulphurous oxides (SOx), nitrous oxides (NOx), and particulate matter (PM) are produced from the combustion of biomass; the World Health Organisation estimates that 7 million premature deaths are caused each year by air pollution.[82] Biomass combustion is a major contributor.[82][83][84]
+
+Renewable energy production from some sources such as wind and solar is more variable and more geographically spread than technology based on fossil fuels and nuclear. While integrating it into the wider energy system is feasible, it does lead to some additional challenges. In order for the energy system to remain stable, a set of measurements can be taken. Implementation of energy storage, using a wide variety of renewable energy technologies, and implementing a smart grid in which energy is automatically used at the moment it is produced can reduce risks and costs of renewable energy implementation.[85] In some locations, individual households can opt to purchase renewable energy through a consumer green energy program.
+
+Electrical energy storage is a collection of methods used to store electrical energy. Electrical energy is stored during times when production (especially from intermittent sources such as wind power, tidal power, solar power) exceeds consumption, and returned to the grid when production falls below consumption. Pumped-storage hydroelectricity accounts for more than 90% of all grid power storage. Costs of lithium-ion batteries are dropping rapidly, and are increasingly being deployed grid ancillary services and for domestic storage.
+
+Renewable power has been more effective in creating jobs than coal or oil in the United States.[86] In 2016, employment in the sector increased 6 percent in the United States, causing employment in the non-renewable energy sector to decrease 18 percent. Worldwide, renewables employ about 8.1 million as of 2016.[87]
+
+From the end of 2004, worldwide renewable energy capacity grew at rates of 10–60% annually for many technologies. In 2015 global investment in renewables rose 5% to $285.9 billion, breaking the previous record of $278.5 billion in 2011. 2015 was also the first year that saw renewables, excluding large hydro, account for the majority of all new power capacity (134 GW, making up 53.6% of the total). Of the renewables total, wind accounted for 72 GW and solar photovoltaics 56 GW; both record-breaking numbers and sharply up from 2014 figures (49 GW and 45 GW respectively). In financial terms, solar made up 56% of total new investment and wind accounted for 38%.
+
+In 2014 global wind power capacity expanded 16% to 369,553 MW.[90] Yearly wind energy production is also growing rapidly and has reached around 4% of worldwide electricity usage,[91] 11.4% in the EU,[92] and it is widely used in Asia, and the United States. In 2015, worldwide installed photovoltaics capacity increased to 227 gigawatts (GW), sufficient to supply 1 percent of global electricity demands.[93] Solar thermal energy stations operate in the United States and Spain, and as of 2016, the largest of these is the 392 MW Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in California.[94][95] The world's largest geothermal power installation is The Geysers in California, with a rated capacity of 750 MW. Brazil has one of the largest renewable energy programs in the world, involving production of ethanol fuel from sugar cane, and ethanol now provides 18% of the country's automotive fuel. Ethanol fuel is also widely available in the United States.
+
+In 2017, investments in renewable energy amounted to US$279.8 billion worldwide, with China accounting for US$126.6 billion or 45% of the global investments, the US for US$40.5 billion, and Europe for US$40.9 billion.[6] The results of a recent review of the literature concluded that as greenhouse gas (GHG) emitters begin to be held liable for damages resulting from GHG emissions resulting in climate change, a high value for liability mitigation would provide powerful incentives for deployment of renewable energy technologies.[96]
+
+Renewable energy technologies are getting cheaper, through technological change and through the benefits of mass production and market competition. A 2018 report from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), found that the cost of renewable energy is quickly falling, and will likely be equal to or less than the cost non-renewables such as fossil fuels by 2020. The report found that solar power costs have dropped 73% since 2010 and onshore wind costs have dropped by 23% in that same timeframe.[106]
+
+Current projections concerning the future cost of renewables vary however. The EIA has predicted that almost two thirds of net additions to power capacity will come from renewables by 2020 due to the combined policy benefits of local pollution, decarbonisation and energy diversification.
+
+According to a 2018 report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance, wind and solar power are expected to generate roughly 50% of the world's energy needs by 2050, while coal powered electricity plants are expected to drop to just 11%.[107]
+Hydro-electricity and geothermal electricity produced at favourable sites are now the cheapest way to generate electricity. Renewable energy costs continue to drop, and the levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) is declining for wind power, solar photovoltaic (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP) and some biomass technologies.[108] Renewable energy is also the most economic solution for new grid-connected capacity in areas with good resources. As the cost of renewable power falls, the scope of economically viable applications increases. Renewable technologies are now often the most economic solution for new generating capacity. Where "oil-fired generation is the predominant power generation source (e.g. on islands, off-grid and in some countries) a lower-cost renewable solution almost always exists today".[108] A series of studies by the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory modeled the "grid in the Western US under a number of different scenarios where intermittent renewables accounted for 33 percent of the total power." In the models, inefficiencies in cycling the fossil fuel plants to compensate for the variation in solar and wind energy resulted in an additional cost of "between $0.47 and $1.28 to each MegaWatt hour generated"; however, the savings in the cost of the fuels saved "adds up to $7 billion, meaning the added costs are, at most, two percent of the savings."[109]
+
+In 2017 the world renewable hydropower capacity was 1,154 GW.[15] Only a quarter of the worlds estimated hydroelectric potential of 14,000 TWh/year has been developed, the regional potentials for the growth of hydropower around the world are, 71% Europe, 75% North America, 79% South America, 95% Africa, 95% Middle East, 82% Asia Pacific. However, the political realities of new reservoirs in western countries, economic limitations in the third world and the lack of a transmission system in undeveloped areas, result in the possibility of developing 25% of the remaining potential before 2050, with the bulk of that being in the Asia Pacific area.[110] There is slow growth taking place in Western counties,[citation needed] but not in the conventional dam and reservoir style of the past. New projects take the form of run-of-the-river and small hydro, neither using large reservoirs. It is popular to repower old dams thereby increasing their efficiency and capacity as well as quicker responsiveness on the grid.[111] Where circumstances permit existing dams such as the Russell Dam built in 1985 may be updated with "pump back" facilities for pumped-storage which is useful for peak loads or to support intermittent wind and solar power. Countries with large hydroelectric developments such as Canada and Norway are spending billions to expand their grids to trade with neighboring countries having limited hydro.[112]
+
+Wind power is widely used in Europe, China, and the United States. From 2004 to 2017, worldwide installed capacity of wind power has been growing from 47 GW to 514 GW—a more than tenfold increase within 13 years[15] As of the end of 2014, China, the United States and Germany combined accounted for half of total global capacity.[90] Several other countries have achieved relatively high levels of wind power penetration, such as 21% of stationary electricity production in Denmark, 18% in Portugal, 16% in Spain, and 14% in Ireland in 2010 and have since continued to expand their installed capacity.[113][114] More than 80 countries around the world are using wind power on a commercial basis.[81]
+
+Wind turbines are increasing in power with some commercially deployed models generating over 8MW per turbine.[115][116][117] More powerful models are in development, see list of most powerful wind turbines.
+
+Solar thermal energy capacity has increased from 1.3 GW in 2012 to 5.0 GW in 2017.[15]
+
+Spain is the world leader in solar thermal power deployment with 2.3 GW deployed.[15] The United States has 1.8 GW,[15] most of it in California where 1.4 GW of solar thermal power projects are operational.[121] Several power plants have been constructed in the Mojave Desert, Southwestern United States. As of 2017 only 4 other countries have deployments above 100 MW:[15] South Africa (300 MW) India (229 MW) Morocco (180 MW) and United Arab Emirates (100 MW).
+
+The United States conducted much early research in photovoltaics and concentrated solar power. The U.S. is among the top countries in the world in electricity generated by the Sun and several of the world's largest utility-scale installations are located in the desert Southwest.
+
+The oldest solar thermal power plant in the world is the 354 megawatt (MW) SEGS thermal power plant, in California.[122] The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System is a solar thermal power project in the California Mojave Desert, 40 miles (64 km) southwest of Las Vegas, with a gross capacity of 377 MW.[123] The 280 MW Solana Generating Station is a solar power plant near Gila Bend, Arizona, about 70 miles (110 km) southwest of Phoenix, completed in 2013. When commissioned it was the largest parabolic trough plant in the world and the first U.S. solar plant with molten salt thermal energy storage.[124]
+
+In developing countries, three World Bank projects for integrated solar thermal/combined-cycle gas-turbine power plants in Egypt, Mexico, and Morocco have been approved.[125]
+
+Worldwide growth of PV capacity grouped by region in MW (2006–2014)
+
+Photovoltaics (PV) is rapidly-growing with global capacity increasing from 177 GW at the end of 2014 to 385 GW in 2017.[15]
+
+PV uses solar cells assembled into solar panels to convert sunlight into electricity. PV systems range from small, residential and commercial rooftop or building integrated installations, to large utility-scale photovoltaic power station. The predominant PV technology is crystalline silicon, while thin-film solar cell technology accounts for about 10 percent of global photovoltaic deployment. In recent years, PV technology has improved its electricity generating efficiency, reduced the installation cost per watt as well as its energy payback time, and reached grid parity in at least 30 different markets by 2014.[126]
+Building-integrated photovoltaics or "onsite" PV systems use existing land and structures and generate power close to where it is consumed.[127]
+
+Photovoltaics grew fastest in China, followed by Japan and the United States. Italy meets 7.9 percent of its electricity demands with photovoltaic power—the highest share worldwide.[128] Solar power is forecasted to become the world's largest source of electricity by 2050, with solar photovoltaics and concentrated solar power contributing 16% and 11%, respectively. This requires an increase of installed PV capacity to 4,600 GW, of which more than half is expected to be deployed in China and India.[129]
+
+Commercial concentrated solar power plants were first developed in the 1980s. As the cost of solar electricity has fallen, the number of grid-connected solar PV systems has grown into the millions and utility-scale solar power stations with hundreds of megawatts are being built. Many solar photovoltaic power stations have been built, mainly in Europe, China and the United States.[130] The 1.5 GW Tengger Desert Solar Park, in China is the world's largest PV power station. Many of these plants are integrated with agriculture and some use tracking systems that follow the sun's daily path across the sky to generate more electricity than fixed-mounted systems.
+
+Bioenergy global capacity in 2017 was 109 GW.[15]
+Biofuels provided 3% of the world's transport fuel in 2017.[131]
+
+Mandates for blending biofuels exist in 31 countries at the national level and in 29 states/provinces.[81] According to the International Energy Agency, biofuels have the potential to meet more than a quarter of world demand for transportation fuels by 2050.[132]
+
+Since the 1970s, Brazil has had an ethanol fuel program which has allowed the country to become the world's second largest producer of ethanol (after the United States) and the world's largest exporter.[133] Brazil's ethanol fuel program uses modern equipment and cheap sugarcane as feedstock, and the residual cane-waste (bagasse) is used to produce heat and power.[134] There are no longer light vehicles in Brazil running on pure gasoline. By the end of 2008 there were 35,000 filling stations throughout Brazil with at least one ethanol pump.[135] Unfortunately, Operation Car Wash has seriously eroded public trust in oil companies and has implicated several high ranking Brazilian officials.
+
+Nearly all the gasoline sold in the United States today is mixed with 10% ethanol,[136] and motor vehicle manufacturers already produce vehicles designed to run on much higher ethanol blends. Ford, Daimler AG, and GM are among the automobile companies that sell "flexible-fuel" cars, trucks, and minivans that can use gasoline and ethanol blends ranging from pure gasoline up to 85% ethanol. By mid-2006, there were approximately 6 million ethanol compatible vehicles on U.S. roads.[137]
+
+Global geothermal capacity in 2017 was 12.9 GW.[15]
+
+Geothermal power is cost effective, reliable, sustainable, and environmentally friendly,[138] but has historically been limited to areas near tectonic plate boundaries. Recent technological advances have expanded the range and size of viable resources, especially for applications such as home heating, opening a potential for widespread exploitation. Geothermal wells release greenhouse gases trapped deep within the earth, but these emissions are usually much lower per energy unit than those of fossil fuels. As a result, geothermal power has the potential to help mitigate global warming if widely deployed in place of fossil fuels.
+
+In 2017, the United States led the world in geothermal electricity production with 12.9 GW of installed capacity.[15] The largest group of geothermal power plants in the world is located at The Geysers, a geothermal field in California.[139] The Philippines follows the US as the second highest producer of geothermal power in the world, with 1.9 GW of capacity online.[15]
+
+Renewable energy technology has sometimes been seen as a costly luxury item by critics, and affordable only in the affluent developed world. This erroneous view has persisted for many years, however between 2016 and 2017, investments in renewable energy were higher in developing countries than in developed countries, with China leading global investment with a record 126.6 billion dollars. Many Latin American and African countries increased their investments significantly as well.[140] 
+Renewable energy can be particularly suitable for developing countries. In rural and remote areas, transmission and distribution of energy generated from fossil fuels can be difficult and expensive. Producing renewable energy locally can offer a viable alternative.[141]
+
+Technology advances are opening up a huge new market for solar power: the approximately 1.3 billion people around the world who don't have access to grid electricity. Even though they are typically very poor, these people have to pay far more for lighting than people in rich countries because they use inefficient kerosene lamps. Solar power costs half as much as lighting with kerosene.[142] As of 2010, an estimated 3 million households get power from small solar PV systems.[143] Kenya is the world leader in the number of solar power systems installed per capita. More than 30,000 very small solar panels, each producing 1[144] 2 to 30 watts, are sold in Kenya annually. Some Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are also turning to solar power to reduce their costs and increase their sustainability.
+
+Micro-hydro configured into mini-grids also provide power. Over 44 million households use biogas made in household-scale digesters for lighting and/or cooking, and more than 166 million households rely on a new generation of more-efficient biomass cookstoves.[31] Clean liquid fuel sourced from renewable feedstocks are used for cooking and lighting in energy-poor areas of the developing world. Alcohol fuels (ethanol and methanol) can be produced sustainably from non-food sugary, starchy, and cellulostic feedstocks. Project Gaia, Inc. and CleanStar Mozambique are implementing clean cooking programs with liquid ethanol stoves in Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria and Mozambique.[145]
+
+Renewable energy projects in many developing countries have demonstrated that renewable energy can directly contribute to poverty reduction by providing the energy needed for creating businesses and employment. Renewable energy technologies can also make indirect contributions to alleviating poverty by providing energy for cooking, space heating, and lighting. Renewable energy can also contribute to education, by providing electricity to schools.[146]
+
+Policies to support renewable energy have been vital in their expansion. Where Europe dominated in establishing energy policy in early 2000s, most countries around the world now have some form of energy policy.[147]
+
+The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) is an intergovernmental organization for promoting the adoption of renewable energy worldwide. It aims to provide concrete policy advice and facilitate capacity building and technology transfer. IRENA was formed in 2009, by 75 countries signing the charter of IRENA.[149] As of April 2019, IRENA has 160 member states.[150] The then United Nations' Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said that renewable energy has the ability to lift the poorest nations to new levels of prosperity,[32] and in September 2011 he launched the UN Sustainable Energy for All initiative to improve energy access, efficiency and the deployment of renewable energy.[151]
+
+The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change motivated many countries to develop or improve renewable energy policies.[12] In 2017, a total of 121 countries have adapted some form of renewable energy policy.[147] National targets that year existed in at 176 countries.[12] In addition, there is also a wide range of policies at state/provincial and local levels.[81] Some public utilities help plan or install residential energy upgrades. Under president Barack Obama, the United States policy encouraged the uptake of renewable energy in line with commitments to the Paris agreement. Even though Trump has abandoned these goals, renewable investment is still on the rise.[152]
+
+Many national, state, and local governments have created green banks. A green bank is a quasi-public financial institution that uses public capital to leverage private investment in clean energy technologies.[153] Green banks use a variety of financial tools to bridge market gaps that hinder the deployment of clean energy. The US military has also focused on the use of renewable fuels for military vehicles. Unlike fossil fuels, renewable fuels can be produced in any country, creating a strategic advantage. The US military has already committed itself to have 50% of its energy consumption come from alternative sources.[154]
+
+The incentive to use 100% renewable energy, for electricity, transport, or even total primary energy supply globally, has been motivated by global warming and other ecological as well as economic concerns. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said that there are few fundamental technological limits to integrating a portfolio of renewable energy technologies to meet most of total global energy demand. Renewable energy use has grown much faster than even advocates anticipated.[155] At the national level, at least 30 nations around the world already have renewable energy contributing more than 20% of energy supply. Also, Professors S. Pacala and Robert H. Socolow have developed a series of "stabilization wedges" that can allow us to maintain our quality of life while avoiding catastrophic climate change, and "renewable energy sources," in aggregate, constitute the largest number of their "wedges".[156]
+
+Using 100% renewable energy was first suggested in a Science paper published in 1975 by Danish physicist Bent Sørensen.[157] It was followed by several other proposals, until in 1998 the first detailed analysis of scenarios with very high shares of renewables were published. These were followed by the first detailed 100% scenarios. In 2006 a PhD thesis was published by Czisch in which it was shown that in a 100% renewable scenario energy supply could match demand in every hour of the year in Europe and North Africa. In the same year Danish Energy professor Henrik Lund published a first paper[158] in which he addresses the optimal combination of renewables, which was followed by several other papers on the transition to 100% renewable energy in Denmark. Since then Lund has been publishing several papers on 100% renewable energy. After 2009 publications began to rise steeply, covering 100% scenarios for countries in Europe, America, Australia and other parts of the world.[159]
+
+In 2011 Mark Z. Jacobson, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University, and Mark Delucchi published a study on 100% renewable global energy supply in the journal Energy Policy. They found producing all new energy with wind power, solar power, and hydropower by 2030 is feasible and existing energy supply arrangements could be replaced by 2050. Barriers to implementing the renewable energy plan are seen to be "primarily social and political, not technological or economic".[160] They also found that energy costs with a wind, solar, water system should be similar to today's energy costs.[161]
+
+Similarly, in the United States, the independent National Research Council has noted that "sufficient domestic renewable resources exist to allow renewable electricity to play a significant role in future electricity generation and thus help confront issues related to climate change, energy security, and the escalation of energy costs … Renewable energy is an attractive option because renewable resources available in the United States, taken collectively, can supply significantly greater amounts of electricity than the total current or projected domestic demand."[162]
+
+The most significant barriers to the widespread implementation of large-scale renewable energy and low carbon energy strategies are primarily political and not technological.[163][164] According to the 2013 Post Carbon Pathways report, which reviewed many international studies, the key roadblocks are: climate change denial, the fossil fuels lobby, political inaction, unsustainable energy consumption, outdated energy infrastructure, and financial constraints.[165]
+
+According to World Bank the "below 2°C" climate scenario requires 3 billions of tonnes of metals and minerals by 2050. Supply of mined resources such as zinc, molybdenum, silver, nickel, copper must increase by up to 500%.[166] A 2018 analysis estimated required increases in stock of metals required by various sectors from 1000% (wind power) to 87'000% (personal vehicle batteries).[167]
+
+Other renewable energy technologies are still under development, and include cellulosic ethanol, hot-dry-rock geothermal power, and marine energy.[168] These technologies are not yet widely demonstrated or have limited commercialization. Many are on the horizon and may have potential comparable to other renewable energy technologies, but still depend on attracting sufficient attention and research, development and demonstration (RD&D) funding.[168]
+
+There are numerous organizations within the academic, federal, and commercial sectors conducting large scale advanced research in the field of renewable energy. This research spans several areas of focus across the renewable energy spectrum. Most of the research is targeted at improving efficiency and increasing overall energy yields.[169]
+Multiple federally supported research organizations have focused on renewable energy in recent years. Two of the most prominent of these labs are Sandia National Laboratories and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), both of which are funded by the United States Department of Energy and supported by various corporate partners.[170] Sandia has a total budget of $2.4 billion[171] while NREL has a budget of $375 million.[172]
+
+Collection of static electricity charges from water droplets on metal surfaces is an experimental technology that would be especially useful in low-income countries with relative air humidity over 60%.[203]
+
+Renewable electricity production, from sources such as wind power and solar power, is intermittent which results in reduced capacity factor and require either energy storage of capacity equal to its total output, or base load power sources based on fossil fuels or nuclear power.
+
+Since renewable energy sources power density per land area is at best three orders of magnitude smaller than fossil or nuclear power,[204] renewable power plants tends to occupy thousands of hectares causing environmental concerns and opposition from local residents, especially in densely populated countries. Solar power plants are competing with arable land and nature reserves,[205] while on-shore wind farms face opposition due to aesthetic concerns and noise, which is impacting both humans and wildlife.[206][207][208][209] In the United States, the Massachusetts Cape Wind project was delayed for years partly because of aesthetic concerns. However, residents in other areas have been more positive. According to a town councilor, the overwhelming majority of locals believe that the Ardrossan Wind Farm in Scotland has enhanced the area.[210] These concerns, when directed against renewable energy, are sometimes described as "not in my back yard" attitude (NIMBY).
+
+A recent[when?] UK Government document states that "projects are generally more likely to succeed if they have broad public support and the consent of local communities. This means giving communities both a say and a stake".[211] In countries such as Germany and Denmark many renewable projects are owned by communities, particularly through cooperative structures, and contribute significantly to overall levels of renewable energy deployment.[212][213]
+
+The market for renewable energy technologies has continued to grow. Climate change concerns and increasing in green jobs, coupled with high oil prices, peak oil, oil wars, oil spills, promotion of electric vehicles and renewable electricity, nuclear disasters and increasing government support, are driving increasing renewable energy legislation, incentives and commercialization.[18] New government spending, regulation and policies helped the industry weather the 2009 economic crisis better than many other sectors.[29]
+
+While renewables have been very successful in their ever-growing contribution to electrical power there are no countries dominated by fossil fuels who have a plan to stop and get that power from renwables. Only Scotland and Ontario have stopped burning coal, largely due to good natural gas supplies. In the area of transportation, fossil fuels are even more entrenched and solutions harder to find.[214] It's unclear if there are failures with policy or renewable energy, but twenty years after the Kyoto Protocol fossil fuels are still our primary energy source and consumption continues to grow.[215]
+
+The International Energy Agency has stated that deployment of renewable technologies usually increases the diversity of electricity sources and, through local generation, contributes to the flexibility of the system and its resistance to central shocks.[216]
+
+From around 2010 onwards, there was increasing discussion about the geopolitical impact of the growing use of renewable energy.[217] It was argued that former fossil fuels exporters would experience a weakening of their position in international affairs, while countries with abundant sunshine, wind, hydropower, or geothermal resources would be strengthened.[218] Also countries rich in critical materials for renewable energy technologies were expected to rise in importance in international affairs.[219]
+
+The GeGaLo index of geopolitical gains and losses assesses how the geopolitical position of 156 countries may change if the world fully transitions to renewable energy resources. Former fossil fuels exporters are expected to lose power, while the positions of former fossil fuel importers and countries rich in renewable energy resources is expected to strengthen.[220]
+
+The ability of biomass and biofuels to contribute to a reduction in CO2 emissions is limited because both biomass and biofuels emit large amounts of air pollution when burned and in some cases compete with food supply. Furthermore, biomass and biofuels consume large amounts of water.[221] Other renewable sources such as wind power, photovoltaics, and hydroelectricity have the advantage of being able to conserve water, lower pollution and reduce CO2 emissions. 
+The installations used to produce wind, solar and hydro power are an increasing threat to key conservation areas, with facilities built in areas set aside for nature conservation and other environmentally sensitive areas. They are often much larger than fossil fuel power plants, needing areas of land up to 10 times greater than coal or gas to produce equivalent energy amounts.[222] More than 2000 renewable energy facilities are built, and more are under construction, in areas of environmental importance and threaten the habitats of plant and animal species across the globe. The authors' team emphazised that their work should not be interpreted as anti-renewables because renewable energy is crucial for reducing carbon emissions. The key is ensuring that renewable energy facilities are built in places where they do not damage biodiversity.[223]
+
+Renewable energy devices depend on non-renewable resources such as mined metals and use vast amounts of land due to their small surface power density. Manufacturing of photovoltaic panels, wind turbines and batteries requires significant amounts of rare-earth elements[224] and increases mining operations, which have social and environmental impact.[225] Due to co-occurrence of rare-earth and radioactive elements (thorium, uranium and radium), rare-earth mining results in production of low-level radioactive waste.[226]
+
+Solar panels change the albedo of the surface what increases their contribution to global warming.[227]
+
+Burbo, NW-England
+
+Sunrise at the Fenton Wind Farm in Minnesota, US
+
+The CSP-station Andasol in Andalusia, Spain
+
+Ivanpah solar plant in the Mojave Desert, California, United States
+
+Three Gorges Dam and Gezhouba Dam, China
+
+Shop selling PV panels in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
+
+Stump harvesting increases recovery of biomass from forests
+
+A small, roof-top mounted PV system in Bonn, Germany
+
+The community-owned Westmill Solar Park in South East England
+
+Komekurayama photovoltaic power station in Kofu, Japan
+
+Krafla, a geothermal power station in Iceland

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+
+Bangkok[a] is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. It is known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon[b] or simply Krung Thep.[c] The city occupies 1,568.7 square kilometres (605.7 sq mi) in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has a population of over eight million, 12.6 percent of the country's population. Over fourteen million people (22.2 percent) lived within the surrounding Bangkok Metropolitan Region at the 2010 census, making Bangkok the nation's primate city, dwarfing Thailand's other urban centres in both size and importance to the national economy.
+
+Bangkok traces its roots to a small trading post during the Ayutthaya Kingdom in the 15th century, which eventually grew and became the site of two capital cities: Thonburi in 1768 and Rattanakosin in 1782. Bangkok was at the heart of the modernization of Siam, later renamed Thailand, during the late-19th century, as the country faced pressures from the West. The city was at the centre of Thailand's political struggles throughout the 20th century, as the country abolished absolute monarchy, adopted constitutional rule, and underwent numerous coups and several uprisings. The city grew rapidly during the 1960s through the 1980s and now exerts a significant impact on Thailand's politics, economy, education, media and modern society.[citation needed]
+
+The Asian investment boom in the 1980s and 1990s led many multinational corporations to locate their regional headquarters in Bangkok. The city is now a regional force in finance and business. It is an international hub for transport and health care, and has emerged as a centre for the arts, fashion, and entertainment. The city is known for its street life and cultural landmarks, as well as its red-light districts. The Grand Palace and Buddhist temples including Wat Arun and Wat Pho stand in contrast with other tourist attractions such as the nightlife scenes of Khaosan Road and Patpong. Bangkok is among the world's top tourist destinations, and has been named the world's most visited city consistently in several international rankings.
+
+Bangkok's rapid growth coupled with little urban planning has resulted in a haphazard cityscape and inadequate infrastructure. An inadequate road network, despite an extensive expressway network, together with substantial private car usage, have led to chronic and crippling traffic congestion, which caused severe air pollution in the 1990s. The city has since turned to public transport in an attempt to solve the problem. Five rapid transit lines are now in operation, with more systems under construction or planned by the national government and the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration. Although, congestion still remains a prevalent issue.
+
+The history of Bangkok dates at least back to the early 15th century, when it was a village on the west bank of the Chao Phraya River, under the rule of Ayutthaya.[8] Because of its strategic location near the mouth of the river, the town gradually increased in importance. Bangkok initially served as a customs outpost with forts on both sides of the river, and was the site of a siege in 1688 in which the French were expelled from Siam. After the fall of Ayutthaya to the Burmese Empire in 1767, the newly crowned King Taksin established his capital at the town, which became the base of the Thonburi Kingdom. In 1782, King Phutthayotfa Chulalok (Rama I) succeeded Taksin, moved the capital to the eastern bank's Rattanakosin Island, thus founding the Rattanakosin Kingdom. The City Pillar was erected on 21 April 1782, which is regarded as the date of foundation of the present city.[9]
+
+Bangkok's economy gradually expanded through international trade, first with China, then with Western merchants returning in the early-to-mid 19th century. As the capital, Bangkok was the centre of Siam's modernization as it faced pressure from Western powers in the late-19th century. The reigns of Kings Mongkut (Rama IV, 1851–68) and Chulalongkorn (Rama V, 1868–1910) saw the introduction of the steam engine, printing press, rail transport and utilities infrastructure in the city, as well as formal education and healthcare. Bangkok became the centre stage for power struggles between the military and political elite as the country abolished absolute monarchy in 1932.
+
+As Thailand allied with Japan in World War II, Bangkok was subjected to Allied bombing, but rapidly grew in the post-war period as a result of US aid and government-sponsored investment. Bangkok's role as a US military R&R destination boosted its tourism industry as well as firmly establishing it as a sex tourism destination. Disproportionate urban development led to increasing income inequalities and migration from rural areas into Bangkok; its population surged from 1.8 million to 3 million in the 1960s.
+
+Following the US withdrawal from Vietnam in 1973, Japanese businesses took over as leaders in investment, and the expansion of export-oriented manufacturing led to growth of the financial market in Bangkok.[10] Rapid growth of the city continued through the 1980s and early 1990s, until it was stalled by the 1997 Asian financial crisis. By then, many public and social issues had emerged, among them the strain on infrastructure reflected in the city's notorious traffic jams. Bangkok's role as the nation's political stage continues to be seen in strings of popular protests, from the student uprisings in 1973 and 1976, anti-military demonstrations in 1992, and successive anti-government demonstrations by opposing groups from 2008 on.
+
+Administration of the city was first formalized by King Chulalongkorn in 1906, with the establishment of Monthon Krung Thep Phra Maha Nakhon (มณฑลกรุงเทพพระมหานคร) as a national subdivision. In 1915, the monthon was split into several provinces, the administrative boundaries of which have since further changed. The city in its current form was created in 1972 with the formation of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA), following the merger of Phra Nakhon Province on the eastern bank of the Chao Phraya and Thonburi Province on the west during the previous year.[9]
+
+The origin of the name Bangkok (บางกอก, pronounced in Thai as [bāːŋ kɔ̀ːk] (listen)), is unclear. Bang is a Thai word meaning 'a village on a stream',[11] and the name might have been derived from Bang Ko (บางเกาะ), ko meaning 'island', stemming from the city's watery landscape.[8] Another theory suggests that it is shortened from Bang Makok (บางมะกอก), makok being the name of Elaeocarpus hygrophilus, a plant bearing olive-like fruit.[d] This is supported by the former name of Wat Arun, a historic temple in the area, that used to be called Wat Makok.[12]
+
+Officially, the town was known as Thonburi Si Mahasamut (ธนบุรีศรีมหาสมุทร, from Pali and Sanskrit, literally 'city of treasures gracing the ocean') or Thonburi, according to the Ayutthaya Chronicles.[13] Bangkok was likely a colloquial name, albeit one widely adopted by foreign visitors, who continued to use it to refer to the city even after the new capital's establishment.
+
+When King Rama I established his new capital on the river's eastern bank, the city inherited Ayutthaya's ceremonial name, of which there were many variants, including Krung Thep Thawarawadi Si Ayutthaya (กรุงเทพทวารวดีศรีอยุธยา) and Krung Thep Maha Nakhon Si Ayutthaya (กรุงเทพมหานครศรีอยุธยา).[14] Edmund Roberts, visiting the city as envoy of the United States in 1833, noted that the city, since becoming capital, was known as Sia-Yut'hia, and this is the name used in international treaties of the period.[15]
+
+Today, the city is known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon (กรุงเทพมหานคร) or simply Krung Thep (กรุงเทพฯ), a shortening of the ceremonial name which came into use during the reign of King Mongkut. The full name reads as follows:[e][9]
+
+Krungthepmahanakhon Amonrattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilokphop Noppharatratchathaniburirom Udomratchaniwetmahasathan Amonphimanawatansathit Sakkathattiyawitsanukamprasit[f]กรุงเทพมหานคร อมรรัตนโกสินทร์ มหินทรายุธยา มหาดิลกภพ นพรัตนราชธานีบูรีรมย์ อุดมราชนิเวศน์มหาสถาน อมรพิมานอวตารสถิต สักกะทัตติยวิษณุกรรมประสิทธิ์
+
+The name, composed of Pali and Sanskrit root words, translates as:
+
+City of angels, great city of immortals, magnificent city of the nine gems, seat of the king, city of royal palaces, home of gods incarnate, erected by Vishvakarman at Indra's behest.[16]
+
+The name is listed in Guinness World Records as the world's longest place name, at 168 letters.[17] Thai school children are taught the full name, although few can explain its meaning as many of the words are archaic, and known to few. Many Thais who recall the full name do so because of its use in the 1989 song "Krung Thep Maha Nakhon" by Thai rock band Asanee–Wasan, the lyrics of which consist entirely of the city's full name, repeated throughout the song.
+
+The city is now officially known in Thai by a shortened form of the full ceremonial name, Krung Thep Maha Nakhon, which is colloquially further shortened to Krung Thep. (Krung is a Thai word of Khmer origin, meaning 'capital',[18] while thep is from Pali/Sanskrit, meaning 'deity' or 'god' and corresponding to deva.) Bangkok is the city's official English name, as reflected in the name of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration.
+
+The city of Bangkok is locally governed by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA). Although its boundaries are at the provincial (changwat) level, unlike the other 76 provinces Bangkok is a special administrative area whose governor is directly elected to serve a four-year term. The governor, together with four appointed deputies, form the executive body, who implement policies through the BMA civil service headed by the Permanent Secretary for the BMA. In separate elections, each district elects one or more city councillors, who form the Bangkok Metropolitan Council. The council is the BMA's legislative body, and has power over municipal ordinances and the city's budget.[19] However, after the coup of 2014 all local elections have been cancelled and the council was appointed by the government on 15 September 2014. The current Bangkok Governor is Police General Aswin Kwanmuang, who was appointed by the military government on 26 October 2016[20] following the suspension of the last elected governor M.R. Sukhumbhand Paribatra.
+
+Bangkok is divided into fifty districts (khet, equivalent to amphoe in the other provinces), which are further subdivided into 180 sub-districts (khwaeng, equivalent to tambon). Each district is managed by a district director appointed by the governor. District councils, elected to four-year terms, serve as advisory bodies to their respective district directors.
+
+The BMA is divided into sixteen departments, each overseeing different aspects of the administration's responsibilities. Most of these responsibilities concern the city's infrastructure, and include city planning, building control, transportation, drainage, waste management and city beautification, as well as education, medical and rescue services.[21] Many of these services are provided jointly with other agencies. The BMA has the authority to implement local ordinances, although civil law enforcement falls under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Police Bureau.
+
+The seal of the city shows Hindu god Indra riding in the clouds on Airavata, a divine white elephant known in Thai as Erawan. In his hand Indra holds his weapon, the vajra.[22] The seal is based on a painting done by Prince Naris. The tree symbol of Bangkok is Ficus benjamina.[23] The official city slogan, adopted in 2012, reads:
+
+As built by deities, the administrative center, dazzling palaces and temples, the capital of Thailand กรุงเทพฯ ดุจเทพสร้าง เมืองศูนย์กลางการปกครอง วัดวังงามเรืองรอง เมืองหลวงของประเทศไทย[24]
+
+As the capital of Thailand, Bangkok is the seat of all branches of the national government. The Government House, Parliament House and Supreme, Administrative and Constitutional Courts are all in the city. Bangkok is the site of the Grand Palace and Dusit Palace, respectively the official and de facto residence of the king. Most government ministries also have headquarters and offices in the capital.
+
+Bangkok is faced with multiple problems—including congestion (see (§ Transport below), and especially subsidence and flooding (see § Geography)—which have raised the issue of moving the nation's capital elsewhere. The idea is not new: during World War II Prime Minister Plaek Phibunsongkhram planned unsuccessfully to relocate the capital to Phetchabun. In the 2000s, the Thaksin Shinawatra administration assigned the Office of the National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDC) to formulate a plan to move the capital to Nakhon Nayok Province. The 2011 floods revived the idea of moving government functions from Bangkok. In 2017, the military government assigned NESDC to study the possibility of moving government offices from Bangkok to Chachoengsao Province in the east.[25][26][27]
+
+Bangkok city proper covers an area of 1,568.7 square kilometres (605.7 sq mi), ranking 69th among the other 76 provinces of Thailand. Of this, about 700 square kilometres (270 sq mi) form the built-up urban area.[1] It is ranked 73rd in the world in terms of land area.[28] The city's urban sprawl reaches into parts of the six other provinces it borders, namely, in clockwise order from northwest: Nonthaburi, Pathum Thani, Chachoengsao, Samut Prakan, Samut Sakhon, and Nakhon Pathom. With the exception of Chachoengsao, these provinces, together with Bangkok, form the greater Bangkok Metropolitan Region.[2]
+
+Bangkok is in the Chao Phraya River delta in Thailand's central plain. The river meanders through the city in a southerly direction, emptying into the Gulf of Thailand approximately 25 kilometres (16 mi) south of city centre. The area is flat and low-lying, with an average elevation of 1.5 metres (4 ft 11 in) above sea level.[3][g] Most of the area was originally swampland, which was gradually drained and irrigated for agriculture by the construction of canals (khlong) which took place from the 16th to 19th centuries. The course of the river as it flows through Bangkok has been modified by the construction of several shortcut canals.
+
+The city's waterway network served as the primary means of transport until the late 19th century, when modern roads began to be built. Up until then, most people lived near or on the water, leading the city to be known during the 19th century as the "Venice of the East".[29] Many of these canals have since been filled in or paved over, but others still criss-cross the city, serving as major drainage channels and transport routes. Most canals are now badly polluted, although the BMA has committed to the treatment and cleaning up of several canals.[30]
+
+The geology of the Bangkok area is characterized by a top layer of soft marine clay, known as "Bangkok clay", averaging 15 metres (49 ft) in thickness, which overlies an aquifer system consisting of eight known units. This feature has contributed to the effects of subsidence caused by extensive ground water pumping. First recognized in the 1970s, subsidence soon became a critical issue, reaching a rate of 120 millimetres (4.7 in) per year in 1981. Ground water management and mitigation measures have since lessened the severity of the situation, although subsidence is still occurring at a rate of 10 to 30 millimetres (0.39 to 1.18 in) per year, and parts of the city are now 1 metre (3 ft 3 in) below sea level.[31] There are fears that the city may be submerged by 2030.[32][33][34] A study published in October 2019 in Nature Communications corrected earlier models of coastal elevations[35] and concluded that up to 12 million Thais—mostly in the greater Bangkok metropolitan area—face the prospect of annual flooding events.[36][37]
+
+Subsidence has resulted in increased flood risk, as Bangkok is already prone to flooding due to its low elevation and an inadequate drainage infrastructure.[38] The city now relies on flood barriers and augmenting drainage from canals by pumping and building drain tunnels, but parts of Bangkok and its suburbs are still regularly inundated. Heavy downpours resulting in urban runoff overwhelming drainage systems, and runoff discharge from upstream areas, are major triggering factors.[39] Severe flooding affecting much of the city occurred in 1995 and 2011. In 2011, most of Bangkok's northern, eastern and western districts were flooded, in some places for over two months. Coastal erosion is also an issue in the gulf coastal area, a small length of which lies within Bangkok's Bang Khun Thian District. Global warming poses further serious risks, and a study by the OECD has estimated that 5.138 million people in Bangkok may be exposed to coastal flooding by 2070, the seventh highest figure among the world's port cities.[40]:8
+
+There are no mountains in Bangkok. The closest mountain range is the Khao Khiao Massif, about 40 km (25 mi) southeast of the city. Phu Khao Thong, the only hill in the metropolitan area, originated with a very large chedi that King Rama III (1787–1851) built at Wat Saket. The chedi collapsed during construction because the soft soil could not support its weight. Over the next few decades, the abandoned mud-and-brick structure acquired the shape of a natural hill and became overgrown with weeds. The locals called it phu khao (ภูเขา), as if it were a natural feature.[41] In the 1940s, enclosing concrete walls were added to stop the hill from eroding.[42]
+
+Like most of Thailand, Bangkok has a tropical savanna climate under the Köppen climate classification and is under the influence of the South Asian monsoon system. It experiences three seasons: hot, rainy, and cool, although temperatures are fairly hot year-round, ranging from an average low of 22.0 °C (71.6 °F) in December to an average high of 35.4 °C (95.7 °F) in April. The rainy season begins with the arrival of the southwest monsoon around mid-May. September is the wettest month, with an average rainfall of 334.3 millimetres (13.16 in). The rainy season lasts until October, when the dry and cool northeast monsoon takes over until February. The hot season is generally dry, but also sees occasional summer storms.[43] The surface magnitude of Bangkok's urban heat island has been measured at 2.5 °C (4.5 °F) during the day and 8.0 °C (14 °F) at night.[44] The highest recorded temperature of Bangkok metropolis was 40.1 °C (104.2 °F) in March 2013,[45] and the lowest recorded temperature was 9.9 °C (49.8 °F) in January 1955.[46]
+
+The Climate Impact Group at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies analyzed climate data for major cities worldwide. It found that Bangkok in 1960 had 193 days at or above 32 °C. In 2018, Bangkok can expect 276 days at or above 32 °C. The group forecasts a rise by 2100 to, on average, 297 to 344 days at or above 32 °C.[47]
+
+Bangkok's fifty districts serve as administrative subdivisions under the authority of the BMA. Thirty-five of these districts lie to the east of the Chao Phraya, while fifteen are on the western bank, known as the Thonburi side of the city. The fifty districts, arranged by district code, are:[53]
+
+Bangkok's districts often do not accurately represent the functional divisions of its neighbourhoods or land usage. Although urban planning policies date back to the commission of the "Litchfield Plan" in 1960, which set out strategies for land use, transportation and general infrastructure improvements, zoning regulations were not fully implemented until 1992. As a result, the city grew organically throughout the period of its rapid expansion, both horizontally as ribbon developments extended along newly built roads, and vertically, with increasing numbers of high rises and skyscrapers being built in commercial areas.[54] The city has grown from its original centre along the river into a sprawling metropolis surrounded by swaths of suburban residential development extending north and south into neighbouring provinces. The highly populated and growing cities of Nonthaburi, Pak Kret, Rangsit and Samut Prakan are effectively now suburbs of Bangkok. Nevertheless, large agricultural areas remain within the city proper at its eastern and western fringes. Land use in the city consists of 23 percent residential use, 24 percent agriculture, and 30 percent used for commerce, industry, and government.[1] The BMA's City Planning Department (CPD) is responsible for planning and shaping further development. It published master plan updates in 1999 and 2006, and a third revision is undergoing public hearings in 2012.[55]
+
+Bangkok's historic centre remains the Rattanakosin Island in Phra Nakhon District. It is the site of the Grand Palace and the City Pillar Shrine, primary symbols of the city's founding, as well as important Buddhist temples. Phra Nakhon, along with the neighbouring Pom Prap Sattru Phai and Samphanthawong Districts, formed what was the city proper in the late 19th century. Many traditional neighbourhoods and markets are found here, including the Chinese settlement of Sampheng. The city was expanded toward Dusit District in the early 19th century, following King Chulalongkorn's relocation of the royal household to the new Dusit Palace. The buildings of the palace, including the neoclassical Ananta Samakhom Throne Hall, as well as the Royal Plaza and Ratchadamnoen Avenue which leads to it from the Grand Palace, reflect the heavy influence of European architecture at the time. Major government offices line the avenue, as does the Democracy Monument. The area is the site of the country's seat of power as well as the city's most popular tourist landmarks.
+
+In contrast with the low-rise historic areas, the business district on Si Lom and Sathon Roads in Bang Rak and Sathon Districts teems with skyscrapers. It is the site of many of the country's major corporate headquarters, but also of some of the city's red-light districts. The Siam and Ratchaprasong areas in Pathum Wan are home to some of the largest shopping malls in Southeast Asia. Numerous retail outlets and hotels also stretch along Sukhumvit Road leading southeast through Watthana and Khlong Toei Districts. More office towers line the streets branching off Sukhumvit, especially Asok Montri, while upmarket housing is found in many of its sois ('alley' or 'lane').
+
+Bangkok lacks a single distinct central business district. Instead, the areas of Siam and Ratchaprasong serve as a "central shopping district" containing many of the bigger malls and commercial areas in the city, as well as Siam Station, the only transfer point between the city's two elevated train lines.[56] The Victory Monument in Ratchathewi District is among its most important road junctions, serving over 100 bus lines as well as an elevated train station. From the monument, Phahonyothin and Ratchawithi / Din Daeng Roads respectively run north and east linking to major residential areas. Most of the high-density development areas are within the 113-square-kilometre (44 sq mi) area encircled by the Ratchadaphisek inner ring road. Ratchadaphisek is lined with businesses and retail outlets, and office buildings also cluster around Ratchayothin Intersection in Chatuchak District to the north. Farther from the city centre, most areas are primarily mid- or low-density residential. The Thonburi side of the city is less developed, with fewer high rises. With the exception of a few secondary urban centres, Thonburi, in the same manner as the outlying eastern districts, consists mostly of residential and rural areas.
+
+While most of Bangkok's streets are fronted by vernacular shophouses, the largely unrestricted building euphoria of the 1980s has transformed the city into an urban area of skyscrapers and high rises of contrasting and clashing styles.[57] There are 581 skyscrapers over 90 metres (300 feet) tall in the city. Bangkok was ranked as the world's eighth tallest city in 2016.[58] As a result of persistent economic disparity, many slums have emerged in the city. In 2000 there were over one million people living in about 800 slum settlements.[59] Many slums are concentrated near the Bangkok Port in Khlong Toei District.
+
+Bangkok has several parks, although these amount to a per capita total park area of only 1.82 square metres (19.6 sq ft) in the city proper. Total green space for the entire city is moderate, at 11.8 square metres (127 sq ft) per person. In the more densely built-up areas of the city these numbers are as low as 1.73 and 0.72 square metres (18.6 and 7.8 sq ft) per person.[60] More recent numbers claim that there is 3.3 m2 of green space per person,[61] compared to an average of 39 m2 in other cities across Asia. In Europe, London has 33.4 m2 of green space per head.[62] Bangkokians thus have 10 times less green space than is standard in the region's urban areas.[63] Green belt areas include about 700 square kilometres (270 sq mi) of rice paddies and orchards on the eastern and western edges of the city, although their primary purpose is to serve as flood detention basins rather than to limit urban expansion.[64] Bang Kachao, a 20-square-kilometre (7.7 sq mi) conservation area on an oxbow of the Chao Phraya, lies just across the southern riverbank districts, in Samut Prakan Province. A master development plan has been proposed to increase total park area to 4 square metres (43 sq ft) per person.[60]
+
+Bangkok's largest parks include the centrally located Lumphini Park near the Si Lom – Sathon business district with an area of 57.6 hectares (142 acres), the 80-hectare (200-acre) Suanluang Rama IX in the east of the city, and the Chatuchak–Queen Sirikit–Wachirabenchathat park complex in northern Bangkok, which has a combined area of 92 hectares (230 acres).[65]
+
+The city of Bangkok has a population of 8,305,218 according to the 2010 census, or 12.6 percent of the national population.[4] In 2018, the population has been estimated to be about 10 million. Roughly half are internal migrants from other Thai provinces.[45] Only 5,692,284 residents, belonging to 2,672,423 households, registered Bangkok as their legal domicile, according to 2014 statistics.[67] Much of Bangkok's daytime population commutes from surrounding provinces in the Bangkok Metropolitan Region, the total population of which is 14,626,225.[4] Bangkok is a cosmopolitan city; the census showed that it is home to 567,120 expatriates from Asian countries (including 71,024 Chinese and 63,069 Japanese nationals), 88,177 from Europe, 32,241 from the Americas, 5,856 from Oceania and 5,758 from Africa. Migrants from neighbouring countries include 216,528 Burmese, 72,934 Cambodians and 52,498 Lao.[68] In 2018, numbers show that there are 370,000 international migrants registered with the Department of Employment, more than half of them migrants from Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar.[45]
+
+Although it has been Thailand's largest population centre since its establishment as capital city in 1782, Bangkok grew only slightly throughout the 18th and early 19th centuries. British diplomat John Crawfurd, visiting in 1822, estimated its population at no more than 50,000.[69] As a result of Western medicine brought by missionaries as well as increased immigration from both within Siam and overseas, Bangkok's population gradually increased as the city modernized in the late 19th century. This growth became even more pronounced in the 1930s, following the discovery of antibiotics. Although family planning and birth control were introduced in the 1960s, the lowered birth rate was more than offset by increased migration from the provinces as economic expansion accelerated. Only in the 1990s have Bangkok's population growth rates decreased, following the national rate. Thailand had long since become highly centralized around the capital. In 1980, Bangkok's population was fifty-one times that of Hat Yai and Songkhla, the second-largest urban centre, making it the world's most prominent primate city.[70][71]
+
+The majority of Bangkok's population identify as Thai,[h] although details on the city's ethnic make-up are unavailable, as the national census does not document race.[i] Bangkok's cultural pluralism dates back to the early days of its founding: several ethnic communities were formed by immigrants and forced settlers including the Central Thai (include Tavoyan), Khmer, Lao, Vietnamese, Mon and Malay.[9] Most prominent were the Chinese, who played major roles in the city's trade and became the majority of Bangkok's population—estimates include up to three-fourths in 1828 and almost half in the 1950s.[75][j] Chinese immigration was restricted from the 1930s and effectively ceased after the Chinese Revolution in 1949. Their prominence subsequently declined as younger generations of Thai Chinese integrated and adopted a Thai identity. Bangkok is still nevertheless home to a large Chinese community, with the greatest concentration in Yaowarat, Bangkok's Chinatown.
+
+The majority (91 percent) of the city's population is Buddhist. Other religions include Islam (4.7 percent), Christianity (2 percent), Hinduism (0.5 percent), Sikhism (0.1 percent) and Confucianism (0.1 percent).[78]
+
+Apart from Yaowarat, Bangkok also has several other distinct ethnic neighbourhoods. The Indian community is centred in Phahurat, where the Gurdwara Siri Guru Singh Sabha, founded in 1933, is located. Ban Khrua on Saen Saep Canal is home to descendants of the Cham who settled in the late 18th century. Although the Portuguese who settled during the Thonburi period have ceased to exist as a distinct community, their past is reflected in Santa Cruz Church, on the west bank of the river. Likewise, Assumption Cathedral on Charoen Krung Road is among many European-style buildings in the Old Farang Quarter, where European diplomats and merchants lived in the late 19th to early 20th centuries. Nearby, the Haroon Mosque is the centre of a Muslim community. Newer expatriate communities exist along Sukhumvit Road, including the Japanese community near Soi Phrom Phong and Soi Thong Lo, and the Arab and North African neighbourhood along Soi Nana. Sukhumvit Plaza, a mall on Soi Sukhumvit 12, is popularly known as Korea Town.
+
+Bangkok is the economic centre of Thailand, and the heart of the country's investment and development. In 2010, the city had an economic output of 3.142 trillion baht (US$98.34 billion), contributing 29.1 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP). This amounted to a per-capita GDP value of 456,911 baht ($14,301), almost three times the national average of 160,556 baht ($5,025). The Bangkok Metropolitan Region had a combined output of 4.773 trillion baht ($149.39 billion), or 44.2 percent of GDP.[79] Bangkok's economy ranks as the sixth among Asian cities in terms of per-capita GDP, after Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Osaka–Kobe and Seoul.[80]
+
+Wholesale and retail trade is the largest sector in the city's economy, contributing 24 percent of Bangkok's gross provincial product. It is followed by manufacturing (14.3 percent); real estate, renting and business activities (12.4 percent); transport and communications (11.6 percent); and financial intermediation (11.1 percent). Bangkok alone accounts for 48.4 percent of Thailand's service sector, which in turn constitutes 49 percent of GDP. When the Bangkok Metropolitan Region is considered, manufacturing is the most significant contributor at 28.2 percent of the gross regional product, reflecting the density of industry in the Bangkok's neighbouring provinces.[81] The automotive industry based around Greater Bangkok is the largest production hub in Southeast Asia.[82] Tourism is also a significant contributor to Bangkok's economy, generating 427.5 billion baht ($13.38 billion) in revenue in 2010.[83]
+
+The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) is on Ratchadaphisek Road in inner Bangkok. The SET, together with the Market for Alternative Investment (MAI) has 648 listed companies as of the end of 2011, with a combined market capitalization of 8.485 trillion baht ($267.64 billion).[84] Due to the large amount of foreign representation, Thailand has for several years been a mainstay of the Southeast Asian economy and a centre of Asian business. The Globalization and World Cities Research Network ranks Bangkok as an "Alpha" world city, and it is ranked 59th in Z/Yen's Global Financial Centres Index 11.[85][86]
+
+Bangkok is home to the headquarters of all of Thailand's major commercial banks and financial institutions, as well as the country's largest companies. Many multinational corporations base their regional headquarters in Bangkok due to the lower cost of labour and operations relative to other major Asian business centres. Seventeen Thai companies are listed on the Forbes 2000, all of which are based in the capital,[87] including PTT, the only Fortune Global 500 company in Thailand.[88]
+
+Income inequality is a major issue in Bangkok, especially between relatively unskilled lower-income immigrants from rural provinces and neighbouring countries, and middle-class professionals and business elites. Although absolute poverty rates are low—only 0.64 percent of Bangkok's registered residents were living under the poverty line in 2010, compared to a national average of 7.75 percent—economic disparity is still substantial.[89] The city has a Gini coefficient of 0.48, indicating a high level of inequality.[90]
+
+Bangkok is one of the world's top tourist destinations. Of 162 cities worldwide, MasterCard ranked Bangkok as the top destination city by international visitor arrivals in its Global Destination Cities Index 2018, ahead of London, with just over 20 million overnight visitors in 2017.[91] This was a repeat of its 2017 ranking (for 2016).[92][93] Euromonitor International ranked Bangkok fourth in its Top City Destinations Ranking for 2016.[94] Bangkok was also named "World's Best City" by Travel + Leisure magazine's survey of its readers for four consecutive years, from 2010 to 2013.[95]
+As the main gateway through which visitors arrive in Thailand, Bangkok is visited by the majority of international tourists to the country. Domestic tourism is also prominent. The Department of Tourism recorded 26,861,095 Thai and 11,361,808 foreign visitors to Bangkok in 2010. Lodgings were made by 15,031,244 guests, who occupied 49.9 percent of the city's 86,687 hotel rooms.[83] Bangkok also topped the list as the world's most popular tourist destinations in 2017 rankings.[96][97][98][99]
+
+Bangkok's multi-faceted sights, attractions and city life appeal to diverse groups of tourists. Royal palaces and temples as well as several museums constitute its major historical and cultural tourist attractions. Shopping and dining experiences offer a wide range of choices and prices. The city is also famous for its dynamic nightlife. Although Bangkok's sex tourism scene is well known to foreigners, it is usually not openly acknowledged by locals or the government.
+
+Among Bangkok's well-known sights are the Grand Palace and major Buddhist temples, including Wat Phra Kaew, Wat Pho, and Wat Arun. The Giant Swing and Erawan Shrine demonstrate Hinduism's deep-rooted influence in Thai culture. Vimanmek Mansion in Dusit Palace is famous as the world's largest teak building, while the Jim Thompson House provides an example of traditional Thai architecture. Other major museums include the Bangkok National Museum and the Royal Barge National Museum. Cruises and boat trips on the Chao Phraya and Thonburi's canals offer views of some of the city's traditional architecture and ways of life on the waterfront.[100]
+
+Shopping venues, many of which are popular with both tourists and locals, range from the shopping centres and department stores concentrated in Siam and Ratchaprasong to the sprawling Chatuchak Weekend Market. Taling Chan Floating Market is among the few such markets in Bangkok. Yaowarat is known for its shops as well as street-side food stalls and restaurants, which are also found throughout the city. Khao San Road has long been famous as a destination for backpacker tourism, with its budget accommodation, shops and bars attracting visitors from all over the world.
+
+Bangkok has a reputation overseas as a major destination in the sex industry. Although prostitution is technically illegal and is rarely openly discussed in Thailand, it commonly takes place among massage parlours, saunas and hourly hotels, serving foreign tourists as well as locals. Bangkok has acquired the nickname "Sin City of Asia" for its level of sex tourism.[101]
+
+Issues often encountered by foreign tourists include scams, overcharging and dual pricing. In a survey of 616 tourists visiting Thailand, 7.79 percent reported encountering a scam, the most common of which was the gem scam, in which tourists are tricked into buying overpriced jewellery.[102]
+
+Grand Palace
+
+The Giant Swing
+
+Wat Arun
+
+The culture of Bangkok reflects its position as Thailand's centre of wealth and modernisation. The city has long been the portal of entry of Western concepts and material goods, which have been adopted and blended with Thai values to various degrees by its residents. This is most evident in the lifestyles of the expanding middle class. Conspicuous consumption serves as a display of economic and social status, and shopping centres are popular weekend hangouts.[103] Ownership of electronics and consumer products such as mobile phones is ubiquitous. This has been accompanied by a degree of secularism, as religion's role in everyday life has rather diminished. Although such trends have spread to other urban centres, and, to a degree, the countryside, Bangkok remains at the forefront of social change.
+
+A distinct feature of Bangkok is the ubiquity of street vendors selling goods ranging from food items to clothing and accessories. It has been estimated that the city may have over 100,000 hawkers. While the BMA has authorised the practice in 287 sites, the majority of activity in another 407 sites takes place illegally. Although they take up pavement space and block pedestrian traffic, many of the city's residents depend on these vendors for their meals, and the BMA's efforts to curb their numbers have largely been unsuccessful.[104]
+
+In 2015, however, the BMA, with support from the National Council for Peace and Order (Thailand's ruling military junta), began cracking down on street vendors in a bid to reclaim public space. Many famous market neighbourhoods were affected, including Khlong Thom, Saphan Lek, and the flower market at Pak Khlong Talat. Nearly 15,000 vendors were evicted from 39 public areas in 2016.[105] While some applauded the efforts to focus on pedestrian rights, others have expressed concern that gentrification would lead to the loss of the city's character and adverse changes to people's way of life.[106][107]
+
+The residents of Bangkok celebrate many of Thailand's annual festivals. During Songkran on 13–15 April, traditional rituals as well as water fights take place throughout the city. Loi Krathong, usually in November, is accompanied by the Golden Mount Fair. New Year celebrations take place at many venues, the most prominent being the plaza in front of CentralWorld. Observances related to the royal family are held primarily in Bangkok. Wreaths are laid at King Chulalongkorn's equestrian statue in the Royal Plaza on 23 October, which is King Chulalongkorn Memorial Day. The present king's and queen's birthdays, respectively on 5 December and 12 August, are marked as Thailand's national Father's Day and national Mother's Day. These national holidays are celebrated by royal audiences on the day's eve, in which the king or queen gives a speech, and public gatherings on the day of the observance. The king's birthday is also marked by the Royal Guards' parade.
+
+Sanam Luang is the site of the Thai Kite, Sport and Music Festival, usually held in March, and the Royal Ploughing Ceremony which takes place in May. The Red Cross Fair at the beginning of April is held at Suan Amporn and the Royal Plaza, and features numerous booths offering goods, games and exhibits. The Chinese New Year (January–February) and Vegetarian Festival (September–October) are celebrated widely by the Chinese community, especially in Yaowarat.[108]
+
+Bangkok is the centre of Thailand's media industry. All national newspapers, broadcast media and major publishers are based in the capital. Its 21 national newspapers had a combined daily circulation of about two million in 2002. These include the mass-oriented Thai Rath, Khao Sod and Daily News, the first of which currently prints a million copies per day,[109] as well as the less sensational Matichon and Krungthep Thurakij. The Bangkok Post and The Nation are the two national English language dailies. Foreign publications including The Asian Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The Straits Times and the Yomiuri Shimbun also have operations in Bangkok.[110] The large majority of Thailand's more than 200 magazines are published in the capital, and include news magazines as well as lifestyle, entertainment, gossip and fashion-related publications.
+
+Bangkok is also the hub of Thailand's broadcast television. All six national terrestrial channels, Channels 3, 5 and 7, Modernine, NBT and Thai PBS, have headquarters and main studios in the capital. With the exception of local news segments broadcast by the NBT, all programming is done in Bangkok and repeated throughout the provinces. However, this centralised model is weakening with the rise of cable television, which has many local providers. There are numerous cable and satellite channels based in Bangkok. TrueVisions is the major subscription television provider in Bangkok and Thailand, and it also carries international programming. Bangkok was home to 40 of Thailand's 311 FM radio stations and 38 of its 212 AM stations in 2002.[110] Broadcast media reform stipulated by the 1997 Constitution has been progressing slowly, although many community radio stations have emerged in the city.
+
+Likewise, Bangkok has dominated the Thai film industry since its inception. Although film settings normally feature locations throughout the country, the city is home to all major film studios. Bangkok has dozens of cinemas and multiplexes, and the city hosts two major film festivals annually, the Bangkok International Film Festival and the World Film Festival of Bangkok.
+
+Traditional Thai art, long developed within religious and royal contexts, continues to be sponsored by various government agencies in Bangkok, including the Department of Fine Arts' Office of Traditional Arts. The SUPPORT Foundation in Chitralada Palace sponsors traditional and folk handicrafts. Various communities throughout the city still practice their traditional crafts, including the production of khon masks, alms bowls, and classical musical instruments. The National Gallery hosts permanent collection of traditional and modern art, with temporary contemporary exhibits. Bangkok's contemporary art scene has slowly grown from relative obscurity into the public sphere over the past two decades. Private galleries gradually emerged to provide exposure for new artists, including the Patravadi Theatre and H Gallery. The centrally located Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, opened in 2008 following a fifteen-year lobbying campaign, is now the largest public exhibition space in the city.[111] There are also many other art galleries and museums, including the privately owned Museum of Contemporary Art.
+
+The city's performing arts scene features traditional theatre and dance as well as Western-style plays. Khon and other traditional dances are regularly performed at the National Theatre and Salachalermkrung Royal Theatre, while the Thailand Cultural Centre is a newer multi-purpose venue which also hosts musicals, orchestras and other events. Numerous venues regularly feature a variety of performances throughout the city.
+
+As is the national trend, association football and Muay Thai dominate Bangkok's spectator sport scene.[112] Muangthong United, Bangkok United, Port and Police Tero are major Thai League clubs based in the Bangkok Metropolitan Region,[113][114] while the Rajadamnern and Lumpini stadiums are the main kickboxing venues.
+
+While sepak takraw can be seen played in open spaces throughout the city, football and other modern sports are now the norm. Western sports introduced during the reign of King Chulalongkorn were originally only available to the privileged, and such status is still associated with certain sports. Golf is popular among the upwardly mobile, and there are several courses in Bangkok. Horse racing, highly popular at the mid-20th century, still takes place at the Royal Bangkok Sports Club.
+
+There are many public sporting facilities located throughout Bangkok. The two main centres are the National Stadium complex, which dates to 1938, and the newer Hua Mak Sports Complex, which was built for the 1998 Asian Games. Bangkok had also hosted the games in 1966, 1970 and 1978; the most of any city. The city was the host of the inaugural Southeast Asian Games in 1959, the 2007 Summer Universiade and the 2012 FIFA Futsal World Cup.
+
+Although Bangkok's canals historically served as a major mode of transport, they have long since been surpassed in importance by land traffic. Charoen Krung Road, the first to be built by Western techniques, was completed in 1864. Since then, the road network has vastly expanded to accommodate the sprawling city. A complex elevated expressway network helps bring traffic into and out of the city centre, but Bangkok's rapid growth has put a large strain on infrastructure, and traffic jams have plagued the city since the 1990s. Although rail transport was introduced in 1893 and trams served the city from 1888 to 1968, it was only in 1999 that Bangkok's first rapid transit system began operation. Older public transport systems include an extensive bus network and boat services which still operate on the Chao Phraya and two canals. Taxis appear in the form of cars, motorcycles, and "tuk-tuk" auto rickshaws.
+
+Bangkok is connected to the rest of the country through the national highway and rail networks, as well as by domestic flights to and from the city's two international airports. Its centuries-old maritime transport of goods is still conducted through Khlong Toei Port.
+
+The BMA is largely responsible for overseeing the construction and maintenance of the road network and transport systems through its Public Works Department and Traffic and Transportation Department. However, many separate government agencies are also in charge of the individual systems, and much of transport-related policy planning and funding is contributed to by the national government.
+
+Road-based transport is the primary mode of travel in Bangkok. Due to the city's organic development, its streets do not follow an organized grid structure. Forty-eight major roads link the different areas of the city, branching into smaller streets and lanes (soi) which serve local neighbourhoods. Eleven bridges over the Chao Phraya link the two sides of the city, while several expressway and motorway routes bring traffic into and out of the city centre and link with nearby provinces.
+
+Bangkok's rapid growth in the 1980s resulted in sharp increases in vehicle ownership and traffic demand, which have since continued—in 2006 there were 3,943,211 in-use vehicles in Bangkok, of which 37.6 percent were private cars and 32.9 percent were motorcycles.[116] These increases, in the face of limited carrying capacity, caused severe traffic congestion evident by the early 1990s. The extent of the problem is such that the Thai Traffic Police has a unit of officers trained in basic midwifery in order to assist deliveries which do not reach hospital in time.[117] While Bangkok's limited road surface area (8 percent, compared to 20–30 percent in most Western cities) is often cited as a major cause of its traffic jams, other factors, including high vehicle ownership rate relative to income level, inadequate public transport systems, and lack of transportation demand management, also play a role.[118] Efforts to alleviate the problem have included the construction of intersection bypasses and an extensive system of elevated highways, as well as the creation of several new rapid transit systems. The city's overall traffic conditions, however, remain poor.
+
+Traffic has been the main source of air pollution in Bangkok, which reached serious levels in the 1990s. But efforts to improve air quality by improving fuel quality and enforcing emission standards, among others, had visibly ameliorated the problem by the 2000s. Atmospheric particulate matter levels dropped from 81 micrograms per cubic metre in 1997 to 43 in 2007.[119] However, increasing vehicle numbers and a lack of continued pollution-control efforts threatens a reversal of the past success.[120] In January–February 2018, weather conditions caused bouts of haze to cover the city, with particulate matter under 2.5 micrometres (PM2.5) rising to unhealthy levels for several days on end.[121][122]
+
+Although the BMA has created thirty signed bicycle routes along several roads totalling 230 kilometres (140 mi),[123] cycling is still largely impractical, especially in the city centre. Most of these bicycle lanes share the pavement with pedestrians. Poor surface maintenance, encroachment by hawkers and street vendors, and a hostile environment for cyclists and pedestrians, make cycling and walking unpopular methods of getting around in Bangkok.
+
+Bangkok has an extensive bus network providing local transit services within the Greater Bangkok area. The Bangkok Mass Transit Authority (BMTA) operates a monopoly on bus services, with substantial concessions granted to private operators. Buses, minibus vans, and song thaeo operate on a total of 470 routes throughout the region.[124] A separate bus rapid transit system owned by the BMA has been in operation since 2010. Known simply as the BRT, the system currently consists of a single line running from the business district at Sathon to Ratchaphruek on the western side of the city. The Transport Co., Ltd. is the BMTA's long-distance counterpart, with services to all provinces operating out of Bangkok.
+
+Taxis are ubiquitous in Bangkok, and are a popular form of transport. As of August 2012[update], there are 106,050 cars, 58,276 motorcycles and 8,996 tuk-tuk motorized tricycles cumulatively registered for use as taxis.[125] Meters have been required for car taxis since 1992, while tuk-tuk fares are usually negotiated. Motorcycle taxis operate from regulated ranks, with either fixed or negotiable fares, and are usually employed for relatively short journeys.
+
+Despite their popularity, taxis have gained a bad reputation for often refusing passengers when the requested route is not to the driver's convenience.[126] Motorcycle taxis were previously unregulated, and subject to extortion by organized crime gangs. Since 2003, registration has been required for motorcycle taxi ranks, and drivers now wear distinctive numbered vests designating their district of registration and where they are allowed to accept passengers.
+
+Bangkok is the location of Hua Lamphong Railway Station, the main terminus of the national rail network operated by the State Railway of Thailand (SRT). In addition to long-distance services, the SRT also operates a few daily commuter trains running from and to the outskirts of the city during the rush hour.
+
+Bangkok is served by three rapid transit systems: the BTS Skytrain, the underground MRT, and the elevated Airport Rail Link. Although proposals for the development of rapid transit in Bangkok had been made since 1975,[127] it was only in 1999 that the BTS finally began operation.
+
+The BTS consists of two lines, Sukhumvit and Silom, with 43 stations along 51.69 kilometres (32.12 mi).[128] The MRT opened for use in July 2004, and currently consists of two lines, the Blue Line and Purple Line. The Airport Rail Link, opened in August 2010, connects the city center to Suvarnabhumi Airport to the east. Its eight stations span a distance of 28 kilometres (17 mi).
+
+Although initial passenger numbers were low and their service area has long remained limited to the inner city, these systems have become indispensable to many commuters. The BTS reported an average of 600,000 daily trips in 2012,[129] while the MRT had 240,000 passenger trips per day.[130]
+
+As of July 2019[update], construction work is ongoing to extend the city-wide transit system's reach, including the construction of the Light Red grade-separated commuter rail line. The entire Mass Rapid Transit Master Plan in Bangkok Metropolitan Region consists of eight main lines and four feeder lines totaling 508 kilometres (316 mi) to be completed by 2029. In addition to rapid transit and heavy rail lines, there have been proposals for several monorail systems.
+
+Although much diminished from its past prominence, water-based transport still plays an important role in Bangkok and the immediate upstream and downstream provinces. Several water buses serve commuters daily. The Chao Phraya Express Boat serves thirty-four stops along the river, carrying an average of 35,586 passengers per day in 2010, while the smaller Khlong Saen Saep boat service serves twenty-seven stops on Saen Saep Canal with 57,557 daily passengers. Long-tail boats operate on fifteen regular routes on the Chao Phraya, and passenger ferries at thirty-two river crossings served an average of 136,927 daily passengers in 2010.[131]
+
+Bangkok Port, popularly known by its location as Khlong Toei Port, was Thailand's main international port from its opening in 1947 until it was superseded by the deep-sea Laem Chabang Port in 1991. It is primarily a cargo port, though its inland location limits access to ships of 12,000 deadweight tonnes or less. The port handled 11,936,855 tonnes (13,158,130 tons) of cargo in the first eight months of the 2010 fiscal year, about 22 percent the total of the country's international ports.[132][133]
+
+Bangkok is one of Asia's busiest air transport hubs. Two commercial airports serve the city, the older Don Mueang International Airport and the new Bangkok International Airport, commonly known as Suvarnabhumi. Suvarnabhumi, which replaced Don Mueang as Bangkok's main airport after its opening in 2006, served 52,808,013 passengers in 2015,[134] making it the world's 20th busiest airport by passenger volume. This volume exceeded its designed capacity of 45 million passengers. Don Mueang reopened for domestic flights in 2007,[135] and resumed international service focusing on low-cost carriers in October 2012.[136] Suvarnabhumi is undergoing expansion to increase its capacity to 60 million passengers by 2019 and 90 million by 2021.[137]
+
+Bangkok has long been the centre of modern education in Thailand. The first schools in the country were established here in the later 19th century, and there are now 1,351 schools in the city.[138] The city is home to the country's five oldest universities, Chulalongkorn, Thammasat, Kasetsart, Mahidol and Silpakorn, founded between 1917 and 1943. The city has since continued its dominance, especially in higher education; the majority of the country's universities, both public and private, are located in Bangkok or the Metropolitan Region. Chulalongkorn and Mahidol are the only Thai universities to appear in the top 500 of the QS World University Rankings.[139] King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi, also located in Bangkok, is the only Thai university in the top 400 of the 2012–13 Times Higher Education World University Rankings.[140]
+
+Over the past few decades the general trend of pursuing a university degree has prompted the founding of new universities to meet the needs of Thai students. Bangkok became not only a place where immigrants and provincial Thais go for job opportunities, but also for a chance to receive a university degree. Ramkhamhaeng University emerged in 1971 as Thailand's first open university; it now has the highest enrolment in the country. The demand for higher education has led to the founding of many other universities and colleges, both public and private. While many universities have been established in major provinces, the Greater Bangkok region remains home to the greater majority of institutions, and the city's tertiary education scene remains over-populated with non-Bangkokians. The situation is not limited to higher education, either. In the 1960s, 60 to 70 percent of 10- to 19-year-olds who were in school had migrated to Bangkok for secondary education. This was due to both a lack of secondary schools in the provinces and perceived higher standards of education in the capital.[141] Although this discrepancy has since largely abated, tens of thousands of students still compete for places in Bangkok's leading schools. Education has long been a prime factor in the centralization of Bangkok and will play a vital role in the government's efforts to decentralize the country.
+
+Much of Thailand's medical resources are disproportionately concentrated in the capital. In 2000, Bangkok had 39.6 percent of the country's doctors and a physician-to-population ratio of 1:794, compared to a median of 1:5,667 among all provinces.[142] The city is home to 42 public hospitals, five of which are university hospitals, as well as 98 private hospitals and 4,063 registered clinics.[dead link][143] The BMA operates nine public hospitals through its Medical Service Department, and its Health Department provides primary care through sixty-eight community health centres. Thailand's universal healthcare system is implemented through public hospitals and health centres as well as participating private providers.
+
+Research-oriented medical school affiliates such as Siriraj, King Chulalongkorn Memorial and Ramathibodi Hospitals are among the largest in the country, and act as tertiary care centres, receiving referrals from distant parts of the country. Lately, especially in the private sector, there has been much growth in medical tourism, with hospitals such as Bumrungrad and Bangkok Hospital, among others, providing services specifically catering to foreigners. An estimated 200,000 medical tourists visited Thailand in 2011, making Bangkok the most popular global destination for medical tourism.[144]
+
+Bangkok has a relatively moderate crime rate when compared to urban counterparts around the world.[145] Traffic accidents are a major hazard[146] while natural disasters are rare. Intermittent episodes of political unrest and occasional terrorist attacks have resulted in losses of life.[147]
+
+Although the crime threat in Bangkok is relatively low, non-confrontational crimes of opportunity such as pick-pocketing, purse-snatching, and credit card fraud occur with frequency.[145] Bangkok's growth since the 1960s has been followed by increasing crime rates partly driven by urbanisation, migration, unemployment and poverty. By the late 1980s, Bangkok's crime rates were about four times that of the rest of the country. The police have long been preoccupied with street crimes ranging from housebreaking to assault and murder.[148] The 1990s saw the emergence of vehicle theft and organized crime, particularly by foreign gangs.[149] Drug trafficking, especially that of ya ba methamphetamine pills, is also chronic.[150][151]
+
+According to police statistics, the most common complaint received by the Metropolitan Police Bureau in 2010 was housebreaking, with 12,347 cases. This was followed by 5,504 cases of motorcycle thefts, 3,694 cases of assault and 2,836 cases of embezzlement. Serious offences included 183 murders, 81 gang robberies, 265 robberies, 1 kidnapping and 9 arson cases. Offences against the state were by far more common, and included 54,068 drug-related cases, 17,239 cases involving prostitution and 8,634 related to gambling.[152] The Thailand Crime Victim Survey conducted by the Office of Justice Affairs of the Ministry of Justice found that 2.7 percent of surveyed households reported a member being victim of a crime in 2007. Of these, 96.1 percent were crimes against property, 2.6 percent were crimes against life and body, and 1.4 percent were information-related crimes.[153]
+
+Political demonstrations and protests are common in Bangkok.[147] While most events since 1992 had been peaceful, the series of protests since 2006 have often turned violent.[147] Demonstrations during March–May 2010 ended in a crackdown in which 92 were killed, including armed and unarmed protesters, security forces, civilians and journalists. Terrorist incidents have also occurred in Bangkok, most notably the 2015 Bangkok bombing at the Erawan shrine, and also a series of bombings on the 2006–07 New Year's Eve.
+
+Traffic accidents are a major hazard in Bangkok. There were 37,985 accidents in the city in 2010, resulting in 16,602 injuries and 456 deaths as well as 426.42 million baht in damages. However, the rate of fatal accidents is much lower than in the rest of Thailand. While accidents in Bangkok amounted to 50.9 percent of the entire country, only 6.2 percent of fatalities occurred in the city.[154] Another serious public health hazard comes from Bangkok's stray dogs. Up to 300,000 strays are estimated to roam the city's streets,[155] and dog bites are among the most common injuries treated in the emergency departments of the city's hospitals. Rabies is prevalent among the dog population, and treatment for bites pose a heavy public burden.[k]
+
+The city's formal international relations are managed by the International Affairs Division of the BMA. Its missions include partnering with other major cities through sister city agreements, participation and membership in international organizations, and pursuing cooperative activities with the many foreign diplomatic missions based in the city.[157]
+
+Bangkok is a member of several international organizations and regional city government networks, including the Asian Network of Major Cities 21, the Japan-led Asian-Pacific City Summit, the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, the ESCAP-sponsored Regional Network of Local Authorities for Management of Human Settlements in Asia and Pacific (CITYNET), Japan's Council of Local Authorities for International Relations, the World Association of the Major Metropolises and Local Governments for Sustainability, among others.[157]
+
+With its location at the heart of mainland Southeast Asia and as one of Asia's hubs of transportation, Bangkok is home to many international and regional organizations. Among others, Bangkok is the seat of the Secretariat of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), as well as the Asia-Pacific regional offices of the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the International Labour Organization (ILO), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).[158]
+
+Bangkok has made sister city and/or friendship agreements with twenty-eight other cities in nineteen countries, as of 2019[update].[159] They are:
+
+
+
+
+

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+Deafness has varying definitions in cultural and medical contexts.  When used as a cultural label especially within the culture, the word deaf is often written with a capital D and referred to as "big D Deaf" in speech and sign. When used as a label for the audiological condition, it is written with a lower case d.[1][2]
+
+In a cultural context, Deaf culture refers to a tight-knit cultural group of people whose primary language is signed, and who practice social and cultural norms which are distinct from those of the surrounding hearing community. This community does not automatically include all those who are clinically or legally deaf, nor does it exclude every hearing person. According to Baker and Padden, it includes any person or persons who "identifies him/herself as a member of the Deaf community, and other members accept that person as a part of the community,"[3] an example being children of deaf adults with normal hearing ability.  It includes the set of social beliefs, behaviors, art, literary traditions, history, values, and shared institutions of communities that are influenced by deafness and which use sign languages as the main means of communication.[1][2]  Members of the Deaf community tend to view deafness as a difference in human experience rather than a disability or disease.[4][5]
+
+In a medical context, deafness is defined as a degree of hearing loss such that a person is unable to understand speech, even in the presence of amplification.[6] In profound deafness, even the highest intensity sounds produced by an audiometer (an instrument used to measure hearing by producing pure tone sounds through a range of frequencies) may not be detected. In total deafness, no sounds at all, regardless of amplification or method of production, can be heard.

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+
+
+A mouse, plural mice, is a small rodent characteristically having a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (Mus musculus). It is also a popular pet. In some places, certain kinds of field mice are locally common. They are known to invade homes for food and shelter.
+
+Species of mice are mostly classified in Rodentia, and are present throughout the order.  Typical mice are classified in the genus Mus.
+
+Mice are typically distinguished from rats by their size. Generally, when someone discovers a smaller muroid rodent, its common name includes the term mouse, while if it is larger, the name includes the term rat. Common terms rat and mouse are not taxonomically specific. Scientifically, the term mouse is not confined to members of Mus for example, but also applies to species from other genera such as the deer mouse, Peromyscus.
+
+Domestic mice sold as pets often differ substantially in size from the common house mouse. This is attributable both to breeding and to different conditions in the wild. The best-known strain, the white lab mouse, has more uniform traits that are appropriate to its use in research.
+
+Cats, wild dogs, foxes, birds of prey, snakes and even certain kinds of arthropods have been known to prey heavily upon mice. Nevertheless, because of its remarkable adaptability to almost any environment, the mouse is one of the most successful mammalian genera living on Earth today.
+
+Mice, in certain contexts, can be considered vermin which are a major source of crop damage,[1] causing structural damage and spreading diseases through their parasites and feces.[2] In North America, breathing dust that has come in contact with mouse excrement has been linked to hantavirus, which may lead to hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS).
+
+Primarily nocturnal[3] animals, mice compensate for their poor eyesight with a keen sense of hearing, and rely especially on their sense of smell to locate food and avoid predators.[4]
+
+Mice build long intricate burrows in the wild. These typically have long entrances and are equipped with escape tunnels or routes. In at least one species, the architectural design of a burrow is a genetic trait.[5]
+
+The most common mice are murines, in the same clade as common rats. They are murids, along with gerbils and other close relatives.
+
+Mice are common experimental animals in laboratory research of biology and psychology fields primarily because they are mammals, and also because they share a high degree of homology with humans. They are the most commonly used mammalian model organism, more common than rats. The mouse genome has been sequenced, and virtually all mouse genes have human homologs. The mouse has approximately 2.7 billion base pairs and 20 pairs of chromosomes.[6]
+They can also be manipulated in ways that are illegal with humans, although animal rights activists often object. A knockout mouse is a genetically modified mouse that has had one or more of its genes made inoperable through a gene knockout.
+
+Reasons for common selection of mice are that they are small and inexpensive, have a widely varied diet, are easily maintained, and can reproduce quickly. Several generations of mice can be observed in a relatively short time. Mice are generally very docile if raised from birth and given sufficient human contact. However, certain strains have been known to be quite temperamental. Mice and rats have the same organs in the same places, with the difference of size.
+
+Researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology have confirmed that mice have a range of facial expressions. They used machine vision to spot familiar human emotions like pleasure, disgust, nausea, pain, and fear.[7][8][9]
+
+Many people buy mice as companion pets. They can be playful, loving and can grow used to being handled. Like pet rats, pet mice should not be left unsupervised outside as they have many natural predators, including (but not limited to) birds, snakes, lizards, cats, and dogs. Male mice tend to have a stronger odor than the females.  However, mice are careful groomers and as pets they never need bathing.  Well looked-after mice can make ideal pets. Some common mouse care products are:
+
+In nature, mice are largely herbivores, consuming any kind of fruit or grain from plants.[11] However, mice adapt well to urban areas and are known for eating almost all types of food scraps. In captivity, mice are commonly fed commercial pelleted mouse diet. These diets are nutritionally complete, but they still need a large variety of vegetables.
+
+Mice do not have a special appetite for cheese. They will only eat cheese for lack of better options.[12]
+
+Mice are a staple in the diet of many small carnivores. Humans have eaten mice since prehistoric times. In Victorian Britain, fried mice were still given to children as a folk remedy for bed-wetting;[13] while Jared Diamond reports creamed mice being used in England as a dietary supplement during WW II rationing.[14] Mice are a delicacy throughout eastern Zambia and northern Malawi,[15] where they are a seasonal source of protein. Field rat is a popular food in Vietnam and neighboring countries.[16] In many countries, however, mouse is no longer a food item.
+
+Prescribed cures in Ancient Egypt included mice as medicine.[17] In Ancient Egypt, when infants were ill, mice were eaten as treatment by their mothers.[18][19] It was believed that mouse eating by the mother would help heal the baby who was ill.[20][21][22][23][24]
+
+In various countries mice are used as food[25] for pets such as snakes, lizards, frogs, tarantulas and birds of prey, and many pet stores carry mice for this purpose.
+
+Common terms used to refer to different ages/sizes of mice when sold for pet food are "pinkies", "fuzzies", "crawlers", "hoppers", and "adults".[26] Pinkies are newborn mice that have not yet grown fur; fuzzies have some fur but are not very mobile; hoppers have a full coat of hair and are fully mobile but are smaller than adult mice. Mice without fur are easier for the animal to consume; however, mice with fur may be more convincing as animal feed.[citation needed] These terms are also used to refer to the various growth stages of rats (see Fancy rat).

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+A computer mouse (plural mice or mouses) is a hand-held pointing device that detects two-dimensional motion relative to a surface. This motion is typically translated into the motion of a pointer on a display, which allows a smooth control of the graphical user interface of a computer.
+
+The first public demonstration of a mouse controlling a computer system was in 1968. Mice originally used a ball rolling on a surface to detect motion, but modern mice often have optical sensors that have no moving parts. Originally wired to a computer, many modern mice are cordless, relying on short-range radio communication with the connected system.
+
+In addition to moving a cursor, computer mice have one or more buttons to allow operations such as selection of a menu item on a display. Mice often also feature other elements, such as touch surfaces and scroll wheels, which enable additional control and dimensional input.
+
+The earliest known publication of the term mouse as referring to a computer pointing device is in Bill English's July 1965 publication, "Computer-Aided Display Control" likely originating from its resemblance to the shape and size of a mouse, a rodent, with the cord resembling its tail.[1][2][3]
+
+The plural for the small rodent is always "mice" in modern usage. The plural of a computer mouse is either "mouses" or "mice" according to most dictionaries, with "mice" being more common.[4] The first recorded plural usage is "mice";  the online Oxford Dictionaries cites a 1984 use, and earlier uses include J. C. R. Licklider's "The Computer as a Communication Device" of 1968.[5] The term computer mouses may be used informally in some cases. Although the plural of a mouse (small rodent) is mice, the two words have undergone a differentiation through usage.
+
+The trackball, a related pointing device, was invented in 1946 by Ralph Benjamin as part of a post-World War II-era fire-control radar plotting system called Comprehensive Display System (CDS). Benjamin was then working for the British Royal Navy Scientific Service. Benjamin's project used analog computers to calculate the future position of target aircraft based on several initial input points provided by a user with a joystick. Benjamin felt that a more elegant input device was needed and invented what they called a "roller ball" for this purpose.[6][7]
+
+The device was patented in 1947,[7] but only a prototype using a metal ball rolling on two rubber-coated wheels was ever built, and the device was kept as a military secret.[6]
+
+Another early trackball was built by Kenyon Taylor, a British electrical engineer working in collaboration with Tom Cranston and Fred Longstaff. Taylor was part of the original Ferranti Canada, working on the Royal Canadian Navy's DATAR (Digital Automated Tracking and Resolving) system in 1952.[8]
+
+DATAR was similar in concept to Benjamin's display. The trackball used four disks to pick up motion, two each for the X and Y directions. Several rollers provided mechanical support. When the ball was rolled, the pickup discs spun and contacts on their outer rim made periodic contact with wires, producing pulses of output with each movement of the ball. By counting the pulses, the physical movement of the ball could be determined. A digital computer calculated the tracks and sent the resulting data to other ships in a task force using pulse-code modulation radio signals. This trackball used a standard Canadian five-pin bowling ball. It was not patented, since it was a secret military project.[9][10]
+
+Douglas Engelbart of the Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International) has been credited in published books by Thierry Bardini,[11] Paul Ceruzzi,[12] Howard Rheingold,[13] and several others[14][15][16] as the inventor of the computer mouse. Engelbart was also recognized as such in various obituary titles after his death in July 2013.[17][18][19][20]
+
+By 1963, Engelbart had already established a research lab at SRI, the Augmentation Research Center (ARC), to pursue his objective of developing both hardware and software computer technology to "augment" human intelligence. That November, while attending a conference on computer graphics in Reno, Nevada, Engelbart began to ponder how to adapt the underlying principles of the planimeter to inputting X- and Y-coordinate data.[11] On November 14, 1963, he first recorded his thoughts in his personal notebook about something he initially called a "bug," which in a "3-point" form could have a "drop point and 2 orthogonal wheels."[11] He wrote that the "bug" would be "easier" and "more natural" to use, and unlike a stylus, it would stay still when let go, which meant it would be "much better for coordination with the keyboard."[11]
+
+In 1964, Bill English joined ARC, where he helped Engelbart build the first mouse prototype.[2][21] They christened the device the mouse as early models had a cord attached to the rear part of the device which looked like a tail, and in turn resembled the common mouse.[22] As noted above, this "mouse" was first mentioned in print in a July 1965 report, on which English was the lead author.[1][2][3] On 9 December 1968, Engelbart publicly demonstrated the mouse at what would come to be known as The Mother of All Demos. Engelbart never received any royalties for it, as his employer SRI held the patent, which expired before the mouse became widely used in personal computers.[23] In any event, the invention of the mouse was just a small part of Engelbart's much larger project of augmenting human intellect.[24][25]
+
+Several other experimental pointing-devices developed for Engelbart's oN-Line System (NLS) exploited different body movements – for example, head-mounted devices attached to the chin or nose – but ultimately the mouse won out because of its speed and convenience.[27] The first mouse, a bulky device (pictured) used two potentiometers perpendicular to each other and connected to wheels: the rotation of each wheel translated into motion along one axis.[28] At the time of the "Mother of All Demos", Engelbart's group had been using their second generation, 3-button mouse for about a year.
+
+On October 2, 1968, a mouse device named Rollkugel (German for "rolling ball") was described as an optional device for its SIG-100 terminal was developed by the German company Telefunken.[29] As the name suggests and unlike Engelbart's mouse, the Telefunken model already had a ball. It was based on an earlier trackball-like device (also named Rollkugel) that was embedded into radar flight control desks. This trackball had been developed by a team led by Rainer Mallebrein at Telefunken Konstanz for the German Bundesanstalt für Flugsicherung (Federal Air Traffic Control) as part of their TR 86 process computer system with its SIG 100-86[29][30] vector graphics terminal.
+
+When the development for the Telefunken main frame TR 440 [de] began in 1965, Mallebrein and his team came up with the idea of "reversing" the existing Rollkugel into a moveable mouse-like device, so that customers did not have to be bothered with mounting holes for the earlier trackball device. Together with light pens and trackballs, it was offered as an optional input device for their system since 1968. Some Rollkugel mouses installed at the Leibniz-Rechenzentrum in Munich in 1972 are well preserved in a museum.[29][31] Telefunken considered the invention too unimportant to apply for a patent on it.
+
+The Xerox Alto was one of the first computers designed for individual use in 1973 and is regarded as the first modern computer to utilize a mouse.[32] Inspired by PARC's Alto, the Lilith, a computer which had been developed by a team around Niklaus Wirth at ETH Zürich between 1978 and 1980, provided a mouse as well. The third marketed version of an integrated mouse shipped as a part of a computer and intended for personal computer navigation came with the Xerox 8010 Star in 1981.
+
+By 1982, the Xerox 8010 was probably the best-known computer with a mouse. The Sun-1 also came with a mouse, and the forthcoming Apple Lisa was rumored to use one, but the peripheral remained obscure; Jack Hawley of The Mouse House reported that one buyer for a large organization believed at first that his company sold lab mice. Hawley, who manufactured mice for Xerox, stated that "Practically, I have the market all to myself right now"; a Hawley mouse cost $415.[33] In 1982, Logitech introduced the P4 Mouse at the Comdex trade show in Las Vegas, its first hardware mouse.[34] That same year Microsoft made the decision to make the MS-DOS program Microsoft Word mouse-compatible, and developed the first PC-compatible mouse. Microsoft's mouse shipped in 1983, thus beginning the Microsoft Hardware division of the company.[35] However, the mouse remained relatively obscure until the appearance of the Macintosh 128K (which included an updated version of the single-button[36] Lisa Mouse) in 1984,[37] and of the Amiga 1000 and the Atari ST in 1985.
+
+A mouse typically controls the motion of a pointer in two dimensions in a graphical user interface (GUI). The mouse turns movements of the hand backward and forward, left and right into equivalent electronic signals that in turn are used to move the pointer.
+
+The relative movements of the mouse on the surface are applied to the position of the pointer on the screen, which signals the point where actions of the user take place, so hand movements are replicated by the pointer.[38] Clicking or hovering (stopping movement while the cursor is within the bounds of an area) can select files, programs or actions from a list of names, or (in graphical interfaces) through small images called "icons" and other elements. For example, a text file might be represented by a picture of a paper notebook and clicking while the cursor hovers this icon might cause a text editing program to open the file in a window.
+
+Different ways of operating the mouse cause specific things to happen in the GUI:[38]
+
+Users can also employ mice gesturally; meaning that a stylized motion of the mouse cursor itself, called a "gesture", can issue a command or map to a specific action. For example, in a drawing program, moving the mouse in a rapid "x" motion over a shape might delete the shape.
+
+Gestural interfaces occur more rarely than plain pointing-and-clicking; and people often find them more difficult to use, because they require finer motor control from the user. However, a few gestural conventions have become widespread, including the drag and drop gesture, in which:
+
+For example, a user might drag-and-drop a picture representing a file onto a picture of a trash can, thus instructing the system to delete the file.
+
+Standard semantic gestures include:
+
+Other uses of the mouse's input occur commonly in special application-domains. In interactive three-dimensional graphics, the mouse's motion often translates directly into changes in the virtual objects' or camera's orientation. For example, in the first-person shooter genre of games (see below), players usually employ the mouse to control the direction in which the virtual player's "head" faces: moving the mouse up will cause the player to look up, revealing the view above the player's head. A related function makes an image of an object rotate, so that all sides can be examined. 3D design and animation software often modally chords many different combinations to allow objects and cameras to be rotated and moved through space with the few axes of movement mice can detect.
+
+When mice have more than one button, the software may assign different functions to each button. Often, the primary (leftmost in a right-handed configuration) button on the mouse will select items, and the secondary (rightmost in a right-handed) button will bring up a menu of alternative actions applicable to that item. For example, on platforms with more than one button, the Mozilla web browser will follow a link in response to a primary button click, will bring up a contextual menu of alternative actions for that link in response to a secondary-button click, and will often open the link in a new tab or window in response to a click with the tertiary (middle) mouse button.
+
+The German company Telefunken published on their early ball mouse on 2 October 1968.[29] Telefunken's mouse was sold as optional equipment for their computer systems. Bill English, builder of Engelbart's original mouse,[39] created a ball mouse in 1972 while working for Xerox PARC.[40]
+
+The ball mouse replaced the external wheels with a single ball that could rotate in any direction. It came as part of the hardware package of the Xerox Alto computer. Perpendicular chopper wheels housed inside the mouse's body chopped beams of light on the way to light sensors, thus detecting in their turn the motion of the ball. This variant of the mouse resembled an inverted trackball and became the predominant form used with personal computers throughout the 1980s and 1990s. The Xerox PARC group also settled on the modern technique of using both hands to type on a full-size keyboard and grabbing the mouse when required.
+
+The ball mouse has two freely rotating rollers. These are located 90 degrees apart. One roller detects the forward–backward motion of the mouse and other the left–right motion. Opposite the two rollers is a third one (white, in the photo, at 45 degrees) that is spring-loaded to push the ball against the other two rollers. Each roller is on the same shaft as an encoder wheel that has slotted edges; the slots interrupt infrared light beams to generate electrical pulses that represent wheel movement. Each wheel's disc has a pair of light beams, located so that a given beam becomes interrupted or again starts to pass light freely when the other beam of the pair is about halfway between changes.
+
+Simple logic circuits interpret the relative timing to indicate which direction the wheel is rotating. This incremental rotary encoder scheme is sometimes called quadrature encoding of the wheel rotation, as the two optical sensors produce signals that are in approximately quadrature phase. The mouse sends these signals to the computer system via the mouse cable, directly as logic signals in very old mice such as the Xerox mice, and via a data-formatting IC in modern mice. The driver software in the system converts the signals into motion of the mouse cursor along X and Y axes on the computer screen.
+
+The ball is mostly steel, with a precision spherical rubber surface. The weight of the ball, given an appropriate working surface under the mouse, provides a reliable grip so the mouse's movement is transmitted accurately. Ball mice and wheel mice were manufactured for Xerox by Jack Hawley, doing business as The Mouse House in Berkeley, California, starting in 1975.[41][42] Based on another invention by Jack Hawley, proprietor of the Mouse House, Honeywell produced another type of mechanical mouse.[43][44] Instead of a ball, it had two wheels rotating at off axes. Key Tronic later produced a similar product.[45]
+
+Modern computer mice took form at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) under the inspiration of Professor Jean-Daniel Nicoud and at the hands of engineer and watchmaker André Guignard.[46] This new design incorporated a single hard rubber mouseball and three buttons, and remained a common design until the mainstream adoption of the scroll-wheel mouse during the 1990s.[47] In 1985, René Sommer added a microprocessor to Nicoud's and Guignard's design.[48] Through this innovation, Sommer is credited with inventing a significant component of the mouse, which made it more "intelligent";[48] though optical mice from Mouse Systems had incorporated microprocessors by 1984.[49]
+
+Another type of mechanical mouse, the "analog mouse" (now generally regarded as obsolete), uses potentiometers rather than encoder wheels, and is typically designed to be plug compatible with an analog joystick. The "Color Mouse", originally marketed by RadioShack for their Color Computer (but also usable on MS-DOS machines equipped with analog joystick ports, provided the software accepted joystick input) was the best-known example.
+
+Early optical mice relied entirely on one or more light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and an imaging array of photodiodes to detect movement relative to the underlying surface, eschewing the internal moving parts a mechanical mouse uses in addition to its optics. A laser mouse is an optical mouse that uses coherent (laser) light.
+
+The earliest optical mice detected movement on pre-printed mousepad surfaces, whereas the modern LED optical mouse works on most opaque diffuse surfaces; it is usually unable to detect movement on specular surfaces like polished stone. Laser diodes provide good resolution and precision, improving performance on opaque specular surfaces. Later, more surface-independent optical mice use an optoelectronic sensor (essentially, a tiny low-resolution video camera) to take successive images of the surface on which the mouse operates. Battery powered, wireless optical mice flash the LED intermittently to save power, and only glow steadily when movement is detected.
+
+Often called "air mice" since they do not require a surface to operate, inertial mice use a tuning fork or other accelerometer (US Patent 4787051[50]) to detect rotary movement for every axis supported. The most common models (manufactured by Logitech and Gyration) work using 2 degrees of rotational freedom and are insensitive to spatial translation. The user requires only small wrist rotations to move the cursor, reducing user fatigue or "gorilla arm".
+
+Usually cordless, they often have a switch to deactivate the movement circuitry between use, allowing the user freedom of movement without affecting the cursor position. A patent for an inertial mouse claims that such mice consume less power than optically based mice, and offer increased sensitivity, reduced weight and increased ease-of-use.[51] In combination with a wireless keyboard an inertial mouse can offer alternative ergonomic arrangements which do not require a flat work surface, potentially alleviating some types of repetitive motion injuries related to workstation posture.
+
+Also known as bats,[52] flying mice, or wands,[53] these devices generally function through ultrasound and provide at least three degrees of freedom. Probably the best known example would be 3Dconnexion ("Logitech's SpaceMouse") from the early 1990s. In the late 1990s Kantek introduced the 3D RingMouse. This wireless mouse was worn on a ring around a finger, which enabled the thumb to access three buttons. The mouse was tracked in three dimensions by a base station.[54] Despite a certain appeal, it was finally discontinued because it did not provide sufficient resolution.
+
+One example of a 2000s consumer 3D pointing device is the Wii Remote. While primarily a motion-sensing device (that is, it can determine its orientation and direction of movement), Wii Remote can also detect its spatial position by comparing the distance and position of the lights from the IR emitter using its integrated IR camera (since the nunchuk accessory lacks a camera, it can only tell its current heading and orientation). The obvious drawback to this approach is that it can only produce spatial coordinates while its camera can see the sensor bar. More accurate consumer devices have since been released, including the PlayStation Move, the Razer Hydra and the controllers part of the HTC Vive virtual reality system. All of these devices can accurately detect position and orientation in 3D space regardless of angle relative to the sensor station.[citation needed]
+
+A mouse-related controller called the SpaceBall[55] has a ball placed above the work surface that can easily be gripped. With spring-loaded centering, it sends both translational as well as angular displacements on all six axes, in both directions for each. In November 2010 a German Company called Axsotic introduced a new concept of 3D mouse called 3D Spheric Mouse. This new concept of a true six degree-of-freedom input device uses a ball to rotate in 3 axes without any limitations.[56]
+
+Logitech spacemouse 3D. On display at the Bolo Computer Museum, EPFL, Lausanne
+
+Silicon Graphics SpaceBall model 1003 (1988), allowing manipulation of objects with six degrees of freedom.
+
+Logitech 3D Mouse (1990), the first ultrasonic mouse
+
+In 2000, Logitech introduced a "tactile mouse" that contained a small actuator to make the mouse vibrate. Such a mouse can augment user-interfaces with haptic feedback, such as giving feedback when crossing a window boundary. To surf by touch requires the user to be able to feel depth or hardness; this ability was realized with the first electrorheological tactile mice[57] but never marketed.
+
+Tablet digitizers are sometimes used with accessories called pucks, devices which rely on absolute positioning, but can be configured for sufficiently mouse-like relative tracking that they are sometimes marketed as mice.[58]
+
+As the name suggests, this type of mouse is intended to provide optimum comfort and avoid injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome, arthritis and other repetitive strain injuries. It is designed to fit natural hand position and movements, to reduce discomfort.
+
+When holding a typical mouse, ulna and radius bones on the arm are crossed. Some designs attempt to place the palm more vertically, so the bones take more natural parallel position.[59] Some limit wrist movement, encouraging arm movement instead, that may be less precise but more optimal from the health point of view. A mouse may be angled from the thumb downward to the opposite side – this is known to reduce wrist pronation.[60] However such optimizations make the mouse right or left hand specific, making more problematic to change the tired hand. Time magazine has criticized manufacturers for offering few or no left-handed ergonomic mice: "Oftentimes I felt like I was dealing with someone who’d never actually met a left-handed person before."[61]
+
+Another solution is a pointing bar device. The so-called roller bar mouse is positioned snugly in front of the keyboard, thus allowing bi-manual accessibility.[62]
+
+These mice are specifically designed for use in computer games. They typically employ a wider array of controls and buttons and have designs that differ radically from traditional mice. They may also have decorative monochrome or programmable RGB LED lighting. The additional buttons can often be used for changing the sensitivity of the mouse or they can be assigned to macros (i.e., for opening a program or for use instead of a key combination) It is also common for gaming mice, especially those designed for use in real-time strategy games such as StarCraft, or in multiplayer online battle arena games such as Dota 2 to have a relatively high sensitivity, measured in dots per inch (DPI).[63] Some advanced mice from gaming manufacturers also allow users to customize the weight of the mouse by adding or subtracting weights to allow for easier control.[64] Ergonomic quality is also an important factor in gaming mice, as extended gameplay times may render further use of the mouse to be uncomfortable. Some mice have been designed to have adjustable features such as removable and/or elongated palm rests, horizontally adjustable thumb rests and pinky rests. Some mice may include several different rests with their products to ensure comfort for a wider range of target consumers.[65] Gaming mice are held by gamers in three styles of grip:[66][67]
+
+To transmit their input, typical cabled mice use a thin electrical cord terminating in a standard connector, such as RS-232C, PS/2, ADB or USB. Cordless mice instead transmit data via infrared radiation (see IrDA) or radio (including Bluetooth), although many such cordless interfaces are themselves connected through the aforementioned wired serial buses.
+
+While the electrical interface and the format of the data transmitted by commonly available mice is currently standardized on USB, in the past it varied between different manufacturers. A bus mouse used a dedicated interface card for connection to an IBM PC or compatible computer.
+
+Mouse use in DOS applications became more common after the introduction of the Microsoft Mouse, largely because Microsoft provided an open standard for communication between applications and mouse driver software. Thus, any application written to use the Microsoft standard could use a mouse with a driver that implements the same API, even if the mouse hardware itself was incompatible with Microsoft's. This driver provides the state of the buttons and the distance the mouse has moved in units that its documentation calls "mickeys",[71] as does the Allegro library.[72]
+
+In the 1970s, the Xerox Alto mouse, and in the 1980s the Xerox optical mouse, used a quadrature-encoded X and Y interface.  This two-bit encoding per dimension had the property that only one bit of the two would change at a time, like a Gray code or Johnson counter, so that the transitions would not be misinterpreted when asynchronously sampled.[73]
+
+The earliest mass-market mice, such as on the original Macintosh, Amiga, and Atari ST mice used a D-subminiature 9-pin connector to send the quadrature-encoded X and Y axis signals directly, plus one pin per mouse button.  The mouse was a simple optomechanical device, and the decoding circuitry was all in the main computer.
+
+The DE-9 connectors were designed to be electrically compatible with the joysticks popular on numerous 8-bit systems, such as the Commodore 64 and the Atari 2600.  Although the ports could be used for both purposes, the signals must be interpreted differently.  As a result, plugging a mouse into a joystick port causes the "joystick" to continuously move in some direction, even if the mouse stays still, whereas plugging a joystick into a mouse port causes the "mouse" to only be able to move a single pixel in each direction.
+
+Because the IBM PC did not have a quadrature decoder built in, early PC mice used the RS-232C serial port to communicate encoded mouse movements, as well as provide power to the mouse's circuits. The Mouse Systems Corporation version used a five-byte protocol and supported three buttons. The Microsoft version used a three-byte protocol and supported two buttons. Due to the incompatibility between the two protocols, some manufacturers sold serial mice with a mode switch: "PC" for MSC mode, "MS" for Microsoft mode.[74]
+
+In 1986 Apple first implemented the Apple Desktop Bus allowing the daisy-chaining (linking together in series, ie. end to end) of up to 16 devices, including mice and other devices on the same bus with no configuration whatsoever. Featuring only a single data pin, the bus used a purely polled approach to computer/device communications and survived as the standard on mainstream models (including a number of non-Apple workstations) until 1998 when Apple's iMac line of computers joined the industry-wide switch to using USB. Beginning with the Bronze Keyboard PowerBook G3 in May 1999, Apple dropped the external ADB port in favor of USB, but retained an internal ADB connection in the PowerBook G4 for communication with its built-in keyboard and trackpad until early 2005.
+
+With the arrival of the IBM PS/2 personal-computer series in 1987, IBM introduced the eponymous PS/2 interface for mice and keyboards, which other manufacturers rapidly adopted. The most visible change was the use of a round 6-pin mini-DIN, in lieu of the former 5-pin MIDI style full sized DIN 41524 connector. In default mode (called stream mode) a PS/2 mouse communicates motion, and the state of each button, by means of 3-byte packets.[75] For any motion, button press or button release event, a PS/2 mouse sends, over a bi-directional serial port, a sequence of three bytes, with the following format:
+
+Here, XS and YS represent the sign bits of the movement vectors, XV and YV indicate an overflow in the respective vector component, and LB, MB and RB indicate the status of the left, middle and right mouse buttons (1 = pressed). PS/2 mice also understand several commands for reset and self-test, switching between different operating modes, and changing the resolution of the reported motion vectors.
+
+A Microsoft IntelliMouse relies on an extension of the PS/2 protocol: the ImPS/2 or IMPS/2 protocol (the abbreviation combines the concepts of "IntelliMouse" and "PS/2"). It initially operates in standard PS/2 format, for backwards compatibility. After the host sends a special command sequence, it switches to an extended format in which a fourth byte carries information about wheel movements. The IntelliMouse Explorer works analogously, with the difference that its 4-byte packets also allow for two additional buttons (for a total of five).[76]
+
+Mouse vendors also use other extended formats, often without providing public documentation. The Typhoon mouse uses 6-byte packets which can appear as a sequence of two standard 3-byte packets, such that an ordinary PS/2 driver can handle them.[77] For 3-D (or 6-degree-of-freedom) input, vendors have made many extensions both to the hardware and to software. In the late 1990s, Logitech created ultrasound based tracking which gave 3D input to a few millimeters accuracy, which worked well as an input device but failed as a profitable product. In 2008, Motion4U introduced its "OptiBurst" system using IR tracking for use as a Maya (graphics software) plugin.[relevant?  – discuss]
+
+The industry-standard USB (Universal Serial Bus) protocol and its connector have become widely used for mice; it is among the most popular types.[78]
+
+Cordless or wireless mice transmit data via infrared radiation (see IrDA) or radio (including Bluetooth and Wi-Fi).[79] The receiver is connected to the computer through a serial or USB port, or can be built in (as is sometimes the case with Bluetooth and WiFi).
+Modern non-Bluetooth and non-WiFi wireless mice use USB receivers. Some of these can be stored inside the mouse for safe transport while not in use, while other, newer mice use newer "nano" receivers, designed to be small enough to remain plugged into a laptop during transport, while still being large enough to easily remove.[80]
+
+The Logitech Metaphor, the first wireless mouse (1984). On display at the Musée Bolo, EPFL
+
+A Microsoft wireless mouse made for notebook computers
+
+Microsoft Bluetooth Mobile Mouse 3600
+
+Some systems allow two or more mice to be used at once as input devices. Late-1980s era home computers such as the Amiga used this to allow computer games with two players interacting on the same computer (Lemmings and The Settlers for example). The same idea is sometimes used in collaborative software, e.g. to simulate a whiteboard that multiple users can draw on without passing a single mouse around.
+
+Microsoft Windows, since Windows 98, has supported multiple simultaneous pointing devices. Because Windows only provides a single screen cursor, using more than one device at the same time requires cooperation of users or applications designed for multiple input devices.
+
+Multiple mice are often used in multi-user gaming in addition to specially designed devices that provide several input interfaces.
+
+Windows also has full support for multiple input/mouse configurations for multi-user environments.
+
+Starting with Windows XP, Microsoft introduced an SDK for developing applications that allow multiple input devices to be used at the same time with independent cursors and independent input points. However, it no longer appears to be available.[81]
+
+The introduction of Vista and Microsoft Surface (now known as Microsoft PixelSense) introduced a new set of input APIs that were adopted into Windows 7, allowing for 50 points/cursors, all controlled by independent users. The new input points provide traditional mouse input; however, they were designed with other input technologies like touch and image in mind. They inherently offer 3D coordinates along with pressure, size, tilt, angle, mask, and even an image bitmap to see and recognize the input point/object on the screen.
+
+As of 2009, Linux distributions and other operating systems that use X.Org, such as OpenSolaris and FreeBSD, support 255 cursors/input points through Multi-Pointer X. However, currently no window managers support Multi-Pointer X leaving it relegated to custom software usage.
+
+There have also been propositions of having a single operator use two mice simultaneously as a more sophisticated means of controlling various graphics and multimedia applications.[82]
+
+Mouse buttons are microswitches which can be pressed to select or interact with an element of a graphical user interface, producing a distinctive clicking sound.
+
+Since around the late 1990s, the three-button scrollmouse has become the de facto standard. Users most commonly employ the second button to invoke a contextual menu in the computer's software user interface, which contains options specifically tailored to the interface element over which the mouse cursor currently sits. By default, the primary mouse button sits located on the left-hand side of the mouse, for the benefit of right-handed users; left-handed users can usually reverse this configuration via software.
+
+Nearly all mice now have an integrated input primarily intended for scrolling on top, usually a single-axis digital wheel or rocker switch which can also be depressed to act as a third button. Though less common, many mice instead have two-axis inputs such as a tiltable wheel, trackball, or touchpad.
+
+
+
+Mickeys per second is a unit of measurement for the speed and movement direction of a computer mouse,[71] where direction is often expressed as "horizontal" versus "vertical" mickey count. However, speed can also refer to the ratio between how many pixels the cursor moves on the screen and how far the mouse moves on the mouse pad, which may be expressed as pixels per mickey, pixels per inch, or pixels per centimeter.
+
+The computer industry often measures mouse sensitivity in terms of counts per inch (CPI), commonly expressed as dots per inch (DPI) – the number of steps the mouse will report when it moves one inch. In early mice, this specification was called pulses per inch (ppi).[41] The Mickey originally referred to one of these counts, or one resolvable step of motion. If the default mouse-tracking condition involves moving the cursor by one screen-pixel or dot on-screen per reported step, then the CPI does equate to DPI: dots of cursor motion per inch of mouse motion. The CPI or DPI as reported by manufacturers depends on how they make the mouse; the higher the CPI, the faster the cursor moves with mouse movement. However, software can adjust the mouse sensitivity, making the cursor move faster or slower than its CPI. Current[update] software can change the speed of the cursor dynamically, taking into account the mouse's absolute speed and the movement from the last stop-point. In most software, an example being the Windows platforms, this setting is named "speed," referring to "cursor precision". However, some operating systems name this setting "acceleration", the typical Apple OS designation. This term is incorrect. Mouse acceleration in most mouse software refers to the change in speed of the cursor over time while the mouse movement is constant.[clarification needed][citation needed]
+
+For simple software, when the mouse starts to move, the software will count the number of "counts" or "mickeys" received from the mouse and will move the cursor across the screen by that number of pixels (or multiplied by a rate factor, typically less than 1). The cursor will move slowly on the screen, with good precision. When the movement of the mouse passes the value set for some threshold, the software will start to move the cursor faster, with a greater rate factor. Usually, the user can set the value of the second rate factor by changing the "acceleration" setting.
+
+Operating systems sometimes apply acceleration, referred to as "ballistics", to the motion reported by the mouse. For example, versions of Windows prior to Windows XP doubled reported values above a configurable threshold, and then optionally doubled them again above a second configurable threshold. These doublings applied separately in the X and Y directions, resulting in very nonlinear response.[83]
+
+Engelbart's original mouse did not require a mousepad;[84] the mouse had two large wheels which could roll on virtually any surface. However, most subsequent mechanical mice starting with the steel roller ball mouse have required a mousepad for optimal performance.
+
+The mousepad, the most common mouse accessory, appears most commonly in conjunction with mechanical mice, because to roll smoothly the ball requires more friction than common desk surfaces usually provide. So-called "hard mousepads" for gamers or optical/laser mice also exist.
+
+Most optical and laser mice do not require a pad, the notable exception being early optical mice which relied on a grid on the pad to detect movement (e.g. Mouse Systems). Whether to use a hard or soft mousepad with an optical mouse is largely a matter of personal preference. One exception occurs when the desk surface creates problems for the optical or laser tracking, for example, a transparent or reflective surface, such as glass.
+
+Around 1981, Xerox included mice with its Xerox Star, based on the mouse used in the 1970s on the Alto computer at Xerox PARC. Sun Microsystems, Symbolics, Lisp Machines Inc., and Tektronix also shipped workstations with mice, starting in about 1981. Later, inspired by the Star, Apple Computer released the Apple Lisa, which also used a mouse. However, none of these products achieved large-scale success. Only with the release of the Apple Macintosh in 1984 did the mouse see widespread use.[85]
+
+The Macintosh design,[86] commercially successful and technically influential, led many other vendors to begin producing mice or including them with their other computer products (by 1986, Atari ST, Amiga, Windows 1.0, GEOS for the Commodore 64, and the Apple IIGS).[87]
+
+The widespread adoption of graphical user interfaces in the software of the 1980s and 1990s made mice all but indispensable for controlling computers. In November 2008, Logitech built their billionth mouse.[88]
+
+The Classic Mac OS Desk Accessory Puzzle in 1984 was the first game designed specifically for a mouse.[89] The device often functions as an interface for PC-based computer games and sometimes for video game consoles.
+
+FPSs naturally lend themselves to separate and simultaneous control of the player's movement and aim, and on computers this has traditionally been achieved with a combination of keyboard and mouse. Players use the X-axis of the mouse for looking (or turning) left and right, and the Y-axis for looking up and down; the keyboard is used for movement and supplemental inputs.
+
+Many shooting genre players prefer a mouse over a gamepad analog stick because the wide range of motion offered by a mouse allows for faster and more varied control. Although an analog stick allows the player more granular control, it is poor for certain movements, as the player's input is relayed based on a vector of both the stick
+s direction and magnitude. Thus, a small but fast movement (known as "flick-shotting") using a gamepad requires the player to quickly move the stick from its rest position to the edge and back again in quick succession, a difficult maneuver. In addition the stick also has a finite magnitude; if the player is currently using the stick to move at a non-zero velocity their ability to increase the rate of movement of the camera is further limited based on the position their displaced stick was already at before executing the maneuver. The effect of this is that a mouse is well suited not only to small, precise movements but also to large, quick movements and immediate, responsive movements; all of which are important in shooter gaming.[90] This advantage also extends in varying degrees to similar game styles such as third-person shooters.
+
+Some incorrectly ported games or game engines have acceleration and interpolation curves which unintentionally produce excessive, irregular, or even negative acceleration when used with a mouse instead of their native platform's non-mouse default input device. Depending on how deeply hardcoded this misbehavior is, internal user patches or external 3rd-party software may be able to fix it.[91]
+
+Due to their similarity to the WIMP desktop metaphor interface for which mice were originally designed, and to their own tabletop game origins, computer strategy games are most commonly played with mice. In particular, real-time strategy and MOBA games usually require the use of a mouse.
+
+The left button usually controls primary fire. If the game supports multiple fire modes, the right button often provides secondary fire from the selected weapon. Games with only a single fire mode will generally map secondary fire to ADS. In some games, the right button may also invoke accessories for a particular weapon, such as allowing access to the scope of a sniper rifle or allowing the mounting of a bayonet or silencer.
+
+Gamers can use a scroll wheel for changing weapons (or for controlling scope-zoom magnification, in older games). On most first person shooter games, programming may also assign more functions to additional buttons on mice with more than three controls. A keyboard usually controls movement (for example, WASD for moving forward, left, backward and right, respectively) and other functions such as changing posture. Since the mouse serves for aiming, a mouse that tracks movement accurately and with less lag (latency) will give a player an advantage over players with less accurate or slower mice. In some cases the right mouse button may be used to move the player forward, either in lieu of, or in conjunction with the typical WASD configuration.
+
+Many games provide players with the option of mapping their own choice of a key or button to a certain control. An early technique of players, circle strafing, saw a player continuously strafing while aiming and shooting at an opponent by walking in circle around the opponent with the opponent at the center of the circle. Players could achieve this by holding down a key for strafing while continuously aiming the mouse towards the opponent.
+
+Games using mice for input are so popular that many manufacturers make mice specifically for gaming. Such mice may feature adjustable weights, high-resolution optical or laser components, additional buttons, ergonomic shape, and other features such as adjustable CPI. Mouse Bungees are typically used with gaming mice because it eliminates the annoyance of the cable.
+
+Many games, such as first- or third-person shooters, have a setting named "invert mouse" or similar (not to be confused with "button inversion", sometimes performed by left-handed users) which allows the user to look downward by moving the mouse forward and upward by moving the mouse backward (the opposite of non-inverted movement). This control system resembles that of aircraft control sticks, where pulling back causes pitch up and pushing forward causes pitch down; computer joysticks also typically emulate this control-configuration.
+
+After id Software's commercial hit of Doom, which did not support vertical aiming, competitor Bungie's Marathon became the first first-person shooter to support using the mouse to aim up and down.[92] Games using the Build engine had an option to invert the Y-axis. The "invert" feature actually made the mouse behave in a manner that users now[update] regard as non-inverted (by default, moving mouse forward resulted in looking down). Soon after, id Software released Quake, which introduced the invert feature as users now[update] know it.
+
+In 1988, the VTech Socrates educational video game console featured a wireless mouse with an attached mouse pad as an optional controller used for some games. In the early 1990s, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System video game system featured a mouse in addition to its controllers. The Mario Paint game in particular used the mouse's capabilities[93] as did its successor on the N64. Sega released official mice for their Genesis/Mega Drive, Saturn and Dreamcast consoles. NEC sold official mice for its PC Engine and PC-FX consoles. Sony released an official mouse product for the PlayStation console, included one along with the Linux for PlayStation 2 kit, as well as allowing owners to use virtually any USB mouse with the PS2, PS3, and PS4. Nintendo's Wii also had this added on in a later software update, retained on the Wii U.

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+A computer mouse (plural mice or mouses) is a hand-held pointing device that detects two-dimensional motion relative to a surface. This motion is typically translated into the motion of a pointer on a display, which allows a smooth control of the graphical user interface of a computer.
+
+The first public demonstration of a mouse controlling a computer system was in 1968. Mice originally used a ball rolling on a surface to detect motion, but modern mice often have optical sensors that have no moving parts. Originally wired to a computer, many modern mice are cordless, relying on short-range radio communication with the connected system.
+
+In addition to moving a cursor, computer mice have one or more buttons to allow operations such as selection of a menu item on a display. Mice often also feature other elements, such as touch surfaces and scroll wheels, which enable additional control and dimensional input.
+
+The earliest known publication of the term mouse as referring to a computer pointing device is in Bill English's July 1965 publication, "Computer-Aided Display Control" likely originating from its resemblance to the shape and size of a mouse, a rodent, with the cord resembling its tail.[1][2][3]
+
+The plural for the small rodent is always "mice" in modern usage. The plural of a computer mouse is either "mouses" or "mice" according to most dictionaries, with "mice" being more common.[4] The first recorded plural usage is "mice";  the online Oxford Dictionaries cites a 1984 use, and earlier uses include J. C. R. Licklider's "The Computer as a Communication Device" of 1968.[5] The term computer mouses may be used informally in some cases. Although the plural of a mouse (small rodent) is mice, the two words have undergone a differentiation through usage.
+
+The trackball, a related pointing device, was invented in 1946 by Ralph Benjamin as part of a post-World War II-era fire-control radar plotting system called Comprehensive Display System (CDS). Benjamin was then working for the British Royal Navy Scientific Service. Benjamin's project used analog computers to calculate the future position of target aircraft based on several initial input points provided by a user with a joystick. Benjamin felt that a more elegant input device was needed and invented what they called a "roller ball" for this purpose.[6][7]
+
+The device was patented in 1947,[7] but only a prototype using a metal ball rolling on two rubber-coated wheels was ever built, and the device was kept as a military secret.[6]
+
+Another early trackball was built by Kenyon Taylor, a British electrical engineer working in collaboration with Tom Cranston and Fred Longstaff. Taylor was part of the original Ferranti Canada, working on the Royal Canadian Navy's DATAR (Digital Automated Tracking and Resolving) system in 1952.[8]
+
+DATAR was similar in concept to Benjamin's display. The trackball used four disks to pick up motion, two each for the X and Y directions. Several rollers provided mechanical support. When the ball was rolled, the pickup discs spun and contacts on their outer rim made periodic contact with wires, producing pulses of output with each movement of the ball. By counting the pulses, the physical movement of the ball could be determined. A digital computer calculated the tracks and sent the resulting data to other ships in a task force using pulse-code modulation radio signals. This trackball used a standard Canadian five-pin bowling ball. It was not patented, since it was a secret military project.[9][10]
+
+Douglas Engelbart of the Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International) has been credited in published books by Thierry Bardini,[11] Paul Ceruzzi,[12] Howard Rheingold,[13] and several others[14][15][16] as the inventor of the computer mouse. Engelbart was also recognized as such in various obituary titles after his death in July 2013.[17][18][19][20]
+
+By 1963, Engelbart had already established a research lab at SRI, the Augmentation Research Center (ARC), to pursue his objective of developing both hardware and software computer technology to "augment" human intelligence. That November, while attending a conference on computer graphics in Reno, Nevada, Engelbart began to ponder how to adapt the underlying principles of the planimeter to inputting X- and Y-coordinate data.[11] On November 14, 1963, he first recorded his thoughts in his personal notebook about something he initially called a "bug," which in a "3-point" form could have a "drop point and 2 orthogonal wheels."[11] He wrote that the "bug" would be "easier" and "more natural" to use, and unlike a stylus, it would stay still when let go, which meant it would be "much better for coordination with the keyboard."[11]
+
+In 1964, Bill English joined ARC, where he helped Engelbart build the first mouse prototype.[2][21] They christened the device the mouse as early models had a cord attached to the rear part of the device which looked like a tail, and in turn resembled the common mouse.[22] As noted above, this "mouse" was first mentioned in print in a July 1965 report, on which English was the lead author.[1][2][3] On 9 December 1968, Engelbart publicly demonstrated the mouse at what would come to be known as The Mother of All Demos. Engelbart never received any royalties for it, as his employer SRI held the patent, which expired before the mouse became widely used in personal computers.[23] In any event, the invention of the mouse was just a small part of Engelbart's much larger project of augmenting human intellect.[24][25]
+
+Several other experimental pointing-devices developed for Engelbart's oN-Line System (NLS) exploited different body movements – for example, head-mounted devices attached to the chin or nose – but ultimately the mouse won out because of its speed and convenience.[27] The first mouse, a bulky device (pictured) used two potentiometers perpendicular to each other and connected to wheels: the rotation of each wheel translated into motion along one axis.[28] At the time of the "Mother of All Demos", Engelbart's group had been using their second generation, 3-button mouse for about a year.
+
+On October 2, 1968, a mouse device named Rollkugel (German for "rolling ball") was described as an optional device for its SIG-100 terminal was developed by the German company Telefunken.[29] As the name suggests and unlike Engelbart's mouse, the Telefunken model already had a ball. It was based on an earlier trackball-like device (also named Rollkugel) that was embedded into radar flight control desks. This trackball had been developed by a team led by Rainer Mallebrein at Telefunken Konstanz for the German Bundesanstalt für Flugsicherung (Federal Air Traffic Control) as part of their TR 86 process computer system with its SIG 100-86[29][30] vector graphics terminal.
+
+When the development for the Telefunken main frame TR 440 [de] began in 1965, Mallebrein and his team came up with the idea of "reversing" the existing Rollkugel into a moveable mouse-like device, so that customers did not have to be bothered with mounting holes for the earlier trackball device. Together with light pens and trackballs, it was offered as an optional input device for their system since 1968. Some Rollkugel mouses installed at the Leibniz-Rechenzentrum in Munich in 1972 are well preserved in a museum.[29][31] Telefunken considered the invention too unimportant to apply for a patent on it.
+
+The Xerox Alto was one of the first computers designed for individual use in 1973 and is regarded as the first modern computer to utilize a mouse.[32] Inspired by PARC's Alto, the Lilith, a computer which had been developed by a team around Niklaus Wirth at ETH Zürich between 1978 and 1980, provided a mouse as well. The third marketed version of an integrated mouse shipped as a part of a computer and intended for personal computer navigation came with the Xerox 8010 Star in 1981.
+
+By 1982, the Xerox 8010 was probably the best-known computer with a mouse. The Sun-1 also came with a mouse, and the forthcoming Apple Lisa was rumored to use one, but the peripheral remained obscure; Jack Hawley of The Mouse House reported that one buyer for a large organization believed at first that his company sold lab mice. Hawley, who manufactured mice for Xerox, stated that "Practically, I have the market all to myself right now"; a Hawley mouse cost $415.[33] In 1982, Logitech introduced the P4 Mouse at the Comdex trade show in Las Vegas, its first hardware mouse.[34] That same year Microsoft made the decision to make the MS-DOS program Microsoft Word mouse-compatible, and developed the first PC-compatible mouse. Microsoft's mouse shipped in 1983, thus beginning the Microsoft Hardware division of the company.[35] However, the mouse remained relatively obscure until the appearance of the Macintosh 128K (which included an updated version of the single-button[36] Lisa Mouse) in 1984,[37] and of the Amiga 1000 and the Atari ST in 1985.
+
+A mouse typically controls the motion of a pointer in two dimensions in a graphical user interface (GUI). The mouse turns movements of the hand backward and forward, left and right into equivalent electronic signals that in turn are used to move the pointer.
+
+The relative movements of the mouse on the surface are applied to the position of the pointer on the screen, which signals the point where actions of the user take place, so hand movements are replicated by the pointer.[38] Clicking or hovering (stopping movement while the cursor is within the bounds of an area) can select files, programs or actions from a list of names, or (in graphical interfaces) through small images called "icons" and other elements. For example, a text file might be represented by a picture of a paper notebook and clicking while the cursor hovers this icon might cause a text editing program to open the file in a window.
+
+Different ways of operating the mouse cause specific things to happen in the GUI:[38]
+
+Users can also employ mice gesturally; meaning that a stylized motion of the mouse cursor itself, called a "gesture", can issue a command or map to a specific action. For example, in a drawing program, moving the mouse in a rapid "x" motion over a shape might delete the shape.
+
+Gestural interfaces occur more rarely than plain pointing-and-clicking; and people often find them more difficult to use, because they require finer motor control from the user. However, a few gestural conventions have become widespread, including the drag and drop gesture, in which:
+
+For example, a user might drag-and-drop a picture representing a file onto a picture of a trash can, thus instructing the system to delete the file.
+
+Standard semantic gestures include:
+
+Other uses of the mouse's input occur commonly in special application-domains. In interactive three-dimensional graphics, the mouse's motion often translates directly into changes in the virtual objects' or camera's orientation. For example, in the first-person shooter genre of games (see below), players usually employ the mouse to control the direction in which the virtual player's "head" faces: moving the mouse up will cause the player to look up, revealing the view above the player's head. A related function makes an image of an object rotate, so that all sides can be examined. 3D design and animation software often modally chords many different combinations to allow objects and cameras to be rotated and moved through space with the few axes of movement mice can detect.
+
+When mice have more than one button, the software may assign different functions to each button. Often, the primary (leftmost in a right-handed configuration) button on the mouse will select items, and the secondary (rightmost in a right-handed) button will bring up a menu of alternative actions applicable to that item. For example, on platforms with more than one button, the Mozilla web browser will follow a link in response to a primary button click, will bring up a contextual menu of alternative actions for that link in response to a secondary-button click, and will often open the link in a new tab or window in response to a click with the tertiary (middle) mouse button.
+
+The German company Telefunken published on their early ball mouse on 2 October 1968.[29] Telefunken's mouse was sold as optional equipment for their computer systems. Bill English, builder of Engelbart's original mouse,[39] created a ball mouse in 1972 while working for Xerox PARC.[40]
+
+The ball mouse replaced the external wheels with a single ball that could rotate in any direction. It came as part of the hardware package of the Xerox Alto computer. Perpendicular chopper wheels housed inside the mouse's body chopped beams of light on the way to light sensors, thus detecting in their turn the motion of the ball. This variant of the mouse resembled an inverted trackball and became the predominant form used with personal computers throughout the 1980s and 1990s. The Xerox PARC group also settled on the modern technique of using both hands to type on a full-size keyboard and grabbing the mouse when required.
+
+The ball mouse has two freely rotating rollers. These are located 90 degrees apart. One roller detects the forward–backward motion of the mouse and other the left–right motion. Opposite the two rollers is a third one (white, in the photo, at 45 degrees) that is spring-loaded to push the ball against the other two rollers. Each roller is on the same shaft as an encoder wheel that has slotted edges; the slots interrupt infrared light beams to generate electrical pulses that represent wheel movement. Each wheel's disc has a pair of light beams, located so that a given beam becomes interrupted or again starts to pass light freely when the other beam of the pair is about halfway between changes.
+
+Simple logic circuits interpret the relative timing to indicate which direction the wheel is rotating. This incremental rotary encoder scheme is sometimes called quadrature encoding of the wheel rotation, as the two optical sensors produce signals that are in approximately quadrature phase. The mouse sends these signals to the computer system via the mouse cable, directly as logic signals in very old mice such as the Xerox mice, and via a data-formatting IC in modern mice. The driver software in the system converts the signals into motion of the mouse cursor along X and Y axes on the computer screen.
+
+The ball is mostly steel, with a precision spherical rubber surface. The weight of the ball, given an appropriate working surface under the mouse, provides a reliable grip so the mouse's movement is transmitted accurately. Ball mice and wheel mice were manufactured for Xerox by Jack Hawley, doing business as The Mouse House in Berkeley, California, starting in 1975.[41][42] Based on another invention by Jack Hawley, proprietor of the Mouse House, Honeywell produced another type of mechanical mouse.[43][44] Instead of a ball, it had two wheels rotating at off axes. Key Tronic later produced a similar product.[45]
+
+Modern computer mice took form at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) under the inspiration of Professor Jean-Daniel Nicoud and at the hands of engineer and watchmaker André Guignard.[46] This new design incorporated a single hard rubber mouseball and three buttons, and remained a common design until the mainstream adoption of the scroll-wheel mouse during the 1990s.[47] In 1985, René Sommer added a microprocessor to Nicoud's and Guignard's design.[48] Through this innovation, Sommer is credited with inventing a significant component of the mouse, which made it more "intelligent";[48] though optical mice from Mouse Systems had incorporated microprocessors by 1984.[49]
+
+Another type of mechanical mouse, the "analog mouse" (now generally regarded as obsolete), uses potentiometers rather than encoder wheels, and is typically designed to be plug compatible with an analog joystick. The "Color Mouse", originally marketed by RadioShack for their Color Computer (but also usable on MS-DOS machines equipped with analog joystick ports, provided the software accepted joystick input) was the best-known example.
+
+Early optical mice relied entirely on one or more light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and an imaging array of photodiodes to detect movement relative to the underlying surface, eschewing the internal moving parts a mechanical mouse uses in addition to its optics. A laser mouse is an optical mouse that uses coherent (laser) light.
+
+The earliest optical mice detected movement on pre-printed mousepad surfaces, whereas the modern LED optical mouse works on most opaque diffuse surfaces; it is usually unable to detect movement on specular surfaces like polished stone. Laser diodes provide good resolution and precision, improving performance on opaque specular surfaces. Later, more surface-independent optical mice use an optoelectronic sensor (essentially, a tiny low-resolution video camera) to take successive images of the surface on which the mouse operates. Battery powered, wireless optical mice flash the LED intermittently to save power, and only glow steadily when movement is detected.
+
+Often called "air mice" since they do not require a surface to operate, inertial mice use a tuning fork or other accelerometer (US Patent 4787051[50]) to detect rotary movement for every axis supported. The most common models (manufactured by Logitech and Gyration) work using 2 degrees of rotational freedom and are insensitive to spatial translation. The user requires only small wrist rotations to move the cursor, reducing user fatigue or "gorilla arm".
+
+Usually cordless, they often have a switch to deactivate the movement circuitry between use, allowing the user freedom of movement without affecting the cursor position. A patent for an inertial mouse claims that such mice consume less power than optically based mice, and offer increased sensitivity, reduced weight and increased ease-of-use.[51] In combination with a wireless keyboard an inertial mouse can offer alternative ergonomic arrangements which do not require a flat work surface, potentially alleviating some types of repetitive motion injuries related to workstation posture.
+
+Also known as bats,[52] flying mice, or wands,[53] these devices generally function through ultrasound and provide at least three degrees of freedom. Probably the best known example would be 3Dconnexion ("Logitech's SpaceMouse") from the early 1990s. In the late 1990s Kantek introduced the 3D RingMouse. This wireless mouse was worn on a ring around a finger, which enabled the thumb to access three buttons. The mouse was tracked in three dimensions by a base station.[54] Despite a certain appeal, it was finally discontinued because it did not provide sufficient resolution.
+
+One example of a 2000s consumer 3D pointing device is the Wii Remote. While primarily a motion-sensing device (that is, it can determine its orientation and direction of movement), Wii Remote can also detect its spatial position by comparing the distance and position of the lights from the IR emitter using its integrated IR camera (since the nunchuk accessory lacks a camera, it can only tell its current heading and orientation). The obvious drawback to this approach is that it can only produce spatial coordinates while its camera can see the sensor bar. More accurate consumer devices have since been released, including the PlayStation Move, the Razer Hydra and the controllers part of the HTC Vive virtual reality system. All of these devices can accurately detect position and orientation in 3D space regardless of angle relative to the sensor station.[citation needed]
+
+A mouse-related controller called the SpaceBall[55] has a ball placed above the work surface that can easily be gripped. With spring-loaded centering, it sends both translational as well as angular displacements on all six axes, in both directions for each. In November 2010 a German Company called Axsotic introduced a new concept of 3D mouse called 3D Spheric Mouse. This new concept of a true six degree-of-freedom input device uses a ball to rotate in 3 axes without any limitations.[56]
+
+Logitech spacemouse 3D. On display at the Bolo Computer Museum, EPFL, Lausanne
+
+Silicon Graphics SpaceBall model 1003 (1988), allowing manipulation of objects with six degrees of freedom.
+
+Logitech 3D Mouse (1990), the first ultrasonic mouse
+
+In 2000, Logitech introduced a "tactile mouse" that contained a small actuator to make the mouse vibrate. Such a mouse can augment user-interfaces with haptic feedback, such as giving feedback when crossing a window boundary. To surf by touch requires the user to be able to feel depth or hardness; this ability was realized with the first electrorheological tactile mice[57] but never marketed.
+
+Tablet digitizers are sometimes used with accessories called pucks, devices which rely on absolute positioning, but can be configured for sufficiently mouse-like relative tracking that they are sometimes marketed as mice.[58]
+
+As the name suggests, this type of mouse is intended to provide optimum comfort and avoid injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome, arthritis and other repetitive strain injuries. It is designed to fit natural hand position and movements, to reduce discomfort.
+
+When holding a typical mouse, ulna and radius bones on the arm are crossed. Some designs attempt to place the palm more vertically, so the bones take more natural parallel position.[59] Some limit wrist movement, encouraging arm movement instead, that may be less precise but more optimal from the health point of view. A mouse may be angled from the thumb downward to the opposite side – this is known to reduce wrist pronation.[60] However such optimizations make the mouse right or left hand specific, making more problematic to change the tired hand. Time magazine has criticized manufacturers for offering few or no left-handed ergonomic mice: "Oftentimes I felt like I was dealing with someone who’d never actually met a left-handed person before."[61]
+
+Another solution is a pointing bar device. The so-called roller bar mouse is positioned snugly in front of the keyboard, thus allowing bi-manual accessibility.[62]
+
+These mice are specifically designed for use in computer games. They typically employ a wider array of controls and buttons and have designs that differ radically from traditional mice. They may also have decorative monochrome or programmable RGB LED lighting. The additional buttons can often be used for changing the sensitivity of the mouse or they can be assigned to macros (i.e., for opening a program or for use instead of a key combination) It is also common for gaming mice, especially those designed for use in real-time strategy games such as StarCraft, or in multiplayer online battle arena games such as Dota 2 to have a relatively high sensitivity, measured in dots per inch (DPI).[63] Some advanced mice from gaming manufacturers also allow users to customize the weight of the mouse by adding or subtracting weights to allow for easier control.[64] Ergonomic quality is also an important factor in gaming mice, as extended gameplay times may render further use of the mouse to be uncomfortable. Some mice have been designed to have adjustable features such as removable and/or elongated palm rests, horizontally adjustable thumb rests and pinky rests. Some mice may include several different rests with their products to ensure comfort for a wider range of target consumers.[65] Gaming mice are held by gamers in three styles of grip:[66][67]
+
+To transmit their input, typical cabled mice use a thin electrical cord terminating in a standard connector, such as RS-232C, PS/2, ADB or USB. Cordless mice instead transmit data via infrared radiation (see IrDA) or radio (including Bluetooth), although many such cordless interfaces are themselves connected through the aforementioned wired serial buses.
+
+While the electrical interface and the format of the data transmitted by commonly available mice is currently standardized on USB, in the past it varied between different manufacturers. A bus mouse used a dedicated interface card for connection to an IBM PC or compatible computer.
+
+Mouse use in DOS applications became more common after the introduction of the Microsoft Mouse, largely because Microsoft provided an open standard for communication between applications and mouse driver software. Thus, any application written to use the Microsoft standard could use a mouse with a driver that implements the same API, even if the mouse hardware itself was incompatible with Microsoft's. This driver provides the state of the buttons and the distance the mouse has moved in units that its documentation calls "mickeys",[71] as does the Allegro library.[72]
+
+In the 1970s, the Xerox Alto mouse, and in the 1980s the Xerox optical mouse, used a quadrature-encoded X and Y interface.  This two-bit encoding per dimension had the property that only one bit of the two would change at a time, like a Gray code or Johnson counter, so that the transitions would not be misinterpreted when asynchronously sampled.[73]
+
+The earliest mass-market mice, such as on the original Macintosh, Amiga, and Atari ST mice used a D-subminiature 9-pin connector to send the quadrature-encoded X and Y axis signals directly, plus one pin per mouse button.  The mouse was a simple optomechanical device, and the decoding circuitry was all in the main computer.
+
+The DE-9 connectors were designed to be electrically compatible with the joysticks popular on numerous 8-bit systems, such as the Commodore 64 and the Atari 2600.  Although the ports could be used for both purposes, the signals must be interpreted differently.  As a result, plugging a mouse into a joystick port causes the "joystick" to continuously move in some direction, even if the mouse stays still, whereas plugging a joystick into a mouse port causes the "mouse" to only be able to move a single pixel in each direction.
+
+Because the IBM PC did not have a quadrature decoder built in, early PC mice used the RS-232C serial port to communicate encoded mouse movements, as well as provide power to the mouse's circuits. The Mouse Systems Corporation version used a five-byte protocol and supported three buttons. The Microsoft version used a three-byte protocol and supported two buttons. Due to the incompatibility between the two protocols, some manufacturers sold serial mice with a mode switch: "PC" for MSC mode, "MS" for Microsoft mode.[74]
+
+In 1986 Apple first implemented the Apple Desktop Bus allowing the daisy-chaining (linking together in series, ie. end to end) of up to 16 devices, including mice and other devices on the same bus with no configuration whatsoever. Featuring only a single data pin, the bus used a purely polled approach to computer/device communications and survived as the standard on mainstream models (including a number of non-Apple workstations) until 1998 when Apple's iMac line of computers joined the industry-wide switch to using USB. Beginning with the Bronze Keyboard PowerBook G3 in May 1999, Apple dropped the external ADB port in favor of USB, but retained an internal ADB connection in the PowerBook G4 for communication with its built-in keyboard and trackpad until early 2005.
+
+With the arrival of the IBM PS/2 personal-computer series in 1987, IBM introduced the eponymous PS/2 interface for mice and keyboards, which other manufacturers rapidly adopted. The most visible change was the use of a round 6-pin mini-DIN, in lieu of the former 5-pin MIDI style full sized DIN 41524 connector. In default mode (called stream mode) a PS/2 mouse communicates motion, and the state of each button, by means of 3-byte packets.[75] For any motion, button press or button release event, a PS/2 mouse sends, over a bi-directional serial port, a sequence of three bytes, with the following format:
+
+Here, XS and YS represent the sign bits of the movement vectors, XV and YV indicate an overflow in the respective vector component, and LB, MB and RB indicate the status of the left, middle and right mouse buttons (1 = pressed). PS/2 mice also understand several commands for reset and self-test, switching between different operating modes, and changing the resolution of the reported motion vectors.
+
+A Microsoft IntelliMouse relies on an extension of the PS/2 protocol: the ImPS/2 or IMPS/2 protocol (the abbreviation combines the concepts of "IntelliMouse" and "PS/2"). It initially operates in standard PS/2 format, for backwards compatibility. After the host sends a special command sequence, it switches to an extended format in which a fourth byte carries information about wheel movements. The IntelliMouse Explorer works analogously, with the difference that its 4-byte packets also allow for two additional buttons (for a total of five).[76]
+
+Mouse vendors also use other extended formats, often without providing public documentation. The Typhoon mouse uses 6-byte packets which can appear as a sequence of two standard 3-byte packets, such that an ordinary PS/2 driver can handle them.[77] For 3-D (or 6-degree-of-freedom) input, vendors have made many extensions both to the hardware and to software. In the late 1990s, Logitech created ultrasound based tracking which gave 3D input to a few millimeters accuracy, which worked well as an input device but failed as a profitable product. In 2008, Motion4U introduced its "OptiBurst" system using IR tracking for use as a Maya (graphics software) plugin.[relevant?  – discuss]
+
+The industry-standard USB (Universal Serial Bus) protocol and its connector have become widely used for mice; it is among the most popular types.[78]
+
+Cordless or wireless mice transmit data via infrared radiation (see IrDA) or radio (including Bluetooth and Wi-Fi).[79] The receiver is connected to the computer through a serial or USB port, or can be built in (as is sometimes the case with Bluetooth and WiFi).
+Modern non-Bluetooth and non-WiFi wireless mice use USB receivers. Some of these can be stored inside the mouse for safe transport while not in use, while other, newer mice use newer "nano" receivers, designed to be small enough to remain plugged into a laptop during transport, while still being large enough to easily remove.[80]
+
+The Logitech Metaphor, the first wireless mouse (1984). On display at the Musée Bolo, EPFL
+
+A Microsoft wireless mouse made for notebook computers
+
+Microsoft Bluetooth Mobile Mouse 3600
+
+Some systems allow two or more mice to be used at once as input devices. Late-1980s era home computers such as the Amiga used this to allow computer games with two players interacting on the same computer (Lemmings and The Settlers for example). The same idea is sometimes used in collaborative software, e.g. to simulate a whiteboard that multiple users can draw on without passing a single mouse around.
+
+Microsoft Windows, since Windows 98, has supported multiple simultaneous pointing devices. Because Windows only provides a single screen cursor, using more than one device at the same time requires cooperation of users or applications designed for multiple input devices.
+
+Multiple mice are often used in multi-user gaming in addition to specially designed devices that provide several input interfaces.
+
+Windows also has full support for multiple input/mouse configurations for multi-user environments.
+
+Starting with Windows XP, Microsoft introduced an SDK for developing applications that allow multiple input devices to be used at the same time with independent cursors and independent input points. However, it no longer appears to be available.[81]
+
+The introduction of Vista and Microsoft Surface (now known as Microsoft PixelSense) introduced a new set of input APIs that were adopted into Windows 7, allowing for 50 points/cursors, all controlled by independent users. The new input points provide traditional mouse input; however, they were designed with other input technologies like touch and image in mind. They inherently offer 3D coordinates along with pressure, size, tilt, angle, mask, and even an image bitmap to see and recognize the input point/object on the screen.
+
+As of 2009, Linux distributions and other operating systems that use X.Org, such as OpenSolaris and FreeBSD, support 255 cursors/input points through Multi-Pointer X. However, currently no window managers support Multi-Pointer X leaving it relegated to custom software usage.
+
+There have also been propositions of having a single operator use two mice simultaneously as a more sophisticated means of controlling various graphics and multimedia applications.[82]
+
+Mouse buttons are microswitches which can be pressed to select or interact with an element of a graphical user interface, producing a distinctive clicking sound.
+
+Since around the late 1990s, the three-button scrollmouse has become the de facto standard. Users most commonly employ the second button to invoke a contextual menu in the computer's software user interface, which contains options specifically tailored to the interface element over which the mouse cursor currently sits. By default, the primary mouse button sits located on the left-hand side of the mouse, for the benefit of right-handed users; left-handed users can usually reverse this configuration via software.
+
+Nearly all mice now have an integrated input primarily intended for scrolling on top, usually a single-axis digital wheel or rocker switch which can also be depressed to act as a third button. Though less common, many mice instead have two-axis inputs such as a tiltable wheel, trackball, or touchpad.
+
+
+
+Mickeys per second is a unit of measurement for the speed and movement direction of a computer mouse,[71] where direction is often expressed as "horizontal" versus "vertical" mickey count. However, speed can also refer to the ratio between how many pixels the cursor moves on the screen and how far the mouse moves on the mouse pad, which may be expressed as pixels per mickey, pixels per inch, or pixels per centimeter.
+
+The computer industry often measures mouse sensitivity in terms of counts per inch (CPI), commonly expressed as dots per inch (DPI) – the number of steps the mouse will report when it moves one inch. In early mice, this specification was called pulses per inch (ppi).[41] The Mickey originally referred to one of these counts, or one resolvable step of motion. If the default mouse-tracking condition involves moving the cursor by one screen-pixel or dot on-screen per reported step, then the CPI does equate to DPI: dots of cursor motion per inch of mouse motion. The CPI or DPI as reported by manufacturers depends on how they make the mouse; the higher the CPI, the faster the cursor moves with mouse movement. However, software can adjust the mouse sensitivity, making the cursor move faster or slower than its CPI. Current[update] software can change the speed of the cursor dynamically, taking into account the mouse's absolute speed and the movement from the last stop-point. In most software, an example being the Windows platforms, this setting is named "speed," referring to "cursor precision". However, some operating systems name this setting "acceleration", the typical Apple OS designation. This term is incorrect. Mouse acceleration in most mouse software refers to the change in speed of the cursor over time while the mouse movement is constant.[clarification needed][citation needed]
+
+For simple software, when the mouse starts to move, the software will count the number of "counts" or "mickeys" received from the mouse and will move the cursor across the screen by that number of pixels (or multiplied by a rate factor, typically less than 1). The cursor will move slowly on the screen, with good precision. When the movement of the mouse passes the value set for some threshold, the software will start to move the cursor faster, with a greater rate factor. Usually, the user can set the value of the second rate factor by changing the "acceleration" setting.
+
+Operating systems sometimes apply acceleration, referred to as "ballistics", to the motion reported by the mouse. For example, versions of Windows prior to Windows XP doubled reported values above a configurable threshold, and then optionally doubled them again above a second configurable threshold. These doublings applied separately in the X and Y directions, resulting in very nonlinear response.[83]
+
+Engelbart's original mouse did not require a mousepad;[84] the mouse had two large wheels which could roll on virtually any surface. However, most subsequent mechanical mice starting with the steel roller ball mouse have required a mousepad for optimal performance.
+
+The mousepad, the most common mouse accessory, appears most commonly in conjunction with mechanical mice, because to roll smoothly the ball requires more friction than common desk surfaces usually provide. So-called "hard mousepads" for gamers or optical/laser mice also exist.
+
+Most optical and laser mice do not require a pad, the notable exception being early optical mice which relied on a grid on the pad to detect movement (e.g. Mouse Systems). Whether to use a hard or soft mousepad with an optical mouse is largely a matter of personal preference. One exception occurs when the desk surface creates problems for the optical or laser tracking, for example, a transparent or reflective surface, such as glass.
+
+Around 1981, Xerox included mice with its Xerox Star, based on the mouse used in the 1970s on the Alto computer at Xerox PARC. Sun Microsystems, Symbolics, Lisp Machines Inc., and Tektronix also shipped workstations with mice, starting in about 1981. Later, inspired by the Star, Apple Computer released the Apple Lisa, which also used a mouse. However, none of these products achieved large-scale success. Only with the release of the Apple Macintosh in 1984 did the mouse see widespread use.[85]
+
+The Macintosh design,[86] commercially successful and technically influential, led many other vendors to begin producing mice or including them with their other computer products (by 1986, Atari ST, Amiga, Windows 1.0, GEOS for the Commodore 64, and the Apple IIGS).[87]
+
+The widespread adoption of graphical user interfaces in the software of the 1980s and 1990s made mice all but indispensable for controlling computers. In November 2008, Logitech built their billionth mouse.[88]
+
+The Classic Mac OS Desk Accessory Puzzle in 1984 was the first game designed specifically for a mouse.[89] The device often functions as an interface for PC-based computer games and sometimes for video game consoles.
+
+FPSs naturally lend themselves to separate and simultaneous control of the player's movement and aim, and on computers this has traditionally been achieved with a combination of keyboard and mouse. Players use the X-axis of the mouse for looking (or turning) left and right, and the Y-axis for looking up and down; the keyboard is used for movement and supplemental inputs.
+
+Many shooting genre players prefer a mouse over a gamepad analog stick because the wide range of motion offered by a mouse allows for faster and more varied control. Although an analog stick allows the player more granular control, it is poor for certain movements, as the player's input is relayed based on a vector of both the stick
+s direction and magnitude. Thus, a small but fast movement (known as "flick-shotting") using a gamepad requires the player to quickly move the stick from its rest position to the edge and back again in quick succession, a difficult maneuver. In addition the stick also has a finite magnitude; if the player is currently using the stick to move at a non-zero velocity their ability to increase the rate of movement of the camera is further limited based on the position their displaced stick was already at before executing the maneuver. The effect of this is that a mouse is well suited not only to small, precise movements but also to large, quick movements and immediate, responsive movements; all of which are important in shooter gaming.[90] This advantage also extends in varying degrees to similar game styles such as third-person shooters.
+
+Some incorrectly ported games or game engines have acceleration and interpolation curves which unintentionally produce excessive, irregular, or even negative acceleration when used with a mouse instead of their native platform's non-mouse default input device. Depending on how deeply hardcoded this misbehavior is, internal user patches or external 3rd-party software may be able to fix it.[91]
+
+Due to their similarity to the WIMP desktop metaphor interface for which mice were originally designed, and to their own tabletop game origins, computer strategy games are most commonly played with mice. In particular, real-time strategy and MOBA games usually require the use of a mouse.
+
+The left button usually controls primary fire. If the game supports multiple fire modes, the right button often provides secondary fire from the selected weapon. Games with only a single fire mode will generally map secondary fire to ADS. In some games, the right button may also invoke accessories for a particular weapon, such as allowing access to the scope of a sniper rifle or allowing the mounting of a bayonet or silencer.
+
+Gamers can use a scroll wheel for changing weapons (or for controlling scope-zoom magnification, in older games). On most first person shooter games, programming may also assign more functions to additional buttons on mice with more than three controls. A keyboard usually controls movement (for example, WASD for moving forward, left, backward and right, respectively) and other functions such as changing posture. Since the mouse serves for aiming, a mouse that tracks movement accurately and with less lag (latency) will give a player an advantage over players with less accurate or slower mice. In some cases the right mouse button may be used to move the player forward, either in lieu of, or in conjunction with the typical WASD configuration.
+
+Many games provide players with the option of mapping their own choice of a key or button to a certain control. An early technique of players, circle strafing, saw a player continuously strafing while aiming and shooting at an opponent by walking in circle around the opponent with the opponent at the center of the circle. Players could achieve this by holding down a key for strafing while continuously aiming the mouse towards the opponent.
+
+Games using mice for input are so popular that many manufacturers make mice specifically for gaming. Such mice may feature adjustable weights, high-resolution optical or laser components, additional buttons, ergonomic shape, and other features such as adjustable CPI. Mouse Bungees are typically used with gaming mice because it eliminates the annoyance of the cable.
+
+Many games, such as first- or third-person shooters, have a setting named "invert mouse" or similar (not to be confused with "button inversion", sometimes performed by left-handed users) which allows the user to look downward by moving the mouse forward and upward by moving the mouse backward (the opposite of non-inverted movement). This control system resembles that of aircraft control sticks, where pulling back causes pitch up and pushing forward causes pitch down; computer joysticks also typically emulate this control-configuration.
+
+After id Software's commercial hit of Doom, which did not support vertical aiming, competitor Bungie's Marathon became the first first-person shooter to support using the mouse to aim up and down.[92] Games using the Build engine had an option to invert the Y-axis. The "invert" feature actually made the mouse behave in a manner that users now[update] regard as non-inverted (by default, moving mouse forward resulted in looking down). Soon after, id Software released Quake, which introduced the invert feature as users now[update] know it.
+
+In 1988, the VTech Socrates educational video game console featured a wireless mouse with an attached mouse pad as an optional controller used for some games. In the early 1990s, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System video game system featured a mouse in addition to its controllers. The Mario Paint game in particular used the mouse's capabilities[93] as did its successor on the N64. Sega released official mice for their Genesis/Mega Drive, Saturn and Dreamcast consoles. NEC sold official mice for its PC Engine and PC-FX consoles. Sony released an official mouse product for the PlayStation console, included one along with the Linux for PlayStation 2 kit, as well as allowing owners to use virtually any USB mouse with the PS2, PS3, and PS4. Nintendo's Wii also had this added on in a later software update, retained on the Wii U.

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+
+
+Family (Latin: familia, plural familiae) is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy; it is classified between order and genus. A family may be divided into subfamilies, which are intermediate ranks between the ranks of family and genus. The official family names are Latin in origin; however, popular names are often used: for example, walnut trees and hickory trees belong to the family Juglandaceae, but that family is commonly referred to as being the "walnut family".
+
+What does or does not belong to a family—or whether a described family should be recognized at all—are proposed and determined by practicing taxonomists. There are no hard rules for describing or recognizing a family. Taxonomists often take different positions about descriptions, and there may be no broad consensus across the scientific community for some time. The publishing of new data and opinions often enables adjustments and consensus.
+
+The naming of families is codified by various international bodies using the following suffixes:
+
+The taxonomic term familia was first used by French botanist Pierre Magnol in his Prodromus historiae generalis plantarum, in quo familiae plantarum per tabulas disponuntur (1689) where he called the seventy-six groups of plants he recognised in his tables families (familiae). The concept of rank at that time was not yet settled, and in the preface to the Prodromus Magnol spoke of uniting his families into larger genera, which is far from how the term is used today.
+
+Carolus Linnaeus used the word familia in his Philosophia botanica (1751) to denote major groups of plants: trees, herbs, ferns, palms, and so on. He used this term only in the morphological section of the book, discussing the vegetative and generative organs of plants.
+
+Subsequently, in French botanical publications, from Michel Adanson's Familles naturelles des plantes (1763) and until the end of the 19th century, the word famille was used as a French equivalent of the Latin ordo (or ordo naturalis).
+
+In zoology, the family as a rank intermediate between order and genus was introduced by Pierre André Latreille in his Précis des caractères génériques des insectes, disposés dans un ordre naturel (1796). He used families (some of them were not named) in some but not in all his orders of "insects" (which then included all arthropods).
+
+In nineteenth-century works such as the Prodromus of Augustin Pyramus de Candolle and the Genera Plantarum of George Bentham and Joseph Dalton Hooker this word ordo was used for what now is given the rank of family.
+
+Families can be used for evolutionary, palaeontological and genetic studies because they are more stable than lower taxonomic levels such as genera and species.[4][5]

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+
+
+A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. It is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely operated vehicles and robots, as well as medium-sized or smaller vessels, such as the midget submarine and the wet sub.  Submarines are referred to as "boats" rather than "ships" irrespective of their size.[1]
+
+Although experimental submarines had been built before, submarine design took off during the 19th century, and they were adopted by several navies. Submarines were first widely used during World War I (1914–1918), and are now used in many navies large and small. Military uses include attacking enemy surface ships (merchant and military), or other submarines, aircraft carrier protection, blockade running, ballistic missile submarines as part of a nuclear strike force, reconnaissance, conventional land attack (for example using a cruise missile), and covert insertion of special forces. Civilian uses for submarines include marine science, salvage, exploration and facility inspection and maintenance. Submarines can also be modified to perform more specialized functions such as search-and-rescue missions or undersea cable repair. Submarines are also used in tourism and undersea archaeology.
+
+Most large submarines consist of a cylindrical body with hemispherical (or conical) ends and a vertical structure, usually located amidships, which houses communications and sensing devices as well as periscopes. In modern submarines, this structure is the "sail" in American usage and "fin" in European usage. A "conning tower" was a feature of earlier designs: a separate pressure hull above the main body of the boat that allowed the use of shorter periscopes. There is a propeller (or pump jet) at the rear, and various hydrodynamic control fins. Smaller, deep-diving and specialty submarines may deviate significantly from this traditional layout. Submarines use diving planes and also change the amount of water and air in ballast tanks to change buoyancy for submerging and surfacing.
+
+Submarines have one of the widest ranges of types and capabilities of any vessel. They range from small autonomous examples and one- or two-person subs that operate for a few hours to vessels that can remain submerged for six months—such as the Russian Typhoon class, the biggest submarines ever built. Submarines can work at greater depths than are survivable or practical for human divers.[2] Modern deep-diving submarines derive from the bathyscaphe, which in turn evolved from the diving bell.
+
+Whereas the principal meaning of "submarine" is an armed, submersible warship, the more general meaning is for any type of submersible craft.[3] The definition as of 1899 was for any type of "submarine boat".[4] By naval tradition, submarines are still usually referred to as "boats" rather than as "ships", regardless of their size.[5] In other navies with a history of large submarine fleets they are also "boats"; in German it is an Unterseeboot[6] or U-Boot (under-sea boat)[7] and in Russian it is a подводная лодка (underwater boat).[8] Although referred to informally as "boats",[9][10] U.S. submarines employ the designation USS (United States Ship) at the beginning of their names, such as USS Alabama. In the Royal Navy, submarines continue to be referred to officially as "boats", despite their "Her Majesty's Ship" designations.[11][12]
+
+According to a report in Opusculum Taisnieri published in 1562:[13]
+
+Two Greeks submerged and surfaced in the river Tagus near the City of Toledo several times in the presence of The Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, without getting wet and with the flame they carried in their hands still alight.[14]
+
+In 1578, the English mathematician William Bourne recorded in his book Inventions or Devises one of the first plans for an underwater navigation vehicle. A few years later the Scottish mathematician and theologian John Napier wrote in his Secret Inventions (1596) that "These inventions besides devises of sayling under water with divers, other devises and strategems for harming of the enemyes by the Grace of God and worke of expert Craftsmen I hope to perform." It's unclear whether he ever carried out his idea.[15]
+
+The first submersible of whose construction there exists reliable information was designed and built in 1620 by Cornelis Drebbel, a Dutchman in the service of James I of England. It was propelled by means of oars.[15]
+
+By the mid-18th century, over a dozen patents for submarines/submersible boats had been granted in England. In 1747, Nathaniel Symons patented and built the first known working example of the use of a ballast tank for submersion. His design used leather bags that could fill with water to submerge the craft. A mechanism was used to twist the water out of the bags and cause the boat to resurface. In 1749, the Gentlemen's Magazine reported that a similar design had initially been proposed by Giovanni Borelli in 1680. Further design improvement stagnated for over a century, until application of new technologies for propulsion and stability.[16]
+
+The first military submersible was Turtle (1775), a hand-powered acorn-shaped device designed by the American David Bushnell to accommodate a single person.[17] It was the first verified submarine capable of independent underwater operation and movement, and the first to use screws for propulsion.[18]
+
+In 1800, France built a human-powered submarine designed by American Robert Fulton, Nautilus. The French eventually gave up on the experiment in 1804, as did the British when they later considered Fulton's submarine design.
+
+In 1864, late in the American Civil War, the Confederate navy's H. L. Hunley became the first military submarine to sink an enemy vessel, the Union sloop-of-war USS Housatonic. In the aftermath of its successful attack against the ship, H. L. Hunley also sank, possibly because it was too close to its own exploding torpedo.
+
+In 1866, Sub Marine Explorer was the first submarine to successfully dive, cruise underwater, and resurface under the control of the crew.  The design by German American Julius H. Kroehl (in German, Kröhl) incorporated elements that are still used in modern submarines.[19]
+
+In 1866, Flach was built at the request of the Chilean government, by Karl Flach, a German engineer and immigrant.  It was the fifth submarine built in the world[20] and, along with a second submarine, was intended to defend the port of Valparaiso against attack by the Spanish Navy during the Chincha Islands War.
+
+The first submarine not relying on human power for propulsion was the French Plongeur (Diver), launched in 1863, which used compressed air at 180 psi (1,200 kPa).[21] Narcís Monturiol designed the first air-independent and combustion-powered submarine, Ictíneo II, which was launched in Barcelona, Spain in 1864.
+
+The submarine became a potentially viable weapon with the development of the Whitehead torpedo, designed in 1866 by British engineer Robert Whitehead, the first practical self-propelled or 'locomotive' torpedo.[22] The spar torpedo that had been developed earlier by the Confederate States Navy was considered to be impracticable, as it was believed to have sunk both its intended target, and probably H. L. Hunley, the submarine that deployed it.  In 1878, John Philip Holland demonstrated the Holland I prototype.
+
+Discussions between the English clergyman and inventor George Garrett and the Swedish industrialist Thorsten Nordenfelt led to the first practical steam-powered submarines, armed with torpedoes and ready for military use. The first was Nordenfelt I, a 56-tonne, 19.5-metre (64 ft) vessel similar to Garrett's ill-fated Resurgam (1879), with a range of 240 kilometres (130 nmi; 150 mi), armed with a single torpedo, in 1885.
+
+A reliable means of propulsion for the submerged vessel was only made possible in the 1880s with the advent of the necessary electric battery technology. The first electrically powered boats were built by Isaac Peral y Caballero in Spain (who built Peral), Dupuy de Lôme (who built Gymnote) and Gustave Zédé (who built Sirène) in France, and James Franklin Waddington (who built Porpoise) in England.[23] Peral's design featured torpedoes and other systems that later became standard in submarines.[24][25]
+
+Submarines were not put into service for any widespread or routine use by navies until the early 1900s. This era marked a pivotal time in submarine development, and several important technologies appeared. A number of nations built and used submarines. Diesel electric propulsion became the dominant power system and equipment such as the periscope became standardized. Countries conducted many experiments on effective tactics and weapons for submarines, which led to their large impact in World War I.
+
+The Irish inventor John Philip Holland built a model submarine in 1876 and a full-scale version in 1878, which were followed by a number of unsuccessful ones. In 1896 he designed the Holland Type VI submarine, which used internal combustion engine power on the surface and electric battery power underwater. Launched on 17 May 1897 at Navy Lt. Lewis Nixon's Crescent Shipyard in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Holland VI was purchased by the United States Navy on 11 April 1900, becoming the Navy's first commissioned submarine, christened USS Holland.[26]
+
+Commissioned in June 1900, the French steam and electric Narval employed the now typical double-hull design, with a pressure hull inside the outer shell. These 200-ton ships had a range of over 100 miles (161 km) underwater. The French submarine Aigrette in 1904 further improved the concept by using a diesel rather than a gasoline engine for surface power. Large numbers of these submarines were built, with seventy-six completed before 1914.
+
+The Royal Navy commissioned five Holland-class submarines from Vickers, Barrow-in-Furness, under licence from the Holland Torpedo Boat Company from 1901 to 1903. Construction of the boats took longer than anticipated, with the first only ready for a diving trial at sea on 6 April 1902. Although the design had been purchased entirely from the US company, the actual design used was an untested improvement to the original Holland design using a new 180 horsepower (130 kW) petrol engine.[27]
+
+These types of submarines were first used during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05. Due to the blockade at Port Arthur, the Russians sent their submarines to Vladivostok, where by 1 January 1905 there were seven boats, enough to create the world's first "operational submarine fleet". The new submarine fleet began patrols on 14 February, usually lasting for about 24 hours each. The first confrontation with Japanese warships occurred on 29 April 1905 when the Russian submarine Som was fired upon by Japanese torpedo boats, but then withdrew.[28]
+
+Military submarines first made a significant impact in World War I. Forces such as the U-boats of Germany saw action in the First Battle of the Atlantic, and were responsible for sinking RMS Lusitania, which was sunk as a result of unrestricted submarine warfare and is often cited among the reasons for the entry of the United States into the war.[29]
+
+At the outbreak of the war, Germany had only twenty submarines immediately available for combat, although these included vessels of the diesel-engined U-19 class, which had a sufficient range of 5,000 miles (8,000 km) and speed of 8 knots (15 km/h) to allow them to operate effectively around the entire British coast.[30], By contrast, the Royal Navy had a total of 74 submarines, though of mixed effectiveness. In August 1914, a flotilla of ten U-boats sailed from their base in Heligoland to attack Royal Navy warships in the North Sea in the first submarine war patrol in history.[31]
+
+The U-boats' ability to function as practical war machines relied on new tactics, their numbers, and submarine technologies such as combination diesel-electric power system developed in the preceding years. More submersibles than true submarines, U-boats operated primarily on the surface using regular engines, submerging occasionally to attack under battery power. They were roughly triangular in cross-section, with a distinct keel to control rolling while surfaced, and a distinct bow. During World War I more than 5,000 Allied ships were sunk by U-boats.[32]
+
+The British tried to catch up to the Germans in terms of submarine technology with the creation of the K-class submarines. However, these were extremely large and often collided with each other forcing the British to scrap the K-class design shortly after the war.[33][citation needed]
+
+During World War II, Germany used submarines to devastating effect in the Battle of the Atlantic, where it attempted to cut Britain's supply routes by sinking more merchant ships than Britain could replace. (Shipping was vital to supply Britain's population with food, industry with raw material, and armed forces with fuel and armaments.) While U-boats destroyed a significant number of ships, the strategy ultimately failed. Although the U-boats had been updated in the interwar years, the major innovation was improved communications, encrypted using the famous Enigma cipher machine. This allowed for mass-attack naval tactics (Rudeltaktik, commonly known as "wolfpack"), but was also ultimately the U-boats' downfall. By the end of the war, almost 3,000 Allied ships (175 warships, 2,825 merchantmen) had been sunk by U-boats.[34]  Although successful early in the war, ultimately Germany's U-boat fleet suffered heavy casualties, losing 793 U-boats and about 28,000 submariners out of 41,000, a casualty rate of about 70%.[35]
+
+The Imperial Japanese Navy operated the most varied fleet of submarines of any navy, including Kaiten crewed torpedoes, midget submarines (Type A Ko-hyoteki and Kairyu classes), medium-range submarines, purpose-built supply submarines and long-range fleet submarines. They also had submarines with the highest submerged speeds during World War II (I-201-class submarines) and submarines that could carry multiple aircraft (I-400-class submarines). They were also equipped with one of the most advanced torpedoes of the conflict, the oxygen-propelled Type 95. Nevertheless, despite their technical prowess, Japan chose to use its submarines for fleet warfare, and consequently were relatively unsuccessful, as warships were fast, maneuverable and well-defended compared to merchant ships.
+
+The submarine force was the most effective anti-ship weapon in the American arsenal. Submarines, though only about 2 percent of the U.S. Navy, destroyed over 30 percent of the Japanese Navy, including 8 aircraft carriers, 1 battleship and 11 cruisers. US submarines also destroyed over 60 percent of the Japanese merchant fleet, crippling Japan's ability to supply its military forces and industrial war effort. Allied submarines in the Pacific War destroyed more Japanese shipping than all other weapons combined. This feat was considerably aided by the Imperial Japanese Navy's failure to provide adequate escort forces for the nation's merchant fleet.
+
+During World War II, 314 submarines served in the US Navy, of which nearly 260 were deployed to the Pacific.[36] When the Japanese attacked Hawaii in December 1941, 111 boats were in commission; 203 submarines from the Gato, Balao, and Tench classes were commissioned during the war. During the war, 52 US submarines were lost to all causes, with 48 directly due to hostilities.[37] US submarines sank 1,560 enemy vessels,[36] a total tonnage of 5.3 million tons (55% of the total sunk).[38]
+
+The Royal Navy Submarine Service was used primarily in the classic Axis blockade. Its major operating areas were around Norway, in the Mediterranean (against the Axis supply routes to North Africa), and in the Far East. In that war, British submarines sank 2  million tons of enemy shipping and 57 major warships, the latter including 35 submarines. Among these is the only documented instance of a submarine sinking another submarine while both were submerged. This occurred when HMS Venturer engaged U-864; the Venturer crew manually computed a successful firing solution against a three-dimensionally maneuvering target using techniques which became the basis of modern torpedo computer targeting systems. Seventy-four British submarines were lost,[39] the majority, forty-two, in the Mediterranean.
+
+The first launch of a cruise missile (SSM-N-8 Regulus) from a submarine occurred in July 1953, from the deck of USS Tunny, a World War II fleet boat modified to carry the missile with a nuclear warhead. Tunny and its sister boat, Barbero, were the United States' first nuclear deterrent patrol submarines. In the 1950s, nuclear power partially replaced diesel-electric propulsion. Equipment was also developed to extract oxygen from sea water. These two innovations gave submarines the ability to remain submerged for weeks or months.[40][41] Most of the naval submarines built since that time in the US, the Soviet Union/Russian Federation, Britain, and France have been powered by nuclear reactors.
+
+In 1959–1960, the first ballistic missile submarines were put into service by both the United States (George Washington class) and the Soviet Union (Golf class) as part of the Cold War nuclear deterrent strategy.
+
+During the Cold War, the US and the Soviet Union maintained large submarine fleets that engaged in cat-and-mouse games. The Soviet Union lost at least four submarines during this period: K-129 was lost in 1968 (a part of which the CIA retrieved from the ocean floor with the Howard Hughes-designed ship Glomar Explorer), K-8 in 1970, K-219 in 1986, and Komsomolets in 1989 (which held a depth record among military submarines—1,000 m (3,300 ft)). Many other Soviet subs, such as K-19 (the first Soviet nuclear submarine, and the first Soviet sub to reach the North Pole) were badly damaged by fire or radiation leaks. The US lost two nuclear submarines during this time: USS Thresher due to equipment failure during a test dive while at its operational limit, and USS Scorpion due to unknown causes.
+
+During India's intervention in the Bangladesh Liberation War, the Pakistan Navy's Hangor sank the Indian frigate INS Khukri. This was the first sinking by a submarine since World War II.[42] During the same war, Ghazi, a Tench-class submarine on loan to Pakistan from the US, was sunk by the Indian Navy. It was the first submarine combat loss since World War II.[43] In 1982 during the Falklands War, the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano was sunk by the British submarine HMS Conqueror, the first sinking by a nuclear-powered submarine in war.[44]
+
+Before and during World War II, the primary role of the submarine was anti-surface ship warfare. Submarines would attack either on the surface using deck guns, or submerged using torpedoes. They were particularly effective in sinking Allied transatlantic shipping in both World Wars, and in disrupting Japanese supply routes and naval operations in the Pacific in World War II.
+
+Mine-laying submarines were developed in the early part of the 20th century. The facility was used in both World Wars. Submarines were also used for inserting and removing covert agents and military forces in special operations, for intelligence gathering, and to rescue aircrew during air attacks on islands, where the airmen would be told of safe places to crash-land so the submarines could rescue them. Submarines could carry cargo through hostile waters or act as supply vessels for other submarines.
+
+Submarines could usually locate and attack other submarines only on the surface, although HMS Venturer managed to sink U-864 with a four torpedo spread while both were submerged. The British developed a specialized anti-submarine submarine in WWI, the R class. After WWII, with the development of the homing torpedo, better sonar systems, and nuclear propulsion, submarines also became able to hunt each other effectively.
+
+The development of submarine-launched ballistic missile and submarine-launched cruise missiles gave submarines a substantial and long-ranged ability to attack both land and sea targets with a variety of weapons ranging from cluster bombs to nuclear weapons.
+
+The primary defense of a submarine lies in its ability to remain concealed in the depths of the ocean. Early submarines could be detected by the sound they made. Water is an excellent conductor of sound (much better than air), and submarines can detect and track comparatively noisy surface ships from long distances. Modern submarines are built with an emphasis on stealth. Advanced propeller designs, extensive sound-reducing insulation, and special machinery help a submarine remain as quiet as ambient ocean noise, making them difficult to detect. It takes specialized technology to find and attack modern submarines.
+
+Active sonar uses the reflection of sound emitted from the search equipment to detect submarines. It has been used since WWII by surface ships, submarines and aircraft (via dropped buoys and helicopter "dipping" arrays), but it reveals the emitter's position, and is susceptible to counter-measures.
+
+A concealed military submarine is a real threat, and because of its stealth, can force an enemy navy to waste resources searching large areas of ocean and protecting ships against attack. This advantage was vividly demonstrated in the 1982 Falklands War when the British nuclear-powered submarine HMS Conqueror sank the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano. After the sinking the Argentine Navy recognized that they had no effective defense against submarine attack, and the Argentine surface fleet withdrew to port for the remainder of the war, though an Argentine submarine remained at sea.[46]
+
+Although the majority of the world's submarines are military, there are some civilian submarines, which are used for tourism, exploration, oil and gas platform inspections, and pipeline surveys. Some are also used in illegal activities.
+
+The Submarine Voyage ride opened at Disneyland in 1959, but although it ran under water it was not a true submarine, as it ran on tracks and was open to the atmosphere.[47] The first tourist submarine was Auguste Piccard, which went into service in 1964 at Expo64.[48] By 1997 there were 45 tourist submarines operating around the world.[49] Submarines with a crush depth in the range of 400–500 feet (120–150 m) are operated in several areas worldwide, typically with bottom depths around 100 to 120 feet (30 to 37 m), with a carrying capacity of 50 to 100 passengers.
+
+In a typical operation a surface vessel carries passengers to an offshore operating area and loads them into the submarine. The submarine then visits underwater points of interest such as natural or artificial reef structures. To surface safely without danger of collision the location of the submarine is marked with an air release and movement to the surface is coordinated by an observer in a support craft.
+
+A recent development is the deployment of so-called narco submarines by South American drug smugglers to evade law enforcement detection.[50] Although they occasionally deploy true submarines, most are self-propelled semi-submersibles, where a portion of the craft remains above water at all times. In September 2011, Colombian authorities seized a 16-meter-long submersible that could hold a crew of 5, costing about $2 million. The vessel belonged to FARC rebels and had the capacity to carry at least 7 tonnes of drugs.[51]
+
+Model of the Mésoscaphe Auguste Piccard
+
+Interior of the tourist submarine Atlantis whilst submerged
+
+Tourist submarine Atlantis
+
+All surface ships, as well as surfaced submarines, are in a positively buoyant condition, weighing less than the volume of water they would displace if fully submerged. To submerge hydrostatically, a ship must have negative buoyancy, either by increasing its own weight or decreasing its displacement of water. To control their displacement, submarines have ballast tanks, which can hold varying amounts of water and air.
+
+For general submersion or surfacing, submarines use the forward and aft tanks, called Main Ballast Tanks (MBT), which are filled with water to submerge or with air to surface. Submerged, MBTs generally remain flooded, which simplifies their design, and on many submarines these tanks are a section of interhull space. For more precise and quick control of depth, submarines use smaller Depth Control Tanks (DCT)—also called hard tanks (due to their ability to withstand higher pressure), or trim tanks. The amount of water in depth control tanks can be controlled to change depth or to maintain a constant depth as outside conditions (chiefly water density) change. Depth control tanks may be located either near the submarine's center of gravity, or separated along the submarine body to prevent affecting trim.
+
+When submerged, the water pressure on a submarine's hull can reach 4 MPa (580 psi) for steel submarines and up to 10 MPa (1,500 psi) for titanium submarines like K-278 Komsomolets, while interior pressure remains relatively unchanged. This difference results in hull compression, which decreases displacement. Water density also marginally increases with depth, as the salinity and pressure are higher.[59] This change in density incompletely compensates for hull compression, so buoyancy decreases as depth increases. A submerged submarine is in an unstable equilibrium, having a tendency to either sink or float to the surface. Keeping a constant depth requires continual operation of either the depth control tanks or control surfaces.[60][61]
+
+Submarines in a neutral buoyancy condition are not intrinsically trim-stable. To maintain desired trim, submarines use forward and aft trim tanks. Pumps can move water between the tanks, changing weight distribution and pointing the sub up or down. A similar system is sometimes used to maintain stability.
+
+The hydrostatic effect of variable ballast tanks is not the only way to control the submarine underwater. Hydrodynamic maneuvering is done by several control surfaces, collectively known as diving planes or hydroplanes, which can be moved to create hydrodynamic forces when a submarine moves at sufficient speed. In the classic cruciform stern configuration, the horizontal stern planes serve the same purpose as the trim tanks, controlling the trim. Most submarines additionally have forward horizontal planes, normally placed on the bow until the 1960s but often on the sail on later designs. These are closer to the center of gravity and are used to control depth with less effect on the trim.[62]
+
+When a submarine performs an emergency surfacing, all depth and trim methods are used simultaneously, together with propelling the boat upwards. Such surfacing is very quick, so the sub may even partially jump out of the water, potentially damaging submarine systems.
+
+Intuitively, the best way to configure the control surfaces at the stern of a submarine would seem to be to give them the shape of a cross when seen from the rear end of the vessel. In this configuration, which remained for long the dominant one, the horizontal planes are used to control the trim and depth and the vertical planes to control sideways maneuvers, just like the rudder of a surface ship.
+
+Alternatively, however, the rear control surfaces can be combined into what has become known as an x-stern or an x-rudder. Although less intuitive, such a configuration has turned out to have several advantages over the traditional cruciform arrangement. First, it improves maneuvrability, horisontally as well as vertically. Second, the control surfaces are less likely to get damaged when landing on, or departing from, the seabed as well as when mooring and unmooring. Finally, it is safer in that one of the two diagonal lines can counteract the other with respect to vertical as well as horizontal motion if one of them would accidentally get stuck.[63]
+
+The x-stern was first tried in practice in the early 1960s on the USS Albacore, an experimental submarine of the US Navy. While the arrangement was found to be advantageous, it was nevertheless not used on the US production submarines that followed due to the fact that it requires the use of a computer to manipulate the control surfaces to the desired effect.[64] Instead, the first to use an x-stern operatively was the Swedish Navy with its Sjöormen class, the lead submarine of which was launched already in 1967, before the Albacore had even finished her test runs.[65] Since it turned out to work very well in practice, all subsequent classes of Swedish submarines (Näcken, Västergötland, Gotland, and Blekinge class) have or will come with an x-rudder.
+
+The Kockums shipyard responsible for the design of the x-stern on Swedish submarines eventually exported it to Australia with the Collins class as well as to Japan with the Sōryū class. With the introduction of the type 212, the German and Italian Navies came to feature it as well. The US Navy with its Columbia class, the British Navy with its Dreadnought class, and the French Navy with its Barracuda class are all about to join the x-stern family. Hence, as judged by the situation in the early 2020s, the x-stern is about to become the dominant technology.
+
+Modern submarines are cigar-shaped. This design, visible in early submarines, is sometimes called a "teardrop hull". It reduces the hydrodynamic drag when submerged, but decreases the sea-keeping capabilities and increases drag while surfaced. Since the limitations of the propulsion systems of early submarines forced them to operate surfaced most of the time, their hull designs were a compromise. Because of the slow submerged speeds of those subs, usually, well below 10 kt (18 km/h), the increased drag for underwater travel was acceptable. Late in World War II, when technology allowed faster and longer submerged operation and increased aircraft surveillance forced submarines to stay submerged, hull designs became teardrop shaped again to reduce drag and noise. USS Albacore (AGSS-569) was a unique research submarine that pioneered the American version of the teardrop hull form (sometimes referred to as an "Albacore hull") of modern submarines. On modern military submarines, the outer hull is covered with a layer of sound-absorbing rubber, or anechoic plating, to reduce detection.
+
+The occupied pressure hulls of deep-diving submarines such as DSV Alvin are spherical instead of cylindrical. This allows a more even distribution of stress at the great depth. A titanium frame is usually affixed to the pressure hull, providing attachment for ballast and trim systems, scientific instrumentation, battery packs, syntactic flotation foam, and lighting.
+
+A raised tower on top of a submarine accommodates the periscope and electronics masts, which can include radio, radar, electronic warfare, and other systems including the snorkel mast. In many early classes of submarines (see history), the control room, or "conn", was located inside this tower, which was known as the "conning tower". Since then, the conn has been located within the hull of the submarine, and the tower is now called the "sail". The conn is distinct from the "bridge", a small open platform in the top of the sail, used for observation during surface operation.
+
+"Bathtubs" are related to conning towers but are used on smaller submarines. The bathtub is a metal cylinder surrounding the hatch that prevents waves from breaking directly into the cabin. It is needed because surfaced submarines have limited freeboard, that is, they lie low in the water. Bathtubs help prevent swamping the vessel.
+
+Modern submarines and submersibles, as well as the oldest ones, usually have a single hull. Large submarines generally have an additional hull or hull sections outside. This external hull, which actually forms the shape of submarine, is called the outer hull (casing in the Royal Navy) or light hull, as it does not have to withstand a pressure difference. Inside the outer hull there is a strong hull, or pressure hull, which withstands sea pressure and has normal atmospheric pressure inside.
+
+As early as World War I, it was realized that the optimal shape for withstanding pressure conflicted with the optimal shape for seakeeping and minimal drag, and construction difficulties further complicated the problem. This was solved either by a compromise shape, or by using two hulls: internal for holding pressure, and external for optimal shape. Until the end of World War II, most submarines had an additional partial cover on the top, bow and stern, built of thinner metal, which was flooded when submerged. Germany went further with the Type XXI, a general predecessor of modern submarines, in which the pressure hull was fully enclosed inside the light hull, but optimized for submerged navigation, unlike earlier designs that were optimized for surface operation.
+
+After World War II, approaches split. The Soviet Union changed its designs, basing them on German developments. All post-World War II heavy Soviet and Russian submarines are built with a double hull structure. American and most other Western submarines switched to a primarily single-hull approach. They still have light hull sections in the bow and stern, which house main ballast tanks and provide a hydrodynamically optimized shape, but the main cylindrical hull section has only a single plating layer. Double hulls are being considered for future submarines in the United States to improve payload capacity, stealth and range.[66]
+
+The pressure hull is generally constructed of thick high-strength steel with a complex structure and high strength reserve, and is separated with watertight bulkheads into several compartments. There are also examples of more than two hulls in a submarine, like the Typhoon class, which has two main pressure hulls and three smaller ones for control room, torpedoes and steering gear, with the missile launch system between the main hulls.
+
+The dive depth cannot be increased easily. Simply making the hull thicker increases the weight and requires reduction of onboard equipment weight, ultimately resulting in a bathyscaphe. This is acceptable for civilian research submersibles, but not military submarines.
+
+WWI submarines had hulls of carbon steel, with a 100-metre (330 ft) maximum depth. During WWII, high-strength alloyed steel was introduced, allowing 200-metre (660 ft) depths. High-strength alloy steel remains the primary material for submarines today, with 250–400-metre (820–1,310 ft) depths, which cannot be exceeded on a military submarine without design compromises. To exceed that limit, a few submarines were built with titanium hulls. Titanium can be stronger than steel, lighter, and is not ferromagnetic, important for stealth. Titanium submarines were built by the Soviet Union, which developed specialized high-strength alloys. It has produced several types of titanium submarines. Titanium alloys allow a major increase in depth, but other systems must be redesigned to cope, so test depth was limited to 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) for the Soviet submarine K-278 Komsomolets, the deepest-diving combat submarine. An Alfa-class submarine may have successfully operated at 1,300 metres (4,300 ft),[67] though continuous operation at such depths would produce excessive stress on many submarine systems. Titanium does not flex as readily as steel, and may become brittle after many dive cycles. Despite its benefits, the high cost of titanium construction led to the abandonment of titanium submarine construction as the Cold War ended. Deep-diving civilian submarines have used thick acrylic pressure hulls.
+
+The deepest deep-submergence vehicle (DSV) to date is Trieste. On 5 October 1959, Trieste departed San Diego for Guam aboard the freighter Santa Maria to participate in Project Nekton, a series of very deep dives in the Mariana Trench. On 23 January 1960, Trieste reached the ocean floor in the Challenger Deep (the deepest southern part of the Mariana Trench), carrying Jacques Piccard (son of Auguste) and Lieutenant Don Walsh, USN.[68] This was the first time a vessel, manned or unmanned, had reached the deepest point in the Earth's oceans. The onboard systems indicated a depth of 11,521 metres (37,799 ft), although this was later revised to 10,916 metres (35,814 ft) and more accurate measurements made in 1995 have found the Challenger Deep slightly shallower, at 10,911 metres (35,797 ft).
+
+Building a pressure hull is difficult, as it must withstand pressures at its required diving depth. When the hull is perfectly round in cross-section, the pressure is evenly distributed, and causes only hull compression. If the shape is not perfect, the hull is bent, with several points heavily strained. Inevitable minor deviations are resisted by stiffener rings, but even a one-inch (25 mm) deviation from roundness results in over 30 percent decrease of maximal hydrostatic load and consequently dive depth.[69] The hull must therefore be constructed with high precision. All hull parts must be welded without defects, and all joints are checked multiple times with different methods, contributing to the high cost of modern submarines. (For example, each Virginia-class attack submarine costs US$2.6 billion, over US$200,000 per ton of displacement.)
+
+The first submarines were propelled by humans. The first mechanically driven submarine was the 1863 French Plongeur, which used compressed air for propulsion. Anaerobic propulsion was first employed by the Spanish Ictineo II in 1864, which used a solution of zinc, manganese dioxide, and potassium chlorate to generate sufficient heat to power a steam engine, while also providing oxygen for the crew. A similar system was not employed again until 1940 when the German Navy tested a hydrogen peroxide-based system, the Walter turbine, on the experimental V-80 submarine and later on the naval U-791 and type XVII submarines;[70] the system was further developed for the British Explorer-class, completed in 1958.[71]
+
+Until the advent of nuclear marine propulsion, most 20th-century submarines used electric motors and batteries for running underwater and combustion engines on the surface, and for battery recharging. Early submarines used gasoline (petrol) engines but this quickly gave way to kerosene (paraffin) and then diesel engines because of reduced flammability and, with diesel, improved fuel-efficiency and thus also greater range. A combination of diesel and electric propulsion became the norm.
+
+Initially, the combustion engine and the electric motor were in most cases connected to the same shaft so that both could directly drive the propeller. The combustion engine was placed at the front end of the stern section with the electric motor behind it followed by the propeller shaft. The engine was connected to the motor by a clutch and the motor in turn connected to the propeller shaft by another clutch.
+
+With only the rear clutch engaged, the electric motor could drive the propeller, as required for fully submerged operation. With both clutches engaged, the combustion engine could drive the propeller, as was possible when operating on the surface or, at a later stage, when snorkeling. The electric motor would in this case serve as a generator to charge the batteries or, if no charging was needed, be allowed to rotate freely. With only the front clutch engaged, the combustion engine could drive the electric motor as a generator for charging the batteries without simultaneously forcing the propeller to move.
+
+The motor could have multiple armatures on the shaft, which could be electrically coupled in series for slow speed and in parallel for high speed (these connections were called "group down" and "group up", respectively).
+
+While most early submarines used a direct mechanical connection between the combustion engine and the propeller, an alternative solution was considered as well as implemented at a very early stage.[72] That solution consists in first converting the work of the combustion engine into electric energy via a dedicated generator. This energy is then used to drive the propeller via the electric motor and, to the extent required, for charging the batteries. In this configuration, the electric motor is thus responsible for driving the propeller at all times, regardless of whether air is available so that the combustion engine can also be used or not.
+
+Among the pioneers of this alternative solution was the very first submarine of the Swedish Navy, HMS Hajen (later renamed Ub no 1), launched in 1904. While its design was generally inspired by the first submarine commissioned by the US Navy, USS Holland, it deviated from the latter in at least three significant ways: by adding a periscope, by replacing the gasoline engine by a semidiesel engine (a hot-bulb engine primarily meant to be fueled by kerosene,  later replaced by a true diesel engine) and by severing the mechanical link between the combustion engine and the propeller by instead letting the former drive a dedicated generator.[73] By so doing, it took three significant steps toward what was eventually to become the dominant technology for conventional (i.e., non-nuclear) submarines.
+
+In the following years, the Swedish Navy added another seven submarines in three different classes (2nd class, Laxen class, and Braxen class) using the same propulsion technology but fitted with true diesel engines rather than semidiesels from the outset.[74] Since by that time, the technology was usually based on the diesel engine rather than some other type of combustion engine, it eventually came to be known as diesel-electric transmission.
+
+Like many other early submarines, those initially designed in Sweden were quite small (less than 200 tonnes) and thus confined to littoral operation. When the Swedish Navy wanted to add larger vessels, capable of operating further from the shore, their designs were purchased from companies abroad that already had the required experience: first Italian (Fiat-Laurenti) and later German (A.G. Weser and IvS).[75] As a side-effect, the diesel-electric transmission was temporarily abandoned.
+
+However, diesel-electric transmission was immediately reintroduced when Sweden began designing its own submarines again in the mid 1930s. From that point onwards, it has been consistently used for all new classes of Swedish submarines, albeit supplemented by air-independent propulsion (AIP) as provided by Stirling engines beginning with HMS Näcken in 1988.[76]
+
+Another early adopter of diesel-electric transmission was the US Navy, whose Bureau of Engineering proposed its use in 1928. It was subsequently tried in the S-class submarines S-3, S-6, and S-7 before being put into production with the Porpoise class of the 1930s. From that point onwards, it continued to be used on most US conventional submarines.[77]
+
+Apart from the British U-class and some submarines of the Imperial Japanese Navy that used separate diesel generators for low speed running, few navies other than those of Sweden and the US made much use of diesel-electric transmission before 1945.[78] After World War II, by contrast, it gradually became the dominant mode of propulsion for conventional submarines. However, its adoption was not always swift. Notably, the Soviet Navy did not introduce diesel-electric transmission on its conventional submarines until 1980 with its Paltus class.[79]
+
+If diesel-electric transmission had only brought advantages and no disadvantages in comparison with a system that mechanically connects the diesel engine to the propeller, it would undoubtedly have become dominant much earlier. The disadvantages include the following:[80][81]
+
+The reason why diesel-electric transmission has become the dominant alternative in spite of these disadvantages is of course that it also comes with many advantages and that, on balance, these have eventually been found to be more important. The advantages include the following:[82][83]
+
+During World War II the Germans experimented with the idea of the schnorchel (snorkel) from captured Dutch submarines but did not see the need for them until rather late in the war. The schnorchel is a retractable pipe that supplies air to the diesel engines while submerged at periscope depth, allowing the boat to cruise and recharge its batteries while maintaining a degree of stealth.
+
+Especially as first implemented however, it turned out to be far from a perfect solution. There were problems with the device's valve sticking shut or closing as it dunked in rough weather. Since the system used the entire pressure hull as a buffer, the diesels would instantaneously suck huge volumes of air from the boat's compartments, and the crew often suffered painful ear injuries. Speed was limited to 8 knots (15 km/h), lest the device snap from stress. The schnorchel also created noise that made the boat easier to detect with sonar, yet more difficult for the on-board sonar to detect signals from other vessels. Finally, allied radar eventually became sufficiently advanced that the schnorchel mast could be detected beyond visual range.[84]
+
+While the snorkel renders a submarine far less detectable, it is thus not perfect. In clear weather, diesel exhausts can be seen on the surface to a distance of about three miles,[85] while "periscope feather" (the wave created by the snorkel or periscope moving through the water) is visible from far off in calm sea conditions. Modern radar is also capable of detecting a snorkel in calm sea conditions.[86]
+
+The problem of the diesels causing a vacuum in the submarine when the head valve is submerged still exists in later model diesel submarines but is mitigated by high-vacuum cut-off sensors that shut down the engines when the vacuum in the ship reaches a pre-set point. Modern snorkel induction masts have a fail-safe design using compressed air, controlled by a simple electrical circuit, to hold the "head valve" open against the pull of a powerful spring. Seawater washing over the mast shorts out exposed electrodes on top, breaking the control, and shutting the "head valve" while it is submerged. US submarines did not adopt the use of snorkels until after WWII.[87]
+
+During World War II, German Type XXI submarines (also known as "Elektroboote") were the first submarines designed to operate submerged for extended periods. Initially they were to carry hydrogen peroxide for long-term, fast air-independent propulsion, but were ultimately built with very large batteries instead. At the end of the War, the British and Soviets experimented with hydrogen peroxide/kerosene (paraffin) engines that could run surfaced and submerged. The results were not encouraging. Though the Soviet Union deployed a class of submarines with this engine type (codenamed Quebec by NATO), they were considered unsuccessful.
+
+The United States also used hydrogen peroxide in an experimental midget submarine, X-1. It was originally powered by a hydrogen peroxide/diesel engine and battery system until an explosion of her hydrogen peroxide supply on 20 May 1957. X-1 was later converted to use diesel-electric drive.[88]
+
+Today several navies use air-independent propulsion. Notably Sweden uses Stirling technology on the Gotland-class and Södermanland-class submarines. The Stirling engine is heated by burning diesel fuel with liquid oxygen from cryogenic tanks. A newer development in air-independent propulsion is hydrogen fuel cells, first used on the German Type 212 submarine, with nine 34 kW or two 120 kW cells. Fuel cells are also used in the new Spanish S-80-class submarines although with the fuel stored as ethanol and then converted into hydrogen before use.[89]
+
+One new technology that is being introduced starting with the Japanese Navy's eleventh Sōryū-class submarine (JS Ōryū) is a more modern battery, the lithium-ion battery. These batteries have about double the electric storage of traditional batteries, and by changing out the lead-acid batteries in their normal storage areas plus filling up the large hull space normally devoted to AIP engine and fuel tanks with many tons of lithium-ion batteries, modern submarines can actually return to a "pure" diesel-electric configuration yet have the added underwater range and power normally associated with AIP equipped submarines.[citation needed]
+
+Steam power was resurrected in the 1950s with a nuclear-powered steam turbine driving a generator. By eliminating the need for atmospheric oxygen, the time that a submarine could remain submerged was limited only by its food stores, as breathing air was recycled and fresh water distilled from seawater. More importantly, a nuclear submarine has unlimited range at top speed. This allows it to travel from its operating base to the combat zone in a much shorter time and makes it a far more difficult target for most anti-submarine weapons. Nuclear-powered submarines have a relatively small battery and diesel engine/generator powerplant for emergency use if the reactors must be shut down.
+
+Nuclear power is now used in all large submarines, but due to the high cost and large size of nuclear reactors, smaller submarines still use diesel-electric propulsion. The ratio of larger to smaller submarines depends on strategic needs. The US Navy, French Navy, and the British Royal Navy operate only nuclear submarines,[90][91] which is explained by the need for distant operations. Other major operators rely on a mix of nuclear submarines for strategic purposes and diesel-electric submarines for defense. Most fleets have no nuclear submarines, due to the limited availability of nuclear power and submarine technology.
+
+Diesel-electric submarines have a stealth advantage over their nuclear counterparts. Nuclear submarines generate noise from coolant pumps and turbo-machinery needed to operate the reactor, even at low power levels.[92][93] Some nuclear submarines such as the American Ohio class can operate with their reactor coolant pumps secured, making them quieter than electric subs.[citation needed] A conventional submarine operating on batteries is almost completely silent, the only noise coming from the shaft bearings, propeller, and flow noise around the hull, all of which stops when the sub hovers in mid-water to listen, leaving only the noise from crew activity. Commercial submarines usually rely only on batteries, since they operate in conjunction with a mother ship.
+
+Several serious nuclear and radiation accidents have involved nuclear submarine mishaps.[94][95] The Soviet submarine K-19 reactor accident in 1961 resulted in 8 deaths and more than 30 other people were over-exposed to radiation.[96] The Soviet submarine K-27 reactor accident in 1968 resulted in 9 fatalities and 83 other injuries.[94] The Soviet submarine K-431 accident in 1985 resulted in 10 fatalities and 49 other radiation injuries.[95]
+
+Oil-fired steam turbines powered the British K-class submarines, built during World War I and later, to give them the surface speed to keep up with the battle fleet. The K-class subs were not very successful, however.
+
+Toward the end of the 20th century, some submarines—such as the British Vanguard class—began to be fitted with pump-jet propulsors instead of propellers. Though these are heavier, more expensive, and less efficient than a propeller, they are significantly quieter, providing an important tactical advantage.
+
+The success of the submarine is inextricably linked to the development of the torpedo, invented by Robert Whitehead in 1866. His invention is essentially the same now as it was 140 years ago. Only with self-propelled torpedoes could the submarine make the leap from novelty to a weapon of war. Until the perfection of the guided torpedo, multiple "straight-running" torpedoes were required to attack a target. With at most 20 to 25 torpedoes stored on board, the number of attacks was limited. To increase combat endurance most World War I submarines functioned as submersible gunboats, using their deck guns against unarmed targets, and diving to escape and engage enemy warships. The importance of guns encouraged the development of the unsuccessful Submarine Cruiser such as the French Surcouf and the Royal Navy's X1 and M-class submarines. With the arrival of Anti-submarine warfare (ASW) aircraft, guns became more for defense than attack. A more practical method of increasing combat endurance was the external torpedo tube, loaded only in port.
+
+The ability of submarines to approach enemy harbours covertly led to their use as minelayers. Minelaying submarines of World War I and World War II were specially built for that purpose. Modern submarine-laid mines, such as the British Mark 5 Stonefish and Mark 6 Sea Urchin, can be deployed from a submarine's torpedo tubes.
+
+After World War II, both the US and the USSR experimented with submarine-launched cruise missiles such as the SSM-N-8 Regulus and P-5 Pyatyorka. Such missiles required the submarine to surface to fire its missiles. They were the forerunners of modern submarine-launched cruise missiles, which can be fired from the torpedo tubes of submerged submarines, for example the US BGM-109 Tomahawk and Russian RPK-2 Viyuga and versions of surface-to-surface anti-ship missiles such as the Exocet and Harpoon, encapsulated for submarine launch. Ballistic missiles can also be fired from a submarine's torpedo tubes, for example missiles such as the anti-submarine SUBROC. With internal volume as limited as ever and the desire to carry heavier warloads, the idea of the external launch tube was revived, usually for encapsulated missiles, with such tubes being placed between the internal pressure and outer streamlined hulls.
+
+The strategic mission of the SSM-N-8 and the P-5 was taken up by submarine-launched ballistic missile beginning with the US Navy's Polaris missile, and subsequently the Poseidon and Trident missiles.
+
+Germany is working on the torpedo tube-launched short-range IDAS missile, which can be used against ASW helicopters, as well as surface ships and coastal targets.
+
+A submarine can have a variety of sensors, depending on its missions. Modern military submarines rely almost entirely on a suite of passive and active sonars to locate targets. Active sonar relies on an audible "ping" to generate echoes to reveal objects around the submarine. Active systems are rarely used, as doing so reveals the sub's presence. Passive sonar is a set of sensitive hydrophones set into the hull or trailed in a towed array, normally trailing several hundred feet behind the sub. The towed array is the mainstay of NATO submarine detection systems, as it reduces the flow noise heard by operators. Hull mounted sonar is employed in addition to the towed array, as the towed array can't work in shallow depth and during maneuvering. In addition, sonar has a blind spot "through" the submarine, so a system on both the front and back works to eliminate that problem. As the towed array trails behind and below the submarine, it also allows the submarine to have a system both above and below the thermocline at the proper depth; sound passing through the thermocline is distorted resulting in a lower detection range.
+
+Submarines also carry radar equipment to detect surface ships and aircraft. Submarine captains are more likely to use radar detection gear than active radar to detect targets, as radar can be detected far beyond its own return range, revealing the submarine. Periscopes are rarely used, except for position fixes and to verify a contact's identity.
+
+Civilian submarines, such as the DSV Alvin or the Russian Mir submersibles, rely on small active sonar sets and viewing ports to navigate. The human eye cannot detect sunlight below about 300 feet (91 m) underwater, so high intensity lights are used to illuminate the viewing area.
+
+Early submarines had few navigation aids, but modern subs have a variety of navigation systems. Modern military submarines use an inertial guidance system for navigation while submerged, but drift error unavoidably builds over time. To counter this, the crew occasionally uses the Global Positioning System to obtain an accurate position. The periscope—a retractable tube with a prism system that provides a view of the surface—is only used occasionally in modern submarines, since the visibility range is short. The Virginia-class and Astute-class submarines use photonics masts rather than hull-penetrating optical periscopes. These masts must still be deployed above the surface, and use electronic sensors for visible light, infrared, laser range-finding, and electromagnetic surveillance. One benefit to hoisting the mast above the surface is that while the mast is above the water the entire sub is still below the water and is much harder to detect visually or by radar.
+
+Military submarines use several systems to communicate with distant command centers or other ships. One is VLF (very low frequency) radio, which can reach a submarine either on the surface or submerged to a fairly shallow depth, usually less than 250 feet (76 m). ELF (extremely low frequency) can reach a submarine at greater depths, but has a very low bandwidth and is generally used to call a submerged sub to a shallower depth where VLF signals can reach. A submarine also has the option of floating a long, buoyant wire antenna to a shallower depth, allowing VLF transmissions by a deeply submerged boat.
+
+By extending a radio mast, a submarine can also use a "burst transmission" technique. A burst transmission takes only a fraction of a second, minimizing a submarine's risk of detection.
+
+To communicate with other submarines, a system known as Gertrude is used. Gertrude is basically a sonar telephone. Voice communication from one submarine is transmitted by low power speakers into the water, where it is detected by passive sonars on the receiving submarine. The range of this system is probably very short, and using it radiates sound into the water, which can be heard by the enemy.
+
+Civilian submarines can use similar, albeit less powerful systems to communicate with support ships or other submersibles in the area.
+
+With nuclear power or air-independent propulsion, submarines can remain submerged for months at a time. Conventional diesel submarines must periodically resurface or run on snorkel to recharge their batteries. Most modern military submarines generate breathing oxygen by electrolysis of water (using a device called an "Electrolytic Oxygen Generator"). Atmosphere control equipment includes a CO2 scrubber, which uses an amine absorbent to remove the gas from air and diffuse it into waste pumped overboard. A machine that uses a catalyst to convert carbon monoxide into carbon dioxide (removed by the CO2 scrubber) and bonds hydrogen produced from the ship's storage battery with oxygen in the atmosphere to produce water, is also used. An atmosphere monitoring system samples the air from different areas of the ship for nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, R-12 and R-114 refrigerants, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and other gases. Poisonous gases are removed, and oxygen is replenished by use of an oxygen bank located in a main ballast tank. Some heavier submarines have two oxygen bleed stations (forward and aft). The oxygen in the air is sometimes kept a few percent less than atmospheric concentration to reduce fire risk.
+
+Fresh water is produced by either an evaporator or a reverse osmosis unit. The primary use for fresh water is to provide feedwater for the reactor and steam propulsion plants. It is also available for showers, sinks, cooking and cleaning once propulsion plant needs have been met. Seawater is used to flush toilets, and the resulting "black water" is stored in a sanitary tank until it is blown overboard using pressurized air or pumped overboard by using a special sanitary pump. The blackwater-discharge system is difficult to operate, and the German Type VIIC boat U-1206 was lost with casualties because of human error while using this system.[97] Water from showers and sinks is stored separately in "grey water" tanks and discharged overboard using drain pumps.
+
+Trash on modern large submarines is usually disposed of using a tube called a Trash Disposal Unit (TDU), where it is compacted into a galvanized steel can. At the bottom of the TDU is a large ball valve. An ice plug is set on top of the ball valve to protect it, the cans atop the ice plug. The top breech door is shut, and the TDU is flooded and equalized with sea pressure, the ball valve is opened and the cans fall out assisted by scrap iron weights in the cans. The TDU is also flushed with seawater to ensure it is completely empty and the ball valve is clear before closing the valve.
+
+A typical nuclear submarine has a crew of over 80; conventional boats typically have fewer than 40. The conditions on a submarine can be difficult because crew members must work in isolation for long periods of time, without family contact. Submarines normally maintain radio silence to avoid detection. Operating a submarine is dangerous, even in peacetime, and many submarines have been lost in accidents.
+
+Most navies prohibited women from serving on submarines, even after they had been permitted to serve on surface warships. The Royal Norwegian Navy became the first navy to allow women on its submarine crews in 1985. The Royal Danish Navy allowed female submariners in 1988.[98] Others followed suit including the Swedish Navy (1989),[99] the Royal Australian Navy (1998), the Spanish Navy (1999),[100][101] the German Navy (2001) and the Canadian Navy (2002). In 1995, Solveig Krey of the Royal Norwegian Navy became the first female officer to assume command on a military submarine, HNoMS Kobben.[102]
+
+On 8 December 2011, British Defence Secretary Philip Hammond announced that the UK's ban on women in submarines was to be lifted from 2013.[103] Previously there were fears that women were more at risk from a build-up of carbon dioxide in the submarine. But a study showed no medical reason to exclude women, though pregnant women would still be excluded.[103] Similar dangers to the pregnant woman and her fetus barred women from submarine service in Sweden in 1983, when all other positions were made available for them in the Swedish Navy. Today, pregnant women are still not allowed to serve on submarines in Sweden. However, the policymakers thought that it was discriminatory with a general ban and demanded that women should be tried on their individual merits and have their suitability evaluated and compared to other candidates. Further, they noted that a woman complying with such high demands is unlikely to become pregnant.[99] In May 2014, three women became the RN's first female submariners.[104]
+
+Women have served on US Navy surface ships since 1993, and as of 2011–2012[update], began serving on submarines for the first time. Until presently, the Navy allowed only three exceptions to women being on board military submarines: female civilian technicians for a few days at most, women midshipmen on an overnight during summer training for Navy ROTC and Naval Academy, and family members for one-day dependent cruises.[105] In 2009, senior officials, including then-Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, Joint Chief of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen, and Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughead, began the process of finding a way to implement women on submarines.[106] The US Navy rescinded its "no women on subs" policy in 2010.[107]
+
+Both the US and British navies operate nuclear-powered submarines that deploy for periods of six months or longer. Other navies that permit women to serve on submarines operate conventionally powered submarines, which deploy for much shorter periods—usually only for a few months.[108] Prior to the change by the US, no nation using nuclear submarines permitted women to serve on board.[109]
+
+In 2011, the first class of female submarine officers graduated from Naval Submarine School's Submarine Officer Basic Course (SOBC) at the Naval Submarine Base New London.[110] Additionally, more senior ranking and experienced female supply officers from the surface warfare specialty attended SOBC as well, proceeding to fleet Ballistic Missile (SSBN) and Guided Missile (SSGN) submarines along with the new female submarine line officers beginning in late 2011.[111] By late 2011, several women were assigned to the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine USS Wyoming.[112] On 15 October 2013, the US Navy announced that two of the smaller Virginia-class attack submarines, USS Virginia and USS Minnesota, would have female crew-members by January 2015.[107]
+
+In 2020, Japan's national naval submarine academy accepted its first female candidate.[113]
+
+In an emergency, submarines can transmit a signal to other ships. The crew can use Submarine Escape Immersion Equipment to abandon the submarine.[114] The crew can prevent a lung injury from the pressure change known as pulmonary barotrauma by exhaling during the ascent.[115] Following escape from a pressurized submarine, the crew is at risk of developing decompression sickness.[116] An alternative escape means is via a Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle that can dock onto the disabled submarine.[117]
+
+General history
+
+Culture
+
+Submarines before 1914
+
+1900/Russo-Japanese War 1904–1905
+
+World War II
+
+Cold War

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+Subtraction is an arithmetic operation that represents the operation of removing objects from a collection. The result of a subtraction is called a difference. Subtraction is signified by the minus sign, −. For example, in the adjacent picture, there are 5 − 2 apples—meaning 5 apples with 2 taken away, which is a total of 3 apples. Therefore, the difference of 5 and 2 is 3, that is, 5 − 2 = 3. Subtraction represents removing or decreasing physical and abstract quantities using different kinds of objects including negative numbers, fractions, irrational numbers, vectors, decimals, functions, and matrices.
+
+Subtraction follows several important patterns. It is anticommutative, meaning that changing the order changes the sign of the answer. It is also not associative, meaning that when one subtracts more than two numbers, the order in which subtraction is performed matters. Because 0 is the additive identity, subtraction of it does not change a number. Subtraction also obeys predictable rules concerning related operations such as addition and multiplication. All of these rules can be proven, starting with the subtraction of integers and generalizing up through the real numbers and beyond. General binary operations that continue these patterns are studied in abstract algebra.
+
+Performing subtraction is one of the simplest numerical tasks. Subtraction of very small numbers is accessible to young children. In primary education, students are taught to subtract numbers in the decimal system, starting with single digits and progressively tackling more difficult problems.
+
+In advanced algebra and in computer algebra, an expression involving subtraction like A − B is generally treated as a shorthand notation for the addition A + (−B). Thus, A − B contains two terms, namely A and −B. This allows an easier use of associativity and commutativity.
+
+Subtraction is usually written using the minus sign "−" between the terms; that is, in infix notation. The result is expressed with an equals sign. For example,
+
+There are also situations where subtraction is "understood" even though no symbol appears:
+
+Formally, the number being subtracted is known as the subtrahend,[1][2] while the number it is subtracted from is the minuend.[1][2] The result is the difference.[1][2]
+
+All of this terminology derives from Latin. "Subtraction" is an English word derived from the Latin verb subtrahere, which is in turn a compound of sub "from under" and trahere "to pull"; thus to subtract is to draw from below, take away.[3] Using the gerundive suffix -nd results in "subtrahend", "thing to be subtracted".[a] Likewise from minuere "to reduce or diminish", one gets "minuend", "thing to be diminished".
+
+Imagine a line segment of length b with the left end labeled a and the right end labeled c.
+Starting from a, it takes b steps to the right to reach c. This movement to the right is modeled mathematically by addition:
+
+From c, it takes b steps to the left to get back to a. This movement to the left is modeled by subtraction:
+
+Now, a line segment labeled with the numbers 1, 2, and 3. From position 3, it takes no steps to the left to stay at 3, so 3 − 0 = 3. It takes 2 steps to the left to get to position 1, so 3 − 2 = 1. This picture is inadequate to describe what would happen after going 3 steps to the left of position 3. To represent such an operation, the line must be extended.
+
+To subtract arbitrary natural numbers, one begins with a line containing every natural number (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, ...). From 3, it takes 3 steps to the left to get to 0, so 3 − 3 = 0. But 3 − 4 is still invalid since it again leaves the line. The natural numbers are not a useful context for subtraction.
+
+The solution is to consider the integer number line (..., −3, −2, −1, 0, 1, 2, 3, ...). From 3, it takes 4 steps to the left to get to −1:
+
+Subtraction of natural numbers is not closed. The difference is not a natural number unless the minuend is greater than or equal to the subtrahend. For example, 26 cannot be subtracted from 11 to give a natural number. Such a case uses one of two approaches:
+
+Subtraction of real numbers is defined as addition of signed numbers. Specifically, a number is subtracted by adding its additive inverse. Then we have 3 − π = 3 + (−π). This helps to keep the ring of real numbers "simple" by avoiding the introduction of "new" operators such as subtraction. Ordinarily a ring only has two operations defined on it; in the case of the integers, these are addition and multiplication. A ring already has the concept of additive inverses, but it does not have any notion of a separate subtraction operation, so the use of signed addition as subtraction allows us to apply the ring axioms to subtraction without needing to prove anything.
+
+Subtraction is anti-commutative, meaning that if one reverses the terms in a difference left-to-right, the result is the negative of the original result. Symbolically, if a and b are any two numbers, then
+
+Subtraction is non-associative, which comes up when one tries to define repeated subtraction. Should the expression
+
+be defined to mean (a − b) − c or a − (b − c)? These two possibilities give different answers. To resolve this issue, one must establish an order of operations, with different orders giving different results.
+
+In the context of integers, subtraction of one also plays a special role: for any integer a, the integer (a − 1) is the largest integer less than a, also known as the predecessor of a.
+
+When subtracting two numbers with units of measurement such as kilograms or pounds, they must have the same unit. In most cases the difference will have the same unit as the original numbers.
+
+Changes in percentages can be reported in at least two forms, percentage change and percentage point change. Percentage change represents the relative change between the two quantities as a percentage, while percentage point change is simply the number obtained by subtracting the two percentages.[4][5][6]
+
+As an example, suppose that 30% of widgets made in a factory are defective. Six months later, 20% of widgets are defective. The percentage change is 20% − 30%/30% = −1/3 = −33+1/3%, while the percentage point change is −10 percentage points.
+
+The method of complements is a technique used to subtract one number from another using only addition of positive numbers. This method was commonly used in mechanical calculators and is still used in modern computers.
+
+To subtract a binary number y (the subtrahend) from another number x (the minuend), the ones' complement of y is added to x and one is added to the sum. The leading digit "1" of the result is then discarded.
+
+The method of complements is especially useful in binary (radix 2) since the ones' complement is very easily obtained by inverting each bit (changing "0" to "1" and vice versa). And adding 1 to get the two's complement can be done by simulating a carry into the least significant bit. For example:
+
+becomes the sum:
+
+Dropping the initial "1" gives the answer: 01001110 (equals decimal 78)
+
+Methods used to teach subtraction to elementary school vary from country to country, and within a country, different methods are in fashion at different times. In what is, in the United States, called traditional mathematics, a specific process is taught to students at the end of the 1st year or during the 2nd year for use with multi-digit whole numbers, and is extended in either the fourth or fifth grade to include decimal representations of fractional numbers.
+
+Almost all American schools currently teach a method of subtraction using borrowing or regrouping (the decomposition algorithm) and a system of markings called crutches.[7][8] Although a method of borrowing had been known and published in textbooks previously, the use of crutches in American schools spread after William A. Brownell published a study claiming that crutches were beneficial to students using this method.[9] This system caught on rapidly, displacing the other methods of subtraction in use in America at that time.
+
+Some European schools employ a method of subtraction called the Austrian method, also known as the additions method. There is no borrowing in this method. There are also crutches (markings to aid memory), which vary by country.[10][11]
+
+Both these methods break up the subtraction as a process of one digit subtractions by place value. Starting with a least significant digit, a subtraction of subtrahend:
+
+from minuend
+
+where each si and mi is a digit, proceeds by writing down m1 − s1, m2 − s2, and so forth, as long as si does not exceed mi. Otherwise, mi is increased by 10 and some other digit is modified to correct for this increase. The American method corrects by attempting to decrease the minuend digit mi+1 by one (or continuing the borrow leftwards until there is a non-zero digit from which to borrow). The European method corrects by increasing the subtrahend digit si+1 by one.
+
+Example: 704 − 512.
+
+−
+1
+
+
+
+
+
+
+C
+
+
+D
+
+
+U
+
+
+
+
+
+7
+
+
+0
+
+
+4
+
+
+
+
+
+5
+
+
+1
+
+
+2
+
+
+
+
+
+1
+
+
+9
+
+
+2
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+⟵
+
+
+c
+a
+r
+r
+y
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+⟵
+
+
+
+M
+i
+n
+u
+e
+n
+d
+
+
+
+
+
+
+⟵
+
+
+
+S
+u
+b
+t
+r
+a
+h
+e
+n
+d
+
+
+
+
+
+
+⟵
+
+
+R
+e
+s
+t
+
+o
+r
+
+D
+i
+f
+f
+e
+r
+e
+n
+c
+e
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle {\begin{array}{rrrr}&\color {Red}-1\\&C&D&U\\&7&0&4\\&5&1&2\\\hline &1&9&2\\\end{array}}{\begin{array}{l}{\color {Red}\longleftarrow {\rm {carry}}}\\\\\longleftarrow \;{\rm {Minuend}}\\\longleftarrow \;{\rm {Subtrahend}}\\\longleftarrow {\rm {Rest\;or\;Difference}}\\\end{array}}}
+
+The minuend is 704, the subtrahend is 512. The minuend digits are m3 = 7, m2 = 0 and m1 = 4. The subtrahend digits are s3 = 5, s2 = 1 and s1 = 2. Beginning at the one's place, 4 is not less than 2 so the difference 2 is written down in the result's one's place. In the ten's place, 0 is less than 1, so the 0 is increased by 10, and the difference with 1, which is 9, is written down in the ten's place. The American method corrects for the increase of ten by reducing the digit in the minuend's hundreds place by one. That is, the 7 is struck through and replaced by a 6. The subtraction then proceeds in the hundreds place, where 6 is not less than 5, so the difference is written down in the result's hundred's place. We are now done, the result is 192.
+
+The Austrian method does not reduce the 7 to 6. Rather it increases the subtrahend hundred's digit by one. A small mark is made near or below this digit (depending on the school). Then the subtraction proceeds by asking what number when increased by 1, and 5 is added to it, makes 7. The answer is 1, and is written down in the result's hundred's place.
+
+There is an additional subtlety in that the student always employs a mental subtraction table in the American method. The Austrian method often encourages the student to mentally use the addition table in reverse. In the example above, rather than adding 1 to 5, getting 6, and subtracting that from 7, the student is asked to consider what number, when increased by 1, and 5 is added to it, makes 7.
+
+Example:
+
+1 + ... = 3
+
+The difference is written under the line.
+
+9 + ... = 5The required sum (5) is too small.
+
+So, we add 10 to it and put a 1 under the next higher place in the subtrahend.
+
+9 + ... = 15Now we can find the difference like before.
+
+(4 + 1) + ... = 7
+
+The difference is written under the line.
+
+The total difference.
+
+Example:
+
+7 − 4 = 3This result is only penciled in.
+
+Because the next digit of the minuend is smaller than the subtrahend, we subtract one from our penciled-in-number and mentally add ten to the next.
+
+15 − 9 = 6
+
+Because the next digit in the minuend is not smaller than the subtrahend, We keep this number.
+
+3 − 1 = 2
+
+In this method, each digit of the subtrahend is subtracted from the digit above it starting from right to left. If the top number is too small to subtract the bottom number from it, we add 10 to it; this 10 is "borrowed" from the top digit to the left, which we subtract 1 from. Then we move on to subtracting the next digit and borrowing as needed, until every digit has been subtracted.
+Example:
+
+3 − 1 = ...
+
+We write the difference under the line.
+
+5 − 9 = ... The minuend (5) is too small!
+
+So, we add 10 to it. The 10 is "borrowed" from the digit on the left, which goes down by 1.
+
+15 − 9 = ... Now the subtraction works, and we write the difference under the line.
+
+6 − 4 = ...
+
+We write the difference under the line.
+
+The total difference.
+
+A variant of the American method where all borrowing is done before all subtraction.[12]
+
+Example:
+
+1 − 3 = not possible.We add a 10 to the 1. Because the 10 is "borrowed" from the nearby 5, the 5 is lowered by 1.
+
+4 − 9 = not possible.So we proceed as in step 1.
+
+Working from right to left:11 − 3 = 8
+
+14 − 9 = 5
+
+6 − 4 = 2
+
+The partial differences method is different from other vertical subtraction methods because no borrowing or carrying takes place. In their place, one places plus or minus signs depending on whether the minuend is greater or smaller than the subtrahend. The sum of the partial differences is the total difference.[13]
+
+Example:
+
+The smaller number is subtracted from the greater:700 − 400 = 300Because the minuend is greater than the subtrahend, this difference has a plus sign.
+
+The smaller number is subtracted from the greater:90 − 50 = 40Because the minuend is smaller than the subtrahend, this difference has a minus sign.
+
+The smaller number is subtracted from the greater:3 − 1 = 2Because the minuend is greater than the subtrahend, this difference has a plus sign.
+
++300 − 40 + 2 = 262
+
+Instead of finding the difference digit by digit, one can count up the numbers between the subtrahend and the minuend.[14]
+
+Example:
+1234 − 567 = can be found by the following steps:
+
+Add up the value from each step to get the total difference: 3 + 30 + 400 + 234 = 667.
+
+Another method that is useful for mental arithmetic is to split up the subtraction into small steps.[15]
+
+Example:
+1234 − 567 = can be solved in the following way:
+
+The same change method uses the fact that adding or subtracting the same number from the minuend and subtrahend does not change the answer. One adds the amount needed to get zeros in the subtrahend.[16]
+
+Example:
+
+"1234 − 567 =" can be solved as follows:
+
+Addition (+)
+
+Subtraction (−)
+
+Multiplication (× or ·)
+
+Division (÷ or /)

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+
+
+
+
+South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. With over 59 million people, it is the world's 24th-most populous nation and covers an area of 1,221,037 square kilometres (471,445 sq mi). South Africa has three capital cities: executive Pretoria, judicial Bloemfontein and legislative Cape Town. The largest city is Johannesburg. About 80% of South Africans are of Black African ancestry,[8] divided among a variety of ethnic groups speaking different African languages.[12] The remaining population consists of Africa's largest communities of European, Asian, and multiracial ancestry.
+
+It is bounded to the south by 2,798 kilometres (1,739 mi) of coastline of Southern Africa stretching along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans;[13][14][12] to the north by the neighbouring countries of Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe; and to the east and northeast by Mozambique and Eswatini (former Swaziland); and it surrounds the enclaved country of Lesotho.[15] It is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World or the Eastern Hemisphere, and the most populous country located entirely south of the equator.
+
+South Africa is a multiethnic society encompassing a wide variety of cultures, languages, and religions. Its pluralistic makeup is reflected in the constitution's recognition of 11 official languages, the fourth-highest number in the world.[12] According to the 2011 census, the two most spoken first languages are Zulu (22.7%) and Xhosa (16.0%).[8] The two next ones are of European origin: Afrikaans (13.5%) developed from Dutch and serves as the first language of most coloured and white South Africans; English (9.6%) reflects the legacy of British colonialism, and is commonly used in public and commercial life. The country is one of the few in Africa never to have had a coup d'état, and regular elections have been held for almost a century. However, the vast majority of black South Africans were not enfranchised until 1994.
+
+During the 20th century, the black majority sought to claim more rights from the dominant white minority, which played a large role in the country's recent history and politics. The National Party imposed apartheid in 1948, institutionalising previous racial segregation. After a long and sometimes violent struggle by the African National Congress (ANC) and other anti-apartheid activists both inside and outside the country, the repeal of discriminatory laws began in the mid-1980s. Since 1994, all ethnic and linguistic groups have held political representation in the country's liberal democracy, which comprises a parliamentary republic and nine provinces. South Africa is often referred to as the "rainbow nation" to describe the country's multicultural diversity, especially in the wake of apartheid.[16]
+
+South Africa is a developing country and ranks 113th on the Human Development Index, the seventh-highest in Africa. It has been classified by the World Bank as a newly industrialised country, with the second-largest economy in Africa, and the 33rd-largest in the world.[17][18] South Africa also has the most UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Africa. The country is a middle power in international affairs; it maintains significant regional influence and is a member of the G20.[19][20] However, crime, poverty and inequality remain widespread, with about a quarter of the population unemployed and living on less than US$1.25 a day.[21][22]
+
+The name "South Africa" is derived from the country's geographic location at the southern tip of Africa. Upon formation, the country was named the Union of South Africa in English and Unie van Zuid-Afrika in Dutch, reflecting its origin from the unification of four formerly separate British colonies. Since 1961, the long formal name in English has been the "Republic of South Africa" and Republiek van Suid-Afrika in Afrikaans. Since 1994, the country has had an official name in each of its 11 official languages.
+
+Mzansi, derived from the Xhosa noun umzantsi meaning "south", is a colloquial name for South Africa,[23][24] while some Pan-Africanist political parties prefer the term "Azania".[25]
+
+South Africa contains some of the oldest archaeological and human-fossil sites in the world.[26][27][28] Archaeologists have recovered extensive fossil remains from a series of caves in Gauteng Province. The area, a UNESCO World Heritage site, has been branded "the Cradle of Humankind". The sites include Sterkfontein, one of the richest sites for hominin fossils in the world. Other sites include Swartkrans, Gondolin Cave Kromdraai, Coopers Cave and Malapa. Raymond Dart identified the first hominin fossil discovered in Africa, the Taung Child (found near Taung) in 1924. Further hominin remains have come from the sites of Makapansgat in Limpopo Province, Cornelia and Florisbad in the Free State Province, Border Cave in KwaZulu-Natal Province, Klasies River Mouth in Eastern Cape Province and Pinnacle Point, Elandsfontein and Die Kelders Cave in Western Cape Province.
+
+These finds suggest that various hominid species existed in South Africa from about three million years ago, starting with Australopithecus africanus.[29] There followed species including Australopithecus sediba, Homo ergaster, Homo erectus, Homo rhodesiensis, Homo helmei, Homo naledi and modern humans (Homo sapiens). Modern humans have inhabited Southern Africa for at least 170,000 years.
+
+Various researchers have located pebble tools within the Vaal River valley.[30][31]
+
+Settlements of Bantu-speaking peoples, who were iron-using agriculturists and herdsmen, were already present south of the Limpopo River (now the northern border with Botswana and Zimbabwe) by the 4th or 5th century CE (see Bantu expansion). They displaced, conquered and absorbed the original Khoisan speakers, the Khoikhoi and San peoples. The Bantu slowly moved south. The earliest ironworks in modern-day KwaZulu-Natal Province are believed to date from around 1050. The southernmost group was the Xhosa people, whose language incorporates certain linguistic traits from the earlier Khoisan people. The Xhosa reached the Great Fish River, in today's Eastern Cape Province. As they migrated, these larger Iron Age populations displaced or assimilated earlier peoples.
+In Mpumalanga Province, several stone circles have been found along with the stone arrangement that has been named Adam's Calendar.[citation needed]
+
+At the time of European contact, the dominant ethnic group were Bantu-speaking peoples who had migrated from other parts of Africa about one thousand years before. The two major historic groups were the Xhosa and Zulu peoples.
+
+In 1487, the Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias led the first European voyage to land in southern Africa.[32] On 4 December, he landed at Walfisch Bay (now known as Walvis Bay in present-day Namibia). This was south of the furthest point reached in 1485 by his predecessor, the Portuguese navigator Diogo Cão (Cape Cross, north of the bay). Dias continued down the western coast of southern Africa. After 8 January 1488, prevented by storms from proceeding along the coast, he sailed out of sight of land and passed the southernmost point of Africa without seeing it. He reached as far up the eastern coast of Africa as, what he called, Rio do Infante, probably the present-day Groot River, in May 1488, but on his return he saw the Cape, which he first named Cabo das Tormentas (Cape of Storms). His King, John II, renamed the point Cabo da Boa Esperança, or Cape of Good Hope, as it led to the riches of the East Indies.[33] Dias' feat of navigation was later immortalised in Luís de Camões' Portuguese epic poem, The Lusiads (1572).
+
+By the early 17th century, Portugal's maritime power was starting to decline, and English and Dutch merchants competed to oust Lisbon from its lucrative monopoly on the spice trade.[34] Representatives of the British East India Company did call sporadically at the Cape in search of provisions as early as 1601, but later came to favour Ascension Island and St. Helena as alternative ports of refuge.[35] Dutch interest was aroused after 1647, when two employees of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) were shipwrecked at the Cape for several months. The sailors were able to survive by obtaining fresh water and meat from the natives.[35] They also sowed vegetables in the fertile soil.[36] Upon their return to Holland, they reported favourably on the Cape's potential as a "warehouse and garden" for provisions to stock passing ships for long voyages.[35]
+
+In 1652, a century and a half after the discovery of the Cape sea route, Jan van Riebeeck established a victualling station at the Cape of Good Hope, at what would become Cape Town, on behalf of the Dutch East India Company.[37][38] In time, the Cape became home to a large population of "vrijlieden", also known as "vrijburgers" (lit. free citizens), former company employees who stayed in Dutch territories overseas after serving their contracts.[38] Dutch traders also imported thousands of slaves to the fledgling colony from Indonesia, Madagascar, and parts of eastern Africa.[39] Some of the earliest mixed race communities in the country were formed through unions between vrijburgers, their slaves, and various indigenous peoples.[40] This led to the development of a new ethnic group, the Cape Coloureds, most of whom adopted the Dutch language and Christian faith.[40]
+
+The eastward expansion of Dutch colonists ushered in a series of wars with the southwesterly migrating Xhosa tribe, known as the Xhosa Wars, as both sides competed for the pastureland necessary to graze their cattle near the Great Fish River.[41] Vrijburgers who became independent farmers on the frontier were known as Boers, with some adopting semi-nomadic lifestyles being denoted as trekboers.[41] The Boers formed loose militias, which they termed commandos, and forged alliances with Khoisan groups to repel Xhosa raids.[41] Both sides launched bloody but inconclusive offensives, and sporadic violence, often accompanied by livestock theft, remained common for several decades.[41]
+
+Great Britain occupied Cape Town between 1795 and 1803 to prevent it from falling under the control of the French First Republic, which had invaded the Low Countries.[41] Despite briefly returning to Dutch rule under the Batavian Republic in 1803, the Cape was occupied again by the British in 1806.[42] Following the end of the Napoleonic Wars, it was formally ceded to Great Britain and became an integral part of the British Empire.[43] British emigration to South Africa began around 1818, subsequently culminating in the arrival of the 1820 Settlers.[43] The new colonists were induced to settle for a variety of reasons, namely to increase the size of the European workforce and to bolster frontier regions against Xhosa incursions.[43]
+
+In the first two decades of the 19th century, the Zulu people grew in power and expanded their territory under their leader, Shaka.[44] Shaka's warfare indirectly led to the Mfecane ("crushing"), in which 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 people were killed and the inland plateau was devastated and depopulated in the early 1820s.[45][46] An offshoot of the Zulu, the Matabele people created a larger empire that included large parts of the highveld under their king Mzilikazi.
+
+During the early 1800s, many Dutch settlers departed from the Cape Colony, where they had been subjected to British control, in a series of migrant groups who came to be known as Voortrekkers, meaning "Pathfinders" or "Pioneers". They migrated to the future Natal, Free State, and Transvaal regions. The Boers founded the Boer Republics: the South African Republic (now Gauteng, Limpopo, Mpumalanga and North West provinces), the Natalia Republic (KwaZulu-Natal), and the Orange Free State (Free State).
+
+The discovery of diamonds in 1867 and gold in 1884 in the interior started the Mineral Revolution and increased economic growth and immigration. This intensified British efforts to gain control over the indigenous peoples. The struggle to control these important economic resources was a factor in relations between Europeans and the indigenous population and also between the Boers and the British.[47]
+
+The Anglo-Zulu War was fought in 1879 between the United Kingdom and the Zulu Kingdom. Following Lord Carnarvon's successful introduction of federation in Canada, it was thought that similar political effort, coupled with military campaigns, might succeed with the African kingdoms, tribal areas and Boer republics in South Africa. In 1874, Sir Henry Bartle Frere was sent to South Africa as the British High Commissioner to bring such plans into being. Among the obstacles were the presence of the independent states of the Boers and the Kingdom of Zululand and its army. The Zulu nation defeated the British at the Battle of Isandlwana. Eventually, though, the war was lost, resulting in the termination of the Zulu nation's independence.
+
+The Boer Republics successfully resisted British encroachments during the First Boer War (1880–1881) using guerrilla warfare tactics, which were well suited to local conditions. The British returned with greater numbers, more experience, and new strategy in the Second Boer War (1899–1902) but suffered heavy casualties through attrition; nonetheless, they were ultimately successful. Over 27,000 Boer women and children perished in the British concentration camps.[48]
+
+Within the country, anti-British policies among white South Africans focused on independence. During the Dutch and British colonial years, racial segregation was mostly informal, though some legislation was enacted to control the settlement and movement of native people, including the Native Location Act of 1879 and the system of pass laws.[49][50][51][52][53]
+
+Eight years after the end of the Second Boer War and after four years of negotiation, an act of the British Parliament (South Africa Act 1909) granted nominal independence, while creating the Union of South Africa on 31 May 1910. The Union was a dominion that included the former territories of the Cape, Transvaal and Natal colonies, as well as the Orange Free State republic.[54]
+
+The Natives' Land Act of 1913 severely restricted the ownership of land by blacks; at that stage natives controlled only seven percent of the country. The amount of land reserved for indigenous peoples was later marginally increased.[55]
+
+In 1931, the union was fully sovereign from the United Kingdom with the passage of the Statute of Westminster, which abolished the last powers of the British Government on the country. In 1934, the South African Party and National Party merged to form the United Party, seeking reconciliation between Afrikaners and English-speaking whites. In 1939, the party split over the entry of the Union into World War II as an ally of the United Kingdom, a move which the National Party followers strongly opposed.
+
+In 1948, the National Party was elected to power. It strengthened the racial segregation begun under Dutch and British colonial rule. Taking Canada's Indian Act as a framework,[56] the nationalist government classified all peoples into three races and developed rights and limitations for each. The white minority (less than 20%)[57] controlled the vastly larger black majority. The legally institutionalised segregation became known as apartheid. While whites enjoyed the highest standard of living in all of Africa, comparable to First World Western nations, the black majority remained disadvantaged by almost every standard, including income, education, housing, and life expectancy. The Freedom Charter, adopted in 1955 by the Congress Alliance, demanded a non-racial society and an end to discrimination.
+
+On 31 May 1961, the country became a republic following a referendum (only open to white voters) which narrowly passed; the British-dominated Natal province largely voted against the proposal.[58] Queen Elizabeth II lost the title Queen of South Africa, and the last Governor-General, Charles Robberts Swart, became State President. As a concession to the Westminster system, the appointment of the president remained an appointment by parliament, and virtually powerless until P. W. Botha's Constitution Act of 1983, which eliminated the office of Prime Minister and instated a near-unique "strong presidency" responsible to parliament. Pressured by other Commonwealth of Nations countries, South Africa withdrew from the organisation in 1961 and rejoined it only in 1994.
+
+Despite opposition both within and outside the country, the government legislated for a continuation of apartheid. The security forces cracked down on internal dissent, and violence became widespread, with anti-apartheid organisations such as the African National Congress (ANC), the Azanian People's Organisation (AZAPO), and the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC) carrying out guerrilla warfare[59] and urban sabotage.[60] The three rival resistance movements also engaged in occasional inter-factional clashes as they jockeyed for domestic influence.[61] Apartheid became increasingly controversial, and several countries began to boycott business with the South African government because of its racial policies. These measures were later extended to international sanctions and the divestment of holdings by foreign investors.[62][63]
+
+In the late 1970s, South Africa initiated a programme of nuclear weapons development. In the following decade, it produced six deliverable nuclear weapons.[64][65]
+
+The Mahlabatini Declaration of Faith, signed by Mangosuthu Buthelezi and Harry Schwarz in 1974, enshrined the principles of peaceful transition of power and equality for all, the first of such agreements by black and white political leaders in South Africa. Ultimately, FW de Klerk opened bilateral discussions with Nelson Mandela in 1993 for a transition of policies and government.
+
+In 1990, the National Party government took the first step towards dismantling discrimination when it lifted the ban on the ANC and other political organisations. It released Nelson Mandela from prison after 27 years' serving a sentence for sabotage. A negotiation process followed. With approval from the white electorate in a 1992 referendum, the government continued negotiations to end apartheid. South Africa also destroyed its nuclear arsenal and acceded to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. South Africa held its first universal elections in 1994, which the ANC won by an overwhelming majority. It has been in power ever since. The country rejoined the Commonwealth of Nations and became a member of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
+
+In post-apartheid South Africa, unemployment remained high. While many blacks have risen to middle or upper classes, the overall unemployment rate of black people worsened between 1994 and 2003 by official metrics, but declined significantly using expanded definitions.[66] Poverty among whites, which was previously rare, increased.[67] In addition, the current government has struggled to achieve the monetary and fiscal discipline to ensure both redistribution of wealth and economic growth. The United Nations (UN) Human Development Index (HDI) of South Africa fell from 1995 to 2005, while it was steadily rising until the mid-1990s,[68] before recovering its 1995 peak in 2013.[69] This is in large part attributable to the South African HIV/AIDS pandemic which saw South African life expectancy fall from a high point of 62.25 years in 1992 to a low of 52.57 in 2005,[70] and the failure of the government to take steps to address the pandemic in its early years.[71]
+
+In May 2008, riots left over 60 people dead.[72] The Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions estimated that over 100,000 people were driven from their homes.[73] The targets were mainly legal and illegal migrants and refugees seeking asylum, but a third of the victims were South African citizens.[72] In a 2006 survey, the South African Migration Project concluded that South Africans are more opposed to immigration than any other national group.[74] The UN High Commissioner for Refugees in 2008 reported over 200,000 refugees applied for asylum in South Africa, almost four times as many as the year before.[75] These people were mainly from Zimbabwe, though many also come from Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia.[75] Competition over jobs, business opportunities, public services and housing has led to tension between refugees and host communities.[75] While xenophobia in South Africa is still a problem, recent violence has not been as widespread as initially feared.[75] Nevertheless, as South Africa continues to grapple with racial issues, one of the proposed solutions has been to pass legislation, such as the pending Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill, to uphold South Africa's ban on racism and commitment to equality.[76][77]
+
+South Africa is located at the southernmost region of Africa, with a long coastline that stretches more than 2,500 km (1,553 mi) and along two oceans (the South Atlantic and the Indian). At 1,219,912 km2 (471,011 sq mi),[78] according to the UN Demographic Yearbook,[79] South Africa is the 24th-largest country in the world. It is about the same size as Colombia, twice the size of France, three times as big as Japan, four times the size of Italy and five times the size of the United Kingdom.[80]
+
+Mafadi in the Drakensberg at 3,450 m (11,320 ft) is the highest peak in South Africa. Excluding the Prince Edward Islands, the country lies between latitudes 22° and 35°S, and longitudes 16° and 33°E.
+
+The interior of South Africa consists of a vast, in most places almost flat, plateau with an altitude of between 1,000 m (3,300 ft) and 2,100 m (6,900 ft), highest in the east and sloping gently downwards towards the west and north, and slightly less noticeably so to the south and south-west.[81] This plateau is surrounded by the Great Escarpment[82] whose eastern, and highest, stretch is known as the Drakensberg.[83]
+
+The south and south-western parts of the plateau (at approximately 1,100–1,800 m above sea level), and the adjoining plain below (at approximately 700–800 m above sea level – see map on the right) is known as the Great Karoo, which consists of sparsely populated scrubland. To the north, the Great Karoo fades into the even drier and more arid Bushmanland, which eventually becomes the Kalahari desert in the very north-west of the country. The mid-eastern, and highest part of the plateau is known as the Highveld. This relatively well-watered area is home to a great proportion of the country's commercial farmlands and contains its largest conurbation (Gauteng). To the north of Highveld, from about the 25° 30' S line of latitude, the plateau slopes downwards into the Bushveld, which ultimately gives way to the Limpopo lowlands or Lowveld.[82]
+
+The coastal belt, below the Great Escarpment, moving clockwise from the northeast, consists of the Limpopo Lowveld, which merges into the Mpumalanga Lowveld, below the Mpumalanga Drakensberg (the eastern portion of the Great Escarpment).[84] This is hotter, drier and less intensely cultivated than the Highveld above the escarpment.[82] The Kruger National Park, located in the provinces of Limpopo and Mpumalanga in northeastern South Africa, occupies a large portion of the Lowveld covering 19,633 square kilometres (7,580 sq mi.) [85] South of the Lowveld the annual rainfall increases as one enters KwaZulu-Natal Province, which, especially near the coast, is subtropically hot and humid. The KwaZulu-Natal–Lesotho international border is formed by the highest portion of the Great Escarpment, or Drakensberg, which reaches an altitude of over 3,000 m (9,800 ft).[86] The climate at the foot of this part of the Drakensberg is temperate.
+
+The coastal belt below the south and south-western stretches of the Great Escarpment contains several ranges of Cape Fold Mountains which run parallel to the coast, separating the Great Escarpment from the ocean.[87][88] (These parallel ranges of fold mountains are shown on the map, above left. Note the course of the Great Escarpment to the north of these mountain ranges.) The land (at approximately 400–500 m above sea level) between two of these ranges of fold mountains in the south (i.e. between the Outeniqua and Langeberg ranges to the south and the Swartberg range to the north) is known as the Little Karoo,[82] which consists of semi-desert scrubland similar to that of the Great Karoo, except that its northern strip along the foothills of the Swartberg Mountains, has a somewhat higher rainfall and is, therefore, more cultivated than the Great Karoo. The Little Karoo is historically, and still, famous for its ostrich farming around the town of Oudtshoorn. The lowland area (700–800 m above sea level) to the north of the Swartberg mountain range up to the Great Escarpment is the lowland part of the Great Karoo (see map at top right), which is climatically and botanically almost indistinguishable from the Karoo above the Great Escarpment. The narrow coastal strip between the most seaward Cape Fold Mountain range (i.e., the Langeberg–Outeniqua mountains) and the ocean has a moderately high year-round rainfall, especially in the George-Knysna-Plettenberg Bay region, which is known as the Garden Route. It is famous for the most extensive areas of indigenous forests in South Africa (a generally forest-poor country).
+
+In the south-west corner of the country, the Cape Peninsula forms the southernmost tip of the coastal strip which borders the Atlantic Ocean and ultimately terminates at the country's border with Namibia at the Orange River. The Cape Peninsula has a Mediterranean climate, making it and its immediate surrounds the only portion of Africa south of the Sahara which receives most of its rainfall in winter.[89][90] The greater Cape Town metropolitan area is situated on the Cape Peninsula and is home to 3.7 million people according to the 2011 population census. It is the country's legislative capital.
+
+The coastal belt to the north of the Cape Peninsula is bounded on the west by the Atlantic Ocean and the first row of north–south running Cape Fold Mountains to the east. The Cape Fold Mountains peter out at about the 32° S line of latitude,[88] after which the coastal plain is bounded by the Great Escarpment itself. The most southerly portion of this coastal belt is known as the Swartland and Malmesbury Plain, which is an important wheat growing region, relying on winter rains. The region further north is known as Namaqualand,[91] which becomes more and more arid as one approaches the Orange River. The little rain that falls tends to fall in winter,[90] which results in one of the world's most spectacular displays of flowers carpeting huge stretches of veld in spring (August–September).
+
+South Africa also has one possession, the small sub-Antarctic archipelago of the Prince Edward Islands, consisting of Marion Island (290 km2 or 110 sq mi) and Prince Edward Island (45 km2 or 17 sq mi) (not to be confused with the Canadian province of the same name).
+
+South Africa has a generally temperate climate, due in part to being surrounded by the Atlantic and Indian Oceans on three sides, by its location in the climatically milder Southern Hemisphere and due to the average elevation rising steadily towards the north (towards the equator) and further inland. Due to this varied topography and oceanic influence, a great variety of climatic zones exist. The climatic zones range from the extreme desert of the southern Namib in the farthest northwest to the lush subtropical climate in the east along the border with Mozambique and the Indian Ocean. Winters in South Africa occur between June and August.
+
+The extreme southwest has a climate remarkably similar to that of the Mediterranean Sea with wet winters and hot, dry summers, hosting the famous fynbos biome of shrubland and thicket. This area also produces much of the wine in South Africa. This region is also particularly known for its wind, which blows intermittently almost all year. The severity of this wind made passing around the Cape of Good Hope particularly treacherous for sailors, causing many shipwrecks. Further east on the south coast, rainfall is distributed more evenly throughout the year, producing a green landscape. This area is popularly known as the Garden Route.
+
+The Free State is particularly flat because it lies centrally on the high plateau. North of the Vaal River, the Highveld becomes better watered and does not experience subtropical extremes of heat. Johannesburg, in the centre of the Highveld, is at 1,740 m (5,709 ft) above sea level and receives an annual rainfall of 760 mm (29.9 in). Winters in this region are cold, although snow is rare.
+
+The high Drakensberg mountains, which form the south-eastern escarpment of the Highveld, offer limited skiing opportunities in winter. The coldest place on mainland South Africa is Sutherland in the western Roggeveld Mountains, where midwinter temperatures can reach as low as −15 °C (5 °F). The Prince Edward Islands have colder average annual temperatures, but Sutherland has colder extremes. The deep interior of mainland South Africa has the hottest temperatures: a temperature of 51.7 °C (125.06 °F) was recorded in 1948 in the Northern Cape Kalahari near Upington,[92] but this temperature is unofficial and was not recorded with standard equipment, the official highest temperature is 48.8 °C (119.84 °F) at Vioolsdrif in January 1993.[93]
+
+South Africa signed the Rio Convention on Biological Diversity on 4 June 1994, and became a party to the convention on 2 November 1995.[94] It has subsequently produced a National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan, which was received by the convention on 7 June 2006.[95] The country is ranked sixth out of the world's seventeen megadiverse countries.[96] Ecotourism in South Africa has become more prevalent in recent years, as a possible method of maintaining and improving biodiversity.
+
+Numerous mammals are found in the Bushveld including lions, African leopards, South African cheetahs, southern white rhinos, blue wildebeest, kudus, impalas, hyenas, hippopotamuses and South African giraffes. A significant extent of the Bushveld exists in the north-east including Kruger National Park and the Sabi Sand Game Reserve, as well as in the far north in the Waterberg Biosphere. South Africa houses many endemic species, among them the critically endangered riverine rabbit (Bunolagus monticullaris) in the Karoo.
+
+Up to 1945, more than 4900 species of fungi (including lichen-forming species) had been recorded.[97] In 2006, the number of fungi in South Africa was estimated at about 200,000 species, but did not take into account fungi associated with insects.[98] If correct, then the number of South African fungi dwarfs that of its plants. In at least some major South African ecosystems, an exceptionally high percentage of fungi are highly specific in terms of the plants with which they occur.[99] The country's Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan does not mention fungi (including lichen-forming fungi).[95]
+
+With more than 22,000 different higher plants, or about 9% of all the known species of plants on Earth,[100] South Africa is particularly rich in plant diversity. The most prevalent biome in South Africa is the grassland, particularly on the Highveld, where the plant cover is dominated by different grasses, low shrubs, and acacia trees, mainly camel-thorn (Vachellia erioloba). Vegetation becomes even more sparse towards the northwest due to low rainfall. There are several species of water-storing succulents, like aloes and euphorbias, in the very hot and dry Namaqualand area. The grass and thorn savannah turns slowly into a bush savannah towards the north-east of the country, with denser growth. There are significant numbers of baobab trees in this area, near the northern end of Kruger National Park.[101]
+
+The fynbos biome, which makes up the majority of the area and plant life in the Cape floristic region, one of the six floral kingdoms, is located in a small region of the Western Cape and contains more than 9,000 of those species, making it among the richest regions on earth in terms of plant diversity.[citation needed] Most of the plants are evergreen hard-leaf plants with fine, needle-like leaves, such as the sclerophyllous plants. Another uniquely South African flowering plant group is the genus Protea. There are around 130 different species of Protea in South Africa.
+
+While South Africa has a great wealth of flowering plants, only one percent of South Africa is forest, almost exclusively in the humid coastal plain of KwaZulu-Natal, where there are also areas of Southern Africa mangroves in river mouths. There are even smaller reserves of forests that are out of the reach of fire, known as montane forests. Plantations of imported tree species are predominant, particularly the non-native eucalyptus and pine.
+
+South Africa has lost a large area of natural habitat in the last four decades, primarily due to overpopulation, sprawling development patterns and deforestation during the 19th century. South Africa is one of the worst affected countries in the world when it comes to invasion by alien species with many (e.g., black wattle, Port Jackson willow, Hakea, Lantana and Jacaranda) posing a significant threat to the native biodiversity and the already scarce water resources. The original temperate forest found by the first European settlers was exploited ruthlessly until only small patches remained. Currently, South African hardwood trees like real yellowwood (Podocarpus latifolius), stinkwood (Ocotea bullata), and South African black ironwood (Olea laurifolia) are under government protection. Statistics from the South African Department of Environmental Affairs show a record 1,215 rhinos have been killed in 2014.[102]
+
+Climate change is expected to bring considerable warming and drying to much of this already semi-arid region, with greater frequency and intensity of extreme weather events such as heat waves, flooding and drought. According to computer-generated climate modelling produced by the South African National Biodiversity Institute,[103] parts of southern Africa will see an increase in temperature by about 1 °C (1.8 °F) along the coast to more than 4 °C (7.2 °F) in the already hot hinterland such as the Northern Cape in late spring and summertime by 2050. The Cape Floral Region, being identified as one of the global biodiversity hotspots, will be hit very hard by climate change. Drought, increased intensity and frequency of fire, and climbing temperatures are expected to push many rare species towards extinction. South Africa has published two national climate change reports in 2011 and 2016.[104]
+
+South Africa is a parliamentary republic, although unlike most such republics the President is both head of state and head of government, and depends for his tenure on the confidence of Parliament. The executive, legislature and judiciary are all subject to the supremacy of the Constitution, and the superior courts have the power to strike down executive actions and acts of Parliament if they are unconstitutional.
+
+The National Assembly, the lower house of Parliament, consists of 400 members and is elected every five years by a system of party-list proportional representation. The National Council of Provinces, the upper house, consists of ninety members, with each of the nine provincial legislatures electing ten members.
+
+After each parliamentary election, the National Assembly elects one of its members as president; hence the President serves a term of office the same as that of the Assembly, normally five years. No President may serve more than two terms in office.[105] The President appoints a Deputy President and Ministers, who form the Cabinet which consists of Departments and Ministries. The President and the Cabinet may be removed by the National Assembly by a motion of no confidence.
+
+In the most recent election, held on 8 May 2019, the ANC won 57.5% of the vote and 230 seats, while the main opposition, the Democratic Alliance (DA) won 20.77% of the vote and 84 seats. The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), founded by Julius Malema, former President of the ANC's Youth Wing (ANC Youth League) who was later expelled from the ANC, won 10.79% of the vote and 44 seats. The ANC has been the governing political party in South Africa since the end of apartheid.
+
+South Africa has no legally defined capital city. The fourth chapter of the Constitution of South Africa, states that "The seat of Parliament is Cape Town, but an Act of Parliament enacted in accordance with section 76(1) and (5) may determine that the seat of Parliament is elsewhere."[106] The country's three branches of government are split over different cities. Cape Town, as the seat of Parliament, is the legislative capital; Pretoria, as the seat of the President and Cabinet, is the administrative capital; and Bloemfontein, as the seat of the Supreme Court of Appeal, is the judicial capital, while the Constitutional Court of South Africa sits in Johannesburg. Most foreign embassies are located in Pretoria.
+
+Since 2004, South Africa has had many thousands of popular protests, some violent, making it, according to one academic, the "most protest-rich country in the world".[107] There have been a number of incidents of political repression as well as threats of future repression in violation of the constitution, leading some analysts and civil society organisations to conclude that there is or could be a new climate of political repression,[108][109] or a decline in political tolerance.[110]
+
+In 2008, South Africa placed fifth out of 48 sub-Saharan African countries on the Ibrahim Index of African Governance. South Africa scored well in the categories of Rule of Law, Transparency and Corruption, and Participation and Human Rights, but was let down by its relatively poor performance in Safety and Security.[111] In November 2006, South Africa became the first African country to legalise same-sex marriage.[112]
+
+The Constitution of South Africa is the supreme rule of law in the country. The primary sources of South African law are Roman-Dutch mercantile law and personal law with English Common law, as imports of Dutch settlements and British colonialism.[113] The first European based law in South Africa was brought by the Dutch East India Company and is called Roman-Dutch law. It was imported before the codification of European law into the Napoleonic Code and is comparable in many ways to Scots law. This was followed in the 19th century by English law, both common and statutory. After unification in 1910, South Africa had its own parliament which passed laws specific for South Africa, building on those previously passed for the individual member colonies.
+
+The judicial system consists of the magistrates' courts, which hear lesser criminal cases and smaller civil cases; the High Court, which has divisions that serve as the courts of general jurisdiction for specific areas; the Supreme Court of Appeal, and the Constitutional Court, which is the highest court.
+
+From April 2017 to March 2018, on average 57 murders were committed each day in South Africa.[114] In the year ended March 2017, there were 20,336 murders and the murder rate was 35.9 per 100,000 – over five times higher than the global average of 6.2 per 100,000.[115] Middle-class South Africans seek security in gated communities.[116] The private security industry in South Africa is the largest in the world,[117] with nearly 9,000 registered companies and 400,000 registered active private security guards, more than the South African police and army combined.[118] Many emigrants from South Africa also state that crime was a major factor in their decision to leave.[119] Crime against the farming community has continued to be a major problem.[120] In an attempt to reduce crime rate, the police arrested over 500 undocumented foreigners in a raid in August 2019.[121]
+
+South Africa has a high rape rate, with 43,195 rapes reported in 2014/15, and an unknown number of sexual assaults going unreported.[122] A 2009 survey of 1,738 men in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape by the Medical Research Council found one in four men admitted to raping someone[123] and another survey of 4,000 women in Johannesburg by CIET Africa found one in three said they had been raped in the past year.[124] Rapes are also perpetrated by children (some as young as ten).[125] The incidence of child and infant rape is among the highest in the world, largely as a result of the virgin cleansing myth, and a number of high-profile cases (sometimes as young as eight months)[125] have outraged the nation.[126]
+
+Between 1994 and 2018, there were more than 500 xenophobic attacks against foreigners in South Africa.[127] The 2019 Johannesburg riots were similar in nature and origin to the 2008 xenophobic riots that also occurred in Johannesburg.[128]
+
+As the Union of South Africa, the country was a founding member of the UN. The then Prime Minister Jan Smuts wrote the preamble to the UN Charter.[129][130] South Africa is one of the founding members of the African Union (AU), and has the second largest economy of all the members. It is also a founding member of the AU's New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD).
+
+South Africa has played a key role as a mediator in African conflicts over the last decade, such as in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Comoros, and Zimbabwe. After apartheid ended, South Africa was readmitted to the Commonwealth of Nations. The country is a member of the Group of 77 and chaired the organisation in 2006. South Africa is also a member of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone, Southern African Customs Union (SACU), Antarctic Treaty System (ATS), World Trade Organization (WTO), International Monetary Fund (IMF), G20, G8+5, and the Port Management Association of Eastern and Southern Africa.
+
+Former South African President Jacob Zuma and former Chinese President Hu Jintao upgraded bilateral ties between the two countries on 24 August 2010, when they signed the Beijing Agreement, which elevated South Africa's earlier "strategic partnership" with China to the higher level of "comprehensive strategic partnership" in both economic and political affairs, including the strengthening of exchanges between their respective ruling parties and legislatures.[131][132] In April 2011, South Africa formally joined the Brazil-Russia-India-China (BRICS) grouping of countries, identified by Zuma as the country's largest trading partners, and also the largest trading partners with Africa as a whole. Zuma asserted that BRICS member countries would also work with each other through the UN, the Group of Twenty (G20) and the India, Brazil South Africa (IBSA) forum.[133]
+
+The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) was created in 1994,[134][135] as an all-volunteer military composed of the former South African Defence Force, the forces of the African nationalist groups (Umkhonto we Sizwe and Azanian People's Liberation Army), and the former Bantustan defence forces.[134] The SANDF is subdivided into four branches, the South African Army, the South African Air Force, the South African Navy, and the South African Military Health Service.[136] In recent years, the SANDF has become a major peacekeeping force in Africa,[137] and has been involved in operations in Lesotho, the DRC,[137] and Burundi,[137] amongst others. It has also served in multinational UN peacekeeping forces such as the UN Force Intervention Brigade for example.
+
+South Africa is the only African country to have successfully developed nuclear weapons. It became the first country (followed by Ukraine) with nuclear capability to voluntarily renounce and dismantle its programme and in the process signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1991.[138] South Africa undertook a nuclear weapons programme in the 1970s[138] According to former state president FW de Klerk, the decision to build a "nuclear deterrent" was taken "as early as 1974 against a backdrop of a Soviet expansionist threat."[139] South Africa is alleged to have conducted a nuclear test over the Atlantic in 1979,[140] although this is officially denied. Former president, FW de Klerk, maintained that South Africa had "never conducted a clandestine nuclear test."[139] Six nuclear devices were completed between 1980 and 1990, but all were dismantled before South Africa signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1991.[139] In 2017, South Africa signed the UN treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.[141]
+
+Each of the nine provinces is governed by a unicameral legislature, which is elected every five years by party-list proportional representation. The legislature elects a Premier as head of government, and the Premier appoints an Executive Council as a provincial cabinet. The powers of provincial governments are limited to topics listed in the Constitution; these topics include such fields as health, education, public housing and transport.
+
+The provinces are in turn divided into 52 districts: 8 metropolitan and 44 district municipalities. The district municipalities are further subdivided into 205 local municipalities. The metropolitan municipalities, which govern the largest urban agglomerations, perform the functions of both district and local municipalities.
+
+South Africa has a mixed economy, the second largest in Africa after Nigeria. It also has a relatively high gross domestic product (GDP) per capita compared to other countries in sub-Saharan Africa (US$11,750 at purchasing power parity as of 2012). Despite this, South Africa is still burdened by a relatively high rate of poverty and unemployment, and is also ranked in the top ten countries in the world for income inequality,[144][145][146] measured by the Gini coefficient. In 2015, 71 percent of net wealth are held by 10 percent richest of the population, whereas  60 percent of the poorest held only 7 percent of the net wealth and the Gini coefficient was 0.63, whereas in 1996 was 0.61.[147]
+
+Unlike most of the world's poor countries, South Africa does not have a thriving informal economy. Only 15% of South African jobs are in the informal sector, compared with around half in Brazil and India and nearly three-quarters in Indonesia. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) attributes this difference to South Africa's widespread welfare system.[148] World Bank research shows that South Africa has one of the widest gaps between per capita GDP versus its Human Development Index (HDI) ranking, with only Botswana showing a larger gap.[149]
+
+After 1994, government policy brought down inflation, stabilised public finances, and some foreign capital was attracted, however growth was still subpar.[150] From 2004 onward, economic growth picked up significantly; both employment and capital formation increased.[150] During the presidency of Jacob Zuma, the government increased the role of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Some of the biggest SOEs are Eskom, the electric power monopoly, South African Airways (SAA), and Transnet, the railroad and ports monopoly. Some of these SOEs have not been profitable, such as SAA, which has required bailouts totaling R30 billion ($2.25 billion) over 20 years.[151]
+
+Principal international trading partners of South Africa—besides other African countries—include Germany, the United States, China, Japan, the United Kingdom and Spain.[152]
+
+The South African agricultural industry contributes around 10% of formal employment, relatively low compared to other parts of Africa, as well as providing work for casual labourers and contributing around 2.6% of GDP for the nation.[153] Due to the aridity of the land, only 13.5% can be used for crop production, and only 3% is considered high potential land.[154]
+
+In August 2013, South Africa was ranked as the top African Country of the Future by fDi magazine based on the country's economic potential, labour environment, cost-effectiveness, infrastructure, business friendliness, and foreign direct investment strategy.[155]
+
+The Financial Secrecy Index (FDI) ranks South Africa as the 50th safest tax haven in the world.
+
+South Africa is a popular tourist destination, and a substantial amount of revenue comes from tourism.[156]
+
+During 1995–2003, the number of formal jobs decreased and informal jobs increased; overall unemployment worsened.[66]
+
+The government's Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) policies have drawn criticism from Neva Makgetla, lead economist for research and information at the Development Bank of Southern Africa, for focusing "almost exclusively on promoting individual ownership by black people [which] does little to address broader economic disparities, though the rich may become more diverse."[157] Official affirmative action policies have seen a rise in black economic wealth and an emerging black middle class.[158] Other problems include state ownership and interference, which impose high barriers to entry in many areas.[159] Restrictive labour regulations have contributed to the unemployment malaise.[66]
+
+Along with many African nations, South Africa has been experiencing a "brain drain" in the past 20 years.[160] and is almost certainly detrimental for the wellbeing of those reliant on the healthcare infrastructure.[161] The skills drain in South Africa tends to demonstrate racial contours given the skills distribution legacy of South Africa and has thus resulted in large white South African communities abroad.[162] However, the statistics which purport to show a brain drain are disputed and also do not account for repatriation and expiry of foreign work contracts. According to several surveys,[163][164] there has been a reverse in brain drain following the global financial crisis of 2008–2009 and expiration of foreign work contracts. In the first quarter of 2011, confidence levels for graduate professionals were recorded at a level of 84% in a Professional Provident Society (PPS) survey.[165]  Illegal immigrants are involved in informal trading.[166] Many immigrants to South Africa continue to live in poor conditions, and the immigration policy has become increasingly restrictive since the year 1994.[167]
+
+The Human Rights Watch reported on 26 August 2019 about foreign national truck drivers being subjected to deadly attacks carried out by South African truck drivers. The organization urged the South African government to take immediate actions ensuring the safety of the foreign national truck drivers putting up with violence, harassment, intimidation, stoning, bombing, and shooting, by local truck drivers in the country.[168]
+
+Several important scientific and technological developments have originated in South Africa. The first human-to-human heart transplant was performed by cardiac surgeon Christiaan Barnard at Groote Schuur Hospital in December 1967, Max Theiler developed a vaccine against yellow fever, Allan McLeod Cormack pioneered X-ray computed tomography (CT scan), and Aaron Klug developed crystallographic electron microscopy techniques. With the exception of that of Barnard, all of these advancements were recognised with Nobel Prizes. Sydney Brenner won most recently, in 2002, for his pioneering work in molecular biology.
+
+Mark Shuttleworth founded an early Internet security company Thawte, that was subsequently bought out by world-leader VeriSign. Despite government efforts to encourage entrepreneurship in biotechnology, information technology and other high technology fields, no other notable groundbreaking companies have been founded in South Africa. It is the expressed objective of the government to transition the economy to be more reliant on high technology, based on the realisation that South Africa cannot compete with Far Eastern economies in manufacturing, nor can the republic rely on its mineral wealth in perpetuity.
+
+South Africa has cultivated a burgeoning astronomy community. It hosts the Southern African Large Telescope, the largest optical telescope in the Southern Hemisphere. South Africa is currently building the Karoo Array Telescope as a pathfinder for the €1.5 billion Square Kilometre Array project.[169] On 25 May 2012, it was announced that hosting of the Square Kilometer Array Telescope will be split over both the South African and the Australia and New Zealand sites.[170]
+
+Two distinctive features of the South African water sector are the policy of free basic water and the existence of water boards, which are bulk water supply agencies that operate pipelines and sell water from reservoirs to municipalities. These features have led to significant problems concerning the financial sustainability of service providers, leading to a lack of attention to maintenance. Following the end of apartheid, the country had made improvements in the levels of access to water as those with access increased from 66% to 79% from 1990 to 2010.[171] Sanitation access increased from 71% to 79% during the same period.[171] However, water supply and sanitation in South Africa has come under increasing pressure in recent years despite a commitment made by the government to improve service standards and provide investment subsidies to the water industry.[172]
+
+The eastern parts of South Africa suffer from periodic droughts linked to the El Niño weather phenomenon.[173] In early 2018, Cape Town, which has different weather patterns to the rest of the country,[173] faced a water crisis as the city's water supply was predicted to run dry before the end of June. Water-saving measures were in effect that required each citizen to use less than 50 litres (13 US gal) a day.[174]
+
+Different methods of transport in South Africa include roads, railways, airports, water, and pipelines for petroleum oil.  The majority of people in South Africa use informal minibus taxis as their main mode of transport.  BRT has been implemented in some South African cities in an attempt to provide more formalised and safer public transport services. These systems have been widely criticised due to their large capital and operating costs. A "freeway" is different from most countries as certain things are forbidden which include certain motorcycles, no hand signals, and motor tricycles. South Africa has many major ports including Cape Town, Durban, and Port Elizabeth that allow ships and other boats to pass through, some carrying passengers and some carrying petroleum tankers.
+
+South Africa is a nation of about 55 million (2016) people of diverse origins, cultures, languages, and religions. The last census was held in 2011, with a more recent intercensal national survey conducted in 2016.[177] South Africa is home to an estimated five million illegal immigrants, including some three million Zimbabweans.[178][179][180] A series of anti-immigrant riots occurred in South Africa beginning on 11 May 2008.[181][182]
+
+Statistics South Africa asks people to describe themselves in the census in terms of five racial population groups.[183] The 2011 census figures for these groups were: Black African at 79.2%, White at 8.9%, Coloured at 8.9%, Asian at 2.5%, and Other/Unspecified at 0.5%.[8]:21 The first census in South Africa in 1911 showed that whites made up 22% of the population; this had declined to 16% by 1980.[184]
+
+South Africa hosts a sizeable refugee and asylum seeker population. According to the World Refugee Survey 2008, published by the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, this population numbered approximately 144,700 in 2007.[185] Groups of refugees and asylum seekers numbering over 10,000 included people from Zimbabwe (48,400), the DRC (24,800), and Somalia (12,900).[185] These populations mainly lived in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, Cape Town, and Port Elizabeth.[185]
+
+South Africa has 11 official languages:[186] Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, English, Pedi,[187] Tswana, Southern Sotho, Tsonga, Swazi, Venda, and Southern Ndebele (in order of first language speakers). In this regard it is fourth only to Bolivia, India, and Zimbabwe in number. While all the languages are formally equal, some languages are spoken more than others. According to the 2011 census, the three most spoken first languages are Zulu (22.7%), Xhosa (16.0%), and Afrikaans (13.5%).[8] Despite the fact that English is recognised as the language of commerce and science, it is ranked fourth, and was listed as the first language of only 9.6% of South Africans in 2011; but it remains the de facto lingua franca of the nation.[8] Estimates based on the 1991 census suggest just under half of South Africans can speak English.[188] It is the second most commonly spoken language outside of the household, after Zulu.[189]
+
+The country also recognises several unofficial languages, including Fanagalo, Khoe, Lobedu, Nama, Northern Ndebele, Phuthi, and South African Sign Language.[190] These unofficial languages may be used in certain official uses in limited areas where it has been determined that these languages are prevalent.
+
+Many of the unofficial languages of the San and Khoikhoi people contain regional dialects stretching northwards into Namibia and Botswana, and elsewhere. These people, who are a physically distinct population from other Africans, have their own cultural identity based on their hunter-gatherer societies. They have been marginalised to a great extent, and the remainder of their languages are in danger of becoming extinct.
+
+White South Africans may also speak European languages, including Italian, Portuguese (also spoken by black Angolans and Mozambicans), Dutch, German, and Greek, while some Indian South Africans speak Indian languages, such as Gujarati, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu. French is spoken in South Africa by migrants from Francophone Africa.
+
+According to the 2001 census, Christians accounted for 79.8% of the population, with a majority of them being members of various Protestant denominations (broadly defined to include syncretic African initiated churches) and a minority of Roman Catholics and other Christians. Christian category includes Zion Christian (11.1%), Pentecostal (Charismatic) (8.2%), Roman Catholic (7.1%), Methodist (6.8%), Dutch Reformed (Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk; 6.7%), and Anglican (3.8%). Members of remaining Christian churches accounted for another 36% of the population. Muslims accounted for 1.5% of the population, Hindus 1.2%,[194] traditional African religion 0.3% and Judaism 0.2%. 15.1% had no religious affiliation, 0.6% were "other" and 1.4% were "unspecified."[152][194][195]
+
+African initiated churches formed the largest of the Christian groups. It was believed that many of the persons who claimed no affiliation with any organised religion adhered to traditional African religion. There are an estimated 200,000 indigenous traditional healers in South Africa, and up to 60% of South Africans consult these healers,[196] generally called sangomas or inyangas. These healers use a combination of ancestral spiritual beliefs and a belief in the spiritual and medicinal properties of local fauna and flora, commonly known as muti, to facilitate healing in clients. Many peoples have syncretic religious practices combining Christian and indigenous influences.[197]
+
+South African Muslims comprise mainly of those who are described as Coloureds and those who are described as Indians. They have been joined by black or white South African converts as well as others from other parts of Africa.[198] South African Muslims claim that their faith is the fastest-growing religion of conversion in the country, with the number of black Muslims growing sixfold, from 12,000 in 1991 to 74,700 in 2004.[198][199]
+
+South Africa is also home to a substantial Jewish population, descended from European Jews who arrived as a minority among other European settlers. This population peaked in the 1970s at 120,000, though only around 67,000 remain today, the rest having emigrated, mostly to Israel. Even so, these numbers make the Jewish community in South Africa the twelfth largest in the world.[200]
+
+The adult literacy rate in 2007 was 88.7%.[201] South Africa has a three-tier system of education starting with primary school, followed by high school and tertiary education in the form of (academic) universities and universities of technology. Learners have twelve years of formal schooling, from grade 1 to 12. Grade R, or grade 0, is a pre-primary foundation year.[202] Primary schools span the first seven years of schooling.[203] High school education spans a further five years. The National Senior Certificate (NSC) examination takes place at the end of grade 12 and is necessary for tertiary studies at a South African university.[202]
+
+Public universities in South Africa are divided into three types: traditional universities, which offer theoretically oriented university degrees; universities of technology (formerly called "technikons"), which offer vocational oriented diplomas and degrees; and comprehensive universities, which offer both types of qualification. There are 23 public universities in South Africa: 11 traditional universities, 6 universities of technology and 6 comprehensive universities.
+
+Under apartheid, schools for black people were subject to discrimination through inadequate funding and a separate syllabus called Bantu Education which was only designed to give them sufficient skills to work as labourers.[204]
+
+In 2004, South Africa started reforming its tertiary education system, merging and incorporating small universities into larger institutions, and renaming all tertiary education institutions "university". By 2015, 1.4 million students in higher education have benefited from a financial aid scheme which was promulgated in 1999.[205]
+
+According to the South African Institute of Race Relations, the life expectancy in 2009 was 71 years for a white South African and 48 years for a black South African.[206] The healthcare spending in the country is about 9% of GDP.[207]
+
+About 84% of the population depends on the public healthcare system,[207] which is beset with chronic human resource shortages and limited resources.[208]
+
+About 20% of the population uses private healthcare.[209] Only 16% of the population is covered by medical aid schemes.[210] The rest pay for private care "out of pocket" or through in-hospital-only plans.[209] The three dominant hospital groups, Mediclinic, Life Healthcare and Netcare, together control 75% of the private hospital market.[209]
+
+According to the 2015 UNAIDS Report, South Africa has an estimated seven million people living with HIV – more than any other country in the world.[211] In 2018, HIV prevalence—the percentage of people living with HIV—among adults (15–49 years) was 20.4% and in the same year 71000 people died from an AIDS-related illness.[212]
+
+A 2008 study revealed that HIV/AIDS infection in South Africa is distinctly divided along racial lines: 13.6% of blacks are HIV-positive, whereas only 0.3% of whites have the disease.[213] Most deaths are experienced by economically active individuals, resulting in many AIDS orphans who in many cases depend on the state for care and financial support.[214] It is estimated that there are 1,200,000 orphans in South Africa.[214]
+
+The link between HIV, a virus spread primarily by sexual contact, and AIDS was long denied by former president Thabo Mbeki and his health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, who insisted that the many deaths in the country are due to malnutrition, and hence poverty, and not HIV.[215] In 2007, in response to international pressure, the government made efforts to fight AIDS.[216]
+
+After the 2009 general elections, former president Jacob Zuma appointed Dr Aaron Motsoaledi as the new health minister and committed his government to increasing funding for and widening the scope of HIV treatment,[217] and by 2015, South Africa had made significant progress, with the widespread availability of antiretroviral drugs resulted in an increase in life expectancy from 52.1 years to 62.5 years.[218]
+
+The South African black majority still has a substantial number of rural inhabitants who lead largely impoverished lives. It is among these people that cultural traditions survive most strongly; as blacks have become increasingly urbanised and Westernised, aspects of traditional culture have declined. Members of the middle class, who are predominantly white but whose ranks include growing numbers of black, coloured and Indian people,[219] have lifestyles similar in many respects to that of people found in Western Europe, North America and Australasia.
+
+South African art includes the oldest art objects in the world, which were discovered in a South African cave, and dated from 75,000 years ago.[220]
+The scattered tribes of Khoisan peoples moving into South Africa from around 10,000 BC had their own fluent art styles seen today in a multitude of cave paintings. They were superseded by Bantu/Nguni peoples with their own vocabularies of art forms. New forms of art evolved in the mines and townships: a dynamic art using everything from plastic strips to bicycle spokes. The Dutch-influenced folk art of the Afrikaner trekboers and the urban white artists, earnestly following changing European traditions from the 1850s onwards, also contributed to this eclectic mix which continues to evolve today.
+
+South African literature emerged from a unique social and political history. One of the first well known novels written by a black author in an African language was Solomon Thekiso Plaatje's Mhudi, written in 1930. During the 1950s, Drum magazine became a hotbed of political satire, fiction, and essays, giving a voice to urban black culture.
+
+Notable white South African authors include Alan Paton, who published the novel Cry, the Beloved Country in 1948. Nadine Gordimer became the first South African to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 1991. JM Coetzee won the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 2003. When awarding the prize, the Swedish Academy stated that Coetzee "in innumerable guises portrays the surprising involvement of the outsider."[221]
+
+The plays of Athol Fugard have been regularly premiered in fringe theatres in South Africa, London (Royal Court Theatre) and New York. Olive Schreiner's The Story of an African Farm (1883) was a revelation in Victorian literature: it is heralded by many as introducing feminism into the novel form.
+
+Breyten Breytenbach was jailed for his involvement with the guerrilla movement against apartheid. André Brink was the first Afrikaner writer to be banned by the government after he released the novel A Dry White Season.
+
+The South African media sector is large, and South Africa is one of Africa's major media centres. While South Africa's many broadcasters and publications reflect the diversity of the population as a whole, the most commonly used language is English. However, all ten other official languages are represented to some extent or another.
+
+There is great diversity in South African music. Black musicians have developed a unique style called Kwaito, that is said to have taken over radio, television, and magazines.[222] Of note is Brenda Fassie, who launched to fame with her song "Weekend Special", which was sung in English. More famous traditional musicians include Ladysmith Black Mambazo, while the Soweto String Quartet performs classic music with an African flavour. South Africa has produced world-famous jazz musicians, notably Hugh Masekela, Jonas Gwangwa, Abdullah Ibrahim, Miriam Makeba, Jonathan Butler, Chris McGregor, and Sathima Bea Benjamin. Afrikaans music covers multiple genres, such as the contemporary Steve Hofmeyr, the punk rock band Fokofpolisiekar, and the singer-songwriter Jeremy Loops. South African popular musicians that have found international success include Johnny Clegg, rap-rave duo Die Antwoord, and rock band Seether.
+
+Although few South African film productions are known outside South Africa itself, many foreign films have been produced about South Africa. Arguably, the most high-profile film portraying South Africa in recent years was District 9. Other notable exceptions are the film Tsotsi, which won the Academy Award for Foreign Language Film at the 78th Academy Awards in 2006, as well as U-Carmen e-Khayelitsha, which won the Golden Bear at the 2005 Berlin International Film Festival. In 2015, the Oliver Hermanus film The Endless River became the first South African film selected for the Venice Film Festival.
+
+South African cuisine is diverse; foods from many cultures are enjoyed by all and especially marketed to tourists who wish to sample the large variety available.
+
+South African cuisine is heavily meat-based and has spawned the distinctively South African social gathering known as the braai, a variation of the barbecue. South Africa has also developed into a major wine producer, with some of the best vineyards lying in valleys around Stellenbosch, Franschhoek, Paarl and Barrydale.[224]
+
+South Africa's most popular sports are association football, rugby union and cricket.[225] Other sports with significant support are swimming, athletics, golf, boxing, tennis, ringball, and netball. Although football (soccer) commands the greatest following among the youth, other sports like basketball, surfing and skateboarding are increasingly popular.
+
+Association football is the most popular sport in South Africa. Footballers who have played for major foreign clubs include Steven Pienaar, Lucas Radebe and Philemon Masinga, Benni McCarthy, Aaron Mokoena, and Delron Buckley. South Africa hosted the 2010 FIFA World Cup, and FIFA president Sepp Blatter awarded South Africa a grade 9 out of 10 for successfully hosting the event.[226]
+
+Famous boxing personalities include Baby Jake Jacob Matlala, Vuyani Bungu, Welcome Ncita, Dingaan Thobela, Gerrie Coetzee and Brian Mitchell. Durban surfer Jordy Smith won the 2010 Billabong J-Bay Open making him the highest ranked surfer in the world. South Africa produced Formula One motor racing's 1979 world champion Jody Scheckter. Famous current cricket players include Kagiso Rabada, AB de Villiers, Hashim Amla, Dale Steyn, Vernon Philander, and Faf du Plessis; most also participate in the Indian Premier League.
+
+South Africa has also produced numerous world class rugby players, including Francois Pienaar, Joost van der Westhuizen, Danie Craven, Frik du Preez, Naas Botha, and Bryan Habana. South Africa has won the Rugby World Cup three times, tying New Zealand for the most Rugby World Cup wins. South Africa first won the 1995 Rugby World Cup, which it hosted. They went on to win the tournament again in 2007 and in 2019. It followed the 1995 Rugby World Cup by hosting the 1996 African Cup of Nations, with the national team, Bafana Bafana, going on to win the tournament. It also hosted the 2003 Cricket World Cup, the 2007 World Twenty20 Championship. South Africa's national cricket team, the Proteas, has also won the inaugural edition of the 1998 ICC KnockOut Trophy by defeating West Indies in the final. South Africa's national blind cricket team also went on to win the inaugural edition of the Blind Cricket World Cup in 1998.
+
+In 2004, the swimming team of Roland Schoeman, Lyndon Ferns, Darian Townsend and Ryk Neethling won the gold medal at the Olympic Games in Athens, simultaneously breaking the world record in the 4×100 freestyle relay. Penny Heyns won Olympic Gold in the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. In 2012, Oscar Pistorius became the first double amputee sprinter to compete at the Olympic Games in London. In golf, Gary Player is generally regarded as one of the greatest golfers of all time, having won the Career Grand Slam, one of five golfers to have done so. Other South African golfers to have won major tournaments include Bobby Locke, Ernie Els, Retief Goosen, Tim Clark, Trevor Immelman, Louis Oosthuizen and Charl Schwartzel.
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+Click on a coloured area to see an article about English in that country or region
+
+Coordinates: 30°S 25°E / 30°S 25°E / -30; 25

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+The Soviet Union,[d] officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics[e] (USSR),[f] was a federal socialist state in Northern Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. Nominally a union of multiple national Soviet republics,[g] in practice its government and economy were highly centralized until its final years. It was a one-party state governed by the Communist Party, with Moscow as its capital in its largest republic, the Russian SFSR. Other major urban centers were Leningrad, Kiev, Minsk, Tashkent, Alma-Ata and Novosibirsk. It was the largest country in the world by surface area,[18] spanning over 10,000 kilometers (6,200 mi) east to west across 11 time zones and over 7,200 kilometers (4,500 mi) north to south. Its territory included much of Eastern Europe as well as part of Northern Europe and all of Northern and Central Asia. It had five climate zones such as tundra, taiga, steppes, desert, and mountains. Its diverse population was collectively known as Soviet people.
+
+The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917, when the Bolsheviks, headed by Vladimir Lenin, overthrew the Provisional Government that had earlier replaced the monarchy. They established the Russian Soviet Republic[h], beginning a civil war between the Bolshevik Red Army and many anti-Bolshevik forces across the former Empire, among whom the largest faction was the White Guard. The disastrous distractive effect of the war and the Bolshevik policies led to 5 million deaths during the 1921–1922 famine in the region of Povolzhye. The Red Army expanded and helped local Communists take power, establishing soviets, repressing their political opponents and rebellious peasants through the policies of Red Terror and War Communism. In 1922, the Communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian and Byelorussian republics. The New Economic Policy (NEP) which was introduced by Lenin led to a partial return of a free market and private property, resulting in a period of economic recovery.
+
+Following Lenin's death in 1924, a troika and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all political opposition to his rule inside the Communist Party, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism, ended the NEP, initiating a centrally planned economy. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and forced collectivization, which led to a significant economic growth, but also created a man-made famine of 1932–1933 and expanded the Gulag labour camp system founded back in 1918. Stalin also fomented political paranoia and conducted the Great Purge to remove opponents of his from the Party through the mass arbitrary arrest of many people (military leaders, Communist Party members and ordinary citizens alike) who were then sent to correctional labor camps or sentenced to death.
+
+On 23 August 1939, after unsuccessful efforts to form an anti-fascist alliance with Western powers, the Soviets signed the non-aggression agreement with Nazi Germany. After the start of World War II, the formally neutral Soviets invaded and annexed territories of several Eastern European states, including eastern Poland and the Baltic states. In June 1941 the Germans invaded, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the cost of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at intense battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin and won World War II in Europe on 9 May 1945. The territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged in 1947 as a result of a post-war Soviet dominance in Eastern Europe, where the Eastern Bloc confronted the Western Bloc that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949.
+
+Following Stalin's death in 1953, a period known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchev Thaw occurred under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev. The country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took an early lead in the Space Race with the first ever satellite and the first human spaceflight. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, but tensions resumed when the Soviet Union deployed troops in Afghanistan in 1979. The war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters.
+
+In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to further reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost and perestroika. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing economic stagnation. The Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well. Central authorities initiated a referendum—boycotted by the Baltic republics, Armenia, Georgia, and Moldova—which resulted in the majority of participating citizens voting in favor of preserving the Union as a renewed federation. In August 1991, a coup d'état was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a high-profile role in facing down the coup, resulting in the banning of the Communist Party. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the remaining twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states. The Russian Federation (formerly the Russian SFSR) assumed the Soviet Union's rights and obligations and is recognized as its continued legal personality.
+
+The USSR produced many significant social and technological achievements and innovations of the 20th century, including the world's first ministry of health, first human-made satellite, the first humans in space and the first probe to land on another planet, Venus. The country had the world's second-largest economy and the largest standing military in the world.[19][20][21] The USSR was recognized as one of the five nuclear weapons states. It was a founding permanent member of the United Nations Security Council as well as a member of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the World Federation of Trade Unions and the leading member of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance and the Warsaw Pact.
+
+The word soviet is derived from the Russian word sovet (Russian: совет), meaning "council", "assembly", "advice", "harmony", "concord",[note 1] ultimately deriving from the proto-Slavic verbal stem of vět-iti ("to inform"), related to Slavic věst ("news"), English "wise", the root in "ad-vis-or" (which came to English through French), or the Dutch weten ("to know"; cf. wetenschap meaning "science"). The word sovietnik means "councillor".[22]
+
+Some organizations in Russian history were called council (Russian: совет). In the Russian Empire, the State Council which functioned from 1810 to 1917 was referred to as a Council of Ministers after the revolt of 1905.[22]
+
+During the Georgian Affair, Vladimir Lenin envisioned an expression of Great Russian ethnic chauvinism by Joseph Stalin and his supporters, calling for these nation-states to join Russia as semi-independent parts of a greater union which he initially named as the Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia (Russian: Союз Советских Республик Европы и Азии, tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Respublik Evropy i Azii).[23] Stalin initially resisted the proposal but ultimately accepted it, although with Lenin's agreement changed the name to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), albeit all the republics began as socialist soviet and did not change to the other order until 1936. In addition, in the national languages of several republics, the word council or conciliar in the respective language was only quite late changed to an adaptation of the Russian soviet and never in others, e.g. Ukraine.
+
+СССР (in Latin alphabet: SSSR) is the abbreviation of USSR in Russian. It is written in Cyrillic alphabets. The Soviets used the Cyrillic abbreviation so frequently that audiences worldwide became familiar with its meaning. Notably, both Cyrillic letters used have orthographically-similar (but transliterally distinct) letters in Latin alphabets. Because of widespread familiarity with the Cyrillic abbreviation, Latin alphabet users in particular almost always use the orthographically-similar Latin letters C and P (as opposed to the transliteral Latin letters S and R) when rendering the USSR's native abbreviation.
+
+After СССР, the most common short form names for the Soviet state in Russian were Советский Союз (transliteration: Sovetskiy Soyuz) which literally means Soviet Union, and also Союз ССР (transliteration: Soyuz SSR) which, after compensating for grammatical differences, essentially translates to Union of SSR's in English.
+
+In the English language media, the state was referred to as the Soviet Union or the USSR. In other European languages, the locally translated short forms and abbreviations are usually used such as Union soviétique and URSS in French, or Sowjetunion and UdSSR in German. In the English-speaking world, the Soviet Union was also informally called Russia and its citizens Russians,[24] although that was technically incorrect since Russia was only one of the republics.[25] Such misapplications of the linguistic equivalents to the term Russia and its derivatives were frequent in other languages as well.
+
+With an area of 22,402,200 square kilometres (8,649,500 sq mi), the Soviet Union was the world's largest country, a status that is retained by the Russian Federation.[26] Covering a sixth of Earth's land surface, its size was comparable to that of North America.[27] Two other successor states, Kazakhstan and Ukraine, rank among the top 10 countries by land area, and the largest country entirely in Europe, respectively. The European portion accounted for a quarter of the country's area and was the cultural and economic center. The eastern part in Asia extended to the Pacific Ocean to the east and Afghanistan to the south, and, except some areas in Central Asia, was much less populous. It spanned over 10,000 kilometres (6,200 mi) east to west across 11 time zones, and over 7,200 kilometres (4,500 mi) north to south. It had five climate zones: tundra, taiga, steppes, desert and mountains.
+
+The USSR had the world's longest border, like Russia, measuring over 60,000 kilometres (37,000 mi), or ​1 1⁄2 circumferences of Earth. Two-thirds of it was a coastline. Across the Bering Strait was the United States. The country bordered Afghanistan, China, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Hungary, Iran, Mongolia, North Korea, Norway, Poland, Romania, and Turkey from 1945 to 1991.
+
+The country's highest mountain was Communism Peak (now Ismoil Somoni Peak) in Tajikistan, at 7,495 metres (24,590 ft). The USSR also included most of the world's largest lakes; the Caspian Sea (shared with Iran), and Lake Baikal, the world's largest (by volume) and deepest freshwater lake that is also an internal body of water in Russia.
+
+Modern revolutionary activity in the Russian Empire began with the 1825 Decembrist revolt. Although serfdom was abolished in 1861, it was done on terms unfavorable to the peasants and served to encourage revolutionaries. A parliament—the State Duma—was established in 1906 after the Russian Revolution of 1905, but Tsar Nicholas II resisted attempts to move from absolute to a constitutional monarchy. Social unrest continued and was aggravated during World War I by military defeat and food shortages in major cities.
+
+A spontaneous popular uprising in Petrograd, in response to the wartime decay of Russia's economy and morale, culminated in the February Revolution and the toppling of Nicholas II and the imperial government in March 1917. The tsarist autocracy was replaced by the Russian Provisional Government, which intended to conduct elections to the Russian Constituent Assembly and to continue fighting on the side of the Entente in World War I.
+
+At the same time, workers' councils, known in Russian as "Soviets", sprang up across the country. The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, pushed for socialist revolution in the Soviets and on the streets. On 7 November 1917, the Red Guards stormed the Winter Palace in Petrograd, ending the rule of the Provisional Government and leaving all political power to the Soviets.[30] This event would later be officially known in Soviet bibliographies as the Great October Socialist Revolution. In December, the Bolsheviks signed an armistice with the Central Powers, though by February 1918, fighting had resumed. In March, the Soviets ended involvement in the war and signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
+
+A long and bloody Civil War ensued between the Reds and the Whites, starting in 1917 and ending in 1923 with the Reds' victory. It included foreign intervention, the execution of the former tsar and his family, and the famine of 1921, which killed about five million people.[31] In March 1921, during a related conflict with Poland, the Peace of Riga was signed, splitting disputed territories in Belarus and Ukraine between the Republic of Poland and Soviet Russia. Soviet Russia had to resolve similar conflicts with the newly established republics of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
+
+On 28 December 1922, a conference of plenipotentiary delegations from the Russian SFSR, the Transcaucasian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR and the Byelorussian SSR approved the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR[32] and the Declaration of the Creation of the USSR, forming the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.[33] These two documents were confirmed by the first Congress of Soviets of the USSR and signed by the heads of the delegations,[34] Mikhail Kalinin, Mikhail Tskhakaya, Mikhail Frunze, Grigory Petrovsky, and Alexander Chervyakov,[35] on 30 December 1922. The formal proclamation was made from the stage of the Bolshoi Theatre.
+
+An intensive restructuring of the economy, industry and politics of the country began in the early days of Soviet power in 1917. A large part of this was done according to the Bolshevik Initial Decrees, government documents signed by Vladimir Lenin. One of the most prominent breakthroughs was the GOELRO plan, which envisioned a major restructuring of the Soviet economy based on total electrification of the country.[36] The plan became the prototype for subsequent Five-Year Plans and was fulfilled by 1931.[37] After the economic policy of "War communism" during the Russian Civil War, as a prelude to fully developing socialism in the country, the Soviet government permitted some private enterprise to coexist alongside nationalized industry in the 1920s, and total food requisition in the countryside was replaced by a food tax.
+
+From its creation, the government in the Soviet Union was based on the one-party rule of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks).[38] The stated purpose was to prevent the return of capitalist exploitation, and that the principles of democratic centralism would be the most effective in representing the people's will in a practical manner. The debate over the future of the economy provided the background for a power struggle in the years after Lenin's death in 1924. Initially, Lenin was to be replaced by a "troika" consisting of Grigory Zinoviev of the Ukrainian SSR, Lev Kamenev of the Russian SFSR, and Joseph Stalin of the Transcaucasian SFSR.
+
+On 1 February 1924, the USSR was recognized by the United Kingdom. The same year, a Soviet Constitution was approved, legitimizing the December 1922 union. Despite the foundation of the Soviet state as a federative entity of many constituent republics, each with its own political and administrative entities, the term "Soviet Russia" – strictly applicable only to the Russian Federative Socialist Republic – was often applied to the entire country by non-Soviet writers and politicians.
+
+On 3 April 1922, Stalin was named the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Lenin had appointed Stalin the head of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate, which gave Stalin considerable power. By gradually consolidating his influence and isolating and outmanoeuvring his rivals within the party, Stalin became the undisputed leader of the country and, by the end of the 1920s, established a totalitarian rule. In October 1927, Zinoviev and Leon Trotsky were expelled from the Central Committee and forced into exile.
+
+In 1928, Stalin introduced the first five-year plan for building a socialist economy. In place of the internationalism expressed by Lenin throughout the Revolution, it aimed to build Socialism in One Country. In industry, the state assumed control over all existing enterprises and undertook an intensive program of industrialization. In agriculture, rather than adhering to the "lead by example" policy advocated by Lenin,[39] forced collectivization of farms was implemented all over the country.
+
+Famines ensued as a result, causing deaths estimated at three to seven million; surviving kulaks were persecuted, and many were sent to Gulags to do forced labor.[40][41] Social upheaval continued in the mid-1930s. Despite the turmoil of the mid-to-late 1930s, the country developed a robust industrial economy in the years preceding World War II.
+
+Closer cooperation between the USSR and the West developed in the early 1930s. From 1932 to 1934, the country participated in the World Disarmament Conference. In 1933, diplomatic relations between the United States and the USSR were established when in November, the newly elected President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt, chose to recognize Stalin's Communist government formally and negotiated a new trade agreement between the two countries.[42] In September 1934, the country joined the League of Nations. After the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936, the USSR actively supported the Republican forces against the Nationalists, who were supported by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.[43]
+
+In December 1936, Stalin unveiled a new constitution that was praised by supporters around the world as the most democratic constitution imaginable, though there was some skepticism.[i] Stalin's Great Purge resulted in the detainment or execution of many "Old Bolsheviks" who had participated in the October Revolution with Lenin. According to declassified Soviet archives, the NKVD arrested more than one and a half million people in 1937 and 1938, of whom 681,692 were shot.[45] Over those two years, there were an average of over one thousand executions a day.[46][j]
+
+In 1939, the Soviet Union made a dramatic shift toward Nazi Germany. Almost a year after Britain and France had concluded the Munich Agreement with Germany, the Soviet Union made agreements with Germany as well, both militarily and economically during extensive talks. The two countries concluded the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and the German–Soviet Commercial Agreement in August 1939. The former made possible the Soviet occupation of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bessarabia, northern Bukovina, and eastern Poland. In late November, unable to coerce the Republic of Finland by diplomatic means into moving its border 25 kilometres (16 mi) back from Leningrad, Stalin ordered the invasion of Finland. In the east, the Soviet military won several decisive victories during border clashes with the Empire of Japan in 1938 and 1939. However, in April 1941, the USSR signed the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact with Japan, recognizing the territorial integrity of Manchukuo, a Japanese puppet state.
+
+Germany broke the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 starting what was known in the USSR as the Great Patriotic War. The Red Army stopped the seemingly invincible German Army at the Battle of Moscow, aided by an unusually harsh winter. The Battle of Stalingrad, which lasted from late 1942 to early 1943, dealt a severe blow to Germany from which they never fully recovered and became a turning point in the war. After Stalingrad, Soviet forces drove through Eastern Europe to Berlin before Germany surrendered in 1945. The German Army suffered 80% of its military deaths in the Eastern Front.[50] Harry Hopkins, a close foreign policy advisor to Franklin D. Roosevelt, spoke on 10 August 1943 of the USSR's decisive role in the war.[k]
+
+In the same year, the USSR, in fulfilment of its agreement with the Allies at the Yalta Conference, denounced the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact in April 1945[52] and invaded Manchukuo and other Japan-controlled territories on 9 August 1945.[53] This conflict ended with a decisive Soviet victory, contributing to the unconditional surrender of Japan and the end of World War II.
+
+The USSR suffered greatly in the war, losing around 27 million people.[54] Approximately 2.8 million Soviet POWs died of starvation, mistreatment, or executions in just eight months of 1941–42.[55][56] During the war, the country together with the United States, the United Kingdom and China were considered the Big Four Allied powers,[57] and later became the Four Policemen that formed the basis of the United Nations Security Council.[58] It emerged as a superpower in the post-war period. Once denied diplomatic recognition by the Western world, the USSR had official relations with practically every country by the late 1940s. A member of the United Nations at its foundation in 1945, the country became one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, which gave it the right to veto any of its resolutions.
+
+During the immediate post-war period, the Soviet Union rebuilt and expanded its economy, while maintaining its strictly centralized control. It took effective control over most of the countries of Eastern Europe (except Yugoslavia and later Albania), turning them into satellite states. The USSR bound its satellite states in a military alliance, the Warsaw Pact, in 1955, and an economic organization, Council for Mutual Economic Assistance or Comecon, a counterpart to the European Economic Community (EEC), from 1949 to 1991.[59] The USSR concentrated on its own recovery, seizing and transferring most of Germany's industrial plants, and it exacted war reparations from East Germany, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria using Soviet-dominated joint enterprises. It also instituted trading arrangements deliberately designed to favor the country. Moscow controlled the Communist parties that ruled the satellite states, and they followed orders from the Kremlin.[m] Later, the Comecon supplied aid to the eventually victorious Communist Party of China, and its influence grew elsewhere in the world. Fearing its ambitions, the Soviet Union's wartime allies, the United Kingdom and the United States, became its enemies. In the ensuing Cold War, the two sides clashed indirectly in proxy wars.
+
+Stalin died on 5 March 1953. Without a mutually agreeable successor, the highest Communist Party officials initially opted to rule the Soviet Union jointly through a troika headed by Georgy Malenkov. This did not last, however, and Nikita Khrushchev eventually won the ensuing power struggle by the mid-1950s. In 1956, he denounced Stalin's use of repression and proceeded to ease controls over the party and society. This was known as de-Stalinization.
+
+Moscow considered Eastern Europe to be a critically vital buffer zone for the forward defence of its western borders, in case of another major invasion such as the German invasion of 1941. For this reason, the USSR sought to cement its control of the region by transforming the Eastern European countries into satellite states, dependent upon and subservient to its leadership. Soviet military force was used to suppress anti-Stalinist uprisings in Hungary and Poland in 1956.
+
+In the late 1950s, a confrontation with China regarding the Soviet rapprochement with the West, and what Mao Zedong perceived as Khrushchev's revisionism, led to the Sino–Soviet split. This resulted in a break throughout the global Marxist–Leninist movement, with the governments in Albania, Cambodia and Somalia choosing to ally with China.
+
+During this period of the late 1950s and early 1960s, the USSR continued to realize scientific and technological exploits in the Space Race, rivaling the United States: launching the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1 in 1957; a living dog named Laika in 1957; the first human being, Yuri Gagarin in 1961; the first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova in 1963; Alexei Leonov, the first person to walk in space in 1965; the first soft landing on the Moon by spacecraft Luna 9 in 1966; and the first Moon rovers, Lunokhod 1 and Lunokhod 2.[61]
+
+Khrushchev initiated "The Thaw", a complex shift in political, cultural and economic life in the country. This included some openness and contact with other nations and new social and economic policies with more emphasis on commodity goods, allowing a dramatic rise in living standards while maintaining high levels of economic growth. Censorship was relaxed as well. Khrushchev's reforms in agriculture and administration, however, were generally unproductive. In 1962, he precipitated a crisis with the United States over the Soviet deployment of nuclear missiles in Cuba. An agreement was made with the United States to remove nuclear missiles from both Cuba and Turkey, concluding the crisis. This event caused Khrushchev much embarrassment and loss of prestige, resulting in his removal from power in 1964.
+
+Following the ousting of Khrushchev, another period of collective leadership ensued, consisting of Leonid Brezhnev as General Secretary, Alexei Kosygin as Premier and Nikolai Podgorny as Chairman of the Presidium, lasting until Brezhnev established himself in the early 1970s as the preeminent Soviet leader.
+
+In 1968, the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact allies invaded Czechoslovakia to halt the Prague Spring reforms. In the aftermath, Brezhnev justified the invasion along with the earlier invasions of Eastern European states by introducing the Brezhnev Doctrine, which claimed the right of the Soviet Union to violate the sovereignty of any country that attempted to replace Marxism–Leninism with capitalism.
+
+Brezhnev presided throughout détente with the West that resulted in treaties on armament control (SALT I, SALT II, Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty) while at the same time building up Soviet military might.
+
+In October 1977, the third Soviet Constitution was unanimously adopted. The prevailing mood of the Soviet leadership at the time of Brezhnev's death in 1982 was one of aversion to change. The long period of Brezhnev's rule had come to be dubbed one of "standstill", with an ageing and ossified top political leadership. This period is also known as the Era of Stagnation, a period of adverse economic, political, and social effects in the country, which began during the rule of Brezhnev and continued under his successors Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko.
+
+In late 1979, the Soviet Union's military intervened in the ongoing civil war in neighboring Afghanistan, effectively ending a détente with the West.
+
+Two developments dominated the decade that followed: the increasingly apparent crumbling of the Soviet Union's economic and political structures, and the patchwork attempts at reforms to reverse that process. Kenneth S. Deffeyes argued in Beyond Oil that the Reagan administration encouraged Saudi Arabia to lower the price of oil to the point where the Soviets could not make a profit selling their oil, and resulted in the depletion of the country's hard currency reserves.[62]
+
+Brezhnev's next two successors, transitional figures with deep roots in his tradition, did not last long. Yuri Andropov was 68 years old and Konstantin Chernenko 72 when they assumed power; both died in less than two years. In an attempt to avoid a third short-lived leader, in 1985, the Soviets turned to the next generation and selected Mikhail Gorbachev. He made significant changes in the economy and party leadership, called perestroika. His policy of glasnost freed public access to information after decades of heavy government censorship. Gorbachev also moved to end the Cold War. In 1988, the USSR abandoned its war in Afghanistan and began to withdraw its forces. In the following year, Gorbachev refused to interfere in the internal affairs of the Soviet satellite states, which paved the way for the Revolutions of 1989. With the tearing down of the Berlin Wall and with East and West Germany pursuing unification, the Iron Curtain between the West and Soviet-controlled regions came down.
+
+At the same time, the Soviet republics started legal moves towards potentially declaring sovereignty over their territories, citing the freedom to secede in Article 72 of the USSR constitution.[63] On 7 April 1990, a law was passed allowing a republic to secede if more than two-thirds of its residents voted for it in a referendum.[64] Many held their first free elections in the Soviet era for their own national legislatures in 1990. Many of these legislatures proceeded to produce legislation contradicting the Union laws in what was known as the "War of Laws". In 1989, the Russian SFSR convened a newly elected Congress of People's Deputies. Boris Yeltsin was elected its chairman. On 12 June 1990, the Congress declared Russia's sovereignty over its territory and proceeded to pass laws that attempted to supersede some of the Soviet laws. After a landslide victory of Sąjūdis in Lithuania, that country declared its independence restored on 11 March 1990.
+
+A referendum for the preservation of the USSR was held on 17 March 1991 in nine republics (the remainder having boycotted the vote), with the majority of the population in those republics voting for preservation of the Union. The referendum gave Gorbachev a minor boost. In the summer of 1991, the New Union Treaty, which would have turned the country into a much looser Union, was agreed upon by eight republics. The signing of the treaty, however, was interrupted by the August Coup—an attempted coup d'état by hardline members of the government and the KGB who sought to reverse Gorbachev's reforms and reassert the central government's control over the republics. After the coup collapsed, Yeltsin was seen as a hero for his decisive actions, while Gorbachev's power was effectively ended. The balance of power tipped significantly towards the republics. In August 1991, Latvia and Estonia immediately declared the restoration of their full independence (following Lithuania's 1990 example). Gorbachev resigned as general secretary in late August, and soon afterwards, the party's activities were indefinitely suspended—effectively ending its rule. By the fall, Gorbachev could no longer influence events outside Moscow, and he was being challenged even there by Yeltsin, who had been elected President of Russia in July 1991.
+
+The remaining 12 republics continued discussing new, increasingly looser, models of the Union. However, by December all except Russia and Kazakhstan had formally declared independence. During this time, Yeltsin took over what remained of the Soviet government, including the Moscow Kremlin. The final blow was struck on 1 December when Ukraine, the second-most powerful republic, voted overwhelmingly for independence. Ukraine's secession ended any realistic chance of the country staying together even on a limited scale.
+
+On 8 December 1991, the presidents of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus (formerly Byelorussia), signed the Belavezha Accords, which declared the Soviet Union dissolved and established the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in its place. While doubts remained over the authority of the accords to do this, on 21 December 1991, the representatives of all Soviet republics except Georgia signed the Alma-Ata Protocol, which confirmed the accords. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned as the President of the USSR, declaring the office extinct. He turned the powers that had been vested in the presidency over to Yeltsin. That night, the Soviet flag was lowered for the last time, and the Russian tricolor was raised in its place.
+
+The following day, the Supreme Soviet, the highest governmental body, voted both itself and the country out of existence. This is generally recognized as marking the official, final dissolution of the Soviet Union as a functioning state, and the end of the Cold War.[65] The Soviet Army initially remained under overall CIS command but was soon absorbed into the different military forces of the newly independent states. The few remaining Soviet institutions that had not been taken over by Russia ceased to function by the end of 1991.
+
+Following the dissolution, Russia was internationally recognized[66] as its legal successor on the international stage. To that end, Russia voluntarily accepted all Soviet foreign debt and claimed Soviet overseas properties as its own. Under the 1992 Lisbon Protocol, Russia also agreed to receive all nuclear weapons remaining in the territory of other former Soviet republics. Since then, the Russian Federation has assumed the Soviet Union's rights and obligations. Ukraine has refused to recognize exclusive Russian claims to succession of the USSR and claimed such status for Ukraine as well, which was codified in Articles 7 and 8 of its 1991 law On Legal Succession of Ukraine. Since its independence in 1991, Ukraine has continued to pursue claims against Russia in foreign courts, seeking to recover its share of the foreign property that was owned by the USSR.
+
+The dissolution was followed by a severe drop in economic and social conditions in post-Soviet states,[67][68] including a rapid increase in poverty,[69][70][71][72] crime,[73][74] corruption,[75][76] unemployment,[77] homelessness,[78][79] rates of disease,[80][81][82] demographic losses,[83] income inequality and the rise of an oligarchical class,[84][69] along with decreases in calorie intake, life expectancy, adult literacy, and income.[85] Between 1988/1989 and 1993/1995, the Gini ratio increased by an average of 9 points for all former socialist countries.[69] The economic shocks that accompanied wholesale privatization were associated with sharp increases in mortality. Data shows Russia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia saw a tripling of unemployment and a 42% increase in male death rates between 1991 and 1994.[86][87] In the following decades, only five or six of the post-communist states are on a path to joining the wealthy capitalist West while most are falling behind, some to such an extent that it will take over fifty years to catch up to where they were before the fall of the Soviet Bloc.[88][89]
+
+In summing up the international ramifications of these events, Vladislav Zubok stated: "The collapse of the Soviet empire was an event of epochal geopolitical, military, ideological, and economic significance."[90] Before the dissolution, the country had maintained its status as one of the world's two superpowers for four decades after World War II through its hegemony in Eastern Europe, military strength, economic strength, aid to developing countries, and scientific research, especially in space technology and weaponry.[91]
+
+The analysis of the succession of states for the 15 post-Soviet states is complex. The Russian Federation is seen as the legal continuator state and is for most purposes the heir to the Soviet Union. It retained ownership of all former Soviet embassy properties, as well as the old Soviet UN membership and permanent membership on the Security Council.
+
+Of the two other co-founding states of the USSR at the time of the dissolution, Ukraine was the only one that had passed similar to Russia's laws that it is a state-successor of both the Ukrainian SSR and the USSR.[92] Soviet treaties laid groundwork for Ukraine's future foreign agreements as well as they led to Ukraine agreeing to undertake 16.37% of debts of the Soviet Union for which it was going to receive its share of USSR's foreign property. Although it had a tough position at the time, due to Russia's position as a "single continuation of the USSR" that became widely accepted in the West as well as a constant pressure from the Western countries, allowed Russia to dispose state property of USSR abroad and conceal information about it. Due to that Ukraine never ratified "zero option" agreement that Russian Federation had signed with other former Soviet republics, as it denied disclosing of information about Soviet Gold Reserves and its Diamond Fund.[93][94] Dispute over former Soviet property and assets between two former republics is still ongoing:
+
+The conflict is unsolvable. We can continue to poke Kiev handouts in the calculation of "solve the problem", only it won't be solved. Going to a trial is also pointless: for a number of European countries this is a political issue, and they will make a decision clearly in whose favor. What to do in this situation is an open question. Search for non-trivial solutions. But we must remember that in 2014, with the filing of the then Ukrainian Prime Minister Yatsenyuk, litigation with Russia resumed in 32 countries.
+
+Similar situation occurred with restitution of cultural property. Although on 14 February 1992 Russia and other former Soviet republics signed agreement "On the return of cultural and historic property to the origin states" in Minsk, it was halted by Russian State Duma that had eventually passed "Federal Law on Cultural Valuables Displaced to the USSR as a Result of the Second World War and Located on the Territory of the Russian Federation" which made restitution currently impossible.[96]
+
+There are additionally four states that claim independence from the other internationally recognised post-Soviet states but possess limited international recognition: Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia and Transnistria. The Chechen separatist movement of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria lacks any international recognition.
+
+During his rule, Stalin always made the final policy decisions. Otherwise, Soviet foreign policy was set by the Commission on the Foreign Policy of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, or by the party's highest body the Politburo. Operations were handled by the separate Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It was known as the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs (or Narkomindel), until 1946. The most influential spokesmen were Georgy Chicherin (1872–1936), Maxim Litvinov (1876–1951), Vyacheslav Molotov (1890–1986), Andrey Vyshinsky (1883–1954) and Andrei Gromyko (1909–1989). Intellectuals were based in the Moscow State Institute of International Relations.[97]
+
+The Communist leadership of the Soviet Union intensely debated foreign policy issues and change directions several times. Even after Stalin assumed dictatorial control in the late 1920s, there were debates, and he frequently changed positions.[106]
+
+During the country's early period, it was assumed that Communist revolutions would break out soon in every major industrial country, and it was the Soviet responsibility to assist them. The Comintern was the weapon of choice. A few revolutions did break out, but they were quickly suppressed (the longest lasting one was in Hungary)—the Hungarian Soviet Republic—lasted only from 21 March 1919 to 1 August 1919. The Russian Bolsheviks were in no position to give any help.
+
+By 1921, Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin realized that capitalism had stabilized itself in Europe and there would not be any widespread revolutions anytime soon. It became the duty of the Russian Bolsheviks to protect what they had in Russia, and avoid military confrontations that might destroy their bridgehead. Russia was now a pariah state, along with Germany. The two came to terms in 1922 with the Treaty of Rapallo that settled long-standing grievances. At the same time, the two countries secretly set up training programs for the illegal German army and air force operations at hidden camps in the USSR.[107]
+
+Moscow eventually stopped threatening other states, and instead worked to open peaceful relationships in terms of trade, and diplomatic recognition. The United Kingdom dismissed the warnings of Winston Churchill and a few others about a continuing communist threat, and opened trade relations and de facto diplomatic recognition in 1922. There was hope for a settlement of the pre-war tsarist debts, but it was repeatedly postponed. Formal recognition came when the new Labour Party came to power in 1924.[108] All the other countries followed suit in opening trade relations. Henry Ford opened large-scale business relations with the Soviets in the late 1920s, hoping that it would lead to long-term peace. Finally, in 1933, the United States officially recognized the USSR, a decision backed by the public opinion and especially by US business interests that expected an opening of a new profitable market.[109]
+
+In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Stalin ordered Communist parties across the world to strongly oppose non-communist political parties, labor unions or other organizations on the left. Stalin reversed himself in 1934 with the Popular Front program that called on all Communist parties to join together with all anti-Fascist political, labor, and organizational forces that were opposed to fascism, especially of the Nazi variety.[110][111]
+
+In 1939, half a year after the Munich Agreement, the USSR attempted to form an anti-Nazi alliance with France and Britain.[112] Adolf Hitler proposed a better deal, which would give the USSR control over much of Eastern Europe through the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. In September, Germany invaded Poland, and the USSR also invaded later that month, resulting in the partition of Poland. In response, Britain and France declared war on Germany, marking the beginning of World War II.[113]
+
+There were three power hierarchies in the Soviet Union: the legislature represented by the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, the government represented by the Council of Ministers, and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), the only legal party and the final policymaker in the country.[114]
+
+At the top of the Communist Party was the Central Committee, elected at Party Congresses and Conferences. In turn, the Central Committee voted for a Politburo (called the Presidium between 1952–1966), Secretariat and the General Secretary (First Secretary from 1953 to 1966), the de facto highest office in the Soviet Union.[115] Depending on the degree of power consolidation, it was either the Politburo as a collective body or the General Secretary, who always was one of the Politburo members, that effectively led the party and the country[116] (except for the period of the highly personalized authority of Stalin, exercised directly through his position in the Council of Ministers rather than the Politburo after 1941).[117] They were not controlled by the general party membership, as the key principle of the party organization was democratic centralism, demanding strict subordination to higher bodies, and elections went uncontested, endorsing the candidates proposed from above.[118]
+
+The Communist Party maintained its dominance over the state mainly through its control over the system of appointments. All senior government officials and most deputies of the Supreme Soviet were members of the CPSU. Of the party heads themselves, Stalin (1941–1953) and Khrushchev (1958–1964) were Premiers. Upon the forced retirement of Khrushchev, the party leader was prohibited from this kind of double membership,[119] but the later General Secretaries for at least some part of their tenure occupied the mostly ceremonial position of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the nominal head of state. The institutions at lower levels were overseen and at times supplanted by primary party organizations.[120]
+
+However, in practice the degree of control the party was able to exercise over the state bureaucracy, particularly after the death of Stalin, was far from total, with the bureaucracy pursuing different interests that were at times in conflict with the party.[121] Nor was the party itself monolithic from top to bottom, although factions were officially banned.[122]
+
+The Supreme Soviet (successor of the Congress of Soviets and Central Executive Committee) was nominally the highest state body for most of the Soviet history,[123] at first acting as a rubber stamp institution, approving and implementing all decisions made by the party. However, its powers and functions were extended in the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, including the creation of new state commissions and committees. It gained additional powers relating to the approval of the Five-Year Plans and the government budget.[124] The Supreme Soviet elected a Presidium to wield its power between plenary sessions,[125] ordinarily held twice a year, and appointed the Supreme Court,[126] the Procurator General[127] and the Council of Ministers (known before 1946 as the Council of People's Commissars), headed by the Chairman (Premier) and managing an enormous bureaucracy responsible for the administration of the economy and society.[125] State and party structures of the constituent republics largely emulated the structure of the central institutions, although the Russian SFSR, unlike the other constituent republics, for most of its history had no republican branch of the CPSU, being ruled directly by the union-wide party until 1990. Local authorities were organized likewise into party committees, local Soviets and executive committees. While the state system was nominally federal, the party was unitary.[128]
+
+The state security police (the KGB and its predecessor agencies) played an important role in Soviet politics. It was instrumental in the Great Purge,[129] but was brought under strict party control after Stalin's death. Under Yuri Andropov, the KGB engaged in the suppression of political dissent and maintained an extensive network of informers, reasserting itself as a political actor to some extent independent of the party-state structure,[130] culminating in the anti-corruption campaign targeting high-ranking party officials in the late 1970s and early 1980s.[131]
+
+The constitution, which was promulgated in 1918, 1924, 1936 and 1977,[132] did not limit state power. No formal separation of powers existed between the Party, Supreme Soviet and Council of Ministers[133] that represented executive and legislative branches of the government. The system was governed less by statute than by informal conventions, and no settled mechanism of leadership succession existed. Bitter and at times deadly power struggles took place in the Politburo after the deaths of Lenin[134] and Stalin,[135] as well as after Khrushchev's dismissal,[136] itself due to a decision by both the Politburo and the Central Committee.[137] All leaders of the Communist Party before Gorbachev died in office, except Georgy Malenkov[138] and Khrushchev, both dismissed from the party leadership amid internal struggle within the party.[137]
+
+Between 1988 and 1990, facing considerable opposition, Mikhail Gorbachev enacted reforms shifting power away from the highest bodies of the party and making the Supreme Soviet less dependent on them. The Congress of People's Deputies was established, the majority of whose members were directly elected in competitive elections held in March 1989. The Congress now elected the Supreme Soviet, which became a full-time parliament, and much stronger than before. For the first time since the 1920s, it refused to rubber stamp proposals from the party and Council of Ministers.[139] In 1990, Gorbachev introduced and assumed the position of the President of the Soviet Union, concentrated power in his executive office, independent of the party, and subordinated the government,[140] now renamed the Cabinet of Ministers of the USSR, to himself.[141]
+
+Tensions grew between the Union-wide authorities under Gorbachev, reformists led in Russia by Boris Yeltsin and controlling the newly elected Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR, and communist hardliners. On 19–21 August 1991, a group of hardliners staged a coup attempt. The coup failed, and the State Council of the Soviet Union became the highest organ of state power "in the period of transition".[142] Gorbachev resigned as General Secretary, only remaining President for the final months of the existence of the USSR.[143]
+
+The judiciary was not independent of the other branches of government. The Supreme Court supervised the lower courts (People's Court) and applied the law as established by the constitution or as interpreted by the Supreme Soviet. The Constitutional Oversight Committee reviewed the constitutionality of laws and acts. The Soviet Union used the inquisitorial system of Roman law, where the judge, procurator, and defence attorney collaborate to establish the truth.[144]
+
+Constitutionally, the USSR was a federation of constituent Union Republics, which were either unitary states, such as Ukraine or Byelorussia (SSRs), or federations, such as Russia or Transcaucasia (SFSRs),[114] all four being the founding republics who signed the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR in December 1922. In 1924, during the national delimitation in Central Asia, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan were formed from parts of Russia's Turkestan ASSR and two Soviet dependencies, the Khorezm and Bukharan SSRs. In 1929, Tajikistan was split off from the Uzbekistan SSR. With the constitution of 1936, the Transcaucasian SFSR was dissolved, resulting in its constituent republics of Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan being elevated to Union Republics, while Kazakhstan and Kirghizia were split off from Russian SFSR, resulting in the same status.[145] In August 1940, Moldavia was formed from parts of Ukraine and Bessarabia and northern Bukovina. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania (SSRs) were also admitted into the union which was not recognized by most of the international community and was considered an illegal occupation. Karelia was split off from Russia as a Union Republic in March 1940 and was reabsorbed in 1956. Between July 1956 and September 1991, there were 15 union republics (see map below).[146]
+
+While nominally a union of equals, in practice the Soviet Union was dominated by Russians. The domination was so absolute that for most of its existence, the country was commonly (but incorrectly) referred to as "Russia". While the RSFSR was technically only one republic within the larger union, it was by far the largest (both in terms of population and area), most powerful, most developed, and the industrial center of the Soviet Union. Historian Matthew White wrote that it was an open secret that the country's federal structure was "window dressing" for Russian dominance. For that reason, the people of the USSR were usually called "Russians", not "Soviets", since "everyone knew who really ran the show".[147]
+
+Under the Military Law of September 1925, the Soviet Armed Forces consisted of three components, namely the Land Forces, the Air Force, the Navy, Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU), and the Internal Troops.[148] The OGPU later became independent and in 1934 joined the NKVD, and so its internal troops were under the joint leadership of the defense and internal commissariats. After World War II, Strategic Missile Forces (1959), Air Defense Forces (1948) and National Civil Defense Forces (1970) were formed, which ranked first, third, and sixth in the official Soviet system of importance (ground forces were second, Air Force Fourth, and Navy Fifth).
+
+The army had the greatest political influence. In 1989, there served two million soldiers divided between 150 motorized and 52 armored divisions. Until the early 1960s, the Soviet navy was a rather small military branch, but after the Caribbean crisis, under the leadership of Sergei Gorshkov, it expanded significantly. It became known for battlecruisers and submarines. In 1989 there served 500 000 men. The Soviet Air Force focused on a fleet of strategic bombers and during war situation was to eradicate enemy infrastructure and nuclear capacity. The air force also had a number of fighters and tactical bombers to support the army in the war. Strategic missile forces had more than 1,400 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), deployed between 28 bases and 300 command centers.
+
+In the post-war period, the Soviet Army was directly involved in several military operations abroad. These included the suppression of the uprising in East Germany (1953), Hungarian revolution (1956) and the invasion of Czechoslovakia (1968). The Soviet Union also participated in the war in Afghanistan between 1979 and 1989.
+
+In the Soviet Union, general conscription applied.
+
+At the end of the 1950s, with the help of engineers and technologies captured and imported from defeated Nazi Germany, the Soviets constructed the first satellite - Sputnik 1 and thus overtook the United States. This was followed by other successful satellites and experimental dogs were sent. On April 12, 1961, the first cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, was sent to the space. He once flew around the Earth and successfully landed in the Kazakh steppe. At that time, the first plans for space shuttles and orbital stations were drawn up in Soviet design offices, but in the end personal disputes between designers and management prevented this.
+
+The first big fiasco for the USSR was the landing on the moon by the Americans, when the Russians were not able to respond to the Americans in time with the same project. In the 1970s, more specific proposals for the design of the space shuttle began to emerge, but shortcomings, especially in the electronics industry (rapid overheating of electronics), postponed the program until the end of the 1980s. The first shuttle, the Buran, flew in 1988, but without a human crew. Another shuttle, Ptichka, eventually ended up under construction, as the shuttle project was canceled in 1991. For their launch into space, there is today an unused superpower rocket, Energia, which is the most powerful in the world.
+
+In the late 1980s, the Soviet Union managed to build the Mir orbital station. It was built on the construction of Salyut stations and its tasks were purely civilian and research. In the 1990s, when the US Skylab was shut down due to lack of funds, it was the only orbital station in operation. Gradually, other modules were added to it, including American ones. However, the technical condition of the station deteriorated rapidly, especially after the fire, so in 2001 it was decided to bring it into the atmosphere where it burned down.
+
+The Soviet Union adopted a command economy, whereby production and distribution of goods were centralized and directed by the government. The first Bolshevik experience with a command economy was the policy of War communism, which involved the nationalization of industry, centralized distribution of output, coercive requisition of agricultural production, and attempts to eliminate money circulation, private enterprises and free trade. After the severe economic collapse, Lenin replaced war communism by the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1921, legalizing free trade and private ownership of small businesses. The economy quickly recovered as a result.[149]
+
+After a long debate among the members of Politburo about the course of economic development, by 1928–1929, upon gaining control of the country, Stalin abandoned the NEP and pushed for full central planning, starting forced collectivization of agriculture and enacting draconian labor legislation. Resources were mobilized for rapid industrialization, which significantly expanded Soviet capacity in heavy industry and capital goods during the 1930s.[149] The primary motivation for industrialization was preparation for war, mostly due to distrust of the outside capitalist world.[150] As a result, the USSR was transformed from a largely agrarian economy into a great industrial power, leading the way for its emergence as a superpower after World War II.[151] The war caused extensive devastation of the Soviet economy and infrastructure, which required massive reconstruction.[152]
+
+By the early 1940s, the Soviet economy had become relatively self-sufficient; for most of the period until the creation of Comecon, only a tiny share of domestic products was traded internationally.[153] After the creation of the Eastern Bloc, external trade rose rapidly. However, the influence of the world economy on the USSR was limited by fixed domestic prices and a state monopoly on foreign trade.[154] Grain and sophisticated consumer manufactures became major import articles from around the 1960s.[153] During the arms race of the Cold War, the Soviet economy was burdened by military expenditures, heavily lobbied for by a powerful bureaucracy dependent on the arms industry. At the same time, the USSR became the largest arms exporter to the Third World. Significant amounts of Soviet resources during the Cold War were allocated in aid to the other socialist states.[153]
+
+From the 1930s until its dissolution in late 1991, the way the Soviet economy operated remained essentially unchanged. The economy was formally directed by central planning, carried out by Gosplan and organized in five-year plans. However, in practice, the plans were highly aggregated and provisional, subject to ad hoc intervention by superiors. All critical economic decisions were taken by the political leadership. Allocated resources and plan targets were usually denominated in rubles rather than in physical goods. Credit was discouraged, but widespread. The final allocation of output was achieved through relatively decentralized, unplanned contracting. Although in theory prices were legally set from above, in practice they were often negotiated, and informal horizontal links (e.g. between producer factories) were widespread.[149]
+
+A number of basic services were state-funded, such as education and health care. In the manufacturing sector, heavy industry and defence were prioritized over consumer goods.[155] Consumer goods, particularly outside large cities, were often scarce, of poor quality and limited variety. Under the command economy, consumers had almost no influence on production, and the changing demands of a population with growing incomes could not be satisfied by supplies at rigidly fixed prices.[156] A massive unplanned second economy grew up at low levels alongside the planned one, providing some of the goods and services that the planners could not. The legalization of some elements of the decentralized economy was attempted with the reform of 1965.[149]
+
+Although statistics of the Soviet economy are notoriously unreliable and its economic growth difficult to estimate precisely,[157][158] by most accounts, the economy continued to expand until the mid-1980s. During the 1950s and 1960s, it had comparatively high growth and was catching up to the West.[159] However, after 1970, the growth, while still positive, steadily declined much more quickly and consistently than in other countries, despite a rapid increase in the capital stock (the rate of capital increase was only surpassed by Japan).[149]
+
+Overall, the growth rate of per capita income in the Soviet Union between 1960 and 1989 was slightly above the world average (based on 102 countries).[citation needed] According to Stanley Fischer and William Easterly, growth could have been faster. By their calculation, per capita income in 1989 should have been twice higher than it was, considering the amount of investment, education and population. The authors attribute this poor performance to the low productivity of capital.[160] Steven Rosenfielde states that the standard of living declined due to Stalin's despotism. While there was a brief improvement after his death, it lapsed into stagnation.[161]
+
+In 1987, Mikhail Gorbachev attempted to reform and revitalize the economy with his program of perestroika. His policies relaxed state control over enterprises but did not replace it by market incentives, resulting in a sharp decline in output. The economy, already suffering from reduced petroleum export revenues, started to collapse. Prices were still fixed, and the property was still largely state-owned until after the country's dissolution.[149][156] For most of the period after World War II until its collapse, Soviet GDP (PPP) was the second-largest in the world, and third during the second half of the 1980s,[162] although on a per-capita basis, it was behind that of First World countries.[163] Compared to countries with similar per-capita GDP in 1928, the Soviet Union experienced significant growth.[164]
+
+In 1990, the country had a Human Development Index of 0.920, placing it in the "high" category of human development. It was the third-highest in the Eastern Bloc, behind Czechoslovakia and East Germany, and the 25th in the world of 130 countries.[165]
+
+The need for fuel declined in the Soviet Union from the 1970s to the 1980s,[166] both per ruble of gross social product and per ruble of industrial product. At the start, this decline grew very rapidly but gradually slowed down between 1970 and 1975. From 1975 and 1980, it grew even slower,[clarification needed] only 2.6%.[167] David Wilson, a historian, believed that the gas industry would account for 40% of Soviet fuel production by the end of the century. His theory did not come to fruition because of the USSR's collapse.[168] The USSR, in theory, would have continued to have an economic growth rate of 2–2.5% during the 1990s because of Soviet energy fields.[clarification needed][169] However, the energy sector faced many difficulties, among them the country's high military expenditure and hostile relations with the First World.[170]
+
+In 1991, the Soviet Union had a pipeline network of 82,000 kilometres (51,000 mi) for crude oil and another 206,500 kilometres (128,300 mi) for natural gas.[171] Petroleum and petroleum-based products, natural gas, metals, wood, agricultural products, and a variety of manufactured goods, primarily machinery, arms and military equipment, were exported.[172] In the 1970s and 1980s, the USSR heavily relied on fossil fuel exports to earn hard currency.[153] At its peak in 1988, it was the largest producer and second-largest exporter of crude oil, surpassed only by Saudi Arabia.[173]
+
+The Soviet Union placed great emphasis on science and technology within its economy,[174] however, the most remarkable Soviet successes in technology, such as producing the world's first space satellite, typically were the responsibility of the military.[155] Lenin believed that the USSR would never overtake the developed world if it remained as technologically backward as it was upon its founding. Soviet authorities proved their commitment to Lenin's belief by developing massive networks, research and development organizations. In the early 1960s, the Soviets awarded 40% of chemistry PhDs to women, compared to only 5% in the United States.[175] By 1989, Soviet scientists were among the world's best-trained specialists in several areas, such as energy physics, selected areas of medicine, mathematics, welding and military technologies. Due to rigid state planning and bureaucracy, the Soviets remained far behind technologically in chemistry, biology, and computers when compared to the First World.
+
+Under the Reagan administration, Project Socrates determined that the Soviet Union addressed the acquisition of science and technology in a manner that was radically different from what the US was using. In the case of the US, economic prioritization was being used for indigenous research and development as the means to acquire science and technology in both the private and public sectors. In contrast, the USSR was offensively and defensively maneuvering in the acquisition and utilization of the worldwide technology, to increase the competitive advantage that they acquired from the technology while preventing the US from acquiring a competitive advantage. However, technology-based planning was executed in a centralized, government-centric manner that greatly hindered its flexibility. This was exploited by the US to undermine the strength of the Soviet Union and thus foster its reform.[176][177][178]
+
+Transport was a vital component of the country's economy. The economic centralization of the late 1920s and 1930s led to the development of infrastructure on a massive scale, most notably the establishment of Aeroflot, an aviation enterprise.[179] The country had a wide variety of modes of transport by land, water and air.[171] However, due to inadequate maintenance, much of the road, water and Soviet civil aviation transport were outdated and technologically backward compared to the First World.[180]
+
+Soviet rail transport was the largest and most intensively used in the world;[180] it was also better developed than most of its Western counterparts.[181] By the late 1970s and early 1980s, Soviet economists were calling for the construction of more roads to alleviate some of the burdens from the railways and to improve the Soviet government budget.[182] The street network and automotive industry[183] remained underdeveloped,[184] and dirt roads were common outside major cities.[185] Soviet maintenance projects proved unable to take care of even the few roads the country had. By the early-to-mid-1980s, the Soviet authorities tried to solve the road problem by ordering the construction of new ones.[185] Meanwhile, the automobile industry was growing at a faster rate than road construction.[186] The underdeveloped road network led to a growing demand for public transport.[187]
+
+Despite improvements, several aspects of the transport sector were still[when?] riddled with problems due to outdated infrastructure, lack of investment, corruption and bad decision-making. Soviet authorities were unable to meet the growing demand for transport infrastructure and services.
+
+The Soviet merchant navy was one of the largest in the world.[171]
+
+Excess deaths throughout World War I and the Russian Civil War (including the postwar famine) amounted to a combined total of 18 million,[188] some 10 million in the 1930s,[47] and more than 26 million in 1941–5. The postwar Soviet population was 45 to 50 million smaller than it would have been if pre-war demographic growth had continued.[54] According to Catherine Merridale, "... reasonable estimate would place the total number of excess deaths for the whole period somewhere around 60 million."[189]
+
+The birth rate of the USSR decreased from 44.0 per thousand in 1926 to 18.0 in 1974, mainly due to increasing urbanization and the rising average age of marriages. The mortality rate demonstrated a gradual decrease as well – from 23.7 per thousand in 1926 to 8.7 in 1974. In general, the birth rates of the southern republics in Transcaucasia and Central Asia were considerably higher than those in the northern parts of the Soviet Union, and in some cases even increased in the post–World War II period, a phenomenon partly attributed to slower rates of urbanistion and traditionally earlier marriages in the southern republics.[190] Soviet Europe moved towards sub-replacement fertility, while Soviet Central Asia continued to exhibit population growth well above replacement-level fertility.[191]
+
+The late 1960s and the 1970s witnessed a reversal of the declining trajectory of the rate of mortality in the USSR, and was especially notable among men of working age, but was also prevalent in Russia and other predominantly Slavic areas of the country.[192] An analysis of the official data from the late 1980s showed that after worsening in the late-1970s and the early 1980s, adult mortality began to improve again.[193] The infant mortality rate increased from 24.7 in 1970 to 27.9 in 1974. Some researchers regarded the rise as mostly real, a consequence of worsening health conditions and services.[194] The rises in both adult and infant mortality were not explained or defended by Soviet officials, and the Soviet government stopped publishing all mortality statistics for ten years. Soviet demographers and health specialists remained silent about the mortality increases until the late-1980s, when the publication of mortality data resumed, and researchers could delve into the real causes.[195]
+
+Under Lenin, the state made explicit commitments to promote the equality of men and women. Many early Russian feminists and ordinary Russian working women actively participated in the Revolution, and many more were affected by the events of that period and the new policies. Beginning in October 1918, the Lenin's government liberalized divorce and abortion laws, decriminalized homosexuality (re-criminalized in the 1930s), permitted cohabitation, and ushered in a host of reforms.[196] However, without birth control, the new system produced many broken marriages, as well as countless out-of-wedlock children.[197] The epidemic of divorces and extramarital affairs created social hardships when Soviet leaders wanted people to concentrate their efforts on growing the economy. Giving women control over their fertility also led to a precipitous decline in the birth rate, perceived as a threat to their country's military power. By 1936, Stalin reversed most of the liberal laws, ushering in a pronatalist era that lasted for decades.[198]
+
+By 1917, Russia became the first great power to grant women the right to vote.[199] After heavy casualties in World War I and II, women outnumbered men in Russia by a 4:3 ratio.[200] This contributed to the larger role women played in Russian society compared to other great powers at the time.
+
+Anatoly Lunacharsky became the first People's Commissar for Education of Soviet Russia. In the beginning, the Soviet authorities placed great emphasis on the elimination of illiteracy. All left-handed kids were forced to write with their right hand in the Soviet school system.[201][202][203][204] Literate people were automatically hired as teachers.[citation needed] For a short period, quality was sacrificed for quantity. By 1940, Stalin could announce that illiteracy had been eliminated. Throughout the 1930s, social mobility rose sharply, which has been attributed to reforms in education.[205] In the aftermath of World War II, the country's educational system expanded dramatically, which had a tremendous effect. In the 1960s, nearly all children had access to education, the only exception being those living in remote areas. Nikita Khrushchev tried to make education more accessible, making it clear to children that education was closely linked to the needs of society. Education also became important in giving rise to the New Man.[206] Citizens directly entering the workforce had the constitutional right to a job and to free vocational training.
+
+The education system was highly centralized and universally accessible to all citizens, with affirmative action for applicants from nations associated with cultural backwardness. However, as part of the general antisemitic policy, an unofficial Jewish quota was applied[when?] in the leading institutions of higher education by subjecting Jewish applicants to harsher entrance examinations.[207][208][209][210] The Brezhnev era also introduced a rule that required all university applicants to present a reference from the local Komsomol party secretary.[211] According to statistics from 1986, the number of higher education students per the population of 10,000 was 181 for the USSR, compared to 517 for the US.[212]
+
+The Soviet Union was an ethnically diverse country, with more than 100 distinct ethnic groups. The total population was estimated at 293 million in 1991. According to a 1990 estimate, the majority were Russians (50.78%), followed by Ukrainians (15.45%) and Uzbeks (5.84%).[213]
+
+All citizens of the USSR had their own ethnic affiliation. The ethnicity of a person was chosen at the age of sixteen[214] by the child's parents. If the parents did not agree, the child was automatically assigned the ethnicity of the father. Partly due to Soviet policies, some of the smaller minority ethnic groups were considered part of larger ones, such as the Mingrelians of Georgia, who were classified with the linguistically related Georgians.[215] Some ethnic groups voluntarily assimilated, while others were brought in by force. Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians shared close cultural ties, while other groups did not. With multiple nationalities living in the same territory, ethnic antagonisms developed over the years.[216][neutrality is disputed]
+
+Members of various ethnicities participated in legislative bodies. Organs of power like the Politburo, the Secretariat of the Central Committee etc., were formally ethnically neutral, but in reality, ethnic Russians were overrepresented, although there were also non-Russian leaders in the Soviet leadership, such as Joseph Stalin, Grigory Zinoviev, Nikolai Podgorny or Andrei Gromyko. During the Soviet era, a significant number of ethnic Russians and Ukrainians migrated to other Soviet republics, and many of them settled there. According to the last census in 1989, the Russian "diaspora" in the Soviet republics had reached 25 million.[217]
+
+Ethnographic map of the Soviet Union, 1941
+
+Number and share of Ukrainians in the population of the regions of the RSFSR (1926 census)
+
+Number and share of Ukrainians in the population of the regions of the RSFSR (1979 census)
+
+In 1917, before the revolution, health conditions were significantly behind those of developed countries. As Lenin later noted, "Either the lice will defeat socialism, or socialism will defeat the lice".[218] The Soviet principle of health care was conceived by the People's Commissariat for Health in 1918. Health care was to be controlled by the state and would be provided to its citizens free of charge, a revolutionary concept at the time. Article 42 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution gave all citizens the right to health protection and free access to any health institutions in the USSR. Before Leonid Brezhnev became General Secretary, the Soviet healthcare system was held in high esteem by many foreign specialists. This changed, however, from Brezhnev's accession and Mikhail Gorbachev's tenure as leader, during which the health care system was heavily criticized for many basic faults, such as the quality of service and the unevenness in its provision.[219] Minister of Health Yevgeniy Chazov, during the 19th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, while highlighting such successes as having the most doctors and hospitals in the world, recognized the system's areas for improvement and felt that billions of Soviet rubles were squandered.[220]
+
+After the revolution, life expectancy for all age groups went up. This statistic in itself was seen by some that the socialist system was superior to the capitalist system. These improvements continued into the 1960s when statistics indicated that the life expectancy briefly surpassed that of the United States. Life expectancy started to decline in the 1970s, possibly because of alcohol abuse. At the same time, infant mortality began to rise. After 1974, the government stopped publishing statistics on the matter. This trend can be partly explained by the number of pregnancies rising drastically in the Asian part of the country where infant mortality was the highest while declining markedly in the more developed European part of the Soviet Union.[221]
+
+Under Lenin, the government gave small language groups their own writing systems.[222] The development of these writing systems was highly successful, even though some flaws were detected. During the later days of the USSR, countries with the same multilingual situation implemented similar policies. A serious problem when creating these writing systems was that the languages differed dialectally greatly from each other.[223] When a language had been given a writing system and appeared in a notable publication, it would attain "official language" status. There were many minority languages which never received their own writing system; therefore, their speakers were forced to have a second language.[224] There are examples where the government retreated from this policy, most notably under Stalin where education was discontinued in languages that were not widespread. These languages were then assimilated into another language, mostly Russian.[225] During World War II, some minority languages were banned, and their speakers accused of collaborating with the enemy.[226]
+
+As the most widely spoken of the Soviet Union's many languages, Russian de facto functioned as an official language, as the "language of interethnic communication" (Russian: язык межнационального общения), but only assumed the de jure status as the official national language in 1990.[227]
+
+Christianity and Islam had the highest number of adherents among the religious citizens.[228] Eastern Christianity predominated among Christians, with Russia's traditional Russian Orthodox Church being the largest Christian denomination. About 90% of the Soviet Union's Muslims were Sunnis, with Shias being concentrated in the Azerbaijan SSR.[228] Smaller groups included Roman Catholics, Jews, Buddhists, and a variety of Protestant denominations (especially Baptists and Lutherans).[228]
+
+Religious influence had been strong in the Russian Empire. The Russian Orthodox Church enjoyed a privileged status as the church of the monarchy and took part in carrying out official state functions.[229] The immediate period following the establishment of the Soviet state included a struggle against the Orthodox Church, which the revolutionaries considered an ally of the former ruling classes.[230]
+
+In Soviet law, the "freedom to hold religious services" was constitutionally guaranteed, although the ruling Communist Party regarded religion as incompatible with the Marxist spirit of scientific materialism.[230] In practice, the Soviet system subscribed to a narrow interpretation of this right, and in fact utilized a range of official measures to discourage religion and curb the activities of religious groups.[230]
+
+The 1918 Council of People's Commissars decree establishing the Russian SFSR as a secular state also decreed that "the teaching of religion in all [places] where subjects of general instruction are taught, is forbidden. Citizens may teach and may be taught religion privately."[231] Among further restrictions, those adopted in 1929 included express prohibitions on a range of church activities, including meetings for organized Bible study.[230] Both Christian and non-Christian establishments were shut down by the thousands in the 1920s and 1930s. By 1940, as many as 90% of the churches, synagogues, and mosques that had been operating in 1917 were closed.[232]
+
+Under the doctrine of state atheism, there was a "government-sponsored program of forced conversion to atheism" conducted by the Communists.[233][234][235] The regime targeted religions based on state interests, and while most organized religions were never outlawed, religious property was confiscated, believers were harassed, and religion was ridiculed while atheism was propagated in schools.[236] In 1925, the government founded the League of Militant Atheists to intensify the propaganda campaign.[237] Accordingly, although personal expressions of religious faith were not explicitly banned, a strong sense of social stigma was imposed on them by the formal structures and mass media, and it was generally considered unacceptable for members of certain professions (teachers, state bureaucrats, soldiers) to be openly religious. As for the Russian Orthodox Church, Soviet authorities sought to control it and, in times of national crisis, to exploit it for the regime's own purposes; but their ultimate goal was to eliminate it. During the first five years of Soviet power, the Bolsheviks executed 28 Russian Orthodox bishops and over 1,200 Russian Orthodox priests. Many others were imprisoned or exiled. Believers were harassed and persecuted. Most seminaries were closed, and the publication of most religious material was prohibited. By 1941, only 500 churches remained open out of about 54,000 in existence before World War I.
+
+Convinced that religious anti-Sovietism had become a thing of the past, and with the looming threat of war, the Stalin regime began shifting to a more moderate religion policy in the late 1930s.[238] Soviet religious establishments overwhelmingly rallied to support the war effort during World War II. Amid other accommodations to religious faith after the German invasion, churches were reopened. Radio Moscow began broadcasting a religious hour, and a historic meeting between Stalin and Orthodox Church leader Patriarch Sergius of Moscow was held in 1943. Stalin had the support of the majority of the religious people in the USSR even through the late 1980s.[238] The general tendency of this period was an increase in religious activity among believers of all faiths.[239]
+
+Under Nikita Khrushchev, the state leadership clashed with the churches in 1958–1964, a period when atheism was emphasized in the educational curriculum, and numerous state publications promoted atheistic views.[238] During this period, the number of churches fell from 20,000 to 10,000 from 1959 to 1965, and the number of synagogues dropped from 500 to 97.[240] The number of working mosques also declined, falling from 1,500 to 500 within a decade.[240]
+
+Religious institutions remained monitored by the Soviet government, but churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques were all given more leeway in the Brezhnev era.[241] Official relations between the Orthodox Church and the government again warmed to the point that the Brezhnev government twice honored Orthodox Patriarch Alexy I with the Order of the Red Banner of Labour.[242] A poll conducted by Soviet authorities in 1982 recorded 20% of the Soviet population as "active religious believers."[243]
+
+The culture of the Soviet Union passed through several stages during the USSR's existence. During the first decade following the revolution, there was relative freedom and artists experimented with several different styles to find a distinctive Soviet style of art. Lenin wanted art to be accessible to the Russian people. On the other hand, hundreds of intellectuals, writers, and artists were exiled or executed, and their work banned, such as Nikolay Gumilyov who was shot for alleged conspiring against the Bolshevik regime, and Yevgeny Zamyatin.[244]
+
+The government encouraged a variety of trends. In art and literature, numerous schools, some traditional and others radically experimental, proliferated. Communist writers Maxim Gorky and Vladimir Mayakovsky were active during this time. As a means of influencing a largely illiterate society, films received encouragement from the state, and much of director Sergei Eisenstein's best work dates from this period.
+
+During Stalin's rule, the Soviet culture was characterized by the rise and domination of the government-imposed style of socialist realism, with all other trends being severely repressed, with rare exceptions, such as Mikhail Bulgakov's works. Many writers were imprisoned and killed.[245]
+
+Following the Khrushchev Thaw, censorship was diminished. During this time, a distinctive period of Soviet culture developed, characterized by conformist public life and an intense focus on personal life. Greater experimentation in art forms was again permissible, resulting in the production of more sophisticated and subtly critical work. The regime loosened its emphasis on socialist realism; thus, for instance, many protagonists of the novels of author Yury Trifonov concerned themselves with problems of daily life rather than with building socialism. Underground dissident literature, known as samizdat, developed during this late period. In architecture, the Khrushchev era mostly focused on functional design as opposed to the highly decorated style of Stalin's epoch.
+
+In the second half of the 1980s, Gorbachev's policies of perestroika and glasnost significantly expanded freedom of expression throughout the country in the media and the press.[246]
+
+Founded on 20 July 1924 in Moscow, Sovetsky Sport was the first sports newspaper of the Soviet Union.
+
+The Soviet Olympic Committee formed on 21 April 1951, and the IOC recognized the new body in its 45th session. In the same year, when the Soviet representative Konstantin Andrianov became an IOC member, the USSR officially joined the Olympic Movement. The 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki thus became first Olympic Games for Soviet athletes.
+
+The Soviet Union national ice hockey team won nearly every world championship and Olympic tournament between 1954 and 1991 and never failed to medal in any International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) tournament in which they competed.
+
+The advent[when?] of the state-sponsored "full-time amateur athlete" of the Eastern Bloc countries further eroded the ideology of the pure amateur, as it put the self-financed amateurs of the Western countries at a disadvantage. The Soviet Union entered teams of athletes who were all nominally students, soldiers, or working in a profession – in reality, the state paid many of these competitors to train on a full-time basis.[247] Nevertheless, the IOC held to the traditional rules regarding amateurism.[248]
+
+A 1989 report by a committee of the Australian Senate claimed that "there is hardly a medal winner at the Moscow Games, certainly not a gold medal winner...who is not on one sort of drug or another: usually several kinds. The Moscow Games might well have been called the Chemists' Games".[249]
+
+A member of the IOC Medical Commission, Manfred Donike, privately ran additional tests with a new technique for identifying abnormal levels of testosterone by measuring its ratio to epitestosterone in urine. Twenty percent of the specimens he tested, including those from sixteen gold medalists, would have resulted in disciplinary proceedings had the tests been official. The results of Donike's unofficial tests later convinced the IOC to add his new technique to their testing protocols.[250] The first documented case of "blood doping" occurred at the 1980 Summer Olympics when a runner[who?] was transfused with two pints of blood before winning medals in the 5000 m and 10,000 m.[251]
+
+Documentation obtained in 2016 revealed the Soviet Union's plans for a statewide doping system in track and field in preparation for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Dated before the decision to boycott the 1984 Games, the document detailed the existing steroids operations of the program, along with suggestions for further enhancements. Dr. Sergei Portugalov of the Institute for Physical Culture prepared the communication, directed to the Soviet Union's head of track and field. Portugalov later became one of the leading figures involved in the implementation of Russian doping before the 2016 Summer Olympics.[252]
+
+Official Soviet environmental policy has always attached great importance to actions in which human beings actively improve nature. Lenin's quote "Communism is Soviet power and electrification of the country!" in many respects it summarizes the focus on modernization and industrial development. During the first five-year plan in 1928, Stalin proceeded to industrialize the country at all costs. Values such as environmental and nature protection have been completely ignored in the struggle to create a modern industrial society. After Stalin's death, they focused more on environmental issues, but the basic perception of the value of environmental protection remained the same.[253]
+
+The Soviet media has always focused on the vast expanse of land and the virtually indestructible natural resources. This made it feel that contamination and looting of nature were not a problem. The Soviet state also firmly believed that scientific and technological progress would solve all the problems. Official ideology said that under socialism environmental problems could easily be overcome, unlike capitalist countries, where they seemingly could not be solved. The Soviet authorities had an almost unwavering belief that man could transcend nature. However, when the authorities had to admit that there were environmental problems in the USSR in the 1980s, they explained the problems in such a way that socialism had not yet been fully developed; pollution in socialist society was only a temporary anomaly that would have been resolved if socialism had developed.[citation needed]
+
+The Chernobyl disaster in 1986 was the first major accident at a civilian nuclear power plant, unparalleled in the world, when a large number of radioactive isotopes were released into the atmosphere. Radioactive doses have scattered relatively far. The main health problem after the accident was 4,000 new cases of thyroid cancer, but this led to a relatively low number of deaths (WHO data, 2005). However, the long-term effects of the accident are unknown. Another major accident is the Kyshtym disaster.[254]
+
+After the fall of the USSR, it was discovered that the environmental problems were greater than what the Soviet authorities admitted. The Kola Peninsula was one of the places with clear problems. Around the industrial cities of Monchegorsk and Norilsk, where nickel, for example, is mined, all forests have been killed by contamination, while the northern and other parts of Russia have been affected by emissions. During the 1990s, people in the West were also interested in the radioactive hazards of nuclear facilities, decommissioned nuclear submarines, and the processing of nuclear waste or spent nuclear fuel. It was also known in the early 1990s that the USSR had transported radioactive material to the Barents Sea and Kara Sea, which was later confirmed by the Russian parliament. The crash of the K-141 Kursk submarine in 2000 in the west further raised concerns.[255] In the past, there were accidents involving submarines K-19, K-8 or K-129.[citation needed]
+
+1918–1924  Turkestan3
+1918–1941  Volga German4
+1919–1990  Bashkir
+1920–1925  Kirghiz2
+1920–1990  Tatar
+1921–1990  Adjar
+1921–1945  Crimean
+1921–1991  Dagestan
+1921–1924  Mountain
+
+1921–1990  Nakhchivan
+1922–1991  Yakut
+1923–1990  Buryat1
+1923–1940  Karelian
+1924–1940  Moldavian
+1924–1929  Tajik
+1925–1992  Chuvash
+1925–1936  Kazak2
+1926–1936  Kirghiz
+
+1931–1991  Abkhaz
+1932–1992  Karakalpak
+1934–1990  Mordovian
+1934–1990  Udmurt
+1935–1943  Kalmyk
+1936–1944  Checheno-Ingush
+1936–1944  Kabardino-Balkar
+1936–1990  Komi
+1936–1990  Mari
+
+1936–1990  North Ossetian
+1944–1957  Kabardin
+1956–1991  Karelian
+1957–1990  Checheno-Ingush
+1957–1991  Kabardino-Balkar
+1958–1990  Kalmyk
+1961–1992  Tuva
+1990–1991  Gorno-Altai
+1991–1992  Crimean

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+
+
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+An astronaut or cosmonaut is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft. Although generally reserved for professional space travelers, the terms are sometimes applied to anyone who travels into space, including scientists, politicians, journalists and tourists.[1][2]
+The root "naut" derives from "nautes", the Greek for "sailor."
+[3]
+
+Until 2002, astronauts were sponsored and trained exclusively by governments, either by the military or by civilian space agencies. With the suborbital flight of the privately funded SpaceShipOne in 2004, a new category of astronaut was created: the commercial astronaut.
+
+The criteria for what constitutes human spaceflight vary, with some focus on the point where the atmosphere becomes so thin that centrifugal force, rather than aerodynamic force, carries a significant portion of the weight of the flight object. The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) Sporting Code for astronautics recognizes only flights that exceed the Kármán line, at an altitude of 100 kilometers (62 mi).[4] In the United States, professional, military, and commercial astronauts who travel above an altitude of 50 miles (80 km)[5] are awarded astronaut wings.
+
+As of 17 November 2016[update], a total of 552 people from 36 countries have reached 100 km (62 mi) or more in altitude, of whom 549 reached low Earth orbit or beyond.[6]
+Of these, 24 people have traveled beyond low Earth orbit, either to lunar orbit, the lunar surface, or, in one case, a loop around the Moon.[7] Three of the 24—Jim Lovell, John Young and Eugene Cernan—did so twice.[8]
+
+As of 17 November 2016[update], under the U.S. definition, 558 people qualify as having reached space, above 50 miles (80 km) altitude. Of eight X-15 pilots who exceeded 50 miles (80 km) in altitude, only one exceeded 100 kilometers (about 62 miles).[6] Space travelers have spent over 41,790 man-days (114.5 man-years) in space, including over 100 astronaut-days of spacewalks.[9][10] As of 2016[update], the man with the longest cumulative time in space is Gennady Padalka, who has spent 879 days in space.[11] Peggy A. Whitson holds the record for the most time in space by a woman, 377 days.[12]
+
+In 1959, when both the United States and Soviet Union were planning, but had yet to launch humans into space, NASA Administrator T. Keith Glennan and his Deputy Administrator, Dr. Hugh Dryden, discussed whether spacecraft crew members should be called astronauts or cosmonauts. Dryden preferred "cosmonaut", on the grounds that flights would occur in the cosmos (near space), while the "astro" prefix suggested flight to the stars. Most NASA Space Task Group members preferred "astronaut", which survived by common usage as the preferred American term.[13] When the Soviet Union launched the first man into space, Yuri Gagarin in 1961, they chose a term which anglicizes to "cosmonaut".
+
+In English-speaking nations, a professional space traveler is called an astronaut.[14] The term derives from the Greek words ástron (ἄστρον), meaning "star", and nautes (ναύτης), meaning "sailor". The first known use of the term "astronaut" in the modern sense was by Neil R. Jones in his 1930 short story "The Death's Head Meteor". The word itself had been known earlier; for example, in Percy Greg's 1880 book Across the Zodiac, "astronaut" referred to a spacecraft. In Les Navigateurs de l'Infini (1925) by J.-H. Rosny aîné, the word astronautique (astronautic) was used. The word may have been inspired by "aeronaut", an older term for an air traveler first applied in 1784 to balloonists. An early use of "astronaut" in a non-fiction publication is Eric Frank Russell's poem "The Astronaut", appearing in the November 1934 Bulletin of the British Interplanetary Society.[15]
+
+The first known formal use of the term astronautics in the scientific community was the establishment of the annual International Astronautical Congress in 1950, and the subsequent founding of the International Astronautical Federation the following year.[16]
+
+NASA applies the term astronaut to any crew member aboard NASA spacecraft bound for Earth orbit or beyond. NASA also uses the term as a title for those selected to join its Astronaut Corps.[17] The European Space Agency similarly uses the term astronaut for members of its Astronaut Corps.[18]
+
+By convention, an astronaut employed by the Russian Federal Space Agency (or its Soviet predecessor) is called a cosmonaut in English texts.[17] The word is an anglicisation of the Russian word kosmonavt (Russian: космонавт, Russian pronunciation: [kəsmɐˈnaft]), one who works in space outside the Earth's atmosphere, a space traveler,[19] which derives from the Greek words kosmos (κόσμος), meaning "universe", and nautes (ναύτης), meaning "sailor". Other countries of the former Eastern Bloc use variations of the Russian word kosmonavt, such as the Polish kosmonauta (although Polish also uses astronauta, and the two words are considered synonyms).[20]
+
+Coinage of the term kosmonavt has been credited to Soviet aeronautics (or "cosmonautics") pioneer Mikhail Tikhonravov (1900–1974).[21][22] The first cosmonaut was Soviet Air Force pilot Yuri Gagarin, also the first person in space. He was part of the first six Russians, with German Titov, Yevgeny Khrunov, Andriyan Nikolayev, Pavel Popovich, and Grigoriy Nelyubov, who were given the title of pilot-cosmonaut in January 1961.[23] Valentina Tereshkova was the first female cosmonaut and the first and youngest woman to have flown in space with a solo mission on the Vostok 6 in 1963.[24] On March 14, 1995,[25] Norman Thagard became the first American to ride to space on board a Russian launch vehicle, and thus became the first "American cosmonaut".[26][27]
+
+Yǔ háng yuán (宇航员, "Space-universe navigating personnel") is used for astronauts and cosmonauts in general,[28][29] while hángtiān yuán (航天员, "navigating outer space personnel") is used for Chinese astronauts. Here, hángtiān (航天) is strictly defined as the navigation of outer space within the local star system, i.e. solar system. The phrase tài kōng rén (太空人, "spaceman") is often used in Hong Kong and Taiwan.[30]
+
+The term taikonaut is used by some English-language news media organizations for professional space travelers from China.[31] The word has featured in the Longman and Oxford English dictionaries, the latter of which describes it as a hybrid of the Chinese term Chinese: 太空 (tàikōng, 'space') and the Greek ναύτης (naútēs, 'sailor'); the term became more common in 2003 when China sent its first astronaut Yang Liwei into space aboard the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft.[32] This is the term used by Xinhua News Agency in the English version of the Chinese People's Daily since the advent of the Chinese space program.[33] The origin of the term is unclear; as early as May 1998, Chiew Lee Yih (趙裡昱) from Malaysia, used it in newsgroups.[34][35]
+
+With the rise of space tourism, NASA and the Russian Federal Space Agency agreed to use the term "spaceflight participant" to distinguish those space travelers from professional astronauts on missions coordinated by those two agencies.
+
+While no nation other than Russia (and previously the Soviet Union), the United States, and China have launched a manned spacecraft, several other nations have sent people into space in cooperation with one of these countries, i.e. the Soviet-led Interkosmos programme. Inspired partly by these missions, other synonyms for astronaut have entered occasional English usage. For example, the term spationaut (French spelling: spationaute) is sometimes used to describe French space travelers, from the Latin word spatium for "space", the Malay term angkasawan was used to describe participants in the Angkasawan program, and the Indian Space Research Organisation hope to launch a spacecraft in 2022 that would carry vyomanauts, coined from the Sanskrit word व्योमन् (vyoman meaning 'sky' or 'space'). In Finland, the NASA astronaut Timothy Kopra, a Finnish American, has sometimes been referred to as sisunautti, from the Finnish word sisu.[36]
+
+As of 2020 in the United States, astronaut status is conferred on a person depending on the authorizing agency:
+
+The first human in space was Soviet Yuri Gagarin, who was launched on April 12, 1961, aboard Vostok 1 and orbited around the Earth for 108 minutes. The first woman in space was Soviet Valentina Tereshkova, who launched on June 16, 1963, aboard Vostok 6 and orbited Earth for almost three days.
+
+Alan Shepard became the first American and second person in space on May 5, 1961, on a 15-minute sub-orbital flight aboard Freedom 7. The first American to orbit the Earth was John Glenn, aboard Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962. The first American woman in space was Sally Ride, during Space Shuttle Challenger's mission STS-7, on June 18, 1983.[39] In 1992 Mae Jemison became the first African American woman to travel in space aboard STS-47.
+
+Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov was the first person to conduct an extravehicular activity (EVA), (commonly called a "spacewalk"), on March 18, 1965, on the Soviet Union's Voskhod 2 mission.  This was followed two and a half months later by astronaut Ed White who made the first American EVA on NASA's Gemini 4 mission.[40]
+
+The first manned mission to orbit the Moon, Apollo 8, included American William Anders who was born in Hong Kong, making him the first Asian-born astronaut in 1968.
+
+The Soviet Union, through its Intercosmos program, allowed people from other "socialist" (i.e. Warsaw Pact and other Soviet-allied) countries to fly on its missions, with the notable exceptions of France and Austria participating in Soyuz TM-7 and Soyuz TM-13, respectively. An example is Czechoslovak Vladimír Remek, the first cosmonaut from a country other than the Soviet Union or the United States, who flew to space in 1978 on a Soyuz-U rocket.[41] Rakesh Sharma became the first Indian citizen to travel to space. He was launched aboard Soyuz T-11, on April 2, 1984.
+
+On July 23, 1980, Pham Tuan of Vietnam became the first Asian in space when he flew aboard Soyuz 37.[42] Also in 1980, Cuban Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez became the first person of Hispanic and black African descent to fly in space, and in 1983, Guion Bluford became the first African American to fly into space. In April 1985, Taylor Wang became the first ethnic Chinese person in space.[43][44] The first person born in Africa to fly in space was Patrick Baudry (France), in 1985.[45][46] In 1985, Saudi Arabian Prince Sultan Bin Salman Bin AbdulAziz Al-Saud became the first Arab Muslim astronaut in space.[47] In 1988, Abdul Ahad Mohmand became the first Afghan to reach space, spending nine days aboard the Mir space station.[48]
+
+With the increase of seats on the Space Shuttle, the U.S. began taking international astronauts. In 1983, Ulf Merbold of West Germany became the first non-US citizen to fly in a US spacecraft.  In 1984, Marc Garneau became the first of 8 Canadian astronauts to fly in space (through 2010).[49]
+In 1985, Rodolfo Neri Vela became the first Mexican-born person in space.[50] In 1991, Helen Sharman became the first Briton to fly in space.[51]
+In 2002, Mark Shuttleworth became the first citizen of an African country to fly in space, as a paying spaceflight participant.[52] In 2003, Ilan Ramon became the first Israeli to fly in space, although he died during a re-entry accident.
+
+On October 15, 2003, Yang Liwei became China's first astronaut on the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft.
+
+The youngest person to fly in space is Gherman Titov, who was 25 years old when he flew Vostok 2. (Titov was also the first person to suffer space sickness).[53][54]
+The oldest person who has flown in space is John Glenn, who was 77 when he flew on STS-95.[55]
+
+438 days is the longest time spent in space, by Russian Valeri Polyakov.[9]
+As of 2006, the most spaceflights by an individual astronaut is seven, a record held by both Jerry L. Ross and Franklin Chang-Diaz. The farthest distance from Earth an astronaut has traveled was 401,056 km (249,205 mi), when Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise went around the Moon during the Apollo 13 emergency.[9]
+
+The first civilian in space was Valentina Tereshkova[56] aboard Vostok 6 (she also became the first woman in space on that mission).
+Tereshkova was only honorarily inducted into the USSR's Air Force, which did not accept female pilots at that time. A month later, Joseph Albert Walker became the first American civilian in space when his X-15 Flight 90 crossed the 100 kilometers (54 nautical miles) line, qualifying him by the international definition of spaceflight.[57][58] Walker had joined the US Army Air Force but was not a member during his flight. 
+The first people in space who had never been a member of any country's armed forces were both Konstantin Feoktistov and Boris Yegorov aboard Voskhod 1.
+
+The first non-governmental space traveler was Byron K. Lichtenberg, a researcher from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who flew on STS-9 in 1983.[59] In December 1990, Toyohiro Akiyama became the first paying space traveler as a reporter for Tokyo Broadcasting System, a visit to Mir as part of an estimated $12 million (USD) deal with a Japanese TV station, although at the time, the term used to refer to Akiyama was "Research Cosmonaut".[60][61][62] Akiyama suffered severe space sickness during his mission, which affected his productivity.[61]
+
+The first self-funded space tourist was Dennis Tito on board the Russian spacecraft Soyuz TM-3 on April 28, 2001.
+
+The first person to fly on an entirely privately funded mission was Mike Melvill, piloting SpaceShipOne flight 15P on a suborbital journey, although he was a test pilot employed by Scaled Composites and not an actual paying space tourist.[63][64] Seven others have paid the Russian Space Agency to fly into space:
+
+The first NASA astronauts were selected for training in 1959.[65] Early in the space program, military jet test piloting and engineering training were often cited as prerequisites for selection as an astronaut at NASA, although neither John Glenn nor Scott Carpenter (of the Mercury Seven) had any university degree, in engineering or any other discipline at the time of their selection.  Selection was initially limited to military pilots.[66][67] The earliest astronauts for both America and the USSR tended to be jet fighter pilots, and were often test pilots.
+
+Once selected, NASA astronauts go through twenty months of training in a variety of areas, including training for extravehicular activity in a facility such as NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory.[1][66] Astronauts-in-training (astronaut candidates) may also experience short periods of weightlessness (microgravity) in an aircraft called the "Vomit Comet," the nickname given to a pair of modified KC-135s (retired in 2000 and 2004, respectively, and replaced in 2005 with a C-9) which perform parabolic flights.[65] Astronauts are also required to accumulate a number of flight hours in high-performance jet aircraft. This is mostly done in T-38 jet aircraft out of Ellington Field, due to its proximity to the Johnson Space Center.  Ellington Field is also where the Shuttle Training Aircraft is maintained and developed, although most flights of the aircraft are conducted from Edwards Air Force Base.
+
+Astronauts in training must learn how to control and fly the Space Shuttle and, it is vital that they are familiar with the International Space Station so they know what they must do when they get there.[68]
+
+Mission Specialist Educators, or "Educator Astronauts", were first selected in 2004, and as of 2007, there are three NASA Educator astronauts: Joseph M. Acaba, Richard R. Arnold, and Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger.[72][73]
+Barbara Morgan, selected as back-up teacher to Christa McAuliffe in 1985, is considered to be the first Educator astronaut by the media, but she trained as a mission specialist.[74]
+The Educator Astronaut program is a successor to the Teacher in Space program from the 1980s.[75][76]
+
+Astronauts are susceptible to a variety of health risks including decompression sickness, barotrauma, immunodeficiencies, loss of bone and muscle, loss of eyesight, orthostatic intolerance, sleep disturbances, and radiation injury.[77][78][79][80][81][82][83][84][85][86] A variety of large scale medical studies are being conducted in space via the National Space and Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) to address these issues. Prominent among these is the Advanced Diagnostic Ultrasound in Microgravity Study in which astronauts (including former ISS commanders Leroy Chiao and Gennady Padalka) perform ultrasound scans under the guidance of remote experts to diagnose and potentially treat hundreds of medical conditions in space. This study's techniques are now being applied to cover professional and Olympic sports injuries as well as ultrasound performed by non-expert operators in medical and high school students. It is anticipated that remote guided ultrasound will have application on Earth in emergency and rural care situations, where access to a trained physician is often rare.[87][88][89]
+
+A 2006 Space Shuttle experiment found that Salmonella typhimurium, a bacterium that can cause food poisoning, became more virulent when cultivated in space.[90] More recently, in 2017, bacteria were found to be more resistant to antibiotics and to thrive in the near-weightlessness of space.[91] Microorganisms have been observed to survive the vacuum of outer space.[92][93]
+
+On December 31, 2012, a NASA-supported study reported that human spaceflight may harm the brain and accelerate the onset of Alzheimer's disease.[94][95][96]
+
+In October 2015, the NASA Office of Inspector General issued a health hazards report related to space exploration, including a human mission to Mars.[97][98]
+
+Over the last decade, flight surgeons and scientists at NASA have seen a pattern of vision problems in astronauts on long-duration space missions. The syndrome, known as visual impairment intracranial pressure (VIIP), has been reported in nearly two-thirds of space explorers after long periods spent aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
+
+On November 2, 2017, scientists reported that significant changes in the position and structure of the brain have been found in astronauts who have taken trips in space, based on MRI studies. Astronauts who took longer space trips were associated with greater brain changes.[99][100]
+
+Being in space can be physiologically deconditioning on the body. It can affect the otolith organs and adaptive capabilities of the central nervous system. Zero gravity and cosmic rays can cause many implications for astronauts.[101]
+
+In October 2018, NASA-funded researchers found that lengthy journeys into outer space, including travel to the planet Mars, may substantially damage the gastrointestinal tissues of astronauts. The studies support earlier work that found such journeys could significantly damage the brains of astronauts, and age them prematurely.[102]
+
+Researchers in 2018 reported, after detecting the presence on the International Space Station (ISS) of five Enterobacter bugandensis bacterial strains, none pathogenic to humans, that microorganisms on ISS should be carefully monitored to continue assuring a medically healthy environment for astronauts.[103][104]
+
+A recent study by Russian scientists published in April 2019 stated that astronauts facing space radiation could face temporary hindrance of their memory centres. While this does not affect their intellectual capabilities, it temporarily hinders formation of new cells in brain's memory centers. The study conducted by Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) concluded this after they observed that mice exposed to neutron and gamma radiation did not impact the rodents' intellectual capabilities.[105]
+
+An astronaut on the International Space Station requires about 830 g (29 oz) mass of food inclusive of food packaging per meal each day. (The packaging mass for each meal is about 120 g or 4.2 oz) Longer-duration missions require more food.
+
+Shuttle astronauts worked with nutritionists to select menus that appeal to their individual tastes. Five months before flight, menus are selected and analyzed for nutritional content by the shuttle dietician. Foods are tested to see how they will react in a reduced gravity environment.  Caloric requirements are determined using a basal energy expenditure (BEE) formula.
+On Earth, the average American uses about 35 US gallons (130 L) of water every day.  On board the ISS astronauts limit water use to only about three US gallons (11 L) per day.[106]
+
+In Russia, cosmonauts are awarded Pilot-Cosmonaut of the Russian Federation upon completion of their missions, often accompanied with the award of Hero of the Russian Federation.  This follows the practice established in the USSR where cosmonauts were usually awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union.
+
+At NASA, those who complete astronaut candidate training receive a silver lapel pin. Once they have flown in space, they receive a gold pin. U.S. astronauts who also have active-duty military status receive a special qualification badge, known as the Astronaut Badge, after participation on a spaceflight. The United States Air Force also presents an Astronaut Badge to its pilots who exceed 50 miles (80 km) in altitude.
+
+Eighteen astronauts (fourteen men and four women) have lost their lives during four space flights. By nationality, thirteen were American (including one born in India), four were Russian (Soviet Union), and one was Israeli.
+
+Eleven people (all men) have lost their lives training for spaceflight: eight Americans and three Russians. Six of these were in crashes of training jet aircraft, one drowned during water recovery training, and four were due to fires in pure oxygen environments.
+
+The Space Mirror Memorial, which stands on the grounds of the John F. Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, commemorates the lives of the men and women who have died during spaceflight and during training in the space programs of the United States. In addition to twenty NASA career astronauts, the memorial includes the names of a U.S. Air Force X-15 test pilot, a U.S. Air Force officer who died while training for a then-classified military space program, and a civilian spaceflight participant.

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+Spartacus (Greek: Σπάρτακος Spártakos; Latin: Spartacus; c. 111–71 BC) was a Thracian gladiator who, along with Crixus, Gannicus, Castus, and Oenomaus, was one of the escaped slave leaders in the Third Servile War, a major slave uprising against the Roman Republic. Little is known about him beyond the events of the war, and surviving historical accounts are sometimes contradictory. However, all sources agree that he was a former gladiator and an accomplished military leader.
+
+This rebellion, interpreted by some as an example of oppressed people fighting for their freedom against a slave-owning oligarchy, has provided inspiration for many political thinkers, and has been featured in literature, television, and film.[1] Although this interpretation is not specifically contradicted by classical historians, no historical account mentions that the goal was to end slavery in the Republic.[2]
+
+The Greek essayist Plutarch describes Spartacus as "a Thracian of Nomadic stock",[3] in a possible reference to the Maedi tribe.[4] Appian says he was "a Thracian by birth, who had once served as a soldier with the Romans, but had since been a prisoner and sold for a gladiator".[5]
+
+Florus described him as one "who, from a Thracian mercenary, had become a Roman soldier, that had deserted and became enslaved, and afterward, from consideration of his strength, a gladiator".[6] The authors refer to the Thracian tribe of the Maedi,[7][8][9] which occupied the area on the southwestern fringes of Thrace, along its border with the Roman province of Macedonia – present day south-western Bulgaria.[10] Plutarch also writes that Spartacus' wife, a prophetess of the Maedi tribe, was enslaved with him.
+
+The name Spartacus is otherwise manifested in the Black Sea region. Five out of twenty Kings of the Thracian Spartocid dynasty of the Cimmerian Bosporus[11] and Pontus[12] are known to have borne it, and a Thracian "Sparta" "Spardacus"[13] or "Sparadokos",[14] father of Seuthes I of the Odrysae, is also known.
+
+According to the differing sources and their interpretation, Spartacus was a captive taken by the legions.[15] Spartacus was trained at the gladiatorial school (ludus) near Capua belonging to Lentulus Batiatus. He was a heavyweight gladiator called a murmillo. These fighters carried a large oblong shield (scutum), and  used a sword with a  broad, straight blade (gladius), about 18 inches long.[16] In 73 BC, Spartacus was among a group of gladiators plotting an escape.[17]
+
+About 70[18] slaves were part of the plot. Though few in number, they seized kitchen utensils, fought their way free from the school, and seized several wagons of gladiatorial weapons and armour.[17] The escaped slaves defeated soldiers sent after them, plundered the region surrounding Capua, recruited many other slaves into their ranks, and eventually retired to a more defensible position on Mount Vesuvius.[19][20]
+
+Once free, the escaped gladiators chose Spartacus and two Gallic slaves—Crixus and Oenomaus—as their leaders. Although Roman authors assumed that the escaped slaves were a homogeneous group with Spartacus as their leader, they may have projected their own hierarchical view of military leadership onto the spontaneous organization, reducing other slave leaders to subordinate positions in their accounts.
+
+The response of the Romans was hampered by the absence of the Roman legions, which were already engaged in fighting a revolt in Spain and the Third Mithridatic War. Furthermore, the Romans considered the rebellion more of a policing matter than a war. Rome dispatched militia under the command of praetor Gaius Claudius Glaber, who besieged Spartacus and his camp on Mount Vesuvius, hoping that starvation would force Spartacus to surrender. They were surprised when Spartacus, who had made ropes from vines, climbed down the cliff side of the volcano with his men and attacked the unfortified Roman camp in the rear, killing most of them.[21]
+
+The rebels also defeated a second expedition, nearly capturing the praetor commander, killing his lieutenants and seizing the military equipment.[22] With these successes, more and more slaves flocked to the Spartacan forces, as did "many of the herdsmen and shepherds of the region", swelling their ranks to some 70,000.[23] At its height Spartacus led an army derived of many different people, Celts, Gauls, and more. Also due to Social War, some of Spartacus' ranks were legion veterans.[24] Of the slaves that joined Spartacus ranks, they were from the countryside. The rural slave lived a life in the frontier thus better equipping themselves to march with Spartacus' army. In contrast, urban slaves were more suited for city life, being considered "privileged" and "lazy."[25] Of the people who fought in Spartacus' army, it shows that the revolt did not have the goal of freeing all slaves.
+
+In these altercations Spartacus proved to be an excellent tactician, suggesting that he may have had previous military experience. Though the rebels lacked military training, they displayed a skilful use of available local materials and unusual tactics when facing the disciplined Roman armies.[26] They spent the winter of 73–72 BC training, arming and equipping their new recruits, and expanding their raiding territory to include the towns of Nola, Nuceria, Thurii and Metapontum.[27] The distance between these locations and the subsequent events indicate that the slaves operated in two groups commanded by the remaining leaders Spartacus and Crixus.[citation needed]
+
+In the spring of 72 BC, the rebels left their winter encampments and began to move northward. At the same time, the Roman Senate, alarmed by the defeat of the praetorian forces, dispatched a pair of consular legions under the command of Lucius Gellius Publicola and Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Clodianus.[28] The two legions were initially successful—defeating a group of 30,000 rebels commanded by Crixus near Mount Garganus[29]—but then were defeated by Spartacus. These defeats are depicted in divergent ways by the two most comprehensive (extant) histories of the war by Appian and Plutarch.[30][31][32][33]
+
+Alarmed at the continued threat posed by the slaves, the Senate charged Marcus Licinius Crassus, the wealthiest man in Rome and the only volunteer for the position,[34] with ending the rebellion. Crassus was put in charge of eight legions, approximately 40,000 trained Roman soldiers,[35][failed verification][36] which he treated with harsh, even brutal discipline, reviving the punishment "decimation" on units.[34] When Spartacus and his followers, who for unclear reasons had retreated to the south of Italy, moved northward again in early 71 BC, Crassus deployed six of his legions on the borders of the region and detached his legate Mummius with two legions to maneuver behind Spartacus. Though ordered not to engage the rebels, Mummius attacked at a seemingly opportune moment but was routed.[37] After this, Crassus's legions were victorious in several engagements, forcing Spartacus farther south through Lucania as Crassus gained the upper hand. By the end of 71 BC, Spartacus was encamped in Rhegium (Reggio Calabria), near the Strait of Messina.
+
+According to Plutarch, Spartacus made a bargain with Cilician pirates to transport him and some 2,000 of his men to Sicily, where he intended to incite a slave revolt and gather reinforcements. However, he was betrayed by the pirates, who took payment and then abandoned the rebels.[37] Minor sources mention that there were some attempts at raft and shipbuilding by the rebels as a means to escape, but that Crassus took unspecified measures to ensure the rebels could not cross to Sicily, and their efforts were abandoned.[38] Spartacus's forces then retreated toward Rhegium. Crassus's legions followed and upon arrival built fortifications across the isthmus at Rhegium,[citation needed] despite harassing raids from the rebels. The rebels were now under siege and cut off from their supplies.[39]
+
+At this time, the legions of Pompey returned from Hispania and were ordered by the Senate to head south to aid Crassus.[40] While Crassus feared that Pompey's arrival would cost him the credit, Spartacus unsuccessfully tried to reach an agreement with Crassus.[41] When Crassus refused, a portion of Spartacus's forces fled toward the mountains west of Petelia (modern Strongoli) in Bruttium, with Crassus's legions in pursuit.[42]
+
+When the legions managed to catch a portion of the rebels separated from the main army,[43] discipline among Spartacus's forces broke down as small groups independently attacked the oncoming legions.[44] Spartacus now turned his forces around and brought his entire strength to bear on the legions in a last stand, in which the rebels were routed completely, with the vast majority of them being killed on the battlefield.[45]
+
+The final battle that saw the assumed defeat of Spartacus in 71 BC took place on the present territory of Senerchia on the right bank of the river Sele in the area that includes the border with Oliveto Citra up to those of Calabritto, near the village of Quaglietta, in the High Sele Valley, which at that time was part of Lucania. In this area, since 1899, there have been finds of armour and swords of the Roman era.
+
+Plutarch, Appian and Florus all claim that Spartacus died during the battle, but Appian also reports that his body was never found.[46] Six thousand survivors of the revolt captured by the legions of Crassus were crucified, lining the Appian Way from Rome to Capua.[47]
+
+Classical historians were divided as to the motives of Spartacus. None of Spartacus's actions overtly suggest that he aimed at reforming Roman society or abolishing slavery.
+
+Plutarch writes that Spartacus wished to escape north into Cisalpine Gaul and disperse his men back to their homes.[48] If escaping the Italian peninsula was indeed his goal, it is not clear why Spartacus turned south after defeating the legions commanded by the consuls Lucius Publicola and Gnaeus Clodianus, which left his force a clear passage over the Alps.
+
+Appian and Florus write that he intended to march on Rome itself.[49] Appian also states that he later abandoned that goal, which might have been no more than a reflection of Roman fears.
+
+Based on the events in late 73 BC and early 72 BC, which suggest independently operating groups of escaped slaves[50] and a statement by Plutarch, it appears that some of the escaped slaves preferred to plunder Italy, rather than escape over the Alps.[48][clarification needed]
+
+Toussaint Louverture, a leader of the slave revolt that led to the independence of Haiti, has been called the "Black Spartacus".[51][52]
+
+Adam Weishaupt, founder of the Bavarian Illuminati, often referred to himself as Spartacus within written correspondences.[53]
+
+In modern times, Spartacus became an icon for communists and socialists. Karl Marx listed Spartacus as one of his heroes and described him as "the most splendid fellow in the whole of ancient history" and a "great general, noble character, real representative of the ancient proletariat".[54] Spartacus has been a great inspiration to left-wing revolutionaries, most notably the German Spartacus League (1915–18), a forerunner of the Communist Party of Germany.[55] A January 1919 uprising by communists in Germany was called the Spartacist uprising.[52] Spartacus Books, one of the longest running collectively-run leftist book stores in North America, is also named in his honour.
+
+Several sports clubs around the world, in particular the former Soviet and the Communist bloc, were named after the Roman gladiator. Spartacus's name was chosen in numerous football sides in Slavic Europe.
+
+Spartacus's name was also used in athletics in the Soviet Union and communist states of Central and Eastern Europe. The Spartakiad was a Soviet bloc version of the Olympic games.[56] This name was also used for the mass gymnastics exhibition held every five years in Czechoslovakia. The mascot for the Ottawa Senators, Spartacat, is also named after him.
+

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+Coordinates: 37°4′55″N 22°25′25″E / 37.08194°N 22.42361°E / 37.08194; 22.42361
+
+Sparta (Doric Greek: Σπάρτα, Spártā; Attic Greek: Σπάρτη, Spártē) was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (Λακεδαίμων, Lakedaímōn), while the name Sparta referred to its main settlement on the banks of the Eurotas River in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese.[1] Around 650 BCE, it rose to become the dominant military land-power in ancient Greece.
+
+Given its military pre-eminence, Sparta was recognized as the leading force of the unified Greek military during the Greco-Persian Wars, in rivalry with the rising naval power of Athens.[2] Sparta was the principal enemy of Athens during the Peloponnesian War (between 431 and 404 BCE),[3] from which it emerged victorious. The decisive Battle of Leuctra in 371 BCE ended the Spartan hegemony, although the city-state maintained its political independence until the Roman conquest of Greece in 146 BCE. After the division of the Roman Empire, Sparta underwent a long period of decline, especially in the Middle Ages, when many of its citizens moved to Mystras. Modern Sparta is the capital of the southern Greek region of Laconia and a center for processing citrus and olives.
+
+Sparta was unique in ancient Greece for its social system and constitution, which were supposedly introduced by the semi-mythical legislator Lycurgus. His laws configured the Spartan society to maximize military proficiency at all costs, focusing all social institutions on military training and physical development. The inhabitants of Sparta were stratified as Spartiates (Spartan citizens with full rights), mothakes (non-Spartan free men raised as Spartans), perioikoi (free residents engaged in commerce), and helots (state-owned serfs, enslaved non-Spartan locals). Spartiates underwent the rigorous agoge training and education regimen, and Spartan phalanx brigades were widely considered to be among the best in battle. Spartan women also enjoyed considerably more rights and equality with men than elsewhere in classical antiquity.
+
+Sparta was frequently a subject of fascination in its own day, as well as in Western culture following the revival of classical learning. The admiration of Sparta is known as Laconism or Laconophilia. Bertrand Russell wrote:
+
+Sparta had a double effect on Greek thought: through the reality, and through the myth.... The reality enabled the Spartans to defeat Athens in war; the myth influenced Plato's political theory, and that of countless subsequent writers.... [The] ideals that it favors had a great part in framing the doctrines of Rousseau, Nietzsche, and National Socialism.[4]
+
+The earliest attested term referring to Lacedaemon is the Mycenaean Greek 𐀨𐀐𐀅𐀖𐀛𐀍, ra-ke-da-mi-ni-jo, "Lacedaimonian", written in Linear B syllabic script,[5][n 1] the equivalent of the later Greek Λακεδαιμόνιος, Lakedaimonios (Latin: Lacedaemonius).[11][12]
+
+The ancient Greeks used one of three words to refer to the Spartan city-state and its location. First, "Sparta" refers primarily to the main cluster of settlements in the valley of the Eurotas River.[13] The second word, "Lacedaemon" (Λακεδαίμων),[14] was often used as an adjective and is the name referenced in the works of Homer and the historians Herodotus and Thucydides. The third term, "Laconice" (Λακωνική), referred to the immediate area around the town of Sparta, the plateau east of the Taygetos mountains,[15] and sometimes to all the regions under direct Spartan control, including Messenia.
+
+Herodotus seems to use "Lacedaemon" for the Mycenaean Greek citadel at Therapne, in contrast to the lower town of Sparta. This term could be used synonymously with Sparta, but typically it denoted the terrain in which the city was located.[16] In Homer it is typically combined with epithets of the countryside: wide, lovely, shining and most often hollow and broken (full of ravines),[17] suggesting the Eurotas Valley. "Sparta" on the other hand is described as "the country of lovely women", an epithet for people.
+
+The residents of Sparta were often called Lacedaemonians. This epithet utilized the plural of the adjective Lacedaemonius (Greek: Λακεδαιμόνιοι; Latin: Lacedaemonii, but also Lacedaemones). The ancients sometimes used a back-formation, referring to the land of Lacedaemon as Lacedaemonian country. As most words for "country" were feminine, the adjective was in the feminine: Lacedaemonia (Λακεδαιμονία, Lakedaimonia). Eventually, the adjective came to be used alone.
+
+"Lacedaemonia" was not in general use during the classical period and before. It does occur in Greek as an equivalent of Laconia and Messenia during the Roman and early Byzantine periods, mostly in ethnographers and lexica of place names. For example, Hesychius of Alexandria's Lexicon (5th century CE) defines Agiadae as a "place in Lacedaemonia" named after Agis.[18] The actual transition may be captured by Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae (7th century CE), an etymological dictionary. Isidore relied heavily on Orosius' Historiarum Adversum Paganos (5th century CE) and Eusebius of Caesarea's Chronicon (early 5th century CE), as did Orosius. The latter defines Sparta to be Lacedaemonia Civitas,[19] but Isidore defines Lacedaemonia as founded by Lacedaemon, son of Semele, which is consistent with Eusebius' explanation.[20] There is a rare use, perhaps the earliest of "Lacedaemonia", in Diodorus Siculus' The Library of History,[21] but probably with Χώρα (‘’chōra’’, "country") suppressed.
+
+Lakedaimona was until 2006 the name of a province in the modern Greek prefecture of Laconia.
+
+Sparta is located in the region of Laconia, in the south-eastern Peloponnese. Ancient Sparta was built on the banks of the Eurotas River, the largest river of Laconia, which provided it with a source of fresh water. The valley of the Eurotas is a natural fortress, bounded to the west by Mt. Taygetus (2,407 m) and to the east by Mt. Parnon (1,935 m). To the north, Laconia is separated from Arcadia by hilly uplands reaching 1000 m in altitude. These natural defenses worked to Sparta's advantage and protected it from sacking and invasion.  Though landlocked, Sparta had a vassal harbor, Gytheio, on the Laconian Gulf.
+
+Lacedaemon (Greek: Λακεδαίμων) was a mythical king of Laconia.[22] The son of Zeus by the nymph Taygete,  he married Sparta, the daughter of Eurotas, by whom he became the father of Amyclas, Eurydice, and Asine. As king, he named his country after himself and the city after his wife.[22] He was believed to have built the sanctuary of the Charites, which stood between Sparta and Amyclae, and to have given to those divinities the names of Cleta and Phaenna. A shrine was erected to him in the neighborhood of Therapne.
+
+Thucydides wrote:
+
+Suppose the city of Sparta to be deserted, and nothing left but the temples and the ground-plan, distant ages would be very unwilling to believe that the power of the Lacedaemonians was at all equal to their fame.  Their city is not built continuously, and has no splendid temples or other edifices; it rather resembles a group of villages, like the ancient towns of Hellas, and would therefore make a poor show.[23][24]
+
+Until the early 20th century, the chief ancient buildings at Sparta were the theatre, of which, however, little showed above ground except portions of the retaining walls; the so-called Tomb of Leonidas, a quadrangular building, perhaps a temple, constructed of immense blocks of stone and containing two chambers; the foundation of an ancient bridge over the Eurotas; the ruins of a circular structure; some remains of late Roman fortifications; several brick buildings and mosaic pavements.[23]
+
+The remaining archaeological wealth consisted of inscriptions, sculptures, and other objects collected in the local museum, founded by Stamatakis in 1872 and enlarged in 1907. Partial excavation of the round building was undertaken in 1892 and 1893 by the American School at Athens. The structure has been since found to be a semicircular retaining wall of Hellenic origin that was partly restored during the Roman period.[23]
+
+In 1904, the British School at Athens began a thorough exploration of Laconia, and in the following year excavations were made at Thalamae, Geronthrae, and Angelona near Monemvasia. In 1906, excavations began in Sparta itself.[23]
+
+A "small circus" (as described by Leake) proved to be a theatre-like building constructed soon after CE 200 around the altar and in front of the temple of Artemis Orthia. It is believed that musical and gymnastic contests took place here, as well as the famous flogging ordeal administered to Spartan boys (diamastigosis). The temple, which can be dated to the 2nd century BCE, rests on the foundation of an older temple of the 6th century, and close beside it were found the remains of a yet earlier temple, dating from the 9th or even the 10th century. The votive offerings in clay, amber, bronze, ivory and lead dating from the 9th to the 4th centuries BCE, which were found in great profusion within the precinct range, supply invaluable information about early Spartan art.[23]
+
+In 1907, the location of the sanctuary of Athena "of the Brazen House" (Χαλκίοικος, Chalkioikos) was determined to be on the acropolis immediately above the theatre. Though the actual temple is almost completely destroyed, the site has produced the longest extant archaic inscription in Laconia, numerous bronze nails and plates, and a considerable number of votive offerings. The city-wall, built in successive stages from the 4th to the 2nd century, was traced for a great part of its circuit, which measured 48 stades or nearly 10 km (6 miles) (Polyb. 1X. 21). The late Roman wall enclosing the acropolis, part of which probably dates from the years following the Gothic raid of CE 262, was also investigated. Besides the actual buildings discovered, a number of points were situated and mapped in a general study of Spartan topography, based upon the description of Pausanias.[23]
+
+The Menelaion is a shrine associated with Menelaus, located east of Sparta, by the river Eurotas, on the hill Profitis Ilias (Coordinates: 37°03′57″N 22°27′13″E / 37.0659°N 22.4536°E / 37.0659; 22.4536). Built around the early 8th century BCE, the Spartans believed it had been the former residence of Menelaus. In 1970 the British School in Athens started excavations around the Menelaion in an attempt to locate Mycenaean remains in the area. Among other findings, they uncovered the remains of two Mycenaean mansions and found the first offerings dedicated to Helen and Menelaus. These mansions were destroyed by earthquake and fire, and archaeologists consider them the possible palace of Menelaus himself.[25][better source needed] Excavations made from the early 1990s to the present suggest that the area around the Menelaion in the southern part of the Eurotas valley seems to have been the center of Mycenaean Laconia.[26] The Mycenaean settlement was roughly triangular in shape, with its apex pointed towards the north. Its area was approximately equal to that of the "newer" Sparta, but denudation has wreaked havoc with its buildings and nothing is left of its original structures save for ruined foundations and broken potsherds.[23]
+
+The prehistory of Sparta is difficult to reconstruct because the literary evidence was written far later than the events it describes and is distorted by oral tradition.[27] The earliest certain evidence of human settlement in the region of Sparta consists of pottery dating from the Middle Neolithic period, found in the vicinity of Kouphovouno some two kilometres (1.2 miles) south-southwest of Sparta.[28] These are the earliest traces of the original Mycenaean Spartan civilisation represented in Homer's Iliad.[citation needed]
+
+This civilization seems to have fallen into decline by the late Bronze Age, when, according to Herodotus, Macedonian tribes from the north (called Dorians by those they conquered) marched into the Peloponnese and, subjugating the local tribes, settled there.[27] The Dorians seem to have set about expanding the frontiers of Spartan territory almost before they had established their own state.[29] They fought against the Argive Dorians to the east and southeast, and also the Arcadian Achaeans to the northwest.  The evidence suggests that Sparta, relatively inaccessible because of the topography of the Taygetan plain, was secure from early on: it was never fortified.[29]
+
+Nothing distinctive in the archaeology of the Eurotas River Valley identifies the Dorians or the Dorian Spartan state. The prehistory of the Neolithic, the Bronze Age and the Dark Age (the Early Iron Age) at this moment must be treated apart from the stream of Dorian Spartan history.
+
+The legendary period of Spartan history is believed to fall into the Dark Age. It treats the mythic heroes such as the Heraclids and the Perseids, offering a view of the occupation of the Peloponnesus that contains both fantastic and possibly historical elements. The subsequent proto-historic period, combining both legend and historical fragments, offers the first credible history.
+
+Between the 8th and 7th centuries BCE the Spartans experienced a period of lawlessness and civil strife, later attested by both Herodotus and Thucydides.[30] As a result, they carried out a series of political and social reforms of their own society which they later attributed to a semi-mythical lawgiver, Lycurgus.[31] These reforms mark the beginning of the history of Classical Sparta.
+
+In the Second Messenian War, Sparta established itself as a local power in the Peloponnesus and the rest of Greece. During the following centuries, Sparta's reputation as a land-fighting force was unequalled.[32] At its peak around 500 BCE, Sparta had some 20,000–35,000 citizens, plus numerous helots and perioikoi. The likely total of 40,000–50,000 made Sparta one of the larger Greek city-states;[33][34] however, according to Thucydides, the population of Athens in 431 BCE was 360,000–610,000, making it much larger.[n 2]
+
+In 480 BCE a small force led by King Leonidas (about 300 full Spartiates, 700 Thespians, and 400 Thebans, although these numbers were lessened by earlier casualties) made a legendary last stand at the Battle of Thermopylae against the massive Persian army, inflicting very high casualties on the Persian forces before finally being overwhelmed.[36] The superior weaponry, strategy, and bronze armour of the Greek hoplites and their phalanx fighting formation again proved their worth one year later when Sparta assembled its full strength and led a Greek alliance against the Persians at the battle of Plataea.
+
+The decisive Greek victory at Plataea put an end to the Greco-Persian War along with Persian ambitions to expand into Europe. Even though this war was won by a pan-Greek army, credit was given to Sparta, who besides providing the leading forces at Thermopylae and Plataea, had been the de facto leader of the entire Greek expedition.[37]
+
+In later Classical times, Sparta along with Athens, Thebes, and Persia were the main powers fighting for supremacy in the northeastern Mediterranean. In the course of the Peloponnesian War, Sparta, a traditional land power, acquired a navy which managed to overpower the previously dominant flotilla of Athens, ending the Athenian Empire. At the peak of its power in the early 4th century BCE, Sparta had subdued many of the main Greek states and even invaded the Persian provinces in Anatolia (modern day Turkey), a period known as the Spartan Hegemony.
+
+During the Corinthian War, Sparta faced a coalition of the leading Greek states: Thebes, Athens, Corinth, and Argos. The alliance was initially backed by Persia, which feared further Spartan expansion into Asia.[38] Sparta achieved a series of land victories, but many of her ships were destroyed at the battle of Cnidus by a Greek-Phoenician mercenary fleet that Persia had provided to Athens. The event severely damaged Sparta's naval power but did not end its aspirations of invading further into Persia, until Conon the Athenian ravaged the Spartan coastline and provoked the old Spartan fear of a helot revolt.[39]
+
+After a few more years of fighting, in 387 BCE the Peace of Antalcidas was established, according to which all Greek cities of Ionia would return to Persian control, and Persia's Asian border would be free of the Spartan threat.[39] The effects of the war were to reaffirm Persia's ability to interfere successfully in Greek politics and to affirm Sparta's weakened hegemonic position in the Greek political system.[40] Sparta entered its long-term decline after a severe military defeat to Epaminondas of Thebes at the Battle of Leuctra. This was the first time that a full strength Spartan army lost a land battle.
+
+As Spartan citizenship was inherited by blood, Sparta increasingly faced a helot population that vastly outnumbered its citizens. The alarming decline of Spartan citizens was commented on by Aristotle.
+
+Sparta never fully recovered from its losses at Leuctra in 371 BCE and the subsequent helot revolts. Nonetheless, it was able to continue as a regional power for over two centuries. Neither Philip II nor his son Alexander the Great attempted to conquer Sparta itself.
+
+Even during its decline, Sparta never forgot its claim to be the "defender of Hellenism" and its Laconic wit. An anecdote has it that when Philip II sent a message to Sparta saying "If I enter Laconia, I will raze Sparta", the Spartans responded with the single, terse reply: αἴκα, "if".[41][42][43]
+
+When Philip created the league of the Greeks on the pretext of unifying Greece against Persia, the Spartans chose not to join, since they had no interest in joining a pan-Greek expedition unless it were under Spartan leadership. Thus, upon defeating the Persians at the Battle of the Granicus, Alexander the Great sent to Athens 300 suits of Persian armour with the following inscription: "Alexander, son of Philip, and all the Greeks except the Spartans, give these offerings taken from the foreigners who live in Asia".
+
+During Alexander's campaigns in the east, the Spartan king Agis III sent a force to Crete in 333 BCE with the aim of securing the island for Sparta.[44] Agis next took command of allied Greek forces against Macedon, gaining early successes, before laying siege to Megalopolis in 331 BCE. A large Macedonian army under general Antipater marched to its relief and defeated the Spartan-led force in a pitched battle.[45] More than 5,300 of the Spartans and their allies were killed in battle, and 3,500 of Antipater's troops.[46] Agis, now wounded and unable to stand, ordered his men to leave him behind to face the advancing Macedonian army so that he could buy them time to retreat. On his knees, the Spartan king slew several enemy soldiers before being finally killed by a javelin.[47] Alexander was merciful, and he only forced the Spartans to join the League of Corinth, which they had previously refused.[48]
+
+During the Punic Wars, Sparta was an ally of the Roman Republic. Spartan political independence was put to an end when it was eventually forced into the Achaean League after its defeat in the decisive Laconian War by a coalition of other Greek city-states and Rome and the resultant overthrow of its final king Nabis. Sparta played no active part in the Achaean War in 146 BCE when the Achaean League was defeated by the Roman general Lucius Mummius. Subsequently, Sparta became a free city under Roman rule, some of the institutions of Lycurgus were restored,[49] and the city became a tourist attraction for the Roman elite who came to observe exotic Spartan customs.[n 3]
+
+In 214 CE Roman emperor Caracalla, in his preparation for his campaign against Parthia, recruited a 500-man Spartan cohort (lokhos). Herodian described this unit as a phalanx, implying it fought like the old Spartans as hoplites, or even as a Macedonian phalanx. Despite this, a gravestone of a fallen legionary named Marcus Aurelius Alexys shows him lightly armed, with a pilos-like cap and a wooden club. The unit was presumably discharged in 217 after Caracalla was assassinated.[54]
+
+In 396 CE, Sparta was sacked by Visigoths under Alaric I who sold inhabitants into slavery.[55][56]
+According to Byzantine sources, some parts of the Laconian region remained pagan until well into the 10th century CE. Doric-speaking populations survive today in Tsakonia. In the Middle Ages, the political and cultural center of Laconia shifted to the nearby settlement of Mystras, and Sparta fell further in even local importance.  Modern Sparti was re-founded in 1834, by a decree of King Otto of Greece.
+
+Sparta was an oligarchy. The state was ruled by two hereditary kings of the Agiad and Eurypontid families,[57] both supposedly descendants of Heracles and equal in authority, so that one could not act against the power and political enactments of his colleague.[23]
+
+The duties of the kings were primarily religious, judicial, and military. As chief priests of the state, they maintained communication with the Delphian sanctuary, whose pronouncements exercised great authority in Spartan politics. In the time of Herodotus c. 450 BCE, their judicial functions had been restricted to cases dealing with heiresses, adoptions and the public roads. Aristotle describes the kingship at Sparta as "a kind of unlimited and perpetual generalship" (Pol. iii. 1285a), while Isocrates refers to the Spartans as "subject to an oligarchy at home, to a kingship on campaign" (iii. 24).[23]
+
+Civil and criminal cases were decided by a group of officials known as the ephors, as well as a council of elders known as the gerousia.  The gerousia consisted of 28 elders over the age of 60, elected for life and usually part of the royal households, and the two kings.[58] High state decisions were discussed by this council, who could then propose policies to the damos, the collective body of Spartan citizenry, who would select one of the alternatives by vote.[59][60]
+
+Royal prerogatives were curtailed over time. From the period of the Persian wars, the king lost the right to declare war and was accompanied in the field by two ephors. He was supplanted by the ephors also in the control of foreign policy. Over time, the kings became mere figureheads except in their capacity as generals. Political power was transferred to the ephors and gerousia.[23]
+
+An assembly of citizens called the apella[23] was responsible for electing men to the gerousia for life.
+
+The Spartan education process known as the agoge was essential for full citizenship. However, usually the only boys eligible for the agoge were Spartiates, those who could trace their ancestry to the original inhabitants of the city.
+
+There were two exceptions. Trophimoi or "foster sons" were foreign students invited to study. The Athenian general Xenophon, for example, sent his two sons to Sparta as trophimoi. Also, the son of a helot could be enrolled as a syntrophos[61] if a Spartiate formally adopted him and paid his way; if he did exceptionally well in training, he might be sponsored to become a Spartiate.[62] Spartans who could not afford to pay the expenses of the agoge could lose their citizenship.
+
+These laws meant that Sparta could not readily replace citizens lost in battle or otherwise, which eventually proved near fatal as citizens became greatly outnumbered by non-citizens, and even more dangerously by helots.
+
+The other classes were the perioikoi, free inhabitants who were non-citizens, and the helots,[63] state-owned serfs. Descendants of non-Spartan citizens were forbidden the agoge.
+
+The Spartans were a minority of the Lakonian population.  The largest class of inhabitants were the helots (in Classical Greek Εἵλωτες / Heílôtes).[64][65]
+
+The helots were originally free Greeks from the areas of Messenia and Lakonia whom the Spartans had defeated in battle and subsequently enslaved.  In contrast to populations conquered by other Greek cities (e.g. the Athenian treatment of Melos), the male population was not exterminated and the women and children turned into chattel slaves. Instead, the helots were given a subordinate position in society more comparable to serfs in medieval Europe than chattel slaves in the rest of Greece.
+
+Helots did not have voting or political rights. The Spartan poet Tyrtaios refers to Helots being allowed to marry and retaining 50% of the fruits of their labor.[66]  They also seem to have been allowed to practice religious rites and, according to Thucydides, own a limited amount of personal property.[67]
+Initially Helots couldn't be freed but during the middle Hellenistic period, some 6,000 helots accumulated enough wealth to buy their freedom, for example, in 227 BCE.
+
+In other Greek city-states, free citizens were part-time soldiers who, when not at war, carried on other trades.  Since Spartan men were full-time soldiers, they were not available to carry out manual labour.[68]  The helots were used as unskilled serfs, tilling Spartan land.  Helot women were often used as wet nurses.  Helots also travelled with the Spartan army as non-combatant serfs.  At the last stand of the Battle of Thermopylae, the Greek dead included not just the legendary three hundred Spartan soldiers but also several hundred Thespian and Theban troops and a number of helots.[69]
+
+Relations between the helots and their Spartan masters were sometimes strained. There was at least one helot revolt (c. 465–460 BCE), and Thucydides remarked that "Spartan policy is always mainly governed by the necessity of taking precautions against the helots."[70][71] On the other hand, the Spartans trusted their helots enough in 479 BCE to take a force of 35,000 with them to Plataea, something they could not have risked if they feared the helots would attack them or run away. Slave revolts occurred elsewhere in the Greek world, and in 413 BCE 20,000 Athenian slaves ran away to join the Spartan forces occupying Attica.[72] What made Sparta's relations with her slave population unique was that the helots, precisely because they enjoyed privileges such as family and property, retained their identity as a conquered people (the Messenians) and also had effective kinship groups that could be used to organize rebellion.
+
+As the Spartiate population declined and the helot population continued to grow, the imbalance of power caused increasing tension. According to Myron of Priene[73] of the middle 3rd century BCE:
+
+They assign to the Helots every shameful task leading to disgrace. For they ordained that each one of them must wear a dogskin cap (κυνῆ / kunễ) and wrap himself in skins (διφθέρα / diphthéra) and receive a stipulated number of beatings every year regardless of any wrongdoing, so that they would never forget they were slaves. Moreover, if any exceeded the vigour proper to a slave's condition, they made death the penalty; and they allotted a punishment to those controlling them if they failed to rebuke those who were growing fat.[74]
+
+Plutarch also states that Spartans treated the Helots "harshly and cruelly": they compelled them to drink pure wine (which was considered dangerous – wine usually being cut with water) "...and to lead them in that condition into their public halls, that the children might see what a sight a drunken man is; they made them to dance low dances, and sing ridiculous songs..." during syssitia (obligatory banquets).[75]
+
+Each year when the Ephors took office, they ritually declared war on the helots, allowing Spartans to kill them without risk of ritual pollution.[76] This fight seems to have been carried out by kryptai (sing. κρύπτης kryptēs), graduates of the agoge who took part in the mysterious institution known as the Krypteia.[77] Thucydides states:
+
+The helots were invited by a proclamation to pick out those of their number who claimed to have most distinguished themselves against the enemy, in order that they might receive their freedom; the object being to test them, as it was thought that the first to claim their freedom would be the most high spirited and the most apt to rebel. As many as two thousand were selected accordingly, who crowned themselves and went round the temples, rejoicing in their new freedom. The Spartans, however, soon afterwards did away with them, and no one ever knew how each of them perished.[78][79]
+
+The Perioikoi came from similar origins as the helots but occupied a significantly different position in Spartan society.  Although they did not enjoy full citizen-rights, they were free and not subjected to the same restrictions as the helots.  The exact nature of their subjection to the Spartans is not clear, but they seem to have served partly as a kind of military reserve, partly as skilled craftsmen and partly as agents of foreign trade.[80]  Perioikoic hoplites served increasingly with the Spartan army, explicitly at the Battle of Plataea, and although they may also have fulfilled functions such as the manufacture and repair of armour and weapons,[81] they were increasingly integrated into the combat units of the Spartan army as the Spartiate population declined.[82]
+
+Full citizen Spartiates were barred by law from trade or manufacture, which consequently rested in the hands of the Perioikoi.[23] This lucrative monopoly, in a fertile territory with a good harbors, ensured the loyalty of the perioikoi.[83] Despite the prohibition on menial labor or trade, there is evidence of Spartan sculptors,[84] and Spartans were certainly poets, magistrates, ambassadors, and governors as well as soldiers.
+
+Allegedly, Spartans were prohibited from possessing gold and silver coins, and according to legend Spartan currency consisted of iron bars to discourage hoarding.[85][86] It was not until the 260s or 250s BCE that Sparta began to mint its own coins.[87] Though the conspicuous display of wealth appears to have been discouraged, this did not preclude the production of very fine decorated bronze, ivory and wooden works of art as well as exquisite jewellery, attested in archaeology.[88]
+
+Allegedly as part of the Lycurgan Reforms in the mid-8th century BCE, a massive land reform had divided property into 9,000 equal portions. Each citizen received one estate, a kleros, which was expected to provide his living.[89] The land was worked by helots who retained half the yield. From the other half, the Spartiate was expected to pay his mess (syssitia) fees, and the agoge fees for his children. However, we know nothing of matters of wealth such as how land was bought, sold, and inherited, or whether daughters received dowries.[90] However, from early on there were marked differences of wealth within the state, and these became more serious after the law of Epitadeus some time after the Peloponnesian War, which removed the legal prohibition on the gift or bequest of land.[23][91] By the mid-5th century, land had become concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite, and the notion that all Spartan citizens were equals had become an empty pretence. By Aristotle's day (384–322 BCE) citizenship had been reduced from 9,000 to less than 1,000, then further decreased to 700 at the accession of Agis IV in 244 BCE. Attempts were made to remedy this by imposing legal penalties upon bachelors,[23] but this could not reverse the trend.
+
+Sparta was above all a militarist state, and emphasis on military fitness began virtually at birth. Shortly after birth, a mother would bathe her child in wine to see whether the child was strong. If the child survived it was brought before the Gerousia by the child's father. The Gerousia then decided whether it was to be reared or not.[23] It is commonly stated that if they considered it "puny and deformed", the baby was thrown into a chasm on Mount Taygetos known euphemistically as the Apothetae (Gr., ἀποθέται, "Deposits").[92][93]  This was, in effect, a primitive form of eugenics.[92] Sparta is often viewed as being unique in this regard, however, anthropologist Laila Williamson notes that "Infanticide has been practiced on every continent and by people on every level of cultural complexity, from hunter gatherers to high civilizations. Rather than being an exception, then, it has been the rule."[94]:61There is controversy about the matter in Sparta, since excavations in the chasm only uncovered adult remains, likely belonging to criminals.[95]
+
+When Spartans died, marked headstones would only be granted to soldiers who died in combat during a victorious campaign or women who died either in service of a divine office or in childbirth.[96]
+
+When male Spartans began military training at age seven, they would enter the agoge system. The agoge was designed to encourage discipline and physical toughness and to emphasize the importance of the Spartan state. Boys lived in communal messes and, according to Xenophon, whose sons attended the agoge, the boys were fed "just the right amount for them never to become sluggish through being too full, while also giving them a taste of what it is not to have enough."[97] In addition they were trained to survive in times of privation, even if it meant stealing.[98] Besides physical and weapons training, boys studied reading, writing, music and dancing. Special punishments were imposed if boys failed to answer questions sufficiently 'laconically' (i.e. briefly and wittily).[99]
+
+There is some evidence that in late-Classical and Hellenistic Sparta boys were expected to take an older male mentor, usually an unmarried young man. However, there is no evidence of this in archaic Sparta. According to some sources, the older man was expected to function as a kind of substitute father and role model to his junior partner; however, others believe it was reasonably certain that they had sexual relations (the exact nature of Spartan pederasty is not entirely clear).[100] It is notable, however, that the only contemporary source with direct experience of the agoge, Xenophon, explicitly denies the sexual nature of the relationship.[97]
+
+Post 465 BCE, some Spartan youth apparently became members of an irregular unit known as the Krypteia. The immediate objective of this unit was to seek out and kill vulnerable helot Laconians as part of the larger program of terrorising and intimidating the helot population.[101]
+
+Less information is available about the education of Spartan girls, but they seem to have gone through a fairly extensive formal educational cycle, broadly similar to that of the boys but with less emphasis on military training. In this respect, classical Sparta was unique in ancient Greece. In no other city-state did women receive any kind of formal education.[102]
+
+At age 20, the Spartan citizen began his membership in one of the syssitia (dining messes or clubs), composed of about fifteen members each, of which every citizen was required to be a member.[23] Here each group learned how to bond and rely on one another. The Spartans were not eligible for election for public office until the age of 30. Only native Spartans were considered full citizens and were obliged to undergo the training as prescribed by law, as well as participate in and contribute financially to one of the syssitia.[103]
+
+Sparta is thought to be the first city to practice athletic nudity, and some scholars claim that it was also the first to formalize pederasty.[104] According to these sources, the Spartans believed that the love of an older, accomplished aristocrat for an adolescent was essential to his formation as a free citizen. The agoge, the education of the ruling class, was, they claim, founded on pederastic relationships required of each citizen,[105] with the lover responsible for the boy's training.
+
+However, other scholars question this interpretation. Xenophon explicitly denies it,[97] but not Plutarch.[106]
+
+Spartan men remained in the active reserve until age 60.  Men were encouraged to marry at age 20 but could not live with their families until they left their active military service at age 30.  They called themselves "homoioi" (equals), pointing to their common lifestyle and the discipline of the phalanx, which demanded that no soldier be superior to his comrades.[107]  Insofar as hoplite warfare could be perfected, the Spartans did so.[108]
+
+Thucydides reports that when a Spartan man went to war, his wife (or another woman of some significance) would customarily present him with his hoplon (shield) and say: "With this, or upon this" (Ἢ τὰν ἢ ἐπὶ τᾶς, Èi tàn èi èpì tàs), meaning that true Spartans could only return to Sparta either victorious (with their shield in hand) or dead (carried upon it).[109] Unfortunately, poignant as this image may be, it is almost certainly propaganda.  Spartans buried their battle dead on or near the battle field; corpses were not brought back on their hoplons.[110] Nevertheless, it is fair to say that it was less of a disgrace for a soldier to lose his helmet, breastplate or greaves than his hoplon, since the former were designed to protect one man, whereas the hoplon also protected the man on his left. Thus the shield was symbolic of the individual soldier's subordination to his unit, his integral part in its success, and his solemn responsibility to his comrades in arms – messmates and friends, often close blood relations.
+
+According to Aristotle, the Spartan military culture was actually short-sighted and ineffective. He observed:
+
+It is the standards of civilized men not of beasts that must be kept in mind, for it is good men not beasts who are capable of real courage. Those like the Spartans who concentrate on the one and ignore the other in their education turn men into machines and in devoting themselves to one single aspect of city's life, end up making them inferior even in that.[111]
+
+One of the most persistent myths about Sparta that has no basis in fact is the notion that Spartan mothers were without feelings toward their off-spring and helped enforce a militaristic lifestyle on their sons and husbands.[112][113] The myth can be traced back to Plutarch, who includes no less than 17 "sayings" of "Spartan women," all of which paraphrase or elaborate on the theme that Spartan mothers rejected their own offspring if they showed any kind of cowardice. In some of these sayings, mothers revile their sons in insulting language merely for surviving a battle. These sayings purporting to be from Spartan women were far more likely to be of Athenian origin and designed to portray Spartan women as unnatural and so undeserving of pity.[110]
+
+Sparta's agriculture consisted mainly of barley, wine, cheese, grain, and figs. These items were grown locally on each Spartan citizens kleros and were tended to by helots. Spartan citizens were required to donate a certain amount of what they yielded from their kleros to their syssitia, or mess. These donations to the syssitia were a requirement for every Spartan citizen. All the donated food was then redistributed to feed the Spartan population of that syssitia.[114] The helots who tended to the lands were fed using a portion of what they harvested.[115]
+
+Plutarch reports the peculiar customs associated with the Spartan wedding night:
+
+The custom was to capture women for marriage(...) The so-called 'bridesmaid' took charge of the captured girl.  She first shaved her head to the scalp, then dressed her in a man's cloak and sandals, and laid her down alone on a mattress in the dark.  The bridegroom – who was not drunk and thus not impotent, but was sober as always – first had dinner in the messes, then would slip in, undo her belt, lift her and carry her to the bed.[116]
+
+The husband continued to visit his wife in secret for some time after the marriage.  These customs, unique to the Spartans, have been interpreted in various ways.  One of them decidedly supports the need to disguise the bride as a man in order to help the bridegroom consummate the marriage, so unaccustomed were men to women's looks at the time of their first intercourse. The "abduction" may have served to ward off the evil eye, and the cutting of the wife's hair was perhaps part of a rite of passage that signaled her entrance into a new life.[117]
+
+Spartan women, of the citizenry class, enjoyed a status, power, and respect that was unknown in the rest of the classical world. The higher status of females in Spartan society started at birth; unlike Athens, Spartan girls were fed the same food as their brothers.[118] Nor were they confined to their father's house and prevented from exercising or getting fresh air as in Athens, but exercised and even competed in sports.[118] Most important, rather than being married off at the age of 12 or 13, Spartan law forbade the marriage of a girl until she was in her late teens or early 20s. The reasons for delaying marriage were to ensure the birth of healthy children, but the effect was to spare Spartan women the hazards and lasting health damage associated with pregnancy among adolescents.  Spartan women, better fed from childhood and fit from exercise, stood a far better chance of reaching old age than their sisters in other Greek cities, where the median age for death was 34.6 years or roughly 10 years below that of men.[119]
+
+Unlike Athenian women who wore heavy, concealing clothes and were rarely seen outside the house, Spartan women wore dresses (peplos) slit up the side to allow freer movement and moved freely about the city, either walking or driving chariots. Girls as well as boys exercised, possibly in the nude, and young women as well as young men may have participated in the Gymnopaedia ("Festival of Nude Youths").[120][121]
+
+Another practice that was mentioned by many visitors to Sparta was the practice of “wife-sharing”.  In accordance with the Spartan belief that breeding should be between the most physically fit parents, many older men allowed younger, more fit men, to impregnate their wives.  Other unmarried or childless men might even request another man's wife to bear his children if she had previously been a strong child bearer.[122] For this reason many considered Spartan women polygamous or polyandrous.[123]  This practice was encouraged in order that women bear as many strong-bodied children as they could.  The Spartan population was hard to maintain due to the constant absence and loss of the men in battle and the intense physical inspection of newborns.[124]
+
+Spartan women were also literate and numerate, a rarity in the ancient world. Furthermore, as a result of their education and the fact that they moved freely in society engaging with their fellow (male) citizens, they were notorious for speaking their minds even in public.[125] Plato, in the middle of the fourth century, described women's curriculum in Sparta as consisting of gymnastics and mousike (music and arts). Plato goes on to praise Spartan women's ability when it came to philosophical discussion.[126]
+
+Most importantly, Spartan women had economic power because they controlled their own properties, and those of their husbands. It is estimated that in later Classical Sparta, when the male population was in serious decline, women were the sole owners of at least 35% of all land and property in Sparta.[127] The laws regarding a divorce were the same for both men and women. Unlike women in Athens, if a Spartan woman became the heiress of her father because she had no living brothers to inherit (an epikleros), the woman was not required to divorce her current spouse in order to marry her nearest paternal relative.[128]
+
+Many women played a significant role in the history of Sparta.[129] Queen Gorgo, heiress to the throne and the wife of Leonidas I, was an influential and well-documented figure.  Herodotus records that as a small girl she advised her father Cleomenes to resist a bribe. She was later said to be responsible for decoding a warning that the Persian forces were about to invade Greece; after Spartan generals could not decode a wooden tablet covered in wax, she ordered them to clear the wax, revealing the warning.[130]  Plutarch's Moralia contains a collection of "Sayings of Spartan Women", including a laconic quip attributed to Gorgo: when asked by a woman from Attica why Spartan women were the only women in the world who could rule men, she replied "Because we are the only women who are mothers of men".[131]
+
+Laconophilia is love or admiration of Sparta and its culture or constitution. Sparta was subject of considerable admiration in its day, even in rival Athens.  In ancient times "Many of the noblest and best of the Athenians always considered the Spartan state nearly as an ideal theory realised in practice."[132] Many Greek philosophers, especially Platonists, would often describe Sparta as an ideal state, strong, brave, and free from the corruptions of commerce and money. The French classicist François Ollier in his 1933 book Le mirage spartiate (The Spartan Mirage) warned that a major scholarly problem is that all surviving accounts of Sparta were by non-Spartans who often excessively idealized their subject.[133]
+
+With the revival of classical learning in Renaissance Europe, Laconophilia re-appeared, for example in the writings of Machiavelli. The Elizabethan English constitutionalist John Aylmer compared the mixed government of Tudor England to the Spartan republic, stating that "Lacedemonia [was] the noblest and best city governed that ever was". He commended it as a model for England. The philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau contrasted Sparta favourably with Athens in his Discourse on the Arts and Sciences, arguing that its austere constitution was preferable to the more sophisticated Athenian life. Sparta was also used as a model of austere purity by Revolutionary and Napoleonic France.[134]
+
+A German racist strain of Laconophilia was initiated by Karl Otfried Müller, who linked Spartan ideals to the supposed racial superiority of the Dorians, the ethnic sub-group of the Greeks to which the Spartans belonged. In the 20th century, this developed into Fascist admiration of Spartan ideals. Adolf Hitler praised the Spartans, recommending in 1928 that Germany should imitate them by limiting "the number allowed to live". He added that "The Spartans were once capable of such a wise measure... The subjugation of 350,000 Helots by 6,000 Spartans was only possible because of the racial superiority of the Spartans." The Spartans had created "the first racialist state".[135]
+
+Certain early Zionists, and particularly the founders of Kibbutz movement in Israel, were influenced by Spartan ideals, particularly in education. Tabenkin, a founding father of the Kibbutz movement and the Palmach strikeforce, prescribed that education for warfare "should begin from the nursery", that children should from kindergarten be taken to "spend nights in the mountains and valleys".[136][137]
+
+In modern times, the adjective "spartan" means simple, frugal, avoiding luxury and comfort.[138] The term "laconic phrase" describes the very terse and direct speech characteristic of the Spartans.
+
+Sparta also features prominently in modern popular culture, most famously the Battle of Thermopylae (see Battle of Thermopylae in popular culture).

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+Coordinates: 37°4′55″N 22°25′25″E / 37.08194°N 22.42361°E / 37.08194; 22.42361
+
+Sparta (Doric Greek: Σπάρτα, Spártā; Attic Greek: Σπάρτη, Spártē) was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (Λακεδαίμων, Lakedaímōn), while the name Sparta referred to its main settlement on the banks of the Eurotas River in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese.[1] Around 650 BCE, it rose to become the dominant military land-power in ancient Greece.
+
+Given its military pre-eminence, Sparta was recognized as the leading force of the unified Greek military during the Greco-Persian Wars, in rivalry with the rising naval power of Athens.[2] Sparta was the principal enemy of Athens during the Peloponnesian War (between 431 and 404 BCE),[3] from which it emerged victorious. The decisive Battle of Leuctra in 371 BCE ended the Spartan hegemony, although the city-state maintained its political independence until the Roman conquest of Greece in 146 BCE. After the division of the Roman Empire, Sparta underwent a long period of decline, especially in the Middle Ages, when many of its citizens moved to Mystras. Modern Sparta is the capital of the southern Greek region of Laconia and a center for processing citrus and olives.
+
+Sparta was unique in ancient Greece for its social system and constitution, which were supposedly introduced by the semi-mythical legislator Lycurgus. His laws configured the Spartan society to maximize military proficiency at all costs, focusing all social institutions on military training and physical development. The inhabitants of Sparta were stratified as Spartiates (Spartan citizens with full rights), mothakes (non-Spartan free men raised as Spartans), perioikoi (free residents engaged in commerce), and helots (state-owned serfs, enslaved non-Spartan locals). Spartiates underwent the rigorous agoge training and education regimen, and Spartan phalanx brigades were widely considered to be among the best in battle. Spartan women also enjoyed considerably more rights and equality with men than elsewhere in classical antiquity.
+
+Sparta was frequently a subject of fascination in its own day, as well as in Western culture following the revival of classical learning. The admiration of Sparta is known as Laconism or Laconophilia. Bertrand Russell wrote:
+
+Sparta had a double effect on Greek thought: through the reality, and through the myth.... The reality enabled the Spartans to defeat Athens in war; the myth influenced Plato's political theory, and that of countless subsequent writers.... [The] ideals that it favors had a great part in framing the doctrines of Rousseau, Nietzsche, and National Socialism.[4]
+
+The earliest attested term referring to Lacedaemon is the Mycenaean Greek 𐀨𐀐𐀅𐀖𐀛𐀍, ra-ke-da-mi-ni-jo, "Lacedaimonian", written in Linear B syllabic script,[5][n 1] the equivalent of the later Greek Λακεδαιμόνιος, Lakedaimonios (Latin: Lacedaemonius).[11][12]
+
+The ancient Greeks used one of three words to refer to the Spartan city-state and its location. First, "Sparta" refers primarily to the main cluster of settlements in the valley of the Eurotas River.[13] The second word, "Lacedaemon" (Λακεδαίμων),[14] was often used as an adjective and is the name referenced in the works of Homer and the historians Herodotus and Thucydides. The third term, "Laconice" (Λακωνική), referred to the immediate area around the town of Sparta, the plateau east of the Taygetos mountains,[15] and sometimes to all the regions under direct Spartan control, including Messenia.
+
+Herodotus seems to use "Lacedaemon" for the Mycenaean Greek citadel at Therapne, in contrast to the lower town of Sparta. This term could be used synonymously with Sparta, but typically it denoted the terrain in which the city was located.[16] In Homer it is typically combined with epithets of the countryside: wide, lovely, shining and most often hollow and broken (full of ravines),[17] suggesting the Eurotas Valley. "Sparta" on the other hand is described as "the country of lovely women", an epithet for people.
+
+The residents of Sparta were often called Lacedaemonians. This epithet utilized the plural of the adjective Lacedaemonius (Greek: Λακεδαιμόνιοι; Latin: Lacedaemonii, but also Lacedaemones). The ancients sometimes used a back-formation, referring to the land of Lacedaemon as Lacedaemonian country. As most words for "country" were feminine, the adjective was in the feminine: Lacedaemonia (Λακεδαιμονία, Lakedaimonia). Eventually, the adjective came to be used alone.
+
+"Lacedaemonia" was not in general use during the classical period and before. It does occur in Greek as an equivalent of Laconia and Messenia during the Roman and early Byzantine periods, mostly in ethnographers and lexica of place names. For example, Hesychius of Alexandria's Lexicon (5th century CE) defines Agiadae as a "place in Lacedaemonia" named after Agis.[18] The actual transition may be captured by Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae (7th century CE), an etymological dictionary. Isidore relied heavily on Orosius' Historiarum Adversum Paganos (5th century CE) and Eusebius of Caesarea's Chronicon (early 5th century CE), as did Orosius. The latter defines Sparta to be Lacedaemonia Civitas,[19] but Isidore defines Lacedaemonia as founded by Lacedaemon, son of Semele, which is consistent with Eusebius' explanation.[20] There is a rare use, perhaps the earliest of "Lacedaemonia", in Diodorus Siculus' The Library of History,[21] but probably with Χώρα (‘’chōra’’, "country") suppressed.
+
+Lakedaimona was until 2006 the name of a province in the modern Greek prefecture of Laconia.
+
+Sparta is located in the region of Laconia, in the south-eastern Peloponnese. Ancient Sparta was built on the banks of the Eurotas River, the largest river of Laconia, which provided it with a source of fresh water. The valley of the Eurotas is a natural fortress, bounded to the west by Mt. Taygetus (2,407 m) and to the east by Mt. Parnon (1,935 m). To the north, Laconia is separated from Arcadia by hilly uplands reaching 1000 m in altitude. These natural defenses worked to Sparta's advantage and protected it from sacking and invasion.  Though landlocked, Sparta had a vassal harbor, Gytheio, on the Laconian Gulf.
+
+Lacedaemon (Greek: Λακεδαίμων) was a mythical king of Laconia.[22] The son of Zeus by the nymph Taygete,  he married Sparta, the daughter of Eurotas, by whom he became the father of Amyclas, Eurydice, and Asine. As king, he named his country after himself and the city after his wife.[22] He was believed to have built the sanctuary of the Charites, which stood between Sparta and Amyclae, and to have given to those divinities the names of Cleta and Phaenna. A shrine was erected to him in the neighborhood of Therapne.
+
+Thucydides wrote:
+
+Suppose the city of Sparta to be deserted, and nothing left but the temples and the ground-plan, distant ages would be very unwilling to believe that the power of the Lacedaemonians was at all equal to their fame.  Their city is not built continuously, and has no splendid temples or other edifices; it rather resembles a group of villages, like the ancient towns of Hellas, and would therefore make a poor show.[23][24]
+
+Until the early 20th century, the chief ancient buildings at Sparta were the theatre, of which, however, little showed above ground except portions of the retaining walls; the so-called Tomb of Leonidas, a quadrangular building, perhaps a temple, constructed of immense blocks of stone and containing two chambers; the foundation of an ancient bridge over the Eurotas; the ruins of a circular structure; some remains of late Roman fortifications; several brick buildings and mosaic pavements.[23]
+
+The remaining archaeological wealth consisted of inscriptions, sculptures, and other objects collected in the local museum, founded by Stamatakis in 1872 and enlarged in 1907. Partial excavation of the round building was undertaken in 1892 and 1893 by the American School at Athens. The structure has been since found to be a semicircular retaining wall of Hellenic origin that was partly restored during the Roman period.[23]
+
+In 1904, the British School at Athens began a thorough exploration of Laconia, and in the following year excavations were made at Thalamae, Geronthrae, and Angelona near Monemvasia. In 1906, excavations began in Sparta itself.[23]
+
+A "small circus" (as described by Leake) proved to be a theatre-like building constructed soon after CE 200 around the altar and in front of the temple of Artemis Orthia. It is believed that musical and gymnastic contests took place here, as well as the famous flogging ordeal administered to Spartan boys (diamastigosis). The temple, which can be dated to the 2nd century BCE, rests on the foundation of an older temple of the 6th century, and close beside it were found the remains of a yet earlier temple, dating from the 9th or even the 10th century. The votive offerings in clay, amber, bronze, ivory and lead dating from the 9th to the 4th centuries BCE, which were found in great profusion within the precinct range, supply invaluable information about early Spartan art.[23]
+
+In 1907, the location of the sanctuary of Athena "of the Brazen House" (Χαλκίοικος, Chalkioikos) was determined to be on the acropolis immediately above the theatre. Though the actual temple is almost completely destroyed, the site has produced the longest extant archaic inscription in Laconia, numerous bronze nails and plates, and a considerable number of votive offerings. The city-wall, built in successive stages from the 4th to the 2nd century, was traced for a great part of its circuit, which measured 48 stades or nearly 10 km (6 miles) (Polyb. 1X. 21). The late Roman wall enclosing the acropolis, part of which probably dates from the years following the Gothic raid of CE 262, was also investigated. Besides the actual buildings discovered, a number of points were situated and mapped in a general study of Spartan topography, based upon the description of Pausanias.[23]
+
+The Menelaion is a shrine associated with Menelaus, located east of Sparta, by the river Eurotas, on the hill Profitis Ilias (Coordinates: 37°03′57″N 22°27′13″E / 37.0659°N 22.4536°E / 37.0659; 22.4536). Built around the early 8th century BCE, the Spartans believed it had been the former residence of Menelaus. In 1970 the British School in Athens started excavations around the Menelaion in an attempt to locate Mycenaean remains in the area. Among other findings, they uncovered the remains of two Mycenaean mansions and found the first offerings dedicated to Helen and Menelaus. These mansions were destroyed by earthquake and fire, and archaeologists consider them the possible palace of Menelaus himself.[25][better source needed] Excavations made from the early 1990s to the present suggest that the area around the Menelaion in the southern part of the Eurotas valley seems to have been the center of Mycenaean Laconia.[26] The Mycenaean settlement was roughly triangular in shape, with its apex pointed towards the north. Its area was approximately equal to that of the "newer" Sparta, but denudation has wreaked havoc with its buildings and nothing is left of its original structures save for ruined foundations and broken potsherds.[23]
+
+The prehistory of Sparta is difficult to reconstruct because the literary evidence was written far later than the events it describes and is distorted by oral tradition.[27] The earliest certain evidence of human settlement in the region of Sparta consists of pottery dating from the Middle Neolithic period, found in the vicinity of Kouphovouno some two kilometres (1.2 miles) south-southwest of Sparta.[28] These are the earliest traces of the original Mycenaean Spartan civilisation represented in Homer's Iliad.[citation needed]
+
+This civilization seems to have fallen into decline by the late Bronze Age, when, according to Herodotus, Macedonian tribes from the north (called Dorians by those they conquered) marched into the Peloponnese and, subjugating the local tribes, settled there.[27] The Dorians seem to have set about expanding the frontiers of Spartan territory almost before they had established their own state.[29] They fought against the Argive Dorians to the east and southeast, and also the Arcadian Achaeans to the northwest.  The evidence suggests that Sparta, relatively inaccessible because of the topography of the Taygetan plain, was secure from early on: it was never fortified.[29]
+
+Nothing distinctive in the archaeology of the Eurotas River Valley identifies the Dorians or the Dorian Spartan state. The prehistory of the Neolithic, the Bronze Age and the Dark Age (the Early Iron Age) at this moment must be treated apart from the stream of Dorian Spartan history.
+
+The legendary period of Spartan history is believed to fall into the Dark Age. It treats the mythic heroes such as the Heraclids and the Perseids, offering a view of the occupation of the Peloponnesus that contains both fantastic and possibly historical elements. The subsequent proto-historic period, combining both legend and historical fragments, offers the first credible history.
+
+Between the 8th and 7th centuries BCE the Spartans experienced a period of lawlessness and civil strife, later attested by both Herodotus and Thucydides.[30] As a result, they carried out a series of political and social reforms of their own society which they later attributed to a semi-mythical lawgiver, Lycurgus.[31] These reforms mark the beginning of the history of Classical Sparta.
+
+In the Second Messenian War, Sparta established itself as a local power in the Peloponnesus and the rest of Greece. During the following centuries, Sparta's reputation as a land-fighting force was unequalled.[32] At its peak around 500 BCE, Sparta had some 20,000–35,000 citizens, plus numerous helots and perioikoi. The likely total of 40,000–50,000 made Sparta one of the larger Greek city-states;[33][34] however, according to Thucydides, the population of Athens in 431 BCE was 360,000–610,000, making it much larger.[n 2]
+
+In 480 BCE a small force led by King Leonidas (about 300 full Spartiates, 700 Thespians, and 400 Thebans, although these numbers were lessened by earlier casualties) made a legendary last stand at the Battle of Thermopylae against the massive Persian army, inflicting very high casualties on the Persian forces before finally being overwhelmed.[36] The superior weaponry, strategy, and bronze armour of the Greek hoplites and their phalanx fighting formation again proved their worth one year later when Sparta assembled its full strength and led a Greek alliance against the Persians at the battle of Plataea.
+
+The decisive Greek victory at Plataea put an end to the Greco-Persian War along with Persian ambitions to expand into Europe. Even though this war was won by a pan-Greek army, credit was given to Sparta, who besides providing the leading forces at Thermopylae and Plataea, had been the de facto leader of the entire Greek expedition.[37]
+
+In later Classical times, Sparta along with Athens, Thebes, and Persia were the main powers fighting for supremacy in the northeastern Mediterranean. In the course of the Peloponnesian War, Sparta, a traditional land power, acquired a navy which managed to overpower the previously dominant flotilla of Athens, ending the Athenian Empire. At the peak of its power in the early 4th century BCE, Sparta had subdued many of the main Greek states and even invaded the Persian provinces in Anatolia (modern day Turkey), a period known as the Spartan Hegemony.
+
+During the Corinthian War, Sparta faced a coalition of the leading Greek states: Thebes, Athens, Corinth, and Argos. The alliance was initially backed by Persia, which feared further Spartan expansion into Asia.[38] Sparta achieved a series of land victories, but many of her ships were destroyed at the battle of Cnidus by a Greek-Phoenician mercenary fleet that Persia had provided to Athens. The event severely damaged Sparta's naval power but did not end its aspirations of invading further into Persia, until Conon the Athenian ravaged the Spartan coastline and provoked the old Spartan fear of a helot revolt.[39]
+
+After a few more years of fighting, in 387 BCE the Peace of Antalcidas was established, according to which all Greek cities of Ionia would return to Persian control, and Persia's Asian border would be free of the Spartan threat.[39] The effects of the war were to reaffirm Persia's ability to interfere successfully in Greek politics and to affirm Sparta's weakened hegemonic position in the Greek political system.[40] Sparta entered its long-term decline after a severe military defeat to Epaminondas of Thebes at the Battle of Leuctra. This was the first time that a full strength Spartan army lost a land battle.
+
+As Spartan citizenship was inherited by blood, Sparta increasingly faced a helot population that vastly outnumbered its citizens. The alarming decline of Spartan citizens was commented on by Aristotle.
+
+Sparta never fully recovered from its losses at Leuctra in 371 BCE and the subsequent helot revolts. Nonetheless, it was able to continue as a regional power for over two centuries. Neither Philip II nor his son Alexander the Great attempted to conquer Sparta itself.
+
+Even during its decline, Sparta never forgot its claim to be the "defender of Hellenism" and its Laconic wit. An anecdote has it that when Philip II sent a message to Sparta saying "If I enter Laconia, I will raze Sparta", the Spartans responded with the single, terse reply: αἴκα, "if".[41][42][43]
+
+When Philip created the league of the Greeks on the pretext of unifying Greece against Persia, the Spartans chose not to join, since they had no interest in joining a pan-Greek expedition unless it were under Spartan leadership. Thus, upon defeating the Persians at the Battle of the Granicus, Alexander the Great sent to Athens 300 suits of Persian armour with the following inscription: "Alexander, son of Philip, and all the Greeks except the Spartans, give these offerings taken from the foreigners who live in Asia".
+
+During Alexander's campaigns in the east, the Spartan king Agis III sent a force to Crete in 333 BCE with the aim of securing the island for Sparta.[44] Agis next took command of allied Greek forces against Macedon, gaining early successes, before laying siege to Megalopolis in 331 BCE. A large Macedonian army under general Antipater marched to its relief and defeated the Spartan-led force in a pitched battle.[45] More than 5,300 of the Spartans and their allies were killed in battle, and 3,500 of Antipater's troops.[46] Agis, now wounded and unable to stand, ordered his men to leave him behind to face the advancing Macedonian army so that he could buy them time to retreat. On his knees, the Spartan king slew several enemy soldiers before being finally killed by a javelin.[47] Alexander was merciful, and he only forced the Spartans to join the League of Corinth, which they had previously refused.[48]
+
+During the Punic Wars, Sparta was an ally of the Roman Republic. Spartan political independence was put to an end when it was eventually forced into the Achaean League after its defeat in the decisive Laconian War by a coalition of other Greek city-states and Rome and the resultant overthrow of its final king Nabis. Sparta played no active part in the Achaean War in 146 BCE when the Achaean League was defeated by the Roman general Lucius Mummius. Subsequently, Sparta became a free city under Roman rule, some of the institutions of Lycurgus were restored,[49] and the city became a tourist attraction for the Roman elite who came to observe exotic Spartan customs.[n 3]
+
+In 214 CE Roman emperor Caracalla, in his preparation for his campaign against Parthia, recruited a 500-man Spartan cohort (lokhos). Herodian described this unit as a phalanx, implying it fought like the old Spartans as hoplites, or even as a Macedonian phalanx. Despite this, a gravestone of a fallen legionary named Marcus Aurelius Alexys shows him lightly armed, with a pilos-like cap and a wooden club. The unit was presumably discharged in 217 after Caracalla was assassinated.[54]
+
+In 396 CE, Sparta was sacked by Visigoths under Alaric I who sold inhabitants into slavery.[55][56]
+According to Byzantine sources, some parts of the Laconian region remained pagan until well into the 10th century CE. Doric-speaking populations survive today in Tsakonia. In the Middle Ages, the political and cultural center of Laconia shifted to the nearby settlement of Mystras, and Sparta fell further in even local importance.  Modern Sparti was re-founded in 1834, by a decree of King Otto of Greece.
+
+Sparta was an oligarchy. The state was ruled by two hereditary kings of the Agiad and Eurypontid families,[57] both supposedly descendants of Heracles and equal in authority, so that one could not act against the power and political enactments of his colleague.[23]
+
+The duties of the kings were primarily religious, judicial, and military. As chief priests of the state, they maintained communication with the Delphian sanctuary, whose pronouncements exercised great authority in Spartan politics. In the time of Herodotus c. 450 BCE, their judicial functions had been restricted to cases dealing with heiresses, adoptions and the public roads. Aristotle describes the kingship at Sparta as "a kind of unlimited and perpetual generalship" (Pol. iii. 1285a), while Isocrates refers to the Spartans as "subject to an oligarchy at home, to a kingship on campaign" (iii. 24).[23]
+
+Civil and criminal cases were decided by a group of officials known as the ephors, as well as a council of elders known as the gerousia.  The gerousia consisted of 28 elders over the age of 60, elected for life and usually part of the royal households, and the two kings.[58] High state decisions were discussed by this council, who could then propose policies to the damos, the collective body of Spartan citizenry, who would select one of the alternatives by vote.[59][60]
+
+Royal prerogatives were curtailed over time. From the period of the Persian wars, the king lost the right to declare war and was accompanied in the field by two ephors. He was supplanted by the ephors also in the control of foreign policy. Over time, the kings became mere figureheads except in their capacity as generals. Political power was transferred to the ephors and gerousia.[23]
+
+An assembly of citizens called the apella[23] was responsible for electing men to the gerousia for life.
+
+The Spartan education process known as the agoge was essential for full citizenship. However, usually the only boys eligible for the agoge were Spartiates, those who could trace their ancestry to the original inhabitants of the city.
+
+There were two exceptions. Trophimoi or "foster sons" were foreign students invited to study. The Athenian general Xenophon, for example, sent his two sons to Sparta as trophimoi. Also, the son of a helot could be enrolled as a syntrophos[61] if a Spartiate formally adopted him and paid his way; if he did exceptionally well in training, he might be sponsored to become a Spartiate.[62] Spartans who could not afford to pay the expenses of the agoge could lose their citizenship.
+
+These laws meant that Sparta could not readily replace citizens lost in battle or otherwise, which eventually proved near fatal as citizens became greatly outnumbered by non-citizens, and even more dangerously by helots.
+
+The other classes were the perioikoi, free inhabitants who were non-citizens, and the helots,[63] state-owned serfs. Descendants of non-Spartan citizens were forbidden the agoge.
+
+The Spartans were a minority of the Lakonian population.  The largest class of inhabitants were the helots (in Classical Greek Εἵλωτες / Heílôtes).[64][65]
+
+The helots were originally free Greeks from the areas of Messenia and Lakonia whom the Spartans had defeated in battle and subsequently enslaved.  In contrast to populations conquered by other Greek cities (e.g. the Athenian treatment of Melos), the male population was not exterminated and the women and children turned into chattel slaves. Instead, the helots were given a subordinate position in society more comparable to serfs in medieval Europe than chattel slaves in the rest of Greece.
+
+Helots did not have voting or political rights. The Spartan poet Tyrtaios refers to Helots being allowed to marry and retaining 50% of the fruits of their labor.[66]  They also seem to have been allowed to practice religious rites and, according to Thucydides, own a limited amount of personal property.[67]
+Initially Helots couldn't be freed but during the middle Hellenistic period, some 6,000 helots accumulated enough wealth to buy their freedom, for example, in 227 BCE.
+
+In other Greek city-states, free citizens were part-time soldiers who, when not at war, carried on other trades.  Since Spartan men were full-time soldiers, they were not available to carry out manual labour.[68]  The helots were used as unskilled serfs, tilling Spartan land.  Helot women were often used as wet nurses.  Helots also travelled with the Spartan army as non-combatant serfs.  At the last stand of the Battle of Thermopylae, the Greek dead included not just the legendary three hundred Spartan soldiers but also several hundred Thespian and Theban troops and a number of helots.[69]
+
+Relations between the helots and their Spartan masters were sometimes strained. There was at least one helot revolt (c. 465–460 BCE), and Thucydides remarked that "Spartan policy is always mainly governed by the necessity of taking precautions against the helots."[70][71] On the other hand, the Spartans trusted their helots enough in 479 BCE to take a force of 35,000 with them to Plataea, something they could not have risked if they feared the helots would attack them or run away. Slave revolts occurred elsewhere in the Greek world, and in 413 BCE 20,000 Athenian slaves ran away to join the Spartan forces occupying Attica.[72] What made Sparta's relations with her slave population unique was that the helots, precisely because they enjoyed privileges such as family and property, retained their identity as a conquered people (the Messenians) and also had effective kinship groups that could be used to organize rebellion.
+
+As the Spartiate population declined and the helot population continued to grow, the imbalance of power caused increasing tension. According to Myron of Priene[73] of the middle 3rd century BCE:
+
+They assign to the Helots every shameful task leading to disgrace. For they ordained that each one of them must wear a dogskin cap (κυνῆ / kunễ) and wrap himself in skins (διφθέρα / diphthéra) and receive a stipulated number of beatings every year regardless of any wrongdoing, so that they would never forget they were slaves. Moreover, if any exceeded the vigour proper to a slave's condition, they made death the penalty; and they allotted a punishment to those controlling them if they failed to rebuke those who were growing fat.[74]
+
+Plutarch also states that Spartans treated the Helots "harshly and cruelly": they compelled them to drink pure wine (which was considered dangerous – wine usually being cut with water) "...and to lead them in that condition into their public halls, that the children might see what a sight a drunken man is; they made them to dance low dances, and sing ridiculous songs..." during syssitia (obligatory banquets).[75]
+
+Each year when the Ephors took office, they ritually declared war on the helots, allowing Spartans to kill them without risk of ritual pollution.[76] This fight seems to have been carried out by kryptai (sing. κρύπτης kryptēs), graduates of the agoge who took part in the mysterious institution known as the Krypteia.[77] Thucydides states:
+
+The helots were invited by a proclamation to pick out those of their number who claimed to have most distinguished themselves against the enemy, in order that they might receive their freedom; the object being to test them, as it was thought that the first to claim their freedom would be the most high spirited and the most apt to rebel. As many as two thousand were selected accordingly, who crowned themselves and went round the temples, rejoicing in their new freedom. The Spartans, however, soon afterwards did away with them, and no one ever knew how each of them perished.[78][79]
+
+The Perioikoi came from similar origins as the helots but occupied a significantly different position in Spartan society.  Although they did not enjoy full citizen-rights, they were free and not subjected to the same restrictions as the helots.  The exact nature of their subjection to the Spartans is not clear, but they seem to have served partly as a kind of military reserve, partly as skilled craftsmen and partly as agents of foreign trade.[80]  Perioikoic hoplites served increasingly with the Spartan army, explicitly at the Battle of Plataea, and although they may also have fulfilled functions such as the manufacture and repair of armour and weapons,[81] they were increasingly integrated into the combat units of the Spartan army as the Spartiate population declined.[82]
+
+Full citizen Spartiates were barred by law from trade or manufacture, which consequently rested in the hands of the Perioikoi.[23] This lucrative monopoly, in a fertile territory with a good harbors, ensured the loyalty of the perioikoi.[83] Despite the prohibition on menial labor or trade, there is evidence of Spartan sculptors,[84] and Spartans were certainly poets, magistrates, ambassadors, and governors as well as soldiers.
+
+Allegedly, Spartans were prohibited from possessing gold and silver coins, and according to legend Spartan currency consisted of iron bars to discourage hoarding.[85][86] It was not until the 260s or 250s BCE that Sparta began to mint its own coins.[87] Though the conspicuous display of wealth appears to have been discouraged, this did not preclude the production of very fine decorated bronze, ivory and wooden works of art as well as exquisite jewellery, attested in archaeology.[88]
+
+Allegedly as part of the Lycurgan Reforms in the mid-8th century BCE, a massive land reform had divided property into 9,000 equal portions. Each citizen received one estate, a kleros, which was expected to provide his living.[89] The land was worked by helots who retained half the yield. From the other half, the Spartiate was expected to pay his mess (syssitia) fees, and the agoge fees for his children. However, we know nothing of matters of wealth such as how land was bought, sold, and inherited, or whether daughters received dowries.[90] However, from early on there were marked differences of wealth within the state, and these became more serious after the law of Epitadeus some time after the Peloponnesian War, which removed the legal prohibition on the gift or bequest of land.[23][91] By the mid-5th century, land had become concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite, and the notion that all Spartan citizens were equals had become an empty pretence. By Aristotle's day (384–322 BCE) citizenship had been reduced from 9,000 to less than 1,000, then further decreased to 700 at the accession of Agis IV in 244 BCE. Attempts were made to remedy this by imposing legal penalties upon bachelors,[23] but this could not reverse the trend.
+
+Sparta was above all a militarist state, and emphasis on military fitness began virtually at birth. Shortly after birth, a mother would bathe her child in wine to see whether the child was strong. If the child survived it was brought before the Gerousia by the child's father. The Gerousia then decided whether it was to be reared or not.[23] It is commonly stated that if they considered it "puny and deformed", the baby was thrown into a chasm on Mount Taygetos known euphemistically as the Apothetae (Gr., ἀποθέται, "Deposits").[92][93]  This was, in effect, a primitive form of eugenics.[92] Sparta is often viewed as being unique in this regard, however, anthropologist Laila Williamson notes that "Infanticide has been practiced on every continent and by people on every level of cultural complexity, from hunter gatherers to high civilizations. Rather than being an exception, then, it has been the rule."[94]:61There is controversy about the matter in Sparta, since excavations in the chasm only uncovered adult remains, likely belonging to criminals.[95]
+
+When Spartans died, marked headstones would only be granted to soldiers who died in combat during a victorious campaign or women who died either in service of a divine office or in childbirth.[96]
+
+When male Spartans began military training at age seven, they would enter the agoge system. The agoge was designed to encourage discipline and physical toughness and to emphasize the importance of the Spartan state. Boys lived in communal messes and, according to Xenophon, whose sons attended the agoge, the boys were fed "just the right amount for them never to become sluggish through being too full, while also giving them a taste of what it is not to have enough."[97] In addition they were trained to survive in times of privation, even if it meant stealing.[98] Besides physical and weapons training, boys studied reading, writing, music and dancing. Special punishments were imposed if boys failed to answer questions sufficiently 'laconically' (i.e. briefly and wittily).[99]
+
+There is some evidence that in late-Classical and Hellenistic Sparta boys were expected to take an older male mentor, usually an unmarried young man. However, there is no evidence of this in archaic Sparta. According to some sources, the older man was expected to function as a kind of substitute father and role model to his junior partner; however, others believe it was reasonably certain that they had sexual relations (the exact nature of Spartan pederasty is not entirely clear).[100] It is notable, however, that the only contemporary source with direct experience of the agoge, Xenophon, explicitly denies the sexual nature of the relationship.[97]
+
+Post 465 BCE, some Spartan youth apparently became members of an irregular unit known as the Krypteia. The immediate objective of this unit was to seek out and kill vulnerable helot Laconians as part of the larger program of terrorising and intimidating the helot population.[101]
+
+Less information is available about the education of Spartan girls, but they seem to have gone through a fairly extensive formal educational cycle, broadly similar to that of the boys but with less emphasis on military training. In this respect, classical Sparta was unique in ancient Greece. In no other city-state did women receive any kind of formal education.[102]
+
+At age 20, the Spartan citizen began his membership in one of the syssitia (dining messes or clubs), composed of about fifteen members each, of which every citizen was required to be a member.[23] Here each group learned how to bond and rely on one another. The Spartans were not eligible for election for public office until the age of 30. Only native Spartans were considered full citizens and were obliged to undergo the training as prescribed by law, as well as participate in and contribute financially to one of the syssitia.[103]
+
+Sparta is thought to be the first city to practice athletic nudity, and some scholars claim that it was also the first to formalize pederasty.[104] According to these sources, the Spartans believed that the love of an older, accomplished aristocrat for an adolescent was essential to his formation as a free citizen. The agoge, the education of the ruling class, was, they claim, founded on pederastic relationships required of each citizen,[105] with the lover responsible for the boy's training.
+
+However, other scholars question this interpretation. Xenophon explicitly denies it,[97] but not Plutarch.[106]
+
+Spartan men remained in the active reserve until age 60.  Men were encouraged to marry at age 20 but could not live with their families until they left their active military service at age 30.  They called themselves "homoioi" (equals), pointing to their common lifestyle and the discipline of the phalanx, which demanded that no soldier be superior to his comrades.[107]  Insofar as hoplite warfare could be perfected, the Spartans did so.[108]
+
+Thucydides reports that when a Spartan man went to war, his wife (or another woman of some significance) would customarily present him with his hoplon (shield) and say: "With this, or upon this" (Ἢ τὰν ἢ ἐπὶ τᾶς, Èi tàn èi èpì tàs), meaning that true Spartans could only return to Sparta either victorious (with their shield in hand) or dead (carried upon it).[109] Unfortunately, poignant as this image may be, it is almost certainly propaganda.  Spartans buried their battle dead on or near the battle field; corpses were not brought back on their hoplons.[110] Nevertheless, it is fair to say that it was less of a disgrace for a soldier to lose his helmet, breastplate or greaves than his hoplon, since the former were designed to protect one man, whereas the hoplon also protected the man on his left. Thus the shield was symbolic of the individual soldier's subordination to his unit, his integral part in its success, and his solemn responsibility to his comrades in arms – messmates and friends, often close blood relations.
+
+According to Aristotle, the Spartan military culture was actually short-sighted and ineffective. He observed:
+
+It is the standards of civilized men not of beasts that must be kept in mind, for it is good men not beasts who are capable of real courage. Those like the Spartans who concentrate on the one and ignore the other in their education turn men into machines and in devoting themselves to one single aspect of city's life, end up making them inferior even in that.[111]
+
+One of the most persistent myths about Sparta that has no basis in fact is the notion that Spartan mothers were without feelings toward their off-spring and helped enforce a militaristic lifestyle on their sons and husbands.[112][113] The myth can be traced back to Plutarch, who includes no less than 17 "sayings" of "Spartan women," all of which paraphrase or elaborate on the theme that Spartan mothers rejected their own offspring if they showed any kind of cowardice. In some of these sayings, mothers revile their sons in insulting language merely for surviving a battle. These sayings purporting to be from Spartan women were far more likely to be of Athenian origin and designed to portray Spartan women as unnatural and so undeserving of pity.[110]
+
+Sparta's agriculture consisted mainly of barley, wine, cheese, grain, and figs. These items were grown locally on each Spartan citizens kleros and were tended to by helots. Spartan citizens were required to donate a certain amount of what they yielded from their kleros to their syssitia, or mess. These donations to the syssitia were a requirement for every Spartan citizen. All the donated food was then redistributed to feed the Spartan population of that syssitia.[114] The helots who tended to the lands were fed using a portion of what they harvested.[115]
+
+Plutarch reports the peculiar customs associated with the Spartan wedding night:
+
+The custom was to capture women for marriage(...) The so-called 'bridesmaid' took charge of the captured girl.  She first shaved her head to the scalp, then dressed her in a man's cloak and sandals, and laid her down alone on a mattress in the dark.  The bridegroom – who was not drunk and thus not impotent, but was sober as always – first had dinner in the messes, then would slip in, undo her belt, lift her and carry her to the bed.[116]
+
+The husband continued to visit his wife in secret for some time after the marriage.  These customs, unique to the Spartans, have been interpreted in various ways.  One of them decidedly supports the need to disguise the bride as a man in order to help the bridegroom consummate the marriage, so unaccustomed were men to women's looks at the time of their first intercourse. The "abduction" may have served to ward off the evil eye, and the cutting of the wife's hair was perhaps part of a rite of passage that signaled her entrance into a new life.[117]
+
+Spartan women, of the citizenry class, enjoyed a status, power, and respect that was unknown in the rest of the classical world. The higher status of females in Spartan society started at birth; unlike Athens, Spartan girls were fed the same food as their brothers.[118] Nor were they confined to their father's house and prevented from exercising or getting fresh air as in Athens, but exercised and even competed in sports.[118] Most important, rather than being married off at the age of 12 or 13, Spartan law forbade the marriage of a girl until she was in her late teens or early 20s. The reasons for delaying marriage were to ensure the birth of healthy children, but the effect was to spare Spartan women the hazards and lasting health damage associated with pregnancy among adolescents.  Spartan women, better fed from childhood and fit from exercise, stood a far better chance of reaching old age than their sisters in other Greek cities, where the median age for death was 34.6 years or roughly 10 years below that of men.[119]
+
+Unlike Athenian women who wore heavy, concealing clothes and were rarely seen outside the house, Spartan women wore dresses (peplos) slit up the side to allow freer movement and moved freely about the city, either walking or driving chariots. Girls as well as boys exercised, possibly in the nude, and young women as well as young men may have participated in the Gymnopaedia ("Festival of Nude Youths").[120][121]
+
+Another practice that was mentioned by many visitors to Sparta was the practice of “wife-sharing”.  In accordance with the Spartan belief that breeding should be between the most physically fit parents, many older men allowed younger, more fit men, to impregnate their wives.  Other unmarried or childless men might even request another man's wife to bear his children if she had previously been a strong child bearer.[122] For this reason many considered Spartan women polygamous or polyandrous.[123]  This practice was encouraged in order that women bear as many strong-bodied children as they could.  The Spartan population was hard to maintain due to the constant absence and loss of the men in battle and the intense physical inspection of newborns.[124]
+
+Spartan women were also literate and numerate, a rarity in the ancient world. Furthermore, as a result of their education and the fact that they moved freely in society engaging with their fellow (male) citizens, they were notorious for speaking their minds even in public.[125] Plato, in the middle of the fourth century, described women's curriculum in Sparta as consisting of gymnastics and mousike (music and arts). Plato goes on to praise Spartan women's ability when it came to philosophical discussion.[126]
+
+Most importantly, Spartan women had economic power because they controlled their own properties, and those of their husbands. It is estimated that in later Classical Sparta, when the male population was in serious decline, women were the sole owners of at least 35% of all land and property in Sparta.[127] The laws regarding a divorce were the same for both men and women. Unlike women in Athens, if a Spartan woman became the heiress of her father because she had no living brothers to inherit (an epikleros), the woman was not required to divorce her current spouse in order to marry her nearest paternal relative.[128]
+
+Many women played a significant role in the history of Sparta.[129] Queen Gorgo, heiress to the throne and the wife of Leonidas I, was an influential and well-documented figure.  Herodotus records that as a small girl she advised her father Cleomenes to resist a bribe. She was later said to be responsible for decoding a warning that the Persian forces were about to invade Greece; after Spartan generals could not decode a wooden tablet covered in wax, she ordered them to clear the wax, revealing the warning.[130]  Plutarch's Moralia contains a collection of "Sayings of Spartan Women", including a laconic quip attributed to Gorgo: when asked by a woman from Attica why Spartan women were the only women in the world who could rule men, she replied "Because we are the only women who are mothers of men".[131]
+
+Laconophilia is love or admiration of Sparta and its culture or constitution. Sparta was subject of considerable admiration in its day, even in rival Athens.  In ancient times "Many of the noblest and best of the Athenians always considered the Spartan state nearly as an ideal theory realised in practice."[132] Many Greek philosophers, especially Platonists, would often describe Sparta as an ideal state, strong, brave, and free from the corruptions of commerce and money. The French classicist François Ollier in his 1933 book Le mirage spartiate (The Spartan Mirage) warned that a major scholarly problem is that all surviving accounts of Sparta were by non-Spartans who often excessively idealized their subject.[133]
+
+With the revival of classical learning in Renaissance Europe, Laconophilia re-appeared, for example in the writings of Machiavelli. The Elizabethan English constitutionalist John Aylmer compared the mixed government of Tudor England to the Spartan republic, stating that "Lacedemonia [was] the noblest and best city governed that ever was". He commended it as a model for England. The philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau contrasted Sparta favourably with Athens in his Discourse on the Arts and Sciences, arguing that its austere constitution was preferable to the more sophisticated Athenian life. Sparta was also used as a model of austere purity by Revolutionary and Napoleonic France.[134]
+
+A German racist strain of Laconophilia was initiated by Karl Otfried Müller, who linked Spartan ideals to the supposed racial superiority of the Dorians, the ethnic sub-group of the Greeks to which the Spartans belonged. In the 20th century, this developed into Fascist admiration of Spartan ideals. Adolf Hitler praised the Spartans, recommending in 1928 that Germany should imitate them by limiting "the number allowed to live". He added that "The Spartans were once capable of such a wise measure... The subjugation of 350,000 Helots by 6,000 Spartans was only possible because of the racial superiority of the Spartans." The Spartans had created "the first racialist state".[135]
+
+Certain early Zionists, and particularly the founders of Kibbutz movement in Israel, were influenced by Spartan ideals, particularly in education. Tabenkin, a founding father of the Kibbutz movement and the Palmach strikeforce, prescribed that education for warfare "should begin from the nursery", that children should from kindergarten be taken to "spend nights in the mountains and valleys".[136][137]
+
+In modern times, the adjective "spartan" means simple, frugal, avoiding luxury and comfort.[138] The term "laconic phrase" describes the very terse and direct speech characteristic of the Spartans.
+
+Sparta also features prominently in modern popular culture, most famously the Battle of Thermopylae (see Battle of Thermopylae in popular culture).

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+Coordinates: 37°4′55″N 22°25′25″E / 37.08194°N 22.42361°E / 37.08194; 22.42361
+
+Sparta (Doric Greek: Σπάρτα, Spártā; Attic Greek: Σπάρτη, Spártē) was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (Λακεδαίμων, Lakedaímōn), while the name Sparta referred to its main settlement on the banks of the Eurotas River in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese.[1] Around 650 BCE, it rose to become the dominant military land-power in ancient Greece.
+
+Given its military pre-eminence, Sparta was recognized as the leading force of the unified Greek military during the Greco-Persian Wars, in rivalry with the rising naval power of Athens.[2] Sparta was the principal enemy of Athens during the Peloponnesian War (between 431 and 404 BCE),[3] from which it emerged victorious. The decisive Battle of Leuctra in 371 BCE ended the Spartan hegemony, although the city-state maintained its political independence until the Roman conquest of Greece in 146 BCE. After the division of the Roman Empire, Sparta underwent a long period of decline, especially in the Middle Ages, when many of its citizens moved to Mystras. Modern Sparta is the capital of the southern Greek region of Laconia and a center for processing citrus and olives.
+
+Sparta was unique in ancient Greece for its social system and constitution, which were supposedly introduced by the semi-mythical legislator Lycurgus. His laws configured the Spartan society to maximize military proficiency at all costs, focusing all social institutions on military training and physical development. The inhabitants of Sparta were stratified as Spartiates (Spartan citizens with full rights), mothakes (non-Spartan free men raised as Spartans), perioikoi (free residents engaged in commerce), and helots (state-owned serfs, enslaved non-Spartan locals). Spartiates underwent the rigorous agoge training and education regimen, and Spartan phalanx brigades were widely considered to be among the best in battle. Spartan women also enjoyed considerably more rights and equality with men than elsewhere in classical antiquity.
+
+Sparta was frequently a subject of fascination in its own day, as well as in Western culture following the revival of classical learning. The admiration of Sparta is known as Laconism or Laconophilia. Bertrand Russell wrote:
+
+Sparta had a double effect on Greek thought: through the reality, and through the myth.... The reality enabled the Spartans to defeat Athens in war; the myth influenced Plato's political theory, and that of countless subsequent writers.... [The] ideals that it favors had a great part in framing the doctrines of Rousseau, Nietzsche, and National Socialism.[4]
+
+The earliest attested term referring to Lacedaemon is the Mycenaean Greek 𐀨𐀐𐀅𐀖𐀛𐀍, ra-ke-da-mi-ni-jo, "Lacedaimonian", written in Linear B syllabic script,[5][n 1] the equivalent of the later Greek Λακεδαιμόνιος, Lakedaimonios (Latin: Lacedaemonius).[11][12]
+
+The ancient Greeks used one of three words to refer to the Spartan city-state and its location. First, "Sparta" refers primarily to the main cluster of settlements in the valley of the Eurotas River.[13] The second word, "Lacedaemon" (Λακεδαίμων),[14] was often used as an adjective and is the name referenced in the works of Homer and the historians Herodotus and Thucydides. The third term, "Laconice" (Λακωνική), referred to the immediate area around the town of Sparta, the plateau east of the Taygetos mountains,[15] and sometimes to all the regions under direct Spartan control, including Messenia.
+
+Herodotus seems to use "Lacedaemon" for the Mycenaean Greek citadel at Therapne, in contrast to the lower town of Sparta. This term could be used synonymously with Sparta, but typically it denoted the terrain in which the city was located.[16] In Homer it is typically combined with epithets of the countryside: wide, lovely, shining and most often hollow and broken (full of ravines),[17] suggesting the Eurotas Valley. "Sparta" on the other hand is described as "the country of lovely women", an epithet for people.
+
+The residents of Sparta were often called Lacedaemonians. This epithet utilized the plural of the adjective Lacedaemonius (Greek: Λακεδαιμόνιοι; Latin: Lacedaemonii, but also Lacedaemones). The ancients sometimes used a back-formation, referring to the land of Lacedaemon as Lacedaemonian country. As most words for "country" were feminine, the adjective was in the feminine: Lacedaemonia (Λακεδαιμονία, Lakedaimonia). Eventually, the adjective came to be used alone.
+
+"Lacedaemonia" was not in general use during the classical period and before. It does occur in Greek as an equivalent of Laconia and Messenia during the Roman and early Byzantine periods, mostly in ethnographers and lexica of place names. For example, Hesychius of Alexandria's Lexicon (5th century CE) defines Agiadae as a "place in Lacedaemonia" named after Agis.[18] The actual transition may be captured by Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae (7th century CE), an etymological dictionary. Isidore relied heavily on Orosius' Historiarum Adversum Paganos (5th century CE) and Eusebius of Caesarea's Chronicon (early 5th century CE), as did Orosius. The latter defines Sparta to be Lacedaemonia Civitas,[19] but Isidore defines Lacedaemonia as founded by Lacedaemon, son of Semele, which is consistent with Eusebius' explanation.[20] There is a rare use, perhaps the earliest of "Lacedaemonia", in Diodorus Siculus' The Library of History,[21] but probably with Χώρα (‘’chōra’’, "country") suppressed.
+
+Lakedaimona was until 2006 the name of a province in the modern Greek prefecture of Laconia.
+
+Sparta is located in the region of Laconia, in the south-eastern Peloponnese. Ancient Sparta was built on the banks of the Eurotas River, the largest river of Laconia, which provided it with a source of fresh water. The valley of the Eurotas is a natural fortress, bounded to the west by Mt. Taygetus (2,407 m) and to the east by Mt. Parnon (1,935 m). To the north, Laconia is separated from Arcadia by hilly uplands reaching 1000 m in altitude. These natural defenses worked to Sparta's advantage and protected it from sacking and invasion.  Though landlocked, Sparta had a vassal harbor, Gytheio, on the Laconian Gulf.
+
+Lacedaemon (Greek: Λακεδαίμων) was a mythical king of Laconia.[22] The son of Zeus by the nymph Taygete,  he married Sparta, the daughter of Eurotas, by whom he became the father of Amyclas, Eurydice, and Asine. As king, he named his country after himself and the city after his wife.[22] He was believed to have built the sanctuary of the Charites, which stood between Sparta and Amyclae, and to have given to those divinities the names of Cleta and Phaenna. A shrine was erected to him in the neighborhood of Therapne.
+
+Thucydides wrote:
+
+Suppose the city of Sparta to be deserted, and nothing left but the temples and the ground-plan, distant ages would be very unwilling to believe that the power of the Lacedaemonians was at all equal to their fame.  Their city is not built continuously, and has no splendid temples or other edifices; it rather resembles a group of villages, like the ancient towns of Hellas, and would therefore make a poor show.[23][24]
+
+Until the early 20th century, the chief ancient buildings at Sparta were the theatre, of which, however, little showed above ground except portions of the retaining walls; the so-called Tomb of Leonidas, a quadrangular building, perhaps a temple, constructed of immense blocks of stone and containing two chambers; the foundation of an ancient bridge over the Eurotas; the ruins of a circular structure; some remains of late Roman fortifications; several brick buildings and mosaic pavements.[23]
+
+The remaining archaeological wealth consisted of inscriptions, sculptures, and other objects collected in the local museum, founded by Stamatakis in 1872 and enlarged in 1907. Partial excavation of the round building was undertaken in 1892 and 1893 by the American School at Athens. The structure has been since found to be a semicircular retaining wall of Hellenic origin that was partly restored during the Roman period.[23]
+
+In 1904, the British School at Athens began a thorough exploration of Laconia, and in the following year excavations were made at Thalamae, Geronthrae, and Angelona near Monemvasia. In 1906, excavations began in Sparta itself.[23]
+
+A "small circus" (as described by Leake) proved to be a theatre-like building constructed soon after CE 200 around the altar and in front of the temple of Artemis Orthia. It is believed that musical and gymnastic contests took place here, as well as the famous flogging ordeal administered to Spartan boys (diamastigosis). The temple, which can be dated to the 2nd century BCE, rests on the foundation of an older temple of the 6th century, and close beside it were found the remains of a yet earlier temple, dating from the 9th or even the 10th century. The votive offerings in clay, amber, bronze, ivory and lead dating from the 9th to the 4th centuries BCE, which were found in great profusion within the precinct range, supply invaluable information about early Spartan art.[23]
+
+In 1907, the location of the sanctuary of Athena "of the Brazen House" (Χαλκίοικος, Chalkioikos) was determined to be on the acropolis immediately above the theatre. Though the actual temple is almost completely destroyed, the site has produced the longest extant archaic inscription in Laconia, numerous bronze nails and plates, and a considerable number of votive offerings. The city-wall, built in successive stages from the 4th to the 2nd century, was traced for a great part of its circuit, which measured 48 stades or nearly 10 km (6 miles) (Polyb. 1X. 21). The late Roman wall enclosing the acropolis, part of which probably dates from the years following the Gothic raid of CE 262, was also investigated. Besides the actual buildings discovered, a number of points were situated and mapped in a general study of Spartan topography, based upon the description of Pausanias.[23]
+
+The Menelaion is a shrine associated with Menelaus, located east of Sparta, by the river Eurotas, on the hill Profitis Ilias (Coordinates: 37°03′57″N 22°27′13″E / 37.0659°N 22.4536°E / 37.0659; 22.4536). Built around the early 8th century BCE, the Spartans believed it had been the former residence of Menelaus. In 1970 the British School in Athens started excavations around the Menelaion in an attempt to locate Mycenaean remains in the area. Among other findings, they uncovered the remains of two Mycenaean mansions and found the first offerings dedicated to Helen and Menelaus. These mansions were destroyed by earthquake and fire, and archaeologists consider them the possible palace of Menelaus himself.[25][better source needed] Excavations made from the early 1990s to the present suggest that the area around the Menelaion in the southern part of the Eurotas valley seems to have been the center of Mycenaean Laconia.[26] The Mycenaean settlement was roughly triangular in shape, with its apex pointed towards the north. Its area was approximately equal to that of the "newer" Sparta, but denudation has wreaked havoc with its buildings and nothing is left of its original structures save for ruined foundations and broken potsherds.[23]
+
+The prehistory of Sparta is difficult to reconstruct because the literary evidence was written far later than the events it describes and is distorted by oral tradition.[27] The earliest certain evidence of human settlement in the region of Sparta consists of pottery dating from the Middle Neolithic period, found in the vicinity of Kouphovouno some two kilometres (1.2 miles) south-southwest of Sparta.[28] These are the earliest traces of the original Mycenaean Spartan civilisation represented in Homer's Iliad.[citation needed]
+
+This civilization seems to have fallen into decline by the late Bronze Age, when, according to Herodotus, Macedonian tribes from the north (called Dorians by those they conquered) marched into the Peloponnese and, subjugating the local tribes, settled there.[27] The Dorians seem to have set about expanding the frontiers of Spartan territory almost before they had established their own state.[29] They fought against the Argive Dorians to the east and southeast, and also the Arcadian Achaeans to the northwest.  The evidence suggests that Sparta, relatively inaccessible because of the topography of the Taygetan plain, was secure from early on: it was never fortified.[29]
+
+Nothing distinctive in the archaeology of the Eurotas River Valley identifies the Dorians or the Dorian Spartan state. The prehistory of the Neolithic, the Bronze Age and the Dark Age (the Early Iron Age) at this moment must be treated apart from the stream of Dorian Spartan history.
+
+The legendary period of Spartan history is believed to fall into the Dark Age. It treats the mythic heroes such as the Heraclids and the Perseids, offering a view of the occupation of the Peloponnesus that contains both fantastic and possibly historical elements. The subsequent proto-historic period, combining both legend and historical fragments, offers the first credible history.
+
+Between the 8th and 7th centuries BCE the Spartans experienced a period of lawlessness and civil strife, later attested by both Herodotus and Thucydides.[30] As a result, they carried out a series of political and social reforms of their own society which they later attributed to a semi-mythical lawgiver, Lycurgus.[31] These reforms mark the beginning of the history of Classical Sparta.
+
+In the Second Messenian War, Sparta established itself as a local power in the Peloponnesus and the rest of Greece. During the following centuries, Sparta's reputation as a land-fighting force was unequalled.[32] At its peak around 500 BCE, Sparta had some 20,000–35,000 citizens, plus numerous helots and perioikoi. The likely total of 40,000–50,000 made Sparta one of the larger Greek city-states;[33][34] however, according to Thucydides, the population of Athens in 431 BCE was 360,000–610,000, making it much larger.[n 2]
+
+In 480 BCE a small force led by King Leonidas (about 300 full Spartiates, 700 Thespians, and 400 Thebans, although these numbers were lessened by earlier casualties) made a legendary last stand at the Battle of Thermopylae against the massive Persian army, inflicting very high casualties on the Persian forces before finally being overwhelmed.[36] The superior weaponry, strategy, and bronze armour of the Greek hoplites and their phalanx fighting formation again proved their worth one year later when Sparta assembled its full strength and led a Greek alliance against the Persians at the battle of Plataea.
+
+The decisive Greek victory at Plataea put an end to the Greco-Persian War along with Persian ambitions to expand into Europe. Even though this war was won by a pan-Greek army, credit was given to Sparta, who besides providing the leading forces at Thermopylae and Plataea, had been the de facto leader of the entire Greek expedition.[37]
+
+In later Classical times, Sparta along with Athens, Thebes, and Persia were the main powers fighting for supremacy in the northeastern Mediterranean. In the course of the Peloponnesian War, Sparta, a traditional land power, acquired a navy which managed to overpower the previously dominant flotilla of Athens, ending the Athenian Empire. At the peak of its power in the early 4th century BCE, Sparta had subdued many of the main Greek states and even invaded the Persian provinces in Anatolia (modern day Turkey), a period known as the Spartan Hegemony.
+
+During the Corinthian War, Sparta faced a coalition of the leading Greek states: Thebes, Athens, Corinth, and Argos. The alliance was initially backed by Persia, which feared further Spartan expansion into Asia.[38] Sparta achieved a series of land victories, but many of her ships were destroyed at the battle of Cnidus by a Greek-Phoenician mercenary fleet that Persia had provided to Athens. The event severely damaged Sparta's naval power but did not end its aspirations of invading further into Persia, until Conon the Athenian ravaged the Spartan coastline and provoked the old Spartan fear of a helot revolt.[39]
+
+After a few more years of fighting, in 387 BCE the Peace of Antalcidas was established, according to which all Greek cities of Ionia would return to Persian control, and Persia's Asian border would be free of the Spartan threat.[39] The effects of the war were to reaffirm Persia's ability to interfere successfully in Greek politics and to affirm Sparta's weakened hegemonic position in the Greek political system.[40] Sparta entered its long-term decline after a severe military defeat to Epaminondas of Thebes at the Battle of Leuctra. This was the first time that a full strength Spartan army lost a land battle.
+
+As Spartan citizenship was inherited by blood, Sparta increasingly faced a helot population that vastly outnumbered its citizens. The alarming decline of Spartan citizens was commented on by Aristotle.
+
+Sparta never fully recovered from its losses at Leuctra in 371 BCE and the subsequent helot revolts. Nonetheless, it was able to continue as a regional power for over two centuries. Neither Philip II nor his son Alexander the Great attempted to conquer Sparta itself.
+
+Even during its decline, Sparta never forgot its claim to be the "defender of Hellenism" and its Laconic wit. An anecdote has it that when Philip II sent a message to Sparta saying "If I enter Laconia, I will raze Sparta", the Spartans responded with the single, terse reply: αἴκα, "if".[41][42][43]
+
+When Philip created the league of the Greeks on the pretext of unifying Greece against Persia, the Spartans chose not to join, since they had no interest in joining a pan-Greek expedition unless it were under Spartan leadership. Thus, upon defeating the Persians at the Battle of the Granicus, Alexander the Great sent to Athens 300 suits of Persian armour with the following inscription: "Alexander, son of Philip, and all the Greeks except the Spartans, give these offerings taken from the foreigners who live in Asia".
+
+During Alexander's campaigns in the east, the Spartan king Agis III sent a force to Crete in 333 BCE with the aim of securing the island for Sparta.[44] Agis next took command of allied Greek forces against Macedon, gaining early successes, before laying siege to Megalopolis in 331 BCE. A large Macedonian army under general Antipater marched to its relief and defeated the Spartan-led force in a pitched battle.[45] More than 5,300 of the Spartans and their allies were killed in battle, and 3,500 of Antipater's troops.[46] Agis, now wounded and unable to stand, ordered his men to leave him behind to face the advancing Macedonian army so that he could buy them time to retreat. On his knees, the Spartan king slew several enemy soldiers before being finally killed by a javelin.[47] Alexander was merciful, and he only forced the Spartans to join the League of Corinth, which they had previously refused.[48]
+
+During the Punic Wars, Sparta was an ally of the Roman Republic. Spartan political independence was put to an end when it was eventually forced into the Achaean League after its defeat in the decisive Laconian War by a coalition of other Greek city-states and Rome and the resultant overthrow of its final king Nabis. Sparta played no active part in the Achaean War in 146 BCE when the Achaean League was defeated by the Roman general Lucius Mummius. Subsequently, Sparta became a free city under Roman rule, some of the institutions of Lycurgus were restored,[49] and the city became a tourist attraction for the Roman elite who came to observe exotic Spartan customs.[n 3]
+
+In 214 CE Roman emperor Caracalla, in his preparation for his campaign against Parthia, recruited a 500-man Spartan cohort (lokhos). Herodian described this unit as a phalanx, implying it fought like the old Spartans as hoplites, or even as a Macedonian phalanx. Despite this, a gravestone of a fallen legionary named Marcus Aurelius Alexys shows him lightly armed, with a pilos-like cap and a wooden club. The unit was presumably discharged in 217 after Caracalla was assassinated.[54]
+
+In 396 CE, Sparta was sacked by Visigoths under Alaric I who sold inhabitants into slavery.[55][56]
+According to Byzantine sources, some parts of the Laconian region remained pagan until well into the 10th century CE. Doric-speaking populations survive today in Tsakonia. In the Middle Ages, the political and cultural center of Laconia shifted to the nearby settlement of Mystras, and Sparta fell further in even local importance.  Modern Sparti was re-founded in 1834, by a decree of King Otto of Greece.
+
+Sparta was an oligarchy. The state was ruled by two hereditary kings of the Agiad and Eurypontid families,[57] both supposedly descendants of Heracles and equal in authority, so that one could not act against the power and political enactments of his colleague.[23]
+
+The duties of the kings were primarily religious, judicial, and military. As chief priests of the state, they maintained communication with the Delphian sanctuary, whose pronouncements exercised great authority in Spartan politics. In the time of Herodotus c. 450 BCE, their judicial functions had been restricted to cases dealing with heiresses, adoptions and the public roads. Aristotle describes the kingship at Sparta as "a kind of unlimited and perpetual generalship" (Pol. iii. 1285a), while Isocrates refers to the Spartans as "subject to an oligarchy at home, to a kingship on campaign" (iii. 24).[23]
+
+Civil and criminal cases were decided by a group of officials known as the ephors, as well as a council of elders known as the gerousia.  The gerousia consisted of 28 elders over the age of 60, elected for life and usually part of the royal households, and the two kings.[58] High state decisions were discussed by this council, who could then propose policies to the damos, the collective body of Spartan citizenry, who would select one of the alternatives by vote.[59][60]
+
+Royal prerogatives were curtailed over time. From the period of the Persian wars, the king lost the right to declare war and was accompanied in the field by two ephors. He was supplanted by the ephors also in the control of foreign policy. Over time, the kings became mere figureheads except in their capacity as generals. Political power was transferred to the ephors and gerousia.[23]
+
+An assembly of citizens called the apella[23] was responsible for electing men to the gerousia for life.
+
+The Spartan education process known as the agoge was essential for full citizenship. However, usually the only boys eligible for the agoge were Spartiates, those who could trace their ancestry to the original inhabitants of the city.
+
+There were two exceptions. Trophimoi or "foster sons" were foreign students invited to study. The Athenian general Xenophon, for example, sent his two sons to Sparta as trophimoi. Also, the son of a helot could be enrolled as a syntrophos[61] if a Spartiate formally adopted him and paid his way; if he did exceptionally well in training, he might be sponsored to become a Spartiate.[62] Spartans who could not afford to pay the expenses of the agoge could lose their citizenship.
+
+These laws meant that Sparta could not readily replace citizens lost in battle or otherwise, which eventually proved near fatal as citizens became greatly outnumbered by non-citizens, and even more dangerously by helots.
+
+The other classes were the perioikoi, free inhabitants who were non-citizens, and the helots,[63] state-owned serfs. Descendants of non-Spartan citizens were forbidden the agoge.
+
+The Spartans were a minority of the Lakonian population.  The largest class of inhabitants were the helots (in Classical Greek Εἵλωτες / Heílôtes).[64][65]
+
+The helots were originally free Greeks from the areas of Messenia and Lakonia whom the Spartans had defeated in battle and subsequently enslaved.  In contrast to populations conquered by other Greek cities (e.g. the Athenian treatment of Melos), the male population was not exterminated and the women and children turned into chattel slaves. Instead, the helots were given a subordinate position in society more comparable to serfs in medieval Europe than chattel slaves in the rest of Greece.
+
+Helots did not have voting or political rights. The Spartan poet Tyrtaios refers to Helots being allowed to marry and retaining 50% of the fruits of their labor.[66]  They also seem to have been allowed to practice religious rites and, according to Thucydides, own a limited amount of personal property.[67]
+Initially Helots couldn't be freed but during the middle Hellenistic period, some 6,000 helots accumulated enough wealth to buy their freedom, for example, in 227 BCE.
+
+In other Greek city-states, free citizens were part-time soldiers who, when not at war, carried on other trades.  Since Spartan men were full-time soldiers, they were not available to carry out manual labour.[68]  The helots were used as unskilled serfs, tilling Spartan land.  Helot women were often used as wet nurses.  Helots also travelled with the Spartan army as non-combatant serfs.  At the last stand of the Battle of Thermopylae, the Greek dead included not just the legendary three hundred Spartan soldiers but also several hundred Thespian and Theban troops and a number of helots.[69]
+
+Relations between the helots and their Spartan masters were sometimes strained. There was at least one helot revolt (c. 465–460 BCE), and Thucydides remarked that "Spartan policy is always mainly governed by the necessity of taking precautions against the helots."[70][71] On the other hand, the Spartans trusted their helots enough in 479 BCE to take a force of 35,000 with them to Plataea, something they could not have risked if they feared the helots would attack them or run away. Slave revolts occurred elsewhere in the Greek world, and in 413 BCE 20,000 Athenian slaves ran away to join the Spartan forces occupying Attica.[72] What made Sparta's relations with her slave population unique was that the helots, precisely because they enjoyed privileges such as family and property, retained their identity as a conquered people (the Messenians) and also had effective kinship groups that could be used to organize rebellion.
+
+As the Spartiate population declined and the helot population continued to grow, the imbalance of power caused increasing tension. According to Myron of Priene[73] of the middle 3rd century BCE:
+
+They assign to the Helots every shameful task leading to disgrace. For they ordained that each one of them must wear a dogskin cap (κυνῆ / kunễ) and wrap himself in skins (διφθέρα / diphthéra) and receive a stipulated number of beatings every year regardless of any wrongdoing, so that they would never forget they were slaves. Moreover, if any exceeded the vigour proper to a slave's condition, they made death the penalty; and they allotted a punishment to those controlling them if they failed to rebuke those who were growing fat.[74]
+
+Plutarch also states that Spartans treated the Helots "harshly and cruelly": they compelled them to drink pure wine (which was considered dangerous – wine usually being cut with water) "...and to lead them in that condition into their public halls, that the children might see what a sight a drunken man is; they made them to dance low dances, and sing ridiculous songs..." during syssitia (obligatory banquets).[75]
+
+Each year when the Ephors took office, they ritually declared war on the helots, allowing Spartans to kill them without risk of ritual pollution.[76] This fight seems to have been carried out by kryptai (sing. κρύπτης kryptēs), graduates of the agoge who took part in the mysterious institution known as the Krypteia.[77] Thucydides states:
+
+The helots were invited by a proclamation to pick out those of their number who claimed to have most distinguished themselves against the enemy, in order that they might receive their freedom; the object being to test them, as it was thought that the first to claim their freedom would be the most high spirited and the most apt to rebel. As many as two thousand were selected accordingly, who crowned themselves and went round the temples, rejoicing in their new freedom. The Spartans, however, soon afterwards did away with them, and no one ever knew how each of them perished.[78][79]
+
+The Perioikoi came from similar origins as the helots but occupied a significantly different position in Spartan society.  Although they did not enjoy full citizen-rights, they were free and not subjected to the same restrictions as the helots.  The exact nature of their subjection to the Spartans is not clear, but they seem to have served partly as a kind of military reserve, partly as skilled craftsmen and partly as agents of foreign trade.[80]  Perioikoic hoplites served increasingly with the Spartan army, explicitly at the Battle of Plataea, and although they may also have fulfilled functions such as the manufacture and repair of armour and weapons,[81] they were increasingly integrated into the combat units of the Spartan army as the Spartiate population declined.[82]
+
+Full citizen Spartiates were barred by law from trade or manufacture, which consequently rested in the hands of the Perioikoi.[23] This lucrative monopoly, in a fertile territory with a good harbors, ensured the loyalty of the perioikoi.[83] Despite the prohibition on menial labor or trade, there is evidence of Spartan sculptors,[84] and Spartans were certainly poets, magistrates, ambassadors, and governors as well as soldiers.
+
+Allegedly, Spartans were prohibited from possessing gold and silver coins, and according to legend Spartan currency consisted of iron bars to discourage hoarding.[85][86] It was not until the 260s or 250s BCE that Sparta began to mint its own coins.[87] Though the conspicuous display of wealth appears to have been discouraged, this did not preclude the production of very fine decorated bronze, ivory and wooden works of art as well as exquisite jewellery, attested in archaeology.[88]
+
+Allegedly as part of the Lycurgan Reforms in the mid-8th century BCE, a massive land reform had divided property into 9,000 equal portions. Each citizen received one estate, a kleros, which was expected to provide his living.[89] The land was worked by helots who retained half the yield. From the other half, the Spartiate was expected to pay his mess (syssitia) fees, and the agoge fees for his children. However, we know nothing of matters of wealth such as how land was bought, sold, and inherited, or whether daughters received dowries.[90] However, from early on there were marked differences of wealth within the state, and these became more serious after the law of Epitadeus some time after the Peloponnesian War, which removed the legal prohibition on the gift or bequest of land.[23][91] By the mid-5th century, land had become concentrated in the hands of a tiny elite, and the notion that all Spartan citizens were equals had become an empty pretence. By Aristotle's day (384–322 BCE) citizenship had been reduced from 9,000 to less than 1,000, then further decreased to 700 at the accession of Agis IV in 244 BCE. Attempts were made to remedy this by imposing legal penalties upon bachelors,[23] but this could not reverse the trend.
+
+Sparta was above all a militarist state, and emphasis on military fitness began virtually at birth. Shortly after birth, a mother would bathe her child in wine to see whether the child was strong. If the child survived it was brought before the Gerousia by the child's father. The Gerousia then decided whether it was to be reared or not.[23] It is commonly stated that if they considered it "puny and deformed", the baby was thrown into a chasm on Mount Taygetos known euphemistically as the Apothetae (Gr., ἀποθέται, "Deposits").[92][93]  This was, in effect, a primitive form of eugenics.[92] Sparta is often viewed as being unique in this regard, however, anthropologist Laila Williamson notes that "Infanticide has been practiced on every continent and by people on every level of cultural complexity, from hunter gatherers to high civilizations. Rather than being an exception, then, it has been the rule."[94]:61There is controversy about the matter in Sparta, since excavations in the chasm only uncovered adult remains, likely belonging to criminals.[95]
+
+When Spartans died, marked headstones would only be granted to soldiers who died in combat during a victorious campaign or women who died either in service of a divine office or in childbirth.[96]
+
+When male Spartans began military training at age seven, they would enter the agoge system. The agoge was designed to encourage discipline and physical toughness and to emphasize the importance of the Spartan state. Boys lived in communal messes and, according to Xenophon, whose sons attended the agoge, the boys were fed "just the right amount for them never to become sluggish through being too full, while also giving them a taste of what it is not to have enough."[97] In addition they were trained to survive in times of privation, even if it meant stealing.[98] Besides physical and weapons training, boys studied reading, writing, music and dancing. Special punishments were imposed if boys failed to answer questions sufficiently 'laconically' (i.e. briefly and wittily).[99]
+
+There is some evidence that in late-Classical and Hellenistic Sparta boys were expected to take an older male mentor, usually an unmarried young man. However, there is no evidence of this in archaic Sparta. According to some sources, the older man was expected to function as a kind of substitute father and role model to his junior partner; however, others believe it was reasonably certain that they had sexual relations (the exact nature of Spartan pederasty is not entirely clear).[100] It is notable, however, that the only contemporary source with direct experience of the agoge, Xenophon, explicitly denies the sexual nature of the relationship.[97]
+
+Post 465 BCE, some Spartan youth apparently became members of an irregular unit known as the Krypteia. The immediate objective of this unit was to seek out and kill vulnerable helot Laconians as part of the larger program of terrorising and intimidating the helot population.[101]
+
+Less information is available about the education of Spartan girls, but they seem to have gone through a fairly extensive formal educational cycle, broadly similar to that of the boys but with less emphasis on military training. In this respect, classical Sparta was unique in ancient Greece. In no other city-state did women receive any kind of formal education.[102]
+
+At age 20, the Spartan citizen began his membership in one of the syssitia (dining messes or clubs), composed of about fifteen members each, of which every citizen was required to be a member.[23] Here each group learned how to bond and rely on one another. The Spartans were not eligible for election for public office until the age of 30. Only native Spartans were considered full citizens and were obliged to undergo the training as prescribed by law, as well as participate in and contribute financially to one of the syssitia.[103]
+
+Sparta is thought to be the first city to practice athletic nudity, and some scholars claim that it was also the first to formalize pederasty.[104] According to these sources, the Spartans believed that the love of an older, accomplished aristocrat for an adolescent was essential to his formation as a free citizen. The agoge, the education of the ruling class, was, they claim, founded on pederastic relationships required of each citizen,[105] with the lover responsible for the boy's training.
+
+However, other scholars question this interpretation. Xenophon explicitly denies it,[97] but not Plutarch.[106]
+
+Spartan men remained in the active reserve until age 60.  Men were encouraged to marry at age 20 but could not live with their families until they left their active military service at age 30.  They called themselves "homoioi" (equals), pointing to their common lifestyle and the discipline of the phalanx, which demanded that no soldier be superior to his comrades.[107]  Insofar as hoplite warfare could be perfected, the Spartans did so.[108]
+
+Thucydides reports that when a Spartan man went to war, his wife (or another woman of some significance) would customarily present him with his hoplon (shield) and say: "With this, or upon this" (Ἢ τὰν ἢ ἐπὶ τᾶς, Èi tàn èi èpì tàs), meaning that true Spartans could only return to Sparta either victorious (with their shield in hand) or dead (carried upon it).[109] Unfortunately, poignant as this image may be, it is almost certainly propaganda.  Spartans buried their battle dead on or near the battle field; corpses were not brought back on their hoplons.[110] Nevertheless, it is fair to say that it was less of a disgrace for a soldier to lose his helmet, breastplate or greaves than his hoplon, since the former were designed to protect one man, whereas the hoplon also protected the man on his left. Thus the shield was symbolic of the individual soldier's subordination to his unit, his integral part in its success, and his solemn responsibility to his comrades in arms – messmates and friends, often close blood relations.
+
+According to Aristotle, the Spartan military culture was actually short-sighted and ineffective. He observed:
+
+It is the standards of civilized men not of beasts that must be kept in mind, for it is good men not beasts who are capable of real courage. Those like the Spartans who concentrate on the one and ignore the other in their education turn men into machines and in devoting themselves to one single aspect of city's life, end up making them inferior even in that.[111]
+
+One of the most persistent myths about Sparta that has no basis in fact is the notion that Spartan mothers were without feelings toward their off-spring and helped enforce a militaristic lifestyle on their sons and husbands.[112][113] The myth can be traced back to Plutarch, who includes no less than 17 "sayings" of "Spartan women," all of which paraphrase or elaborate on the theme that Spartan mothers rejected their own offspring if they showed any kind of cowardice. In some of these sayings, mothers revile their sons in insulting language merely for surviving a battle. These sayings purporting to be from Spartan women were far more likely to be of Athenian origin and designed to portray Spartan women as unnatural and so undeserving of pity.[110]
+
+Sparta's agriculture consisted mainly of barley, wine, cheese, grain, and figs. These items were grown locally on each Spartan citizens kleros and were tended to by helots. Spartan citizens were required to donate a certain amount of what they yielded from their kleros to their syssitia, or mess. These donations to the syssitia were a requirement for every Spartan citizen. All the donated food was then redistributed to feed the Spartan population of that syssitia.[114] The helots who tended to the lands were fed using a portion of what they harvested.[115]
+
+Plutarch reports the peculiar customs associated with the Spartan wedding night:
+
+The custom was to capture women for marriage(...) The so-called 'bridesmaid' took charge of the captured girl.  She first shaved her head to the scalp, then dressed her in a man's cloak and sandals, and laid her down alone on a mattress in the dark.  The bridegroom – who was not drunk and thus not impotent, but was sober as always – first had dinner in the messes, then would slip in, undo her belt, lift her and carry her to the bed.[116]
+
+The husband continued to visit his wife in secret for some time after the marriage.  These customs, unique to the Spartans, have been interpreted in various ways.  One of them decidedly supports the need to disguise the bride as a man in order to help the bridegroom consummate the marriage, so unaccustomed were men to women's looks at the time of their first intercourse. The "abduction" may have served to ward off the evil eye, and the cutting of the wife's hair was perhaps part of a rite of passage that signaled her entrance into a new life.[117]
+
+Spartan women, of the citizenry class, enjoyed a status, power, and respect that was unknown in the rest of the classical world. The higher status of females in Spartan society started at birth; unlike Athens, Spartan girls were fed the same food as their brothers.[118] Nor were they confined to their father's house and prevented from exercising or getting fresh air as in Athens, but exercised and even competed in sports.[118] Most important, rather than being married off at the age of 12 or 13, Spartan law forbade the marriage of a girl until she was in her late teens or early 20s. The reasons for delaying marriage were to ensure the birth of healthy children, but the effect was to spare Spartan women the hazards and lasting health damage associated with pregnancy among adolescents.  Spartan women, better fed from childhood and fit from exercise, stood a far better chance of reaching old age than their sisters in other Greek cities, where the median age for death was 34.6 years or roughly 10 years below that of men.[119]
+
+Unlike Athenian women who wore heavy, concealing clothes and were rarely seen outside the house, Spartan women wore dresses (peplos) slit up the side to allow freer movement and moved freely about the city, either walking or driving chariots. Girls as well as boys exercised, possibly in the nude, and young women as well as young men may have participated in the Gymnopaedia ("Festival of Nude Youths").[120][121]
+
+Another practice that was mentioned by many visitors to Sparta was the practice of “wife-sharing”.  In accordance with the Spartan belief that breeding should be between the most physically fit parents, many older men allowed younger, more fit men, to impregnate their wives.  Other unmarried or childless men might even request another man's wife to bear his children if she had previously been a strong child bearer.[122] For this reason many considered Spartan women polygamous or polyandrous.[123]  This practice was encouraged in order that women bear as many strong-bodied children as they could.  The Spartan population was hard to maintain due to the constant absence and loss of the men in battle and the intense physical inspection of newborns.[124]
+
+Spartan women were also literate and numerate, a rarity in the ancient world. Furthermore, as a result of their education and the fact that they moved freely in society engaging with their fellow (male) citizens, they were notorious for speaking their minds even in public.[125] Plato, in the middle of the fourth century, described women's curriculum in Sparta as consisting of gymnastics and mousike (music and arts). Plato goes on to praise Spartan women's ability when it came to philosophical discussion.[126]
+
+Most importantly, Spartan women had economic power because they controlled their own properties, and those of their husbands. It is estimated that in later Classical Sparta, when the male population was in serious decline, women were the sole owners of at least 35% of all land and property in Sparta.[127] The laws regarding a divorce were the same for both men and women. Unlike women in Athens, if a Spartan woman became the heiress of her father because she had no living brothers to inherit (an epikleros), the woman was not required to divorce her current spouse in order to marry her nearest paternal relative.[128]
+
+Many women played a significant role in the history of Sparta.[129] Queen Gorgo, heiress to the throne and the wife of Leonidas I, was an influential and well-documented figure.  Herodotus records that as a small girl she advised her father Cleomenes to resist a bribe. She was later said to be responsible for decoding a warning that the Persian forces were about to invade Greece; after Spartan generals could not decode a wooden tablet covered in wax, she ordered them to clear the wax, revealing the warning.[130]  Plutarch's Moralia contains a collection of "Sayings of Spartan Women", including a laconic quip attributed to Gorgo: when asked by a woman from Attica why Spartan women were the only women in the world who could rule men, she replied "Because we are the only women who are mothers of men".[131]
+
+Laconophilia is love or admiration of Sparta and its culture or constitution. Sparta was subject of considerable admiration in its day, even in rival Athens.  In ancient times "Many of the noblest and best of the Athenians always considered the Spartan state nearly as an ideal theory realised in practice."[132] Many Greek philosophers, especially Platonists, would often describe Sparta as an ideal state, strong, brave, and free from the corruptions of commerce and money. The French classicist François Ollier in his 1933 book Le mirage spartiate (The Spartan Mirage) warned that a major scholarly problem is that all surviving accounts of Sparta were by non-Spartans who often excessively idealized their subject.[133]
+
+With the revival of classical learning in Renaissance Europe, Laconophilia re-appeared, for example in the writings of Machiavelli. The Elizabethan English constitutionalist John Aylmer compared the mixed government of Tudor England to the Spartan republic, stating that "Lacedemonia [was] the noblest and best city governed that ever was". He commended it as a model for England. The philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau contrasted Sparta favourably with Athens in his Discourse on the Arts and Sciences, arguing that its austere constitution was preferable to the more sophisticated Athenian life. Sparta was also used as a model of austere purity by Revolutionary and Napoleonic France.[134]
+
+A German racist strain of Laconophilia was initiated by Karl Otfried Müller, who linked Spartan ideals to the supposed racial superiority of the Dorians, the ethnic sub-group of the Greeks to which the Spartans belonged. In the 20th century, this developed into Fascist admiration of Spartan ideals. Adolf Hitler praised the Spartans, recommending in 1928 that Germany should imitate them by limiting "the number allowed to live". He added that "The Spartans were once capable of such a wise measure... The subjugation of 350,000 Helots by 6,000 Spartans was only possible because of the racial superiority of the Spartans." The Spartans had created "the first racialist state".[135]
+
+Certain early Zionists, and particularly the founders of Kibbutz movement in Israel, were influenced by Spartan ideals, particularly in education. Tabenkin, a founding father of the Kibbutz movement and the Palmach strikeforce, prescribed that education for warfare "should begin from the nursery", that children should from kindergarten be taken to "spend nights in the mountains and valleys".[136][137]
+
+In modern times, the adjective "spartan" means simple, frugal, avoiding luxury and comfort.[138] The term "laconic phrase" describes the very terse and direct speech characteristic of the Spartans.
+
+Sparta also features prominently in modern popular culture, most famously the Battle of Thermopylae (see Battle of Thermopylae in popular culture).

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+An astronaut or cosmonaut is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft. Although generally reserved for professional space travelers, the terms are sometimes applied to anyone who travels into space, including scientists, politicians, journalists and tourists.[1][2]
+The root "naut" derives from "nautes", the Greek for "sailor."
+[3]
+
+Until 2002, astronauts were sponsored and trained exclusively by governments, either by the military or by civilian space agencies. With the suborbital flight of the privately funded SpaceShipOne in 2004, a new category of astronaut was created: the commercial astronaut.
+
+The criteria for what constitutes human spaceflight vary, with some focus on the point where the atmosphere becomes so thin that centrifugal force, rather than aerodynamic force, carries a significant portion of the weight of the flight object. The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) Sporting Code for astronautics recognizes only flights that exceed the Kármán line, at an altitude of 100 kilometers (62 mi).[4] In the United States, professional, military, and commercial astronauts who travel above an altitude of 50 miles (80 km)[5] are awarded astronaut wings.
+
+As of 17 November 2016[update], a total of 552 people from 36 countries have reached 100 km (62 mi) or more in altitude, of whom 549 reached low Earth orbit or beyond.[6]
+Of these, 24 people have traveled beyond low Earth orbit, either to lunar orbit, the lunar surface, or, in one case, a loop around the Moon.[7] Three of the 24—Jim Lovell, John Young and Eugene Cernan—did so twice.[8]
+
+As of 17 November 2016[update], under the U.S. definition, 558 people qualify as having reached space, above 50 miles (80 km) altitude. Of eight X-15 pilots who exceeded 50 miles (80 km) in altitude, only one exceeded 100 kilometers (about 62 miles).[6] Space travelers have spent over 41,790 man-days (114.5 man-years) in space, including over 100 astronaut-days of spacewalks.[9][10] As of 2016[update], the man with the longest cumulative time in space is Gennady Padalka, who has spent 879 days in space.[11] Peggy A. Whitson holds the record for the most time in space by a woman, 377 days.[12]
+
+In 1959, when both the United States and Soviet Union were planning, but had yet to launch humans into space, NASA Administrator T. Keith Glennan and his Deputy Administrator, Dr. Hugh Dryden, discussed whether spacecraft crew members should be called astronauts or cosmonauts. Dryden preferred "cosmonaut", on the grounds that flights would occur in the cosmos (near space), while the "astro" prefix suggested flight to the stars. Most NASA Space Task Group members preferred "astronaut", which survived by common usage as the preferred American term.[13] When the Soviet Union launched the first man into space, Yuri Gagarin in 1961, they chose a term which anglicizes to "cosmonaut".
+
+In English-speaking nations, a professional space traveler is called an astronaut.[14] The term derives from the Greek words ástron (ἄστρον), meaning "star", and nautes (ναύτης), meaning "sailor". The first known use of the term "astronaut" in the modern sense was by Neil R. Jones in his 1930 short story "The Death's Head Meteor". The word itself had been known earlier; for example, in Percy Greg's 1880 book Across the Zodiac, "astronaut" referred to a spacecraft. In Les Navigateurs de l'Infini (1925) by J.-H. Rosny aîné, the word astronautique (astronautic) was used. The word may have been inspired by "aeronaut", an older term for an air traveler first applied in 1784 to balloonists. An early use of "astronaut" in a non-fiction publication is Eric Frank Russell's poem "The Astronaut", appearing in the November 1934 Bulletin of the British Interplanetary Society.[15]
+
+The first known formal use of the term astronautics in the scientific community was the establishment of the annual International Astronautical Congress in 1950, and the subsequent founding of the International Astronautical Federation the following year.[16]
+
+NASA applies the term astronaut to any crew member aboard NASA spacecraft bound for Earth orbit or beyond. NASA also uses the term as a title for those selected to join its Astronaut Corps.[17] The European Space Agency similarly uses the term astronaut for members of its Astronaut Corps.[18]
+
+By convention, an astronaut employed by the Russian Federal Space Agency (or its Soviet predecessor) is called a cosmonaut in English texts.[17] The word is an anglicisation of the Russian word kosmonavt (Russian: космонавт, Russian pronunciation: [kəsmɐˈnaft]), one who works in space outside the Earth's atmosphere, a space traveler,[19] which derives from the Greek words kosmos (κόσμος), meaning "universe", and nautes (ναύτης), meaning "sailor". Other countries of the former Eastern Bloc use variations of the Russian word kosmonavt, such as the Polish kosmonauta (although Polish also uses astronauta, and the two words are considered synonyms).[20]
+
+Coinage of the term kosmonavt has been credited to Soviet aeronautics (or "cosmonautics") pioneer Mikhail Tikhonravov (1900–1974).[21][22] The first cosmonaut was Soviet Air Force pilot Yuri Gagarin, also the first person in space. He was part of the first six Russians, with German Titov, Yevgeny Khrunov, Andriyan Nikolayev, Pavel Popovich, and Grigoriy Nelyubov, who were given the title of pilot-cosmonaut in January 1961.[23] Valentina Tereshkova was the first female cosmonaut and the first and youngest woman to have flown in space with a solo mission on the Vostok 6 in 1963.[24] On March 14, 1995,[25] Norman Thagard became the first American to ride to space on board a Russian launch vehicle, and thus became the first "American cosmonaut".[26][27]
+
+Yǔ háng yuán (宇航员, "Space-universe navigating personnel") is used for astronauts and cosmonauts in general,[28][29] while hángtiān yuán (航天员, "navigating outer space personnel") is used for Chinese astronauts. Here, hángtiān (航天) is strictly defined as the navigation of outer space within the local star system, i.e. solar system. The phrase tài kōng rén (太空人, "spaceman") is often used in Hong Kong and Taiwan.[30]
+
+The term taikonaut is used by some English-language news media organizations for professional space travelers from China.[31] The word has featured in the Longman and Oxford English dictionaries, the latter of which describes it as a hybrid of the Chinese term Chinese: 太空 (tàikōng, 'space') and the Greek ναύτης (naútēs, 'sailor'); the term became more common in 2003 when China sent its first astronaut Yang Liwei into space aboard the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft.[32] This is the term used by Xinhua News Agency in the English version of the Chinese People's Daily since the advent of the Chinese space program.[33] The origin of the term is unclear; as early as May 1998, Chiew Lee Yih (趙裡昱) from Malaysia, used it in newsgroups.[34][35]
+
+With the rise of space tourism, NASA and the Russian Federal Space Agency agreed to use the term "spaceflight participant" to distinguish those space travelers from professional astronauts on missions coordinated by those two agencies.
+
+While no nation other than Russia (and previously the Soviet Union), the United States, and China have launched a manned spacecraft, several other nations have sent people into space in cooperation with one of these countries, i.e. the Soviet-led Interkosmos programme. Inspired partly by these missions, other synonyms for astronaut have entered occasional English usage. For example, the term spationaut (French spelling: spationaute) is sometimes used to describe French space travelers, from the Latin word spatium for "space", the Malay term angkasawan was used to describe participants in the Angkasawan program, and the Indian Space Research Organisation hope to launch a spacecraft in 2022 that would carry vyomanauts, coined from the Sanskrit word व्योमन् (vyoman meaning 'sky' or 'space'). In Finland, the NASA astronaut Timothy Kopra, a Finnish American, has sometimes been referred to as sisunautti, from the Finnish word sisu.[36]
+
+As of 2020 in the United States, astronaut status is conferred on a person depending on the authorizing agency:
+
+The first human in space was Soviet Yuri Gagarin, who was launched on April 12, 1961, aboard Vostok 1 and orbited around the Earth for 108 minutes. The first woman in space was Soviet Valentina Tereshkova, who launched on June 16, 1963, aboard Vostok 6 and orbited Earth for almost three days.
+
+Alan Shepard became the first American and second person in space on May 5, 1961, on a 15-minute sub-orbital flight aboard Freedom 7. The first American to orbit the Earth was John Glenn, aboard Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962. The first American woman in space was Sally Ride, during Space Shuttle Challenger's mission STS-7, on June 18, 1983.[39] In 1992 Mae Jemison became the first African American woman to travel in space aboard STS-47.
+
+Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov was the first person to conduct an extravehicular activity (EVA), (commonly called a "spacewalk"), on March 18, 1965, on the Soviet Union's Voskhod 2 mission.  This was followed two and a half months later by astronaut Ed White who made the first American EVA on NASA's Gemini 4 mission.[40]
+
+The first manned mission to orbit the Moon, Apollo 8, included American William Anders who was born in Hong Kong, making him the first Asian-born astronaut in 1968.
+
+The Soviet Union, through its Intercosmos program, allowed people from other "socialist" (i.e. Warsaw Pact and other Soviet-allied) countries to fly on its missions, with the notable exceptions of France and Austria participating in Soyuz TM-7 and Soyuz TM-13, respectively. An example is Czechoslovak Vladimír Remek, the first cosmonaut from a country other than the Soviet Union or the United States, who flew to space in 1978 on a Soyuz-U rocket.[41] Rakesh Sharma became the first Indian citizen to travel to space. He was launched aboard Soyuz T-11, on April 2, 1984.
+
+On July 23, 1980, Pham Tuan of Vietnam became the first Asian in space when he flew aboard Soyuz 37.[42] Also in 1980, Cuban Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez became the first person of Hispanic and black African descent to fly in space, and in 1983, Guion Bluford became the first African American to fly into space. In April 1985, Taylor Wang became the first ethnic Chinese person in space.[43][44] The first person born in Africa to fly in space was Patrick Baudry (France), in 1985.[45][46] In 1985, Saudi Arabian Prince Sultan Bin Salman Bin AbdulAziz Al-Saud became the first Arab Muslim astronaut in space.[47] In 1988, Abdul Ahad Mohmand became the first Afghan to reach space, spending nine days aboard the Mir space station.[48]
+
+With the increase of seats on the Space Shuttle, the U.S. began taking international astronauts. In 1983, Ulf Merbold of West Germany became the first non-US citizen to fly in a US spacecraft.  In 1984, Marc Garneau became the first of 8 Canadian astronauts to fly in space (through 2010).[49]
+In 1985, Rodolfo Neri Vela became the first Mexican-born person in space.[50] In 1991, Helen Sharman became the first Briton to fly in space.[51]
+In 2002, Mark Shuttleworth became the first citizen of an African country to fly in space, as a paying spaceflight participant.[52] In 2003, Ilan Ramon became the first Israeli to fly in space, although he died during a re-entry accident.
+
+On October 15, 2003, Yang Liwei became China's first astronaut on the Shenzhou 5 spacecraft.
+
+The youngest person to fly in space is Gherman Titov, who was 25 years old when he flew Vostok 2. (Titov was also the first person to suffer space sickness).[53][54]
+The oldest person who has flown in space is John Glenn, who was 77 when he flew on STS-95.[55]
+
+438 days is the longest time spent in space, by Russian Valeri Polyakov.[9]
+As of 2006, the most spaceflights by an individual astronaut is seven, a record held by both Jerry L. Ross and Franklin Chang-Diaz. The farthest distance from Earth an astronaut has traveled was 401,056 km (249,205 mi), when Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise went around the Moon during the Apollo 13 emergency.[9]
+
+The first civilian in space was Valentina Tereshkova[56] aboard Vostok 6 (she also became the first woman in space on that mission).
+Tereshkova was only honorarily inducted into the USSR's Air Force, which did not accept female pilots at that time. A month later, Joseph Albert Walker became the first American civilian in space when his X-15 Flight 90 crossed the 100 kilometers (54 nautical miles) line, qualifying him by the international definition of spaceflight.[57][58] Walker had joined the US Army Air Force but was not a member during his flight. 
+The first people in space who had never been a member of any country's armed forces were both Konstantin Feoktistov and Boris Yegorov aboard Voskhod 1.
+
+The first non-governmental space traveler was Byron K. Lichtenberg, a researcher from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who flew on STS-9 in 1983.[59] In December 1990, Toyohiro Akiyama became the first paying space traveler as a reporter for Tokyo Broadcasting System, a visit to Mir as part of an estimated $12 million (USD) deal with a Japanese TV station, although at the time, the term used to refer to Akiyama was "Research Cosmonaut".[60][61][62] Akiyama suffered severe space sickness during his mission, which affected his productivity.[61]
+
+The first self-funded space tourist was Dennis Tito on board the Russian spacecraft Soyuz TM-3 on April 28, 2001.
+
+The first person to fly on an entirely privately funded mission was Mike Melvill, piloting SpaceShipOne flight 15P on a suborbital journey, although he was a test pilot employed by Scaled Composites and not an actual paying space tourist.[63][64] Seven others have paid the Russian Space Agency to fly into space:
+
+The first NASA astronauts were selected for training in 1959.[65] Early in the space program, military jet test piloting and engineering training were often cited as prerequisites for selection as an astronaut at NASA, although neither John Glenn nor Scott Carpenter (of the Mercury Seven) had any university degree, in engineering or any other discipline at the time of their selection.  Selection was initially limited to military pilots.[66][67] The earliest astronauts for both America and the USSR tended to be jet fighter pilots, and were often test pilots.
+
+Once selected, NASA astronauts go through twenty months of training in a variety of areas, including training for extravehicular activity in a facility such as NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory.[1][66] Astronauts-in-training (astronaut candidates) may also experience short periods of weightlessness (microgravity) in an aircraft called the "Vomit Comet," the nickname given to a pair of modified KC-135s (retired in 2000 and 2004, respectively, and replaced in 2005 with a C-9) which perform parabolic flights.[65] Astronauts are also required to accumulate a number of flight hours in high-performance jet aircraft. This is mostly done in T-38 jet aircraft out of Ellington Field, due to its proximity to the Johnson Space Center.  Ellington Field is also where the Shuttle Training Aircraft is maintained and developed, although most flights of the aircraft are conducted from Edwards Air Force Base.
+
+Astronauts in training must learn how to control and fly the Space Shuttle and, it is vital that they are familiar with the International Space Station so they know what they must do when they get there.[68]
+
+Mission Specialist Educators, or "Educator Astronauts", were first selected in 2004, and as of 2007, there are three NASA Educator astronauts: Joseph M. Acaba, Richard R. Arnold, and Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger.[72][73]
+Barbara Morgan, selected as back-up teacher to Christa McAuliffe in 1985, is considered to be the first Educator astronaut by the media, but she trained as a mission specialist.[74]
+The Educator Astronaut program is a successor to the Teacher in Space program from the 1980s.[75][76]
+
+Astronauts are susceptible to a variety of health risks including decompression sickness, barotrauma, immunodeficiencies, loss of bone and muscle, loss of eyesight, orthostatic intolerance, sleep disturbances, and radiation injury.[77][78][79][80][81][82][83][84][85][86] A variety of large scale medical studies are being conducted in space via the National Space and Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) to address these issues. Prominent among these is the Advanced Diagnostic Ultrasound in Microgravity Study in which astronauts (including former ISS commanders Leroy Chiao and Gennady Padalka) perform ultrasound scans under the guidance of remote experts to diagnose and potentially treat hundreds of medical conditions in space. This study's techniques are now being applied to cover professional and Olympic sports injuries as well as ultrasound performed by non-expert operators in medical and high school students. It is anticipated that remote guided ultrasound will have application on Earth in emergency and rural care situations, where access to a trained physician is often rare.[87][88][89]
+
+A 2006 Space Shuttle experiment found that Salmonella typhimurium, a bacterium that can cause food poisoning, became more virulent when cultivated in space.[90] More recently, in 2017, bacteria were found to be more resistant to antibiotics and to thrive in the near-weightlessness of space.[91] Microorganisms have been observed to survive the vacuum of outer space.[92][93]
+
+On December 31, 2012, a NASA-supported study reported that human spaceflight may harm the brain and accelerate the onset of Alzheimer's disease.[94][95][96]
+
+In October 2015, the NASA Office of Inspector General issued a health hazards report related to space exploration, including a human mission to Mars.[97][98]
+
+Over the last decade, flight surgeons and scientists at NASA have seen a pattern of vision problems in astronauts on long-duration space missions. The syndrome, known as visual impairment intracranial pressure (VIIP), has been reported in nearly two-thirds of space explorers after long periods spent aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
+
+On November 2, 2017, scientists reported that significant changes in the position and structure of the brain have been found in astronauts who have taken trips in space, based on MRI studies. Astronauts who took longer space trips were associated with greater brain changes.[99][100]
+
+Being in space can be physiologically deconditioning on the body. It can affect the otolith organs and adaptive capabilities of the central nervous system. Zero gravity and cosmic rays can cause many implications for astronauts.[101]
+
+In October 2018, NASA-funded researchers found that lengthy journeys into outer space, including travel to the planet Mars, may substantially damage the gastrointestinal tissues of astronauts. The studies support earlier work that found such journeys could significantly damage the brains of astronauts, and age them prematurely.[102]
+
+Researchers in 2018 reported, after detecting the presence on the International Space Station (ISS) of five Enterobacter bugandensis bacterial strains, none pathogenic to humans, that microorganisms on ISS should be carefully monitored to continue assuring a medically healthy environment for astronauts.[103][104]
+
+A recent study by Russian scientists published in April 2019 stated that astronauts facing space radiation could face temporary hindrance of their memory centres. While this does not affect their intellectual capabilities, it temporarily hinders formation of new cells in brain's memory centers. The study conducted by Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) concluded this after they observed that mice exposed to neutron and gamma radiation did not impact the rodents' intellectual capabilities.[105]
+
+An astronaut on the International Space Station requires about 830 g (29 oz) mass of food inclusive of food packaging per meal each day. (The packaging mass for each meal is about 120 g or 4.2 oz) Longer-duration missions require more food.
+
+Shuttle astronauts worked with nutritionists to select menus that appeal to their individual tastes. Five months before flight, menus are selected and analyzed for nutritional content by the shuttle dietician. Foods are tested to see how they will react in a reduced gravity environment.  Caloric requirements are determined using a basal energy expenditure (BEE) formula.
+On Earth, the average American uses about 35 US gallons (130 L) of water every day.  On board the ISS astronauts limit water use to only about three US gallons (11 L) per day.[106]
+
+In Russia, cosmonauts are awarded Pilot-Cosmonaut of the Russian Federation upon completion of their missions, often accompanied with the award of Hero of the Russian Federation.  This follows the practice established in the USSR where cosmonauts were usually awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union.
+
+At NASA, those who complete astronaut candidate training receive a silver lapel pin. Once they have flown in space, they receive a gold pin. U.S. astronauts who also have active-duty military status receive a special qualification badge, known as the Astronaut Badge, after participation on a spaceflight. The United States Air Force also presents an Astronaut Badge to its pilots who exceed 50 miles (80 km) in altitude.
+
+Eighteen astronauts (fourteen men and four women) have lost their lives during four space flights. By nationality, thirteen were American (including one born in India), four were Russian (Soviet Union), and one was Israeli.
+
+Eleven people (all men) have lost their lives training for spaceflight: eight Americans and three Russians. Six of these were in crashes of training jet aircraft, one drowned during water recovery training, and four were due to fires in pure oxygen environments.
+
+The Space Mirror Memorial, which stands on the grounds of the John F. Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, commemorates the lives of the men and women who have died during spaceflight and during training in the space programs of the United States. In addition to twenty NASA career astronauts, the memorial includes the names of a U.S. Air Force X-15 test pilot, a U.S. Air Force officer who died while training for a then-classified military space program, and a civilian spaceflight participant.

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+
+The Rubik's Cube is a 3-D combination puzzle invented in 1974[1][2] by Hungarian sculptor and professor of architecture Ernő Rubik. Originally called the Magic Cube,[3] the puzzle was licensed by Rubik to be sold by Ideal Toy Corp. in 1980[4] via businessman Tibor Laczi and Seven Towns founder Tom Kremer.[5] Rubik's Cube won the 1980 German Game of the Year special award for Best Puzzle. As of January 2009[update], 350 million cubes had been sold worldwide,[6][7] making it the world's top-selling puzzle game.[8][9] It is widely considered to be the world's best-selling toy.[10]
+
+On the original classic Rubik's Cube, each of the six faces was covered by nine stickers, each of one of six solid colours: white, red, blue, orange, green, and yellow. Some later versions of the cube have been updated to use coloured plastic panels instead, which prevents peeling and fading.[11]  In currently[according to whom?] sold models, white is opposite yellow, blue is opposite green, and orange is opposite red, and the red, white, and blue are arranged in that order in a clockwise arrangement.[12] On early cubes, the position of the colours varied from cube to cube.[13] An internal pivot mechanism enables each face to turn independently, thus mixing up the colours. For the puzzle to be solved, each face must be returned to have only one colour. Similar puzzles have now been produced with various numbers of sides, dimensions, and stickers, not all of them by Rubik.
+
+Although Rubik's Cube reached its height of mainstream popularity in the 1980s, it is still widely known and used. Many speedcubers continue to practice it and similar puzzles; they also compete for the fastest times in various categories. Since 2003, the World Cube Association, the international governing body of Rubik's Cube, has organised competitions worldwide and recognises world records.
+
+In March 1970, Larry D. Nichols invented a 2×2×2 "Puzzle with Pieces Rotatable in Groups" and filed a Canadian patent application for it. Nichols's cube was held together by magnets. Nichols was granted U.S. Patent 3,655,201 on 11 April 1972, two years before Rubik invented his Cube.
+
+On 9 April 1970, Frank Fox applied to patent an "amusement device", a type of sliding puzzle on a spherical surface with "at least two 3×3 arrays" intended to be used for the game of noughts and crosses. He received his UK patent (1344259) on 16 January 1974.[14]
+
+In the mid-1970s, Ernő Rubik worked at the Department of Interior Design at the Academy of Applied Arts and Crafts in Budapest.[15] Although it is widely reported that the Cube was built as a teaching tool to help his students understand 3D objects, his actual purpose was solving the structural problem of moving the parts independently without the entire mechanism falling apart.  He did not realise that he had created a puzzle until the first time he scrambled his new Cube and then tried to restore it.[16] Rubik applied for a patent in Hungary for his "Magic Cube" (Bűvös kocka in Hungarian) on 30 January 1975,[3] and HU170062 was granted later that year.
+
+The first test batches of the Magic Cube were produced in late 1977 and released in Budapest toy shops. Magic Cube was held together with interlocking plastic pieces that prevented the puzzle being easily pulled apart, unlike the magnets in Nichols's design. With Ernő Rubik's permission, businessman Tibor Laczi took a Cube to Germany's Nuremberg Toy Fair in February 1979 in an attempt to popularise it.[17] It was noticed by Seven Towns founder Tom Kremer, and they signed a deal with Ideal Toys in September 1979 to release the Magic Cube worldwide.[17] Ideal wanted at least a recognisable name to trademark; of course, that arrangement put Rubik in the spotlight because the Magic Cube was renamed after its inventor in 1980. The puzzle made its international debut at the toy fairs of London, Paris, Nuremberg, and New York in January and February 1980.[18]
+
+After its international debut, the progress of the Cube towards the toy shop shelves of the West was briefly halted so that it could be manufactured to Western safety and packaging specifications. A lighter Cube was produced, and Ideal decided to rename it. "The Gordian Knot" and "Inca Gold" were considered, but the company finally decided on "Rubik's Cube", and the first batch was exported from Hungary in May 1980.[19]
+
+After the first batches of Rubik's Cubes were released in May 1980, initial sales were modest, but Ideal began a television advertising campaign in the middle of the year which it supplemented with newspaper adverts.[20] At the end of 1980, Rubik's Cube won a German Game of the Year special award[21] and won similar awards for best toy in the UK, France, and the US.[22] By 1981, Rubik's Cube had become a craze, and it is estimated that in the period from 1980 to 1983 around 200 million Rubik's Cubes were sold worldwide.[23] In March 1981, a speedcubing championship organised by the Guinness Book of World Records was held in Munich,[21] and a Rubik's Cube was depicted on the front cover of Scientific American that same month.[24] In June 1981, The Washington Post reported that Rubik's Cube is "a puzzle that's moving like fast food right now ... this year's Hoola Hoop or Bongo Board",[25] and by September 1981, New Scientist noted that the cube had "captivated the attention of children of ages from 7 to 70 all over the world this summer."[26]
+
+As most people could solve only one or two sides, numerous books were published including David Singmaster's Notes on Rubik's "Magic Cube" (1980) and Patrick Bossert's You Can Do the Cube (1981).[21] At one stage in 1981, three of the top ten best selling books in the US were books on solving Rubik's Cube,[27] and the best-selling book of 1981 was James G. Nourse's The Simple Solution to Rubik's Cube which sold over 6 million copies.[28] In 1981, the Museum of Modern Art in New York exhibited a Rubik's Cube, and at the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee a six-foot Cube was put on display.[21] ABC Television even developed a cartoon show called Rubik, the Amazing Cube.[29] In June 1982, the First Rubik's Cube World Championship took place in Budapest and would become the only competition recognized as official until the championship was revived in 2003.[30]
+
+In October 1982, The New York Times reported that sales had fallen and that "the craze has died",[31] and by 1983 it was clear that sales had plummeted.[21] However, in some Communist countries, such as China and USSR, the craze had started later and demand was still high because of a shortage of Cubes.[32][33]
+
+Rubik's Cubes continued to be marketed and sold throughout the 1980s and ’90s,[21] but it was not until the early 2000s that interest in the Cube began increasing again.[34] In the US, sales doubled between 2001 and 2003, and The Boston Globe remarked that it was "becoming cool to own a Cube again".[35] The 2003 World Rubik's Games Championship was the first speedcubing tournament since 1982.[34] It was held in Toronto and was attended by 83 participants.[34] The tournament led to the formation of the World Cube Association in 2004.[34] Annual sales of Rubik branded cubes were said to have reached 15 million worldwide in 2008.[36] Part of the new appeal was ascribed to the advent of Internet video sites, such as YouTube, which allowed fans to share their solving strategies.[36] Following the expiration of Rubik's patent in 2000, other brands of cubes appeared, especially from Chinese companies.[37] Many of these Chinese branded cubes have been engineered for speed and are favoured by speedcubers.[37]
+
+Taking advantage of an initial shortage of Cubes, many imitations and variations appeared, many of which may have violated one or more patents. Today, the patents have expired and many Chinese companies produce copies of—and in nearly all cases, improvements upon—the Rubik and V-Cube designs.[37]
+
+Nichols assigned his patent to his employer Moleculon Research Corp., which sued Ideal in 1982. In 1984, Ideal lost the patent infringement suit and appealed. In 1986, the appeals court affirmed the judgment that Rubik's 2×2×2 Pocket Cube infringed Nichols's patent, but overturned the judgment on Rubik's 3×3×3 Cube.[38]
+
+Even while Rubik's patent application was being processed, Terutoshi Ishigi, a self-taught engineer and ironworks owner near Tokyo, filed for a Japanese patent for a nearly identical mechanism, which was granted in 1976 (Japanese patent publication JP55-008192). Until 1999, when an amended Japanese patent law was enforced, Japan's patent office granted Japanese patents for non-disclosed technology within Japan without requiring worldwide novelty.[39][40] Hence, Ishigi's patent is generally accepted as an independent reinvention at that time.[41][42][43] Rubik applied for more patents in 1980, including another Hungarian patent on 28 October. In the United States, Rubik was granted U.S. Patent 4,378,116 on 29 March 1983, for the Cube.  This patent expired in 2000.
+
+Rubik's Brand Ltd. also holds the registered trademarks for the word "Rubik" and "Rubik's" and for the 2D and 3D visualisations of the puzzle. The trademarks have been upheld by a ruling of the General Court of the European Union on 25 November 2014 in a successful defence against a German toy manufacturer seeking to invalidate them. However, European toy manufacturers are allowed to create differently shaped puzzles that have a similar rotating or twisting functionality of component parts such as for example Skewb, Pyraminx or Impossiball.[44]
+
+On 10 November 2016, Rubik's Cube lost a ten-year battle over a key trademark issue.  The European Union's highest court, the Court of Justice, ruled that the puzzle's shape was not sufficient to grant it trademark protection.[45]
+
+A standard Rubik's Cube measures 5.7 centimetres (2 1⁄4 in) on each side. The puzzle consists of 26 unique miniature cubes, also called "cubies" or "cubelets". Each of these includes a concealed inward extension that interlocks with the other cubes while permitting them to move to different locations. However, the centre cube of each of the six faces is merely a single square façade; all six are affixed to the core mechanism. These provide structure for the other pieces to fit into and rotate around. Hence, there are 21 pieces: a single core piece consisting of three intersecting axes holding the six centre squares in place but letting them rotate, and 20 smaller plastic pieces which fit into it to form the assembled puzzle.
+
+Each of the six centre pieces pivots on a screw (fastener) held by the centre piece, a "3D cross". A spring between each screw head and its corresponding piece tensions the piece inward, so that collectively, the whole assembly remains compact but can still be easily manipulated. The screw can be tightened or loosened to change the "feel" of the Cube. Newer official Rubik's brand cubes have rivets instead of screws and cannot be adjusted.
+
+The Cube can be taken apart without much difficulty, typically by rotating the top layer by 45° and then prying one of its edge cubes away from the other two layers. Consequently, it is a simple process to "solve" a Cube by taking it apart and reassembling it in a solved state.
+
+There are six central pieces which show one coloured face, twelve edge pieces which show two coloured faces, and eight corner pieces which show three coloured faces. Each piece shows a unique colour combination, but not all combinations are present (for example, if red and orange are on opposite sides of the solved Cube, there is no edge piece with both red and orange sides). The location of these cubes relative to one another can be altered by twisting an outer third of the Cube by increments of 90 degrees, but the location of the coloured sides relative to one another in the completed state of the puzzle cannot be altered; it is fixed by the relative positions of the centre squares. However, Cubes with alternative colour arrangements also exist; for example, with the yellow face opposite the green, the blue face opposite the white, and red and orange remaining opposite each other.
+
+Douglas Hofstadter, in the July 1982 issue of Scientific American, pointed out that Cubes could be coloured in such a way as to emphasise the corners or edges, rather than the faces as the standard colouring does; but neither of these alternative colourings has ever become popular.[41]
+
+The puzzle was originally advertised as having "over 3,000,000,000 (three billion) combinations but only one solution".[46]  Depending on how combinations are counted, the actual number can be significantly higher.
+
+The original (3×3×3) Rubik's Cube has eight corners and twelve edges. There are 8! (40,320) ways to arrange the corner cubes. Each corner has three possible orientations, although only seven (of eight) can be oriented independently; the orientation of the eighth (final) corner depends on the preceding seven, giving 37 (2,187) possibilities. There are 12!/2 (239,500,800) ways to arrange the edges, restricted from 12! because edges must be in an even permutation exactly when the corners are. (When arrangements of centres are also permitted, as described below, the rule is that the combined arrangement of corners, edges, and centres must be an even permutation.) Eleven edges can be flipped independently, with the flip of the twelfth depending on the preceding ones, giving 211 (2,048) possibilities.[47]
+
+which is approximately 43 quintillion.[48]  To put this into perspective, if one had one standard-sized Rubik's Cube for each permutation, one could cover the Earth's surface 275 times, or stack them in a tower 261 light-years high.
+
+The preceding figure is limited to permutations that can be reached solely by turning the sides of the cube. If one considers permutations reached through disassembly of the cube, the number becomes twelve times larger:
+
+which is approximately 519 quintillion[48] possible arrangements of the pieces that make up the Cube, but only one in twelve of these are actually solvable. This is because there is no sequence of moves that will swap a single pair of pieces or rotate a single corner or edge cube. Thus, there are 12 possible sets of reachable configurations, sometimes called "universes" or "orbits", into which the Cube can be placed by dismantling and reassembling it.
+
+The preceding numbers assume the center faces are in a fixed position.  If one considers turning the whole cube to be a different permutation, then each of the preceding numbers should be multiplied by 24.  A chosen colour can be on one of six sides, and then one of the adjacent colours can be in one of four positions; this determines the positions of all remaining colours.
+
+The original Rubik's Cube had no orientation markings on the centre faces (although some carried the words "Rubik's Cube" on the centre square of the white face), and therefore solving it does not require any attention to orienting those faces correctly. However, with marker pens, one could, for example, mark the central squares of an unscrambled Cube with four coloured marks on each edge, each corresponding to the colour of the adjacent face; a cube marked in this way is referred to as a "supercube". Some Cubes have also been produced commercially with markings on all of the squares, such as the Lo Shu magic square or playing card suits. Cubes have also been produced where the nine stickers on a face are used to make a single larger picture, and centre orientation matters on these as well. Thus one can nominally solve a Cube yet have the markings on the centres rotated; it then becomes an additional test to solve the centres as well.
+
+Marking Rubik's Cube's centres increases its difficulty, because this expands the set of distinguishable possible configurations. There are 46/2 (2,048) ways to orient the centres since an even permutation of the corners implies an even number of quarter turns of centres as well. In particular, when the Cube is unscrambled apart from the orientations of the central squares, there will always be an even number of centre squares requiring a quarter turn. Thus orientations of centres increases the total number of possible Cube permutations from 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 (4.3×1019) to 88,580,102,706,155,225,088,000 (8.9×1022).[49]
+
+When turning a cube over is considered to be a change in permutation then we must also count arrangements of the centre faces. Nominally there are 6! ways to arrange the six centre faces of the cube, but only 24 of these are achievable without disassembly of the cube. When the orientations of centres are also counted, as above, this increases the total number of possible Cube permutations from 88,580,102,706,155,225,088,000 (8.9×1022) to 2,125,922,464,947,725,402,112,000 (2.1×1024).
+
+In Rubik's cubers' parlance, a memorised sequence of moves that has a desired effect on the cube is called an algorithm. This terminology is derived from the mathematical use of algorithm, meaning a list of well-defined instructions for performing a task from a given initial state, through well-defined successive states, to a desired end-state. Each method of solving the Cube employs its own set of algorithms, together with descriptions of what effect the algorithm has, and when it can be used to bring the cube closer to being solved.
+
+Many algorithms are designed to transform only a small part of the cube without interfering with other parts that have already been solved so that they can be applied repeatedly to different parts of the cube until the whole is solved. For example, there are well-known algorithms for cycling three corners without changing the rest of the puzzle or flipping the orientation of a pair of edges while leaving the others intact.
+
+Some algorithms do have a certain desired effect on the cube (for example, swapping two corners) but may also have the side-effect of changing other parts of the cube (such as permuting some edges). Such algorithms are often simpler than the ones without side-effects and are employed early on in the solution when most of the puzzle has not yet been solved and the side-effects are not important. Most are long and difficult to memorise. Towards the end of the solution, the more specific (and usually more complicated) algorithms are used instead.
+
+Rubik's Cube lends itself to the application of mathematical group theory, which has been helpful for deducing certain algorithms – in particular, those which have a commutator structure, namely XYX−1Y−1 (where X and Y are specific moves or move-sequences and X−1 and Y−1 are their respective inverses), or a conjugate structure, namely XYX−1, often referred to by speedcubers colloquially as a "setup move".[50] In addition, the fact that there are well-defined subgroups within the Rubik's Cube group enables the puzzle to be learned and mastered by moving up through various self-contained "levels of difficulty". For example, one such "level" could involve solving cubes which have been scrambled using only 180-degree turns. These subgroups are the principle underlying the computer cubing methods by Thistlethwaite and Kociemba, which solve the cube by further reducing it to another subgroup.
+
+Many 3×3×3 Rubik's Cube enthusiasts use a notation developed by David Singmaster to denote a sequence of moves, referred to as "Singmaster notation".[51] Its relative nature allows algorithms to be written in such a way that they can be applied regardless of which side is designated the top or how the colours are organised on a particular cube.
+
+When a prime symbol ( ′ ) follows a letter, it denotes an anticlockwise face turn; while a letter without a prime symbol denotes a clockwise turn. These directions are as one is looking at the specified face.  A letter followed by a 2 (occasionally a superscript 2) denotes two turns, or a 180-degree turn. R is right side clockwise, but R′ is right side anticlockwise. The letters x, y, and z are used to indicate that the entire Cube should be turned about one of its axes, corresponding to R, U, and F turns respectively. When x, y, or z are primed, it is an indication that the cube must be rotated in the opposite direction. When they are squared, the cube must be rotated 180 degrees.
+
+The most common deviation from Singmaster notation, and in fact the current official standard, is to use "w", for "wide", instead of lowercase letters to represent moves of two layers; thus, a move of Rw is equivalent to one of r.[52]
+
+For methods using middle-layer turns (particularly corners-first methods), there is a generally accepted "MES" extension to the notation where letters M, E, and S denote middle layer turns. It was used e.g. in Marc Waterman's Algorithm.[53]
+
+The 4×4×4 and larger cubes use an extended notation to refer to the additional middle layers. Generally speaking, uppercase letters (F B U D L R) refer to the outermost portions of the cube (called faces). Lowercase letters (f b u d l r) refer to the inner portions of the cube (called slices). An asterisk (L*), a number in front of it (2L), or two layers in parentheses (Ll), means to turn the two layers at the same time (both the inner and the outer left faces) For example: (Rr)' l2 f' means to turn the two rightmost layers anticlockwise, then the left inner layer twice, and then the inner front layer anticlockwise. By extension, for cubes of 6×6×6 and larger, moves of three layers are notated by the number 3, for example, 3L.
+
+An alternative notation, Wolstenholme notation,[54] is designed to make memorising sequences of moves easier for novices.  This notation uses the same letters for faces except it replaces U with T (top), so that all are consonants.  The key difference is the use of the vowels O, A, and I for clockwise, anticlockwise, and twice (180-degree) turns, which results in word-like sequences such as LOTA RATO LATA ROTI (equivalent to LU′R′UL′U′RU2 in Singmaster notation). Addition of a C implies rotation of the entire cube, so ROC is the clockwise rotation of the cube around its right face. Middle layer moves are denoted by adding an M to corresponding face move, so RIM means a 180-degree turn of the middle layer adjacent to the R face.
+
+Another notation appeared in the 1981 book The Simple Solution to Rubik's Cube. Singmaster notation was not widely known at the time of publication. The faces were named Top (T), Bottom (B), Left (L), Right (R), Front (F), and Posterior (P), with + for clockwise, – for anticlockwise, and 2 for 180-degree turns.
+
+Another notation appeared in the 1982 "The Ideal Solution" book for Rubik's Revenge. Horizontal planes were noted as tables, with table 1 or T1 starting at the top. Vertical front to back planes were noted as books, with book 1 or B1 starting from the left. Vertical left to right planes were noted as windows, with window 1 or W1 starting at the front. Using the front face as a reference view, table moves were left or right, book moves were up or down, and window moves were clockwise or anticlockwise.
+
+Although there are a significant number of possible permutations for Rubik's Cube, a number of solutions have been developed which allow solving the cube in well under 100 moves.
+
+Many general solutions for the Cube have been discovered independently. David Singmaster first published his solution in the book Notes on Rubik's "Magic Cube" in 1981.[50] This solution involves solving the Cube layer by layer, in which one layer (designated the top) is solved first, followed by the middle layer, and then the final and bottom layer. After sufficient practice, solving the Cube layer by layer can be done in under one minute. Other general solutions include "corners first" methods or combinations of several other methods. In 1982, David Singmaster and Alexander Frey hypothesised that the number of moves needed to solve the Cube, given an ideal algorithm, might be in "the low twenties".[55] In 2007, Daniel Kunkle and Gene Cooperman used computer search methods to demonstrate that any 3×3×3 Rubik's Cube configuration can be solved in 26 moves or fewer.[56][57][58]
+In 2008, Tomas Rokicki lowered that number to 22 moves,[59][60][61] and in July 2010, a team of researchers including Rokicki, working with Google, proved the so-called "God's number" to be 20.[62][63] This is optimal, since there exist some starting positions which require a minimum of 20 moves to solve.  More generally, it has been shown that an n×n×n Rubik's Cube can be solved optimally in Θ(n2 / log(n)) moves.[64]
+
+A solution commonly used by speedcubers was developed by Jessica Fridrich. This method is called CFOP standing for "cross, F2L, OLL, PLL".  It is similar to the layer-by-layer method but employs the use of a large number of algorithms, especially for orienting and permuting the last layer. The cross is done first, followed by first layer corners and second layer edges simultaneously, with each corner paired up with a second-layer edge piece, thus completing the first two layers (F2L). This is then followed by orienting the last layer, then permuting the last layer (OLL and PLL respectively). Fridrich's solution requires learning roughly 120 algorithms but allows the Cube to be solved in only 55 moves on average.
+
+A now well-known method was developed by Lars Petrus. In this method, a 2×2×2 section is solved first, followed by a 2×2×3, and then the incorrect edges are solved using a three-move algorithm, which eliminates the need for a possible 32-move algorithm later. The principle behind this is that in layer-by-layer, one must constantly break and fix the completed layer(s); the 2×2×2 and 2×2×3 sections allow three or two layers (respectively) to be turned without ruining progress. One of the advantages of this method is that it tends to give solutions in fewer moves. For this reason, the method is also popular for fewest move competitions.[65]
+
+The Roux Method, developed by Gilles Roux, is similar to the Petrus method in that it relies on block building rather than layers, but derives from corners-first methods. In Roux, a 3×2×1 block is solved, followed by another 3×2×1 on the opposite side. Next, the corners of the top layer are solved. The cube can then be solved using only moves of the U layer and M slice.[66]
+
+Most beginner solution methods involve solving the cube one layer at a time, using algorithms that preserve what has already been solved. The easiest layer by layer methods require only 3–8 algorithms.[67][68]
+
+In 1981, thirteen-year-old Patrick Bossert developed a solution for solving the cube, along with a graphical notation, designed to be easily understood by novices.[69] It was subsequently published as You Can Do The Cube and became a best-seller.[70]
+
+In 1997, Denny Dedmore published a solution described using diagrammatic icons representing the moves to be made, instead of the usual notation.[71]
+
+Philip Marshall's The Ultimate Solution to Rubik's Cube takes a different approach, averaging only 65 twists yet requiring the memorisation of only two algorithms. The cross is solved first, followed by the remaining edges, then five corners, and finally the last three corners.[72]
+
+The most move optimal online Rubik's Cube solver programs use Herbert Kociemba's Two-Phase Algorithm which can typically determine a solution of 20 moves or fewer. The user has to set the colour configuration of the scrambled cube, and the program returns the steps required to solve it.[73]
+
+Speedcubing (or speedsolving) is the practice of trying to solve a Rubik's Cube in the shortest time possible. There are a number of speedcubing competitions that take place around the world.
+
+A speedcubing championship organised by the Guinness Book of World Records was held in Munich on 13 March 1981.[74] The contest used standardised scrambling and fixed inspection times, and the winners were Ronald Brinkmann and Jury Fröschl with times of 38.0 seconds.[74] The first world championship was the 1982 World Rubik's Cube Championship held in Budapest on 5 June 1982, which was won by Minh Thai, a Vietnamese student from Los Angeles, with a time of 22.95 seconds.[75]
+
+Since 2003, the winner of a competition is determined by taking the average time of the middle three of five attempts. However, the single best time of all tries is also recorded.
+The World Cube Association maintains a history of world records.[76]
+In 2004, the WCA made it mandatory to use a special timing device called a Stackmat timer.
+
+In addition to the main 3x3x3 event, the WCA also holds events where the cube is solved in different ways:[77]
+
+In Blindfolded Solving, the contestant first studies the scrambled cube (i.e., looking at it normally with no blindfold), and is then blindfolded before beginning to turn the cube's faces. Their recorded time for this event includes both the time spent memorizing the cube and the time spent manipulating it.
+
+In Multiple Blindfolded, all of the cubes are memorised, and then all of the cubes are solved once blindfolded; thus, the main challenge is memorising many – often ten or more – separate cubes. The event is scored not by time but by the number of points achieved after the one hour time limit has elapsed. The number of points achieved is equal to the number of cubes solved correctly, minus the number of cubes unsolved after the end of the attempt, where a greater number of points is better. If multiple competitors achieve the same number of points, rankings are assessed based on the total time of the attempt, with a shorter time being better.
+
+In Fewest Moves solving, the contestant is given one hour to find a solution and must write it down.
+
+There are different variations of Rubik's Cubes with up to thirty-three layers: the 2×2×2 (Pocket/Mini Cube), the standard 3×3×3 cube, the 4×4×4 (Rubik's Revenge/Master Cube), and the 5×5×5 (Professor's Cube) being the most well known. As of 1981, the official Rubik's Brand has licensed twisty puzzle cubes only up to the 5×5×5. The 17×17×17 "Over The Top" cube (available late 2011) was until December 2017 the largest (and most expensive, costing more than two thousand dollars) commercially sold cube. A mass-produced 17×17×17 was later introduced by the Chinese manufacturer YuXin. A working design for a 22×22×22 cube exists and was demonstrated in January 2016,[98] and a 33×33×33 in December 2017.[99] Chinese manufacturer ShengShou has been producing cubes in all sizes from 2×2×2 to 15×15×15 (as of May 2020), and have also come out with a 17×17×17[100].
+
+Non-licensed physical cubes as large as 17×17×17 based on the V-Cube patents[citation needed] are commercially available to the mass-market; these represent about the limit of practicality for the purpose of "speed-solving" competitively (as the cubes become increasingly ungainly and solve-times increase quadratically).
+
+There are many variations[101] of the original cube, some of which are made by Rubik. The mechanical products include Rubik's Magic, 360, and Twist. Also, electronics like Rubik's Revolution and Slide, were also inspired by the original.  One of the newest 3×3×3 Cube variants is Rubik's TouchCube. Sliding a finger across its faces causes its patterns of coloured lights to rotate the same way they would on a mechanical cube. The TouchCube also has buttons for hints and self-solving, and it includes a charging stand. The TouchCube was introduced at the American International Toy Fair in New York on 15 February 2009.[102][103]
+
+The Cube has inspired an entire category of similar puzzles, commonly referred to as twisty puzzles, which includes the cubes of different sizes mentioned above as well as various other geometric shapes. Some such shapes include the tetrahedron (Pyraminx), the octahedron (Skewb Diamond), the dodecahedron (Megaminx), and the icosahedron (Dogic). There are also puzzles that change shape such as Rubik's Snake and the Square One.
+
+In 2011, Guinness World Records awarded the "largest order Rubiks magic cube" to a 17×17×17 cube, made by Oskar van Deventer.[104][105] On 2 December 2017, Grégoire Pfennig announced that he had broken this record, with a 33×33×33 cube, and that his claim had been submitted to Guinness for verification.[99] On 8 April 2018, Grégoire Pfennig announced another world record, the 2x2x50 cube.[106] Whether this is a replacement for the 33x33x33 record, or an additional record, remains to be seen.
+
+Some puzzles have also been created in the shape of the Kepler-Poinsot polyhedra, such as Alexander's Star (a great dodecahedron). Grégoire Pfennig has also created at least one puzzle in the shape of a small stellated dodecahedron.
+
+Puzzles have been built resembling Rubik's Cube, or based on its inner workings. For example, a cuboid is a puzzle based on Rubik's Cube, but with different functional dimensions, such as 2×2×4, 2×3×4, and 3×3×5.[107] Many cuboids are based on 4×4×4 or 5×5×5 mechanisms, via building plastic extensions or by directly modifying the mechanism itself.
+
+Some custom puzzles are not derived from any existing mechanism, such as the Gigaminx v1.5-v2, Bevel Cube, SuperX, Toru, Rua, and 1×2×3. These puzzles usually have a set of masters 3D printed, which then are copied using moulding and casting techniques to create the final puzzle.[citation needed]
+
+Other Rubik's Cube modifications include cubes that have been extended or truncated to form a new shape. An example of this is the Trabjer's Octahedron, which can be built by truncating and extending portions of a regular 3×3×3. Most shape mods can be adapted to higher-order cubes. In the case of Tony Fisher's Rhombic Dodecahedron, there are 3×3×3, 4×4×4, 5×5×5, and 6×6×6 versions of the puzzle.
+
+Puzzles, like Rubik's Cube, can be simulated by computer software, which provides functions such as recording of player metrics, storing scrambled Cube positions, conducting online competitions, analysing of move sequences, and converting between different move notations. Software can also simulate very large puzzles that are impractical to build, such as 100×100×100 and 1,000×1,000×1,000 cubes, as well as virtual puzzles that cannot be physically built, such as 4- and 5-dimensional analogues of the cube.[108][109]
+
+Magic Cube 4D, a 4×4×4×4 virtual puzzle
+
+Magic Cube 5D, a 3×3×3×3×3 virtual puzzle
+
+high-dimensional Octagon Magic Cube Puzzle simulated phone application
+
+4D virtual 2x2x2x2 sequential move puzzle
+
+Google has released the Chrome Cube Lab in association with[110] Ernő Rubik. The site has various interactive objects based on Rubik's Cube.  Customised versions of Rubik's Cube can be created and uploaded.[111]

en/5476.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,74 @@
+A spermatozoon (pronounced /ˌspɜːrmætəˈzoʊən/, alternate spelling spermatozoön; plural spermatozoa; from Ancient Greek: σπέρμα ("seed") and Ancient Greek: ζῷον ("living being")) is a motile sperm cell, or moving form of the haploid cell that is the male gamete. A spermatozoon joins an ovum to form a zygote. (A zygote is a single cell, with a complete set of chromosomes, that normally develops into an embryo.)
+
+Sperm cells contribute approximately half of the nuclear genetic information to the diploid offspring (excluding, in most cases, mitochondrial DNA). In mammals, the sex of the offspring is determined by the sperm cell: a spermatozoon bearing an X chromosome will lead to a female (XX) offspring, while one bearing a Y chromosome will lead to a male (XY) offspring. Sperm cells were first observed in Antonie van Leeuwenhoek's laboratory in 1677.[1]
+
+The human sperm cell is the reproductive cell in males and will only survive in warm environments; once it leaves the male body the sperm's survival likelihood is reduced and it may die, thereby decreasing the total sperm quality. Sperm cells come in two types, "female" and "male". Sperm cells that give rise to female (XX) offspring after fertilization differ in that they carry an X-chromosome, while sperm cells that give rise to male (XY) offspring carry a Y-chromosome.
+
+A human sperm cell consists of a flat, disc shaped head 5.1 µm by 3.1 µm and a tail 50 µm long.[2] The tail flagellates, which propels the sperm cell (at about 1–3 mm/minute in humans) by whipping in an elliptical cone.[3] Sperm have an olfactory  guidance mechanism, and after reaching the Fallopian tubes, must undergo a period of capacitation before penetration of the ovum.[4]
+
+Head: It has a compact nucleus with only chromatic substance and is surrounded by only a thin rim of cytoplasm. Above the nucleus lies a cap-like structure called the acrosome, formed by modification of the Golgi body, which secretes the enzyme spermlysin (hyaluronidase, corona-penetrating enzyme, zona eyesin, or aerosin), that are necessary for fertilization. The acrosomal region experiment the acrosomal reaction, it consists in the fusion of the sperm plasma membrane with the outer acrosomal membrane.[5] On the surface of the head lies a decapacitating substance which is removed before fertilisation.
+
+Neck: It is the smallest part (0.03 ×10−6 m), and has a proximal centriole parallel to the base of the nucleus and distal centriole perpendicular to the previous one. The proximal centriole is present also in the mature spermatozoon; the distal centriole disappears after axoneme assembly. The proximal centriole enters into the egg during fertilisation and starts the first cleavage division of the egg, which has no centriole. The distal centriole gives rise to the axial filament which forms the tail and has a (9+2) arrangement. A transitory membrane called the Manchette lies in the middle piece.
+
+Middle piece: It has 10–14 spirals of mitochondria surrounding the axial filament in the cytoplasm. It provides motility, and hence is called the powerhouse of the sperm.  It also has a ring centriole (annulus) that form a diffusion barrier between the middle piece and the principal piece and serve as a stabilizing structure for tail rigidity.[6]
+
+Tail: It is the longest part (50×10−6 m), having an axial filament surrounded by cytoplasm and plasma membrane, but at the posterior end the axial filament is naked. It is push mechanism.
+
+Semen has an alkaline nature and the spermatozoa do not reach full motility (hypermotility) until they reach the vagina, where the alkaline pH is neutralized by acidic vaginal fluids.  This gradual process takes 20–30 minutes. During this period, fibrinogen from the seminal vesicles forms a clot, securing and protecting the sperm. Just as they become hypermotile, fibrinolysin from the prostate gland dissolves the clot, allowing the sperm to progress optimally.
+
+The spermatozoon is characterized by a minimum of cytoplasm and the most densely packed DNA known in eukaryotes. Compared to mitotic chromosomes in somatic cells, sperm DNA is at least sixfold more highly condensed.[7]
+
+The specimen contributes with DNA/chromatin, a centriole, and perhaps also an oocyte-activating factor (OAF).[8] It may also contribute with paternal messenger RNA (mRNA), also contributing to embryonic development.[8]
+
+Electron micrograph of human spermatozoa magnified 3140 times.
+
+Sperm cells in the urine sample of a 45-year-old male patient who is being followed with the diagnosis of benign prostate hyperplasia.
+
+Dimensions of the human sperm head measured from a 39 year-old healthy subject.
+
+The human spermatozoon contains at least 7500 different proteins.[9]
+
+Human sperm genetics has been associated with human evolution, per a 2020 study.[10][11][12]
+
+DNA damages present in spermatozoa in the period after meiosis but before fertilization may be repaired in the fertilized egg, but if not repaired, can have serious deleterious effects on fertility and the developing embryo.  Human spermatozoa are particularly vulnerable to free radical attack and the generation of oxidative DNA damage.[13][14] (see e.g. 8-Oxo-2'-deoxyguanosine)
+
+Exposure of males to certain lifestyle, environmental or occupational hazards may increase the risk of aneuploid spermatozoa.[15]  In particular, risk of aneuploidy is increased by tobacco smoking,[16][17] and occupational exposure to benzene,[18] insecticides,[19][20] and perfluorinated compounds.[21]  Increased aneuploidy of spermatozoa often occurs in association with increased DNA damage. DNA fragmentation and increased in situ DNA susceptibility to denaturation, the features similar to these seen during apoptosis of somatic cells, characterize abnormal spermatozoa in cases of male infertility.[22][23]
+
+Glycoprotein molecules on the surface of ejaculated sperm cells are recognized by all human female immune systems, and interpreted as a signal that the cell should not be rejected. The female immune system might otherwise attack sperm in the reproductive tract. The specific glycoproteins coating sperm cells are also utilized by some cancerous and bacterial cells, some parasitic worms, and HIV-infected white blood cells, thereby avoiding an immune response from the host organism.[24]
+
+The blood-testis barrier, maintained by the tight junctions between the Sertoli cells of the seminiferous tubules, prevents communication between the forming spermatozoa in the testis and the blood vessels (and immune cells circulating within them) within the interstitial space. This prevents them from eliciting an immune response. The blood-testis barrier is also important in preventing toxic substances from disrupting spermatogenesis.
+
+Fertilization relies on spermatozoa for most sexually reproductive animals.
+
+Some species of fruit fly produce the largest known spermatozoon found in nature.[25][26] Drosophila melanogaster produces sperm that can be up to 1.8 mm,[27] while its relative Drosophila bifurca produces the largest known spermatozoon, measuring over 58 mm in length.[25] In Drosophila melanogaster, the entire sperm, tail included, gets incorporated into the oocyte cytoplasm, however, for Drosophila bifurca only a small portion of the tail enters the oocyte.[28]
+
+The wood mouse Apodemus sylvaticus possesses spermatozoa with falciform morphology. Another characteristic which makes these gametocytes unique is the presence of an apical hook on the sperm head. This hook is used to attach to the hooks or to the flagella of other spermatozoa. Aggregation is caused by these attachments and mobile trains result. These trains provide improved motility in the female reproductive tract and are a means by which fertilization is promoted.[29]
+
+The postmeiotic phase of mouse spermatogenesis is very sensitive to environmental genotoxic agents, because as male germ cells form mature spermatozoa they progressively lose the ability to repair DNA damage.[30]  Irradiation of male mice during late spermatogenesis can induce damage that persists for at least 7 days in the fertilizing spermatozoa, and disruption of maternal DNA double-strand break repair pathways increases spermatozoa-derived chromosomal aberrations.[31]  Treatment of male mice with melphalan, a bifunctional alkylating agent frequently employed in chemotherapy, induces DNA lesions during meiosis that may persist in an unrepaired state as germ cells progress through DNA repair-competent phases of spermatogenic development.[32]  Such unrepaired DNA damages in spermatozoa, after fertilization, can lead to offspring with various abnormalities.
+
+Sea urchins such as Arbacia punctulata are ideal organisms to use in sperm research, they spawn large numbers of sperm into the sea, making them well-suited as model organisms for experiments.[citation needed]
+
+The spermatozoa of marsupials are usually longer than those of placental mammals.[33]
+
+The gametophytes of bryophytes, ferns and some gymnosperms produce motile sperm cells, contrary to pollen grains employed in most gymnosperms and all angiosperms. This renders sexual reproduction in the absence of water impossible, since water is a necessary medium for sperm and egg to meet. Algae and lower plant sperm cells are often multi-flagellated (see image) and thus morphologically different from animal spermatozoa.
+
+Some algae and fungi produce non-motile sperm cells, called spermatia. In higher plants and some algae and fungi, fertilization involves the migration of the sperm nucleus through a fertilization tube (e.g. pollen tube in higher plants) to reach the egg cell.
+
+Spermatozoa are produced in the seminiferous tubules of the testes in a process called spermatogenesis. Round cells called spermatogonia divide and differentiate eventually to become spermatozoa. During copulation the cloaca or vagina gets inseminated, and then the spermatozoa move through chemotaxis to the ovum inside a Fallopian tube or the uterus.
+
+Approaching the egg cell is a rather complex, multistep process of chemotaxis guided by different chemical substances/stimuli on individual levels of phylogeny. One of the most significant, common signaling characters of the event is that a prototype of professional chemotaxis receptors, formyl peptide receptor (60,000 receptor/cell) as well as the activator ability of its ligand formyl Met-Leu-Phe have been demonstrated in the surface membrane even in the case of human sperms.[34]  
+Mammalian sperm cells become even more active when they approach an egg cell in a process called sperm activation. Sperm activation has been shown to be caused by calcium ionophores in vitro, progesterone released by nearby cumulus cells and binding to ZP3 of the zona pellucida.  The cumulus cells are embedded in a gel-like substance made primarily of hyaluronic acid, and developed in the ovary with the egg and support it as it grows.
+
+The initial change is called "hyperactivation", which causes a change in spermatozoa motility. They swim faster and their tail movements become more forceful and erratic.
+
+A recent discovery links hyperactivation to a sudden influx of calcium ion into the tails.  The whip-like tail (flagellum) of the sperm is studded with ion channels formed by proteins called CatSper.  These channels are selective, allowing only calcium ions to pass.  The opening of CatSper channels is responsible for the influx of calcium.  The sudden rise in calcium levels causes the flagellum to form deeper bends, propelling the sperm more forcefully through the viscous environment. Sperm hyperactivity is necessary for breaking through two physical barriers that protect the egg from fertilization.
+
+The second process in sperm activation is the acrosome reaction. This involves releasing the contents of the acrosome, which disperse, and the exposure of enzymes attached to the inner acrosomal membrane of the sperm.  This occurs after the sperm first meets the egg.  This lock-and-key type mechanism is species-specific and prevents the sperm and egg of different species from fusing.  There is some evidence that this binding is what triggers the acrosome to release the enzymes that allow the sperm to fuse with the egg.
+
+ZP3, one of the proteins that make up the zona pellucida, then binds to a partner molecule on the sperm.  Enzymes on the inner acrosomal membrane digest the zona pellucida.  After the sperm penetrates the zona pellucida, part of the sperm's cell membrane then fuses with the egg cell's membrane, and the contents of the head diffuse into the egg.
+
+Upon penetration, the oocyte is said to have become activated. It undergoes its secondary meiotic division, and the two haploid nuclei (paternal and maternal) fuse to form a zygote. In order to prevent polyspermy and minimise the possibility of producing a triploid zygote, several changes to the egg's zona pellucida renders them impenetrable shortly after the first sperm enters the egg.
+
+Spermatozoa can be stored in diluents such as the Illini Variable Temperature (IVT) diluent, which have been reported to be able to preserve high fertility of spermatozoa for over seven days.[35] The IVT diluent is composed of several salts, sugars and antibacterial agents and gassed with CO2.[35]
+
+Semen cryopreservation can be used for far longer storage durations. For human spermatozoa, the longest reported successful storage with this method is 21 years.[36]

en/5477.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,74 @@
+A spermatozoon (pronounced /ˌspɜːrmætəˈzoʊən/, alternate spelling spermatozoön; plural spermatozoa; from Ancient Greek: σπέρμα ("seed") and Ancient Greek: ζῷον ("living being")) is a motile sperm cell, or moving form of the haploid cell that is the male gamete. A spermatozoon joins an ovum to form a zygote. (A zygote is a single cell, with a complete set of chromosomes, that normally develops into an embryo.)
+
+Sperm cells contribute approximately half of the nuclear genetic information to the diploid offspring (excluding, in most cases, mitochondrial DNA). In mammals, the sex of the offspring is determined by the sperm cell: a spermatozoon bearing an X chromosome will lead to a female (XX) offspring, while one bearing a Y chromosome will lead to a male (XY) offspring. Sperm cells were first observed in Antonie van Leeuwenhoek's laboratory in 1677.[1]
+
+The human sperm cell is the reproductive cell in males and will only survive in warm environments; once it leaves the male body the sperm's survival likelihood is reduced and it may die, thereby decreasing the total sperm quality. Sperm cells come in two types, "female" and "male". Sperm cells that give rise to female (XX) offspring after fertilization differ in that they carry an X-chromosome, while sperm cells that give rise to male (XY) offspring carry a Y-chromosome.
+
+A human sperm cell consists of a flat, disc shaped head 5.1 µm by 3.1 µm and a tail 50 µm long.[2] The tail flagellates, which propels the sperm cell (at about 1–3 mm/minute in humans) by whipping in an elliptical cone.[3] Sperm have an olfactory  guidance mechanism, and after reaching the Fallopian tubes, must undergo a period of capacitation before penetration of the ovum.[4]
+
+Head: It has a compact nucleus with only chromatic substance and is surrounded by only a thin rim of cytoplasm. Above the nucleus lies a cap-like structure called the acrosome, formed by modification of the Golgi body, which secretes the enzyme spermlysin (hyaluronidase, corona-penetrating enzyme, zona eyesin, or aerosin), that are necessary for fertilization. The acrosomal region experiment the acrosomal reaction, it consists in the fusion of the sperm plasma membrane with the outer acrosomal membrane.[5] On the surface of the head lies a decapacitating substance which is removed before fertilisation.
+
+Neck: It is the smallest part (0.03 ×10−6 m), and has a proximal centriole parallel to the base of the nucleus and distal centriole perpendicular to the previous one. The proximal centriole is present also in the mature spermatozoon; the distal centriole disappears after axoneme assembly. The proximal centriole enters into the egg during fertilisation and starts the first cleavage division of the egg, which has no centriole. The distal centriole gives rise to the axial filament which forms the tail and has a (9+2) arrangement. A transitory membrane called the Manchette lies in the middle piece.
+
+Middle piece: It has 10–14 spirals of mitochondria surrounding the axial filament in the cytoplasm. It provides motility, and hence is called the powerhouse of the sperm.  It also has a ring centriole (annulus) that form a diffusion barrier between the middle piece and the principal piece and serve as a stabilizing structure for tail rigidity.[6]
+
+Tail: It is the longest part (50×10−6 m), having an axial filament surrounded by cytoplasm and plasma membrane, but at the posterior end the axial filament is naked. It is push mechanism.
+
+Semen has an alkaline nature and the spermatozoa do not reach full motility (hypermotility) until they reach the vagina, where the alkaline pH is neutralized by acidic vaginal fluids.  This gradual process takes 20–30 minutes. During this period, fibrinogen from the seminal vesicles forms a clot, securing and protecting the sperm. Just as they become hypermotile, fibrinolysin from the prostate gland dissolves the clot, allowing the sperm to progress optimally.
+
+The spermatozoon is characterized by a minimum of cytoplasm and the most densely packed DNA known in eukaryotes. Compared to mitotic chromosomes in somatic cells, sperm DNA is at least sixfold more highly condensed.[7]
+
+The specimen contributes with DNA/chromatin, a centriole, and perhaps also an oocyte-activating factor (OAF).[8] It may also contribute with paternal messenger RNA (mRNA), also contributing to embryonic development.[8]
+
+Electron micrograph of human spermatozoa magnified 3140 times.
+
+Sperm cells in the urine sample of a 45-year-old male patient who is being followed with the diagnosis of benign prostate hyperplasia.
+
+Dimensions of the human sperm head measured from a 39 year-old healthy subject.
+
+The human spermatozoon contains at least 7500 different proteins.[9]
+
+Human sperm genetics has been associated with human evolution, per a 2020 study.[10][11][12]
+
+DNA damages present in spermatozoa in the period after meiosis but before fertilization may be repaired in the fertilized egg, but if not repaired, can have serious deleterious effects on fertility and the developing embryo.  Human spermatozoa are particularly vulnerable to free radical attack and the generation of oxidative DNA damage.[13][14] (see e.g. 8-Oxo-2'-deoxyguanosine)
+
+Exposure of males to certain lifestyle, environmental or occupational hazards may increase the risk of aneuploid spermatozoa.[15]  In particular, risk of aneuploidy is increased by tobacco smoking,[16][17] and occupational exposure to benzene,[18] insecticides,[19][20] and perfluorinated compounds.[21]  Increased aneuploidy of spermatozoa often occurs in association with increased DNA damage. DNA fragmentation and increased in situ DNA susceptibility to denaturation, the features similar to these seen during apoptosis of somatic cells, characterize abnormal spermatozoa in cases of male infertility.[22][23]
+
+Glycoprotein molecules on the surface of ejaculated sperm cells are recognized by all human female immune systems, and interpreted as a signal that the cell should not be rejected. The female immune system might otherwise attack sperm in the reproductive tract. The specific glycoproteins coating sperm cells are also utilized by some cancerous and bacterial cells, some parasitic worms, and HIV-infected white blood cells, thereby avoiding an immune response from the host organism.[24]
+
+The blood-testis barrier, maintained by the tight junctions between the Sertoli cells of the seminiferous tubules, prevents communication between the forming spermatozoa in the testis and the blood vessels (and immune cells circulating within them) within the interstitial space. This prevents them from eliciting an immune response. The blood-testis barrier is also important in preventing toxic substances from disrupting spermatogenesis.
+
+Fertilization relies on spermatozoa for most sexually reproductive animals.
+
+Some species of fruit fly produce the largest known spermatozoon found in nature.[25][26] Drosophila melanogaster produces sperm that can be up to 1.8 mm,[27] while its relative Drosophila bifurca produces the largest known spermatozoon, measuring over 58 mm in length.[25] In Drosophila melanogaster, the entire sperm, tail included, gets incorporated into the oocyte cytoplasm, however, for Drosophila bifurca only a small portion of the tail enters the oocyte.[28]
+
+The wood mouse Apodemus sylvaticus possesses spermatozoa with falciform morphology. Another characteristic which makes these gametocytes unique is the presence of an apical hook on the sperm head. This hook is used to attach to the hooks or to the flagella of other spermatozoa. Aggregation is caused by these attachments and mobile trains result. These trains provide improved motility in the female reproductive tract and are a means by which fertilization is promoted.[29]
+
+The postmeiotic phase of mouse spermatogenesis is very sensitive to environmental genotoxic agents, because as male germ cells form mature spermatozoa they progressively lose the ability to repair DNA damage.[30]  Irradiation of male mice during late spermatogenesis can induce damage that persists for at least 7 days in the fertilizing spermatozoa, and disruption of maternal DNA double-strand break repair pathways increases spermatozoa-derived chromosomal aberrations.[31]  Treatment of male mice with melphalan, a bifunctional alkylating agent frequently employed in chemotherapy, induces DNA lesions during meiosis that may persist in an unrepaired state as germ cells progress through DNA repair-competent phases of spermatogenic development.[32]  Such unrepaired DNA damages in spermatozoa, after fertilization, can lead to offspring with various abnormalities.
+
+Sea urchins such as Arbacia punctulata are ideal organisms to use in sperm research, they spawn large numbers of sperm into the sea, making them well-suited as model organisms for experiments.[citation needed]
+
+The spermatozoa of marsupials are usually longer than those of placental mammals.[33]
+
+The gametophytes of bryophytes, ferns and some gymnosperms produce motile sperm cells, contrary to pollen grains employed in most gymnosperms and all angiosperms. This renders sexual reproduction in the absence of water impossible, since water is a necessary medium for sperm and egg to meet. Algae and lower plant sperm cells are often multi-flagellated (see image) and thus morphologically different from animal spermatozoa.
+
+Some algae and fungi produce non-motile sperm cells, called spermatia. In higher plants and some algae and fungi, fertilization involves the migration of the sperm nucleus through a fertilization tube (e.g. pollen tube in higher plants) to reach the egg cell.
+
+Spermatozoa are produced in the seminiferous tubules of the testes in a process called spermatogenesis. Round cells called spermatogonia divide and differentiate eventually to become spermatozoa. During copulation the cloaca or vagina gets inseminated, and then the spermatozoa move through chemotaxis to the ovum inside a Fallopian tube or the uterus.
+
+Approaching the egg cell is a rather complex, multistep process of chemotaxis guided by different chemical substances/stimuli on individual levels of phylogeny. One of the most significant, common signaling characters of the event is that a prototype of professional chemotaxis receptors, formyl peptide receptor (60,000 receptor/cell) as well as the activator ability of its ligand formyl Met-Leu-Phe have been demonstrated in the surface membrane even in the case of human sperms.[34]  
+Mammalian sperm cells become even more active when they approach an egg cell in a process called sperm activation. Sperm activation has been shown to be caused by calcium ionophores in vitro, progesterone released by nearby cumulus cells and binding to ZP3 of the zona pellucida.  The cumulus cells are embedded in a gel-like substance made primarily of hyaluronic acid, and developed in the ovary with the egg and support it as it grows.
+
+The initial change is called "hyperactivation", which causes a change in spermatozoa motility. They swim faster and their tail movements become more forceful and erratic.
+
+A recent discovery links hyperactivation to a sudden influx of calcium ion into the tails.  The whip-like tail (flagellum) of the sperm is studded with ion channels formed by proteins called CatSper.  These channels are selective, allowing only calcium ions to pass.  The opening of CatSper channels is responsible for the influx of calcium.  The sudden rise in calcium levels causes the flagellum to form deeper bends, propelling the sperm more forcefully through the viscous environment. Sperm hyperactivity is necessary for breaking through two physical barriers that protect the egg from fertilization.
+
+The second process in sperm activation is the acrosome reaction. This involves releasing the contents of the acrosome, which disperse, and the exposure of enzymes attached to the inner acrosomal membrane of the sperm.  This occurs after the sperm first meets the egg.  This lock-and-key type mechanism is species-specific and prevents the sperm and egg of different species from fusing.  There is some evidence that this binding is what triggers the acrosome to release the enzymes that allow the sperm to fuse with the egg.
+
+ZP3, one of the proteins that make up the zona pellucida, then binds to a partner molecule on the sperm.  Enzymes on the inner acrosomal membrane digest the zona pellucida.  After the sperm penetrates the zona pellucida, part of the sperm's cell membrane then fuses with the egg cell's membrane, and the contents of the head diffuse into the egg.
+
+Upon penetration, the oocyte is said to have become activated. It undergoes its secondary meiotic division, and the two haploid nuclei (paternal and maternal) fuse to form a zygote. In order to prevent polyspermy and minimise the possibility of producing a triploid zygote, several changes to the egg's zona pellucida renders them impenetrable shortly after the first sperm enters the egg.
+
+Spermatozoa can be stored in diluents such as the Illini Variable Temperature (IVT) diluent, which have been reported to be able to preserve high fertility of spermatozoa for over seven days.[35] The IVT diluent is composed of several salts, sugars and antibacterial agents and gassed with CO2.[35]
+
+Semen cryopreservation can be used for far longer storage durations. For human spermatozoa, the longest reported successful storage with this method is 21 years.[36]

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+A spermatozoon (pronounced /ˌspɜːrmætəˈzoʊən/, alternate spelling spermatozoön; plural spermatozoa; from Ancient Greek: σπέρμα ("seed") and Ancient Greek: ζῷον ("living being")) is a motile sperm cell, or moving form of the haploid cell that is the male gamete. A spermatozoon joins an ovum to form a zygote. (A zygote is a single cell, with a complete set of chromosomes, that normally develops into an embryo.)
+
+Sperm cells contribute approximately half of the nuclear genetic information to the diploid offspring (excluding, in most cases, mitochondrial DNA). In mammals, the sex of the offspring is determined by the sperm cell: a spermatozoon bearing an X chromosome will lead to a female (XX) offspring, while one bearing a Y chromosome will lead to a male (XY) offspring. Sperm cells were first observed in Antonie van Leeuwenhoek's laboratory in 1677.[1]
+
+The human sperm cell is the reproductive cell in males and will only survive in warm environments; once it leaves the male body the sperm's survival likelihood is reduced and it may die, thereby decreasing the total sperm quality. Sperm cells come in two types, "female" and "male". Sperm cells that give rise to female (XX) offspring after fertilization differ in that they carry an X-chromosome, while sperm cells that give rise to male (XY) offspring carry a Y-chromosome.
+
+A human sperm cell consists of a flat, disc shaped head 5.1 µm by 3.1 µm and a tail 50 µm long.[2] The tail flagellates, which propels the sperm cell (at about 1–3 mm/minute in humans) by whipping in an elliptical cone.[3] Sperm have an olfactory  guidance mechanism, and after reaching the Fallopian tubes, must undergo a period of capacitation before penetration of the ovum.[4]
+
+Head: It has a compact nucleus with only chromatic substance and is surrounded by only a thin rim of cytoplasm. Above the nucleus lies a cap-like structure called the acrosome, formed by modification of the Golgi body, which secretes the enzyme spermlysin (hyaluronidase, corona-penetrating enzyme, zona eyesin, or aerosin), that are necessary for fertilization. The acrosomal region experiment the acrosomal reaction, it consists in the fusion of the sperm plasma membrane with the outer acrosomal membrane.[5] On the surface of the head lies a decapacitating substance which is removed before fertilisation.
+
+Neck: It is the smallest part (0.03 ×10−6 m), and has a proximal centriole parallel to the base of the nucleus and distal centriole perpendicular to the previous one. The proximal centriole is present also in the mature spermatozoon; the distal centriole disappears after axoneme assembly. The proximal centriole enters into the egg during fertilisation and starts the first cleavage division of the egg, which has no centriole. The distal centriole gives rise to the axial filament which forms the tail and has a (9+2) arrangement. A transitory membrane called the Manchette lies in the middle piece.
+
+Middle piece: It has 10–14 spirals of mitochondria surrounding the axial filament in the cytoplasm. It provides motility, and hence is called the powerhouse of the sperm.  It also has a ring centriole (annulus) that form a diffusion barrier between the middle piece and the principal piece and serve as a stabilizing structure for tail rigidity.[6]
+
+Tail: It is the longest part (50×10−6 m), having an axial filament surrounded by cytoplasm and plasma membrane, but at the posterior end the axial filament is naked. It is push mechanism.
+
+Semen has an alkaline nature and the spermatozoa do not reach full motility (hypermotility) until they reach the vagina, where the alkaline pH is neutralized by acidic vaginal fluids.  This gradual process takes 20–30 minutes. During this period, fibrinogen from the seminal vesicles forms a clot, securing and protecting the sperm. Just as they become hypermotile, fibrinolysin from the prostate gland dissolves the clot, allowing the sperm to progress optimally.
+
+The spermatozoon is characterized by a minimum of cytoplasm and the most densely packed DNA known in eukaryotes. Compared to mitotic chromosomes in somatic cells, sperm DNA is at least sixfold more highly condensed.[7]
+
+The specimen contributes with DNA/chromatin, a centriole, and perhaps also an oocyte-activating factor (OAF).[8] It may also contribute with paternal messenger RNA (mRNA), also contributing to embryonic development.[8]
+
+Electron micrograph of human spermatozoa magnified 3140 times.
+
+Sperm cells in the urine sample of a 45-year-old male patient who is being followed with the diagnosis of benign prostate hyperplasia.
+
+Dimensions of the human sperm head measured from a 39 year-old healthy subject.
+
+The human spermatozoon contains at least 7500 different proteins.[9]
+
+Human sperm genetics has been associated with human evolution, per a 2020 study.[10][11][12]
+
+DNA damages present in spermatozoa in the period after meiosis but before fertilization may be repaired in the fertilized egg, but if not repaired, can have serious deleterious effects on fertility and the developing embryo.  Human spermatozoa are particularly vulnerable to free radical attack and the generation of oxidative DNA damage.[13][14] (see e.g. 8-Oxo-2'-deoxyguanosine)
+
+Exposure of males to certain lifestyle, environmental or occupational hazards may increase the risk of aneuploid spermatozoa.[15]  In particular, risk of aneuploidy is increased by tobacco smoking,[16][17] and occupational exposure to benzene,[18] insecticides,[19][20] and perfluorinated compounds.[21]  Increased aneuploidy of spermatozoa often occurs in association with increased DNA damage. DNA fragmentation and increased in situ DNA susceptibility to denaturation, the features similar to these seen during apoptosis of somatic cells, characterize abnormal spermatozoa in cases of male infertility.[22][23]
+
+Glycoprotein molecules on the surface of ejaculated sperm cells are recognized by all human female immune systems, and interpreted as a signal that the cell should not be rejected. The female immune system might otherwise attack sperm in the reproductive tract. The specific glycoproteins coating sperm cells are also utilized by some cancerous and bacterial cells, some parasitic worms, and HIV-infected white blood cells, thereby avoiding an immune response from the host organism.[24]
+
+The blood-testis barrier, maintained by the tight junctions between the Sertoli cells of the seminiferous tubules, prevents communication between the forming spermatozoa in the testis and the blood vessels (and immune cells circulating within them) within the interstitial space. This prevents them from eliciting an immune response. The blood-testis barrier is also important in preventing toxic substances from disrupting spermatogenesis.
+
+Fertilization relies on spermatozoa for most sexually reproductive animals.
+
+Some species of fruit fly produce the largest known spermatozoon found in nature.[25][26] Drosophila melanogaster produces sperm that can be up to 1.8 mm,[27] while its relative Drosophila bifurca produces the largest known spermatozoon, measuring over 58 mm in length.[25] In Drosophila melanogaster, the entire sperm, tail included, gets incorporated into the oocyte cytoplasm, however, for Drosophila bifurca only a small portion of the tail enters the oocyte.[28]
+
+The wood mouse Apodemus sylvaticus possesses spermatozoa with falciform morphology. Another characteristic which makes these gametocytes unique is the presence of an apical hook on the sperm head. This hook is used to attach to the hooks or to the flagella of other spermatozoa. Aggregation is caused by these attachments and mobile trains result. These trains provide improved motility in the female reproductive tract and are a means by which fertilization is promoted.[29]
+
+The postmeiotic phase of mouse spermatogenesis is very sensitive to environmental genotoxic agents, because as male germ cells form mature spermatozoa they progressively lose the ability to repair DNA damage.[30]  Irradiation of male mice during late spermatogenesis can induce damage that persists for at least 7 days in the fertilizing spermatozoa, and disruption of maternal DNA double-strand break repair pathways increases spermatozoa-derived chromosomal aberrations.[31]  Treatment of male mice with melphalan, a bifunctional alkylating agent frequently employed in chemotherapy, induces DNA lesions during meiosis that may persist in an unrepaired state as germ cells progress through DNA repair-competent phases of spermatogenic development.[32]  Such unrepaired DNA damages in spermatozoa, after fertilization, can lead to offspring with various abnormalities.
+
+Sea urchins such as Arbacia punctulata are ideal organisms to use in sperm research, they spawn large numbers of sperm into the sea, making them well-suited as model organisms for experiments.[citation needed]
+
+The spermatozoa of marsupials are usually longer than those of placental mammals.[33]
+
+The gametophytes of bryophytes, ferns and some gymnosperms produce motile sperm cells, contrary to pollen grains employed in most gymnosperms and all angiosperms. This renders sexual reproduction in the absence of water impossible, since water is a necessary medium for sperm and egg to meet. Algae and lower plant sperm cells are often multi-flagellated (see image) and thus morphologically different from animal spermatozoa.
+
+Some algae and fungi produce non-motile sperm cells, called spermatia. In higher plants and some algae and fungi, fertilization involves the migration of the sperm nucleus through a fertilization tube (e.g. pollen tube in higher plants) to reach the egg cell.
+
+Spermatozoa are produced in the seminiferous tubules of the testes in a process called spermatogenesis. Round cells called spermatogonia divide and differentiate eventually to become spermatozoa. During copulation the cloaca or vagina gets inseminated, and then the spermatozoa move through chemotaxis to the ovum inside a Fallopian tube or the uterus.
+
+Approaching the egg cell is a rather complex, multistep process of chemotaxis guided by different chemical substances/stimuli on individual levels of phylogeny. One of the most significant, common signaling characters of the event is that a prototype of professional chemotaxis receptors, formyl peptide receptor (60,000 receptor/cell) as well as the activator ability of its ligand formyl Met-Leu-Phe have been demonstrated in the surface membrane even in the case of human sperms.[34]  
+Mammalian sperm cells become even more active when they approach an egg cell in a process called sperm activation. Sperm activation has been shown to be caused by calcium ionophores in vitro, progesterone released by nearby cumulus cells and binding to ZP3 of the zona pellucida.  The cumulus cells are embedded in a gel-like substance made primarily of hyaluronic acid, and developed in the ovary with the egg and support it as it grows.
+
+The initial change is called "hyperactivation", which causes a change in spermatozoa motility. They swim faster and their tail movements become more forceful and erratic.
+
+A recent discovery links hyperactivation to a sudden influx of calcium ion into the tails.  The whip-like tail (flagellum) of the sperm is studded with ion channels formed by proteins called CatSper.  These channels are selective, allowing only calcium ions to pass.  The opening of CatSper channels is responsible for the influx of calcium.  The sudden rise in calcium levels causes the flagellum to form deeper bends, propelling the sperm more forcefully through the viscous environment. Sperm hyperactivity is necessary for breaking through two physical barriers that protect the egg from fertilization.
+
+The second process in sperm activation is the acrosome reaction. This involves releasing the contents of the acrosome, which disperse, and the exposure of enzymes attached to the inner acrosomal membrane of the sperm.  This occurs after the sperm first meets the egg.  This lock-and-key type mechanism is species-specific and prevents the sperm and egg of different species from fusing.  There is some evidence that this binding is what triggers the acrosome to release the enzymes that allow the sperm to fuse with the egg.
+
+ZP3, one of the proteins that make up the zona pellucida, then binds to a partner molecule on the sperm.  Enzymes on the inner acrosomal membrane digest the zona pellucida.  After the sperm penetrates the zona pellucida, part of the sperm's cell membrane then fuses with the egg cell's membrane, and the contents of the head diffuse into the egg.
+
+Upon penetration, the oocyte is said to have become activated. It undergoes its secondary meiotic division, and the two haploid nuclei (paternal and maternal) fuse to form a zygote. In order to prevent polyspermy and minimise the possibility of producing a triploid zygote, several changes to the egg's zona pellucida renders them impenetrable shortly after the first sperm enters the egg.
+
+Spermatozoa can be stored in diluents such as the Illini Variable Temperature (IVT) diluent, which have been reported to be able to preserve high fertility of spermatozoa for over seven days.[35] The IVT diluent is composed of several salts, sugars and antibacterial agents and gassed with CO2.[35]
+
+Semen cryopreservation can be used for far longer storage durations. For human spermatozoa, the longest reported successful storage with this method is 21 years.[36]

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+
+
+Semen, also known as seminal fluid, is an organic fluid created to contain spermatozoa. It is secreted by the gonads (sexual glands) and other sexual organs of male or hermaphroditic animals and can fertilize the female ovum. In humans, seminal fluid contains several components besides spermatozoa: proteolytic and other enzymes as well as fructose are elements of seminal fluid which promote the survival of spermatozoa, and provide a medium through which they can move or "swim". Semen is produced and originates from the seminal vesicle, which is located in the pelvis. The process that results in the discharge of semen is called ejaculation. Semen is also a form of genetic material. In animals, semen has been collected for cryoconservation. Cryoconservation of animal genetic resources is a practice that calls for the collection of genetic material in efforts for conservation of a particular breed.
+
+Depending on the species, spermatozoa can fertilize ova externally or internally. In external fertilization, the spermatozoa fertilize the ova directly, outside of the female's sexual organs. Female fish, for example, spawn ova into their aquatic environment, where they are fertilized by the semen of the male fish.
+
+During internal fertilization, however, fertilization occurs inside the female's sexual organs. Internal fertilization takes place after insemination of a female by a male through copulation. In most vertebrates, including amphibians, reptiles, birds and monotreme mammals, copulation is achieved through the physical mating of the cloaca of the male and female.[1] In marsupial and placental mammals, copulation occurs through the vagina.[2]
+
+During the process of ejaculation, sperm passes through the ejaculatory ducts and mixes with fluids from the seminal vesicles, the prostate, and the bulbourethral glands to form the semen. The seminal vesicles produce a yellowish viscous fluid rich in fructose and other substances that makes up about 70% of human semen.[3] The prostatic secretion, influenced by dihydrotestosterone, is a whitish (sometimes clear), thin fluid containing proteolytic enzymes, citric acid, acid phosphatase and lipids.[3] The bulbourethral glands secrete a clear secretion into the lumen of the urethra to lubricate it.[4]
+
+Sertoli cells, which nurture and support developing spermatocytes, secrete a fluid into seminiferous tubules that helps transport sperm to the genital ducts. The ductuli efferentes possess cuboidal cells with microvilli and lysosomal granules that modify the ductal fluid by reabsorbing some fluid. Once the semen enters the ductus epididymis the principal cells, which contain pinocytotic vessels indicating fluid reabsorption, secrete glycerophosphocholine which most likely inhibits premature capacitation. The accessory genital ducts, the seminal vesicle, prostate glands, and the bulbourethral glands, produce most of the seminal fluid.
+
+Seminal plasma of humans contains a complex range of organic and inorganic constituents.
+
+The seminal plasma provides a nutritive and protective medium for the spermatozoa during their journey through the female reproductive tract. The normal environment of the vagina is a hostile one (c.f. sexual conflict) for sperm cells, as it is very acidic (from the native microflora producing lactic acid), viscous, and patrolled by immune cells. The components in the seminal plasma attempt to compensate for this hostile environment. Basic amines such as putrescine, spermine, spermidine and cadaverine are responsible for the smell and flavor of semen. These alkaline bases counteract and buffer the acidic environment of the vaginal canal, and protect DNA inside the sperm from acidic denaturation.
+
+The components and contributions of semen are as follows:
+
+A 1992 World Health Organization report described normal human semen as having a volume of 2 mL or greater, pH of 7.2 to 8.0, sperm concentration of 20×106 spermatozoa/mL or more, sperm count of 40×106 spermatozoa per ejaculate or more, and motility of 50% or more with forward progression (categories a and b) of 25% or more with rapid progression (category a) within 60 minutes of ejaculation.[7]
+
+A 2005 review of the literature found that the average reported physical and chemical properties of human semen were as follows:[8]
+
+Semen is typically translucent with white, grey or even yellowish tint. Blood in the semen can cause a pink or reddish colour, known as hematospermia, and may indicate a medical problem which should be evaluated by a doctor if the symptom persists.[9]
+
+After ejaculation, the latter part of the ejaculated semen coagulates immediately,[10] forming globules,[11] while the earlier part of the ejaculate typically does not.[12] After a period typically ranging from 15 – 30 minutes, prostate-specific antigen present in the semen causes the decoagulation of the seminal coagulum.[13] It is postulated that the initial clotting helps keep the semen in the vagina,[10] while liquefaction frees the sperm to make their journey to the ova.[10]
+
+A 2005 review found that the average reported viscosity of human semen in the literature was 3–7 cP.[8]
+
+Semen quality is a measure of the ability of semen to accomplish fertilization. Thus, it is a measure of fertility in a man. It is the sperm in the semen that is the fertile component, and therefore semen quality involves both sperm quantity and sperm quality.
+
+The volume of semen ejaculate varies but is generally about 1 teaspoonful or less. A review of 30 studies concluded that the average was around 3.4 milliliters (mL), with some studies finding amounts as high as 5.0 mL or as low as 2.3 mL.[8] In a study with Swedish and Danish men, a prolonged interval between ejaculations caused an increase of the sperm count in the semen but not an increase of its amount.[14]
+
+Some dietary supplements have been marketed with claims to increase seminal volume. Like other supplements, including so-called herbal viagra, these are not approved or regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (as licensed medications would be), and none of the claims have been scientifically verified. Similar claims are made about traditional aphrodisiac foods, with an equal lack of verification.
+
+Semen can be stored in diluents such as the Illini Variable Temperature (IVT) diluent, which have been reported to be able to preserve high fertility of semen for over seven days.[15] The IVT diluent is composed of several salts, sugars and antibacterial agents and gassed with CO2.[15]
+
+Semen cryopreservation can be used for far longer storage durations. For human sperm, the longest reported successful storage with this method is 21 years.[16]
+
+Semen can transmit many sexually transmitted diseases and pathogens, including viruses like HIV[17] and Ebola.[18] Swallowing semen carries no additional risk other than those inherent in fellatio. This includes transmission risk for sexually transmitted diseases such as human papillomavirus (HPV) or herpes, especially for people with bleeding gums, gingivitis or open sores.[19][20] Viruses in semen survive for a long time once outside the body.[medical citation needed]
+
+The presence of blood in semen or hematospermia may be undetectable (it can only be seen microscopically) or visible in the fluid. Its cause could be the result of inflammation, infection, blockage, or injury of the male reproductive tract or a problem within the urethra, testicles, epididymis or prostate. It usually clears up without treatment, or with antibiotics, but if persistent further semen analysis and other urogenital system tests might be needed to find out the cause.
+
+In rare circumstances, humans can develop an allergy to semen, called human seminal plasma sensitivity. It appears as a typical localized or systemic allergic response upon contact with seminal fluid. There is no one protein in semen responsible for the reaction. Symptoms can appear after first intercourse or after subsequent intercourse. A semen allergy can be distinguished from a latex allergy by determining if the symptoms disappear with use of a condom. Desensitization treatments are often very successful.[21][22]
+
+Females may benefit from absorbing seminal fluid. Such benefits include male insects transferring nutrients to females via their ejaculate; in both humans and bovines, the fluid has antiviral and antibacterial properties; and useful bacteria such as Lactobacillus have been detected in fluid transferred from birds and mammals.[17]
+
+Qigong and Chinese medicine place huge emphasis on a form of energy called 精 (pinyin: jīng, also a morpheme denoting "essence" or "spirit")[23][24] – which one attempts to develop and accumulate. "Jing" is sexual energy and is considered to dissipate with ejaculation so masturbation is considered "energy suicide" amongst those who practice this art. According to Qigong theory, energy from many pathways/meridians becomes diverted and transfers itself to the sexual organs during sexual excitement. The ensuing orgasm and ejaculation will then finally expel the energy from the system completely. The Chinese proverb 一滴精，十滴血 (pinyin: yì dī jīng, shí dī xuè, literally: a drop of semen is equal to ten drops of blood) illustrates this point.
+
+The scientific term for semen in Chinese is 精液 (pinyin: jīng yè, literally: fluid of essence/jing) and the term for sperm is 精子 (pinyin: jīng zǐ, literally: basic element of essence/jing), two modern terms with classical referents.
+
+In the Indian system of medicine called Ayurveda semen is said to be made from 40 drops of blood. It is considered as the end of the food digestion cycle.
+[25]
+
+One of the key aspects of Hindu religion is abstinence called Brahmacharya. It can be lifelong or during a specific period or on specific days. Brahmacharya attaches a lot of importance to semen retention.
+
+Many yogic texts also indicate the importance of semen retention and there are specific asanas and Bandhas for it like Mula Bandana and Aswini Mudra.[26]
+
+In Ancient Greece, Aristotle remarked on the importance of semen: "For Aristotle, semen is the residue derived from nourishment, that is of blood, that has been highly concocted to the optimum temperature and substance. This can only be emitted by the male as only the male, by nature of his very being, has the requisite heat to concoct blood into semen."[27] According to Aristotle, there is a direct connection between food and semen: "Sperms are the excretion of our food, or to put it more clearly, as the most perfect component of our food."[28]
+
+The connection between food and physical growth, on the one hand, and semen, on the other, allows Aristotle to warn against "engag[ing] in sexual activity at too early an age ... [since] this will affect the growth of their bodies. Nourishment that would otherwise make the body grow is diverted to the production of semen. Aristotle is saying that at this stage the body is still growing; it is best for sexual activity to begin when its growth is 'no longer abundant', for when the body is more or less at full height, the transformation of nourishment into semen does not drain the body of needed material."[29]
+
+Additionally, "Aristotle tells us that the region round the eyes was the region of the head most fruitful of seed ("most seedy" σπερματικώτατος), pointing to generally recognised effects upon the eyes of sexual indulgence and to practices which imply that seed comes from liquid in the region of the eyes."[30] This may be explained by the belief of the Pythagoreans that "semen is a drop of the brain [τὸ δε σπέρμα εἶναι σταγόνα ἐγκέφαλου]."[31]
+
+Greek Stoic philosophy conceived of the Logos spermatikos ("seminal word") as the principle of active reason that fecundated passive matter.[32] The Jewish philosopher Philo similarly spoke in sexual terms of the Logos as the masculine principle of reason that sowed seeds of virtue in the feminine soul.[33]
+
+The Christian Platonist Clement of Alexandria likened the Logos to physical blood[34] as the "substance of the soul",[35] and noted that some held "that the animal semen is substantially foam of its blood".[36] Clement reflected an early Christian view that "the seed ought not be wasted nor scattered thoughtlessly nor sown in a way it cannot grow."[37]
+
+Women were believed to have their own version, which was stored in the womb and released during climax. Retention was believed to cause female hysteria.[38]
+
+In ancient Greek religion as a whole, semen is considered a form of miasma, and ritual purification was to be practised after its discharge.[39]
+
+In some pre-industrial societies, semen and other body fluids were revered because they were believed to be magical. Blood is an example of such a fluid, but semen was also widely believed to be of supernatural origin and effect and was, as a result, considered holy or sacred. The ancient Sumerians believed that semen was "a divine substance, endowed on humanity by Enki", the god of water.[40]:28[41] The semen of a god was believed to have magical generative powers.[40]:49 In Sumerian mythology, when Enki's seed was planted in the ground, it caused the spontaneous growth of eight previously-nonexistent plants.[40]:49[42] Enki was believed to have created the Tigris and Euphrates rivers by masturbating and ejaculating into their empty riverbeds.[40]:32, 49 The Sumerians believed that rain was the semen of the sky-god An,[43] which fell from the heavens to inseminate his consort, the earth-goddess Ki,[43] causing her to give birth to all the plants of the earth.[43]
+
+Dew was once thought to be a sort of rain that fertilized the earth and, in time, became a metaphor for semen. The Bible employs the term "dew" in this sense in such verses as Song of Solomon 5:2[44] and Psalm 110:3, declaring, in the latter verse, for example, that the people should follow only a king who was virile enough to be full of the "dew" of youth.[45]
+
+The orchid's twin bulbs were thought to resemble the testicles, which is the etymology of the disease orchiditis. There was an ancient Roman belief that the flower sprang from the spilled semen of copulating satyrs.[46]
+
+In a number of mythologies around the world, semen is often considered analogous to breast milk. In the traditions of Bali, it is considered to be the returning or refunding of the milk of the mother in an alimentary metaphor. The wife feeds her husband who returns to her his semen, the milk of human kindness, as it were.[47]
+
+When the British Secret Intelligence Service discovered that semen made a good invisible ink, Sir George Mansfield Smith-Cumming noted of his agents that "Every man (is) his own stylo".[48]
+
+
+
+The Borborites, also known as the Phibionites, were an early Christian Gnostic sect during the late fourth century AD whose alleged practices involving sacred semen are described by the early Christian heretic-hunter Epiphanius of Salamis in his Panarion.[49][50][51][52][53] Epiphanius claims that the Borborites had a sacred text called the Greater Questions of Mary, which contained an episode in which, during a post-resurrection appearance, Jesus took Mary Magdalene to the top of a mountain, where he pulled a woman out of his side and engaged in sexual intercourse with her.[50][49][52] Then, upon ejaculating, Jesus drank his own semen and told Mary, "Thus we must do, that we may live."[50][49][52] Upon hearing this, Mary instantly fainted, to which Jesus responded by helping her up and telling her, "O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?"[50][52] This story was supposedly the basis for the Borborite Eucharist ritual, in which they allegedly engaged in orgies and drank semen and menstrual blood as the "body and blood of Christ" respectively.[49][52][50] Bart D. Ehrman, a scholar of early Christianity, casts doubt on the accuracy of Epiphanius's summary, commenting that "the details of Epiphanius's description sound very much like what you can find in the ancient rumor mill about secret societies in the ancient world".[49]
+
+In some cultures, semen is considered to have special properties associated with masculinity. Several tribes of Papua New Guinea, including the Sambia and the Etoro, believe that semen promotes sexual maturation among the younger men of their tribe. To them, semen possesses the manly nature of the tribal elders, and in order to pass down their authority and powers, younger men of their next generation must fellate their elders and ingest their semen. Prepubescent and postpubescent males are required to engage in this practice.[54][55] This act may also be associated with the culturally active homosexuality throughout these and other tribes.[56]
+
+Semen ingestion has had central importance in some cultures around the world. In Baruya culture, there is a secret ritual in which boys give fellatio to young males and drink their semen, to "re-engender themselves before marriage".[57]
+
+There are several sexual practices involving the ingestion of semen. The most common of them is simply ingesting it during fellatio. They can be done with one or more partners, like snowballing, felching and creampie eating, or with multiple partners, like the practices of bukkake and gokkun, which originate from Japan.
+
+A huge variety of euphemisms and dysphemisms have been invented to describe semen. For a complete list of terms, see sexual slang.
+
+Slang terms for semen include cum, jizz, spunk (primarily British English), spooge and/or splooge, load, nut, and less commonly, love juice.[58][59] The term cum sometimes also refers to an orgasm, while load is derived from the phrase blowing a load, referring to an ejaculation.

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+
+
+A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit, while simultaneously making loans.[1] Lending activities can be performed either directly or indirectly through capital markets.
+
+Due to the importance of banks in the financial stability of a country, most jurisdictions exercise a high degree of regulation over banks. Most countries have institutionalized a system known as fractional reserve banking, under which banks hold liquid assets equal to only a portion of their current liabilities. In addition to other regulations intended to ensure liquidity, banks are generally subject to minimum capital requirements based on an international set of capital standards, the Basel Accords.
+
+Banking in its modern sense evolved in the fourteenth century in the prosperous cities of Renaissance Italy but in many ways functioned as a continuation of ideas and concepts of credit and lending that had their roots in the ancient world. In the history of banking, a number of banking dynasties – notably, the  Medicis, the Fuggers, the Welsers, the  Berenbergs, and the  Rothschilds – have played a central role over many centuries. The oldest existing retail bank is Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (founded in 1472), while the oldest existing merchant bank is Berenberg Bank (founded in 1590).
+
+The concept of banking may have begun in ancient Assyria and Babylonia, with the merchants offering loans of grain as collateral within a barter system. Lenders in ancient Greece and during the Roman Empire added two important innovations: they accepted deposits and changed money.[citation needed] Archaeology from this period in ancient China and India also shows evidence of money lending.
+
+The present era of banking can be traced to medieval and early Renaissance Italy, to the rich cities in the centre and north like Florence, Lucca, Siena, Venice and Genoa. The Bardi and Peruzzi families dominated banking in 14th-century Florence, establishing branches in many other parts of Europe.[2] One of the most famous Italian banks was the Medici Bank, set up by Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici in 1397.[3] The earliest known state deposit bank, Banco di San Giorgio (Bank of St. George), was founded in 1407 at Genoa, Italy.[4]
+
+Fractional reserve banking and the issue of banknotes emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries. Merchants started to store their gold with the goldsmiths of London, who possessed private vaults, and charged a fee for that service. In exchange for each deposit of precious metal, the goldsmiths issued receipts certifying the quantity and purity of the metal they held as a bailee; these receipts could not be assigned, only the original depositor could collect the stored goods.
+
+Gradually the goldsmiths began to lend the money out on behalf of the depositor, and promissory notes (which evolved into banknotes) were issued for money deposited as a loan to the goldsmith.[5] The goldsmith paid interest on these deposits. Since the promissory notes were payable on demand, and the advances (loans) to the goldsmith's customers were repayable over a longer time period, this was an early form of fractional reserve banking. The promissory notes developed into an assignable instrument which could circulate as a safe and convenient form of money backed by the goldsmith's promise to pay,[6] allowing goldsmiths to advance loans with little risk of default.[7] Thus, the goldsmiths of London became the forerunners of banking by creating new money based on credit.
+
+The Bank of England was the first to begin the permanent issue of banknotes, in 1695.[8] The Royal Bank of Scotland established the first overdraft facility in 1728.[9] By the beginning of the 19th century a bankers' clearing house was established in London to allow multiple banks to clear transactions. The Rothschilds pioneered international finance on a large scale, financing the purchase of the Suez canal for the British government.[10][11][12]
+
+The word  bank was taken Middle English from Middle French banque, from Spanish banca,from Old Italian banca, meaning "table", from Old High German banc, bank "bench, counter". Benches were used as makeshift desks or exchange counters during the Renaissance by Florentine bankers, who used to make their transactions atop desks covered by green tablecloths.[13][14]
+
+The definition of a bank varies from country to country. See the relevant country pages for more information.
+
+Under English common law, a banker is defined as a person who carries on the business of banking by conducting current accounts for his customers, paying cheques drawn on him/her and also collecting cheques for his/her customers.[15]
+
+In most common law jurisdictions there is a Bills of Exchange Act that codifies the law in relation to negotiable instruments, including cheques, and this Act contains a statutory definition of the term banker: banker includes a body of persons, whether incorporated or not, who carry on the business of banking' (Section 2, Interpretation). Although this definition seems circular, it is actually functional, because it ensures that the legal basis for bank transactions such as cheques does not depend on how the bank is structured or regulated.
+
+The business of banking is in many common law countries not defined by statute but by common law, the definition above. In other English common law jurisdictions there are statutory definitions of the business of banking or banking business. When looking at these definitions it is important to keep in mind that they are defining the business of banking for the purposes of the legislation, and not necessarily in general. In particular, most of the definitions are from legislation that has the purpose of regulating and supervising banks rather than regulating the actual business of banking. However, in many cases the statutory definition closely mirrors the common law one. Examples of statutory definitions:
+
+Since the advent of EFTPOS (Electronic Funds Transfer at Point Of Sale), direct credit, direct debit and internet banking, the cheque has lost its primacy in most banking systems as a payment instrument. This has led legal theorists to suggest that the cheque based definition should be broadened to include financial institutions that conduct current accounts for customers and enable customers to pay and be paid by third parties, even if they do not pay and collect cheques .[17]
+
+Banks act as payment agents by conducting checking or current accounts for customers, paying cheques drawn by customers in the bank, and collecting cheques deposited to customers' current accounts. Banks also enable customer payments via other payment methods such as Automated Clearing House (ACH), Wire transfers or telegraphic transfer, EFTPOS, and automated teller machines (ATMs).
+
+Banks borrow money by accepting funds deposited on current accounts, by accepting term deposits, and by issuing debt securities such as banknotes and bonds. Banks lend money by making advances to customers on current accounts, by making installment loans, and by investing in marketable debt securities and other forms of money lending.
+
+Banks provide different payment services, and a bank account is considered indispensable by most businesses and individuals. Non-banks that provide payment services such as remittance companies are normally not considered as an adequate substitute for a bank account.
+
+Banks can create new money when they make a loan. New loans throughout the banking system generate new deposits elsewhere in the system. The money supply is usually increased by the act of lending, and reduced when loans are repaid faster than new ones are generated. In the United Kingdom between 1997 and 2007, there was an increase in the money supply, largely caused by much more bank lending, which served to push up property prices and increase private debt. The amount of money in the economy as measured by M4 in the UK went from £750 billion to £1700 billion between 1997 and 2007, much of the increase caused by bank lending.[18] If all the banks increase their lending together, then they can expect new deposits to return to them and the amount of money in the economy will increase. Excessive or risky lending can cause borrowers to default, the banks then become more cautious, so there is less lending and therefore less money so that the economy can go from boom to bust as happened in the UK and many other Western economies after 2007.
+
+Activities undertaken by banks include personal banking, corporate banking, investment banking, private banking, transaction banking, insurance, consumer finance, foreign exchange trading, commodity trading, trading in equities, futures and options trading and money market trading.
+
+Banks offer many different channels to access their banking and other services:
+
+A bank can generate revenue in a variety of different ways including interest, transaction fees and financial advice. Traditionally, the most significant method is via charging interest on the capital it lends out to customers.[19] The bank profits from the difference between the level of interest it pays for deposits and other sources of funds, and the level of interest it charges in its lending activities.
+
+This difference is referred to as the spread between the cost of funds and the loan interest rate. Historically, profitability from lending activities has been cyclical and dependent on the needs and strengths of loan customers and the stage of the economic cycle. Fees and financial advice constitute a more stable revenue stream and banks have therefore placed more emphasis on these revenue lines to smooth their financial performance.
+
+In the past 20 years, American banks have taken many measures to ensure that they remain profitable while responding to increasingly changing market conditions.
+
+This helps in making a profit and facilitates economic development as a whole.[21]
+
+Recently, as banks have been faced with pressure from fintechs, new and additional business models have been suggested such as freemium, monetization of data, white-labeling of banking and payment applications, or the cross-selling of complementary products.[22]
+
+Banks face a number of risks in order to conduct their business, and how well these risks are managed and understood is a key driver behind profitability, and how much capital a bank is required to hold. Bank capital consists principally of equity, retained earnings and subordinated debt.
+
+After the 2007-2009 financial crisis, regulators force banks to issue Contingent convertible bonds (CoCos).These are hybrid capital securities that absorb losses in accordance with their contractual terms when the capital of the issuing bank falls below a certain level. Then debt is reduced and bank capitalization gets a boost. Owing to their capacity to absorb losses, CoCos have the potential to satisfy regulatory capital requirement.[23][24]
+
+Some of the main risks faced by banks include:
+
+The capital requirement is a bank regulation, which sets a framework within which a bank or depository institution must manage its balance sheet. The categorization of assets and capital is highly standardized so that it can be risk weighted.
+
+The economic functions of banks include:
+
+Banks are susceptible to many forms of risk which have triggered occasional systemic crises.[27] These include liquidity risk (where many depositors may request withdrawals in excess of available funds), credit risk (the chance that those who owe money to the bank will not repay it), and interest rate risk (the possibility that the bank will become unprofitable, if rising interest rates force it to pay relatively more on its deposits than it receives on its loans).
+
+Banking crises have developed many times throughout history when one or more risks have emerged for a banking sector as a whole. Prominent examples include the bank run that occurred during the Great Depression, the U.S. Savings and Loan crisis in the 1980s and early 1990s, the Japanese banking crisis during the 1990s, and the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the 2000s.
+
+Assets of the largest 1,000 banks in the world grew by 6.8% in the 2008/2009 financial year to a record US$96.4 trillion while profits declined by 85% to US$115 billion. Growth in assets in adverse market conditions was largely a result of recapitalization. EU banks held the largest share of the total, 56% in 2008/2009, down from 61% in the previous year. Asian banks' share increased from 12% to 14% during the year, while the share of US banks increased from 11% to 13%. Fee revenue generated by global investment banking totalled US$66.3 billion in 2009, up 12% on the previous year.[28]
+
+The United States has the most banks in the world in terms of institutions (5,330 as of 2015) and possibly branches (81,607 as of 2015).[29] This is an indicator of the geography and regulatory structure of the US, resulting in a large number of small to medium-sized institutions in its banking system. As of November 2009, China's top 4 banks have in excess of 67,000 branches (ICBC:18000+, BOC:12000+, CCB:13000+, ABC:24000+) with an additional 140 smaller banks with an undetermined number of branches.
+Japan had 129 banks and 12,000 branches. In 2004, Germany, France, and Italy each had more than 30,000 branches – more than double the 15,000 branches in the UK.[28]
+
+Between 1985 and 2018 banks engaged in around 28,798 mergers or acquisitions, either as the acquirer or the target company. The overall known value of these deals cumulates to around 5,169 bil. USD.[30] In terms of value, there have been two major waves (1999 and 2007) which both peaked at around 460 bil. USD followed by a steep decline (-82% from 2007 until 2018).
+
+Here is a list of the largest deals in history in terms of value with participation from at least one bank:
+
+Currently, commercial banks are regulated in most jurisdictions by government entities and require a special bank license to operate.
+
+Usually, the definition of the business of banking for the purposes of regulation is extended to include acceptance of deposits, even if they are not repayable to the customer's order – although money lending, by itself, is generally not included in the definition.
+
+Unlike most other regulated industries, the regulator is typically also a participant in the market, being either a publicly or privately governed central bank. Central banks also typically have a monopoly on the business of issuing banknotes. However, in some countries this is not the case. In the UK, for example, the Financial Services Authority licenses banks, and some commercial banks (such as the Bank of Scotland) issue their own banknotes in addition to those issued by the Bank of England, the UK government's central bank.
+
+Banking law is based on a contractual analysis of the relationship between the bank (defined above) and the customer – defined as any entity for which the bank agrees to conduct an account.
+
+The law implies rights and obligations into this relationship as follows:
+
+These implied contractual terms may be modified by express agreement between the customer and the bank. The statutes and regulations in force within a particular jurisdiction may also modify the above terms and/or create new rights, obligations or limitations relevant to the bank-customer relationship.
+
+Some types of financial institution, such as building societies and credit unions, may be partly or wholly exempt from bank license requirements, and therefore regulated under separate rules.
+
+The requirements for the issue of a bank license vary between jurisdictions but typically include:
+
+Banks' activities can be divided into:
+
+Most banks are profit-making, private enterprises. However, some are owned by government, or are non-profit organizations.
+
+The United States banking industry is one of the most heavily regulated and guarded in the world,[33] with multiple specialized and focused regulators. All banks with FDIC-insured deposits have the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as a regulator. However, for soundness examinations (i.e., whether a bank is operating in a sound manner), the Federal Reserve is the primary federal regulator for Fed-member state banks; the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) is the primary federal regulator for national banks. State non-member banks are examined by the state agencies as well as the FDIC. National banks have one primary regulator – the OCC.
+
+Each regulatory agency has their own set of rules and regulations to which banks and thrifts must adhere.
+The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) was established in 1979 as a formal inter-agency body empowered to prescribe uniform principles, standards, and report forms for the federal examination of financial institutions. Although the FFIEC has resulted in a greater degree of regulatory consistency between the agencies, the rules and regulations are constantly changing.
+
+In addition to changing regulations, changes in the industry have led to consolidations within the Federal Reserve, FDIC, OTS, and OCC. Offices have been closed, supervisory regions have been merged, staff levels have been reduced and budgets have been cut. The remaining regulators face an increased burden with increased workload and more banks per regulator. While banks struggle to keep up with the changes in the regulatory environment, regulators struggle to manage their workload and effectively regulate their banks. The impact of these changes is that banks are receiving less hands-on assessment by the regulators, less time spent with each institution, and the potential for more problems slipping through the cracks, potentially resulting in an overall increase in bank failures across the United States.
+
+The changing economic environment has a significant impact on banks and thrifts as they struggle to effectively manage their interest rate spread in the face of low rates on loans, rate competition for deposits and the general market changes, industry trends and economic fluctuations. It has been a challenge for banks to effectively set their growth strategies with the recent economic market. A rising interest rate environment may seem to help financial institutions, but the effect of the changes on consumers and businesses is not predictable and the challenge remains for banks to grow and effectively manage the spread to generate a return to their shareholders.
+
+The management of the banks’ asset portfolios also remains a challenge in today's economic environment. Loans are a bank's primary asset category and when loan quality becomes suspect, the foundation of a bank is shaken to the core. While always an issue for banks, declining asset quality has become a big problem for financial institutions.
+
+There are several reasons for this, one of which is the lax attitude some banks have adopted because of the years of “good times.” The potential for this is exacerbated by the reduction in the regulatory oversight of banks and in some cases depth of management. Problems are more likely to go undetected, resulting in a significant impact on the bank when they are discovered. In addition, banks, like any business, struggle to cut costs and have consequently eliminated certain expenses, such as adequate employee training programs.
+
+Banks also face a host of other challenges such as ageing ownership groups. Across the country, many banks’ management teams and board of directors are ageing. Banks also face ongoing pressure by shareholders, both public and private, to achieve earnings and growth projections. Regulators place added pressure on banks to manage the various categories of risk. Banking is also an extremely competitive industry. Competing in the financial services industry has become tougher with the entrance of such players as insurance agencies, credit unions, cheque cashing services, credit card companies, etc.
+
+As a reaction, banks have developed their activities in financial instruments, through financial market operations such as brokerage and have become big players in such activities.
+
+Another major challenge is the ageing infrastructure, also called legacy IT. Backend systems were built decades ago and are incompatible to new applications. Fixing bugs and creating interfaces costs huge sums, as knowledgeable programmers become scarce.[34]
+
+To be able to provide home buyers and builders with the funds needed, banks must compete for deposits. The phenomenon of disintermediation had to dollars moving from savings accounts and into direct market instruments such as U.S. Department of Treasury obligations, agency securities, and corporate debt. One of the greatest factors in recent years in the movement of deposits was the tremendous growth of money market funds whose higher interest rates attracted consumer deposits.[35]
+
+To compete for deposits, US savings institutions offer many different types of plans:[35]
+
+Bank statements are accounting records produced by banks under the various accounting standards of the world. Under GAAP there are two kinds of accounts: debit and credit. Credit accounts are Revenue, Equity and Liabilities. Debit Accounts are Assets and Expenses. The bank credits a credit account to increase its balance, and debits a credit account to decrease its balance.[36]
+
+The customer debits his or her savings/bank (asset) account in his ledger when making a deposit (and the account is normally in debit), while the customer credits a credit card (liability) account in his ledger every time he spends money (and the account is normally in credit). When the customer reads his bank statement, the statement will show a credit to the account for deposits, and debits for withdrawals of funds. The customer with a positive balance will see this balance reflected as a credit balance on the bank statement. If the customer is overdrawn, he will have a negative balance, reflected as a debit balance on the bank statement.
+
+One source of deposits for banks is brokers who deposit large sums of money on behalf of investors through trust corporations. This money will generally go to the banks which offer the most favourable terms, often better than those offered local depositors. It is possible for a bank to engage in business with no local deposits at all, all funds being brokered deposits. Accepting a significant quantity of such deposits, or "hot money" as it is sometimes called, puts a bank in a difficult and sometimes risky position, as the funds must be lent or invested in a way that yields a return sufficient to pay the high interest being paid on the brokered deposits. This may result in risky decisions and even in eventual failure of the bank. Banks which failed during 2008 and 2009 in the United States during the global financial crisis had, on average, four times more brokered deposits as a percent of their deposits than the average bank. Such deposits, combined with risky real estate investments, factored into the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s. Regulation of brokered deposits is opposed by banks on the grounds that the practice can be a source of external funding to growing communities with insufficient local deposits.[37] There are different types of accounts: saving, recurring and current accounts.
+
+Custodial accounts are accounts in which assets are held for a third party. For example, businesses that accept custody of funds for clients prior to their conversion, return or transfer may have a custodial account at a bank for this purposes.
+
+In modern time there has been huge reductions to the barriers of global competition in the banking industry. Increases in telecommunications and other financial technologies, such as Bloomberg, have allowed banks to extend their reach all over the world, since they no longer have to be near customers to manage both their finances and their risk. The growth in cross-border activities has also increased the demand for banks that can provide various services across borders to different nationalities.
+However, despite these reductions in barriers and growth in cross-border activities, the banking industry is nowhere near as globalized as some other industries. In the US, for instance, very few banks even worry about the Riegle–Neal Act, which promotes more efficient interstate banking. In the vast majority of nations around the globe the market share for foreign owned banks is currently less than a tenth of all market shares for banks in a particular nation.
+One reason the banking industry has not been fully globalized is that it is more convenient to have local banks provide loans to small business and individuals. On the other hand, for large corporations, it is not as important in what nation the bank is in, since the corporation's financial information is available around the globe.[38]
+
+Types of institutions:
+
+
+
+Terms and concepts:
+
+
+
+Terms and concepts:
+
+
+
+Crime:
+
+Cyber Crime
+
+Lists:
+
+
+
+Banking by country
+
+
+
+Banking, Banks, and Credit Unions from UCB Libraries GovPubs
+

en/5480.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,563 @@
+A sphere (from Greek σφαῖρα—sphaira, "globe, ball"[1]) is a geometrical object in three-dimensional space that is the surface of a ball (viz., analogous to the circular objects in two dimensions, where a "circle" circumscribes its "disk").
+
+Like a circle in a two-dimensional space, a sphere is defined mathematically as the set of points that are all at the same distance r from a given point, but in a three-dimensional space.[2] This distance r is the radius of the ball, which is made up from all points with a distance less than (or, for a closed ball, less than or equal to) r from the given point, which is the center of the mathematical ball. These are also referred to as the radius and center of the sphere, respectively. The longest straight line segment through the ball, connecting two points of the sphere, passes through the center and its length is thus twice the radius; it is a diameter of both the sphere and its ball.
+
+While outside mathematics the terms "sphere" and "ball" are sometimes used interchangeably, in mathematics the above distinction is made between a sphere, which is a two-dimensional closed surface embedded in a three-dimensional Euclidean space, and a ball, which is a three-dimensional shape that includes the sphere and everything inside the sphere (a closed ball), or, more often, just the points inside, but not on the sphere (an open ball). The distinction between ball and sphere has not always been maintained and especially older mathematical references talk about a sphere as a solid. This is analogous to the situation in the plane, where the terms "circle" and "disk" can also be confounded.
+
+In analytic geometry, a sphere with center (x0, y0, z0) and radius r is the locus of all points (x, y, z) such that
+
+Let a, b, c, d, e be real numbers with a ≠ 0 and put
+
+Then the equation
+
+has no real points as solutions if 
+
+
+
+ρ
+<
+0
+
+
+{\displaystyle \rho <0}
+
+ and is called the equation of an imaginary sphere. If 
+
+
+
+ρ
+=
+0
+
+
+{\displaystyle \rho =0}
+
+, the only solution of 
+
+
+
+f
+(
+x
+,
+y
+,
+z
+)
+=
+0
+
+
+{\displaystyle f(x,y,z)=0}
+
+ is the point 
+
+
+
+
+P
+
+0
+
+
+=
+(
+
+x
+
+0
+
+
+,
+
+y
+
+0
+
+
+,
+
+z
+
+0
+
+
+)
+
+
+{\displaystyle P_{0}=(x_{0},y_{0},z_{0})}
+
+ and the equation is said to be the equation of a point sphere. Finally, in the case 
+
+
+
+ρ
+>
+0
+
+
+{\displaystyle \rho >0}
+
+, 
+
+
+
+f
+(
+x
+,
+y
+,
+z
+)
+=
+0
+
+
+{\displaystyle f(x,y,z)=0}
+
+ is an equation of a sphere whose center is 
+
+
+
+
+P
+
+0
+
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle P_{0}}
+
+ and whose radius is 
+
+
+
+
+
+ρ
+
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle {\sqrt {\rho }}}
+
+.[2]
+
+If a in the above equation is zero then f(x, y, z) = 0 is the equation of a plane. Thus, a plane may be thought of as a sphere of infinite radius whose center is a point at infinity.[3]
+
+The points on the sphere with radius 
+
+
+
+r
+>
+0
+
+
+{\displaystyle r>0}
+
+ and center 
+
+
+
+(
+
+x
+
+0
+
+
+,
+
+y
+
+0
+
+
+,
+
+z
+
+0
+
+
+)
+
+
+{\displaystyle (x_{0},y_{0},z_{0})}
+
+ can be parameterized via
+
+The parameter 
+
+
+
+θ
+
+
+{\displaystyle \theta }
+
+ can be associated with the angle counted positive from the direction of the positive z-axis through the center to the radius-vector, and the parameter 
+
+
+
+φ
+
+
+{\displaystyle \varphi }
+
+ can be associated with the angle counted positive from the direction of the positive x-axis through the center to the projection of the radius-vector on the xy-plane.
+
+A sphere of any radius centered at zero is an integral surface of the following differential form:
+
+This equation reflects that position and velocity vectors of a point, (x, y, z) and (dx, dy, dz), traveling on the sphere are always orthogonal to each other.
+
+A sphere can also be constructed as the surface formed by rotating a circle about any of its diameters. Since a circle is a special type of ellipse, a sphere is a special type of ellipsoid of revolution. Replacing the circle with an ellipse rotated about its major axis, the shape becomes a prolate spheroid; rotated about the minor axis, an oblate spheroid.[5]
+
+In three dimensions, the volume inside a sphere (that is, the volume of a ball, but classically referred to as the volume of a sphere) is
+
+where r is the radius and d is the diameter of the sphere. Archimedes first derived this formula by showing that the volume inside a sphere is twice the volume between the sphere and the circumscribed cylinder of that sphere (having the height and diameter equal to the diameter of the sphere).[6] This may be proved by inscribing a cone upside down into semi-sphere, noting that the area of a cross section of the cone plus the area of a cross section of the sphere is the same as the area of the cross section of the circumscribing cylinder, and applying Cavalieri's principle.[7] This formula can also be derived using integral calculus, i.e. disk integration to sum the volumes of an infinite number of circular disks of infinitesimally small thickness stacked side by side and centered along the x-axis from x = ��r  to x = r, assuming the sphere of radius r is centered at the origin.
+
+At any given x, the incremental volume (δV) equals the product of the cross-sectional area of the disk at x and its thickness (δx):
+
+The total volume is the summation of all incremental volumes:
+
+In the limit as δx approaches zero,[8] this equation becomes:
+
+At any given x, a right-angled triangle connects x, y and r to the origin; hence, applying the Pythagorean theorem yields:
+
+Using this substitution gives
+
+which can be evaluated to give the result
+
+An alternative formula is found using spherical coordinates, with volume element
+
+so
+
+For most practical purposes, the volume inside a sphere inscribed in a cube can be approximated as 52.4% of the volume of the cube, since V = π/6 d3, where d is the diameter of the sphere and also the length of a side of the cube and π/6 ≈ 0.5236. For example, a sphere with diameter 1 m has 52.4% the volume of a cube with edge length 1 m, or about 0.524 m3.
+
+The surface area of a sphere of radius r is:
+
+Archimedes first derived this formula[9] from the fact that the projection to the lateral surface of a circumscribed cylinder is area-preserving.[10] Another approach to obtaining the formula comes from the fact that it equals the derivative of the formula for the volume with respect to r because the total volume inside a sphere of radius r can be thought of as the summation of the surface area of an infinite number of spherical shells of infinitesimal thickness concentrically stacked inside one another from radius 0 to radius r. At infinitesimal thickness the discrepancy between the inner and outer surface area of any given shell is infinitesimal, and the elemental volume at radius r is simply the product of the surface area at radius r and the infinitesimal thickness.
+
+At any given radius r,[note 1] the incremental volume (δV) equals the product of the surface area at radius r (A(r)) and the thickness of a shell (δr):
+
+The total volume is the summation of all shell volumes:
+
+In the limit as δr approaches zero[8] this equation becomes:
+
+Substitute V:
+
+Differentiating both sides of this equation with respect to r yields A as a function of r:
+
+This is generally abbreviated as:
+
+where r is now considered to be the fixed radius of the sphere.
+
+Alternatively, the area element on the sphere is given in spherical coordinates by dA = r2 sin θ dθ dφ. In Cartesian coordinates, the area element is[citation needed]
+
+The total area can thus be obtained by integration:
+
+The sphere has the smallest surface area of all surfaces that enclose a given volume, and it encloses the largest volume among all closed surfaces with a given surface area.[11] The sphere therefore appears in nature: for example, bubbles and small water drops are roughly spherical because the surface tension locally minimizes surface area.
+
+The surface area relative to the mass of a ball is called the specific surface area and can be expressed from the above stated equations as
+
+where ρ is the density (the ratio of mass to volume).
+
+In case of a circle the circle can described by a parametric equation 
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+x
+→
+
+
+
+=
+(
+
+
+
+
+e
+→
+
+
+
+
+0
+
+
++
+
+
+
+
+e
+→
+
+
+
+
+1
+
+
+cos
+⁡
+t
++
+
+
+
+
+e
+→
+
+
+
+
+2
+
+
+sin
+⁡
+t
+
+)
+
+T
+
+
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle \;{\vec {x}}=({\vec {e}}_{0}+{\vec {e}}_{1}\cos t+{\vec {e}}_{2}\sin t)^{T}\;}
+
+: see plane section of an ellipsoid.
+
+But more complicated surfaces may intersect a sphere in circles, too:
+
+The diagram shows the case, where the intersection of a cylinder and a sphere consists of two circles. Would the cylinder radius be equal to the sphere's radius, the intersection would be one circle, where both surfaces are tangent.
+
+In case of an spheroid with the same center and major axis as the sphere, the intersection would consist of two points (vertices), where the surfaces are tangent.
+
+If the sphere is described by a parametric representation
+
+one gets Clelia curves, if the angles are connected by the equation
+
+Special cases are: Viviani's curve (
+
+
+
+c
+=
+1
+
+
+{\displaystyle c=1}
+
+) and spherical spirals (
+
+
+
+c
+>
+2
+
+
+{\displaystyle c>2}
+
+).
+
+In navigation, a rhumb line or loxodrome is an arc crossing all meridians of longitude at the same angle. A rhumb line is not a spherical spiral. There is no simple connection between the angles 
+
+
+
+φ
+
+
+{\displaystyle \varphi }
+
+ and 
+
+
+
+θ
+
+
+{\displaystyle \theta }
+
+.
+
+If a sphere is intersected by another surface, there may be more complicated spherical curves.
+
+Example: sphere – cylinder
+
+The intersection of the sphere with equation 
+
+
+
+
+
+x
+
+2
+
+
++
+
+y
+
+2
+
+
++
+
+z
+
+2
+
+
+=
+
+r
+
+2
+
+
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle \;x^{2}+y^{2}+z^{2}=r^{2}\;}
+
+ and the cylinder with equation 
+
+
+
+
+(
+y
+−
+
+y
+
+0
+
+
+
+)
+
+2
+
+
++
+
+z
+
+2
+
+
+=
+
+a
+
+2
+
+
+,
+
+
+y
+
+0
+
+
+≠
+0
+
+
+
+{\displaystyle \;(y-y_{0})^{2}+z^{2}=a^{2},\;y_{0}\neq 0\;}
+
+ is not just one or two circles. It is the solution of the non linear system of equations
+
+(see implicit curve and the diagram)
+
+A sphere is uniquely determined by four points that are not coplanar. More generally, a sphere is uniquely determined by four conditions such as passing through a point, being tangent to a plane, etc.[12] This property is analogous to the property that three non-collinear points determine a unique circle in a plane.
+
+Consequently, a sphere is uniquely determined by (that is, passes through) a circle and a point not in the plane of that circle.
+
+By examining the common solutions of the equations of two spheres, it can be seen that two spheres intersect in a circle and the plane containing that circle is called the radical plane of the intersecting spheres.[13] Although the radical plane is a real plane, the circle may be imaginary (the spheres have no real point in common) or consist of a single point (the spheres are tangent at that point).[14]
+
+The angle between two spheres at a real point of intersection is the dihedral angle determined by the tangent planes to the spheres at that point. Two spheres intersect at the same angle at all points of their circle of intersection.[15] They intersect at right angles (are orthogonal) if and only if the square of the distance between their centers is equal to the sum of the squares of their radii.[3]
+
+If f(x, y, z) = 0 and g(x, y, z) = 0 are the equations of two distinct spheres then
+
+is also the equation of a sphere for arbitrary values of the parameters s and t. The set of all spheres satisfying this equation is called a pencil of spheres determined by the original two spheres. In this definition a sphere is allowed to be a plane (infinite radius, center at infinity) and if both the original spheres are planes then all the spheres of the pencil are planes, otherwise there is only one plane (the radical plane) in the pencil.[3]
+
+A great circle on the sphere has the same center and radius as the sphere—consequently dividing it into two equal parts. The plane sections of a sphere are called spheric sections—which are either great circles for planes through the sphere's center or small circles for all others.[16]
+
+Any plane that includes the center of a sphere divides it into two equal hemispheres. Any two intersecting planes that include the center of a sphere subdivide the sphere into four lunes or biangles, the vertices of which coincide with the antipodal points lying on the line of intersection of the planes.
+
+Any pair of points on a sphere that lie on a straight line through the sphere's center (i.e. the diameter) are called antipodal points—on the sphere, the distance between them is exactly half the length of the circumference.[note 2] Any other (i.e. not antipodal) pair of distinct points on a sphere
+
+Spherical geometry[note 4] shares many analogous properties to Euclidean once equipped with this "great-circle distance".
+
+And a much more abstract generalization of geometry also uses the same distance concept in the Riemannian circle.
+
+The hemisphere is conjectured to be the optimal (least area) isometric filling of the Riemannian circle.
+
+
+
+The antipodal quotient of the sphere is the surface called the real projective plane, which can also be thought of as the northern hemisphere with antipodal points of the equator identified.
+
+Terms borrowed directly from geography of the Earth, despite its spheroidal shape having greater or lesser departures from a perfect sphere (see geoid), are widely well-understood. In geometry unrelated to astronomical bodies, geocentric terminology should be used only for illustration and noted as such, unless there is no chance of misunderstanding.
+
+If a particular point on a sphere is (arbitrarily) designated as its north pole, its antipodal point is called the south pole. The great circle equidistant to each is then the equator. Great circles through the poles are called lines of longitude (or meridians). A line not on the sphere but through its center connecting the two poles may be called the axis of rotation. Circles on the sphere that are parallel (i.e. not great circles) to the equator are lines of latitude.
+
+Spheres can be generalized to spaces of any number of dimensions. For any natural number n, an "n-sphere," often written as Sn, is the set of points in (n + 1)-dimensional Euclidean space that are at a fixed distance r from a central point of that space, where r is, as before, a positive real number. In particular:
+
+Spheres for n > 2 are sometimes called hyperspheres.
+
+The n-sphere of unit radius centered at the origin is denoted Sn and is often referred to as "the" n-sphere. Note that the ordinary sphere is a 2-sphere, because it is a 2-dimensional surface (which is embedded in 3-dimensional space).
+
+The surface area of the unit (n-1)-sphere is
+
+where Γ(z) is Euler's gamma function.
+
+Another expression for the surface area is
+
+and the volume is the surface area times r/n or
+
+General recursive formulas also exist for the volume of an n-ball.
+
+More generally, in a metric space (E,d), the sphere of center x and radius r > 0 is the set of points y such that d(x,y) = r.
+
+If the center is a distinguished point that is considered to be the origin of E, as in a normed space, it is not mentioned in the definition and notation. The same applies for the radius if it is taken to equal one, as in the case of a unit sphere.
+
+Unlike a ball, even a large sphere may be an empty set. For example, in Zn with Euclidean metric, a sphere of radius r is nonempty only if r2 can be written as sum of n squares of integers.
+
+In topology, an n-sphere is defined as a space homeomorphic to the boundary of an (n + 1)-ball; thus, it is homeomorphic to the Euclidean n-sphere, but perhaps lacking its metric.
+
+The n-sphere is denoted Sn. It is an example of a compact topological manifold without boundary. A sphere need not be smooth; if it is smooth, it need not be diffeomorphic to the Euclidean sphere (an exotic sphere).
+
+The Heine–Borel theorem implies that a Euclidean n-sphere is compact. The sphere is the inverse image of a one-point set under the continuous function ||x||. Therefore, the sphere is closed. Sn is also bounded; therefore it is compact.
+
+Remarkably, it is possible to turn an ordinary sphere inside out in a three-dimensional space with possible self-intersections but without creating any crease, in a process called sphere eversion.
+
+The basic elements of Euclidean plane geometry are points and lines. On the sphere, points are defined in the usual sense. The analogue of the "line" is the geodesic, which is a great circle; the defining characteristic of a great circle is that the plane containing all its points also passes through the center of the sphere. Measuring by arc length shows that the shortest path between two points lying on the sphere is the shorter segment of the great circle that includes the points.
+
+Many theorems from classical geometry hold true for spherical geometry as well, but not all do because the sphere fails to satisfy some of classical geometry's postulates, including the parallel postulate. In spherical trigonometry, angles are defined between great circles. Spherical trigonometry differs from ordinary trigonometry in many respects. For example, the sum of the interior angles of a spherical triangle always exceeds 180 degrees. Also, any two similar spherical triangles are congruent.
+
+In their book Geometry and the Imagination[17] David Hilbert and Stephan Cohn-Vossen describe eleven properties of the sphere and discuss whether these properties uniquely determine the sphere. Several properties hold for the plane, which can be thought of as a sphere with infinite radius. These properties are:
+
+An image of one of the most accurate human-made spheres, as it refracts the image of Einstein in the background. This sphere was a fused quartz gyroscope for the Gravity Probe B experiment, and differs in shape from a perfect sphere by no more than 40 atoms (less than 10 nm) of thickness. It was announced on 1 July 2008 that Australian scientists had created even more nearly perfect spheres, accurate to 0.3 nm, as part of an international hunt to find a new global standard kilogram.[18]
+
+Deck of playing cards illustrating engineering instruments, England, 1702. King of spades: Spheres
+

en/5481.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,164 @@
+
+
+
+
+Spider-Man is a fictional superhero created by writer-editor Stan Lee and writer-artist Steve Ditko. He first appeared in the anthology comic book Amazing Fantasy #15 (Aug. 1962) in the Silver Age of Comic Books. He appears in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, as well as in a number of movies, television shows, and video game adaptations set in the Marvel Universe. In the stories, Spider-Man is the alias of Peter Parker, an orphan raised by his Aunt May and Uncle Ben in New York City after his parents Richard and Mary Parker died in a plane crash. Lee and Ditko had the character deal with the struggles of adolescence and financial issues, and accompanied him with many supporting characters, such as J. Jonah Jameson, Harry Osborn, Max Modell, romantic interests Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson, and foes such as Doctor Octopus, the Green Goblin and Venom. His origin story has him acquiring spider-related abilities after a bite from a radioactive spider; these include clinging to surfaces, superhuman strength and agility, and detecting danger with his "spider-sense." He then builds wrist-mounted "web-shooter" devices that shoot artificial spider-webbing of his own design.
+
+When Spider-Man first appeared in the early 1960s, teenagers in superhero comic books were usually relegated to the role of sidekick to the protagonist. The Spider-Man series broke ground by featuring Peter Parker, a high school student from Queens behind Spider-Man's secret identity and with whose "self-obsessions with rejection, inadequacy, and loneliness" young readers could relate.[9] While Spider-Man had all the makings of a sidekick, unlike previous teen heroes such as Bucky and Robin, Spider-Man had no superhero mentor like Captain America and Batman; he thus had to learn for himself that "with great power there must also come great responsibility"—a line included in a text box in the final panel of the first Spider-Man story but later retroactively attributed to his guardian, the late Uncle Ben Parker.
+
+Marvel has featured Spider-Man in several comic book series, the first and longest-lasting of which is The Amazing Spider-Man. Over the years, the Peter Parker character developed from a shy, nerdy New York City high school student to troubled but outgoing college student, to married high school teacher to, in the late 2000s, a single freelance photographer. In the 2010s, he joins the Avengers, Marvel's flagship superhero team. Spider-Man's nemesis Doctor Octopus also took on the identity for a story arc spanning 2012–2014, following a body swap plot in which Peter appears to die.[10] Marvel has also published books featuring alternate versions of Spider-Man, including Spider-Man 2099, which features the adventures of Miguel O'Hara, the Spider-Man of the future; Ultimate Spider-Man, which features the adventures of a teenaged Peter Parker in an alternate universe; and Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, which depicts the teenager Miles Morales, who takes up the mantle of Spider-Man after Ultimate Peter Parker's supposed death. Miles is later brought into mainstream continuity, where he sometimes works alongside Peter.
+
+Spider-Man is one of the most popular and commercially successful superheroes.[11] As Marvel's flagship character and company mascot, he has appeared in countless forms of media, including several animated and live action television series, syndicated newspaper comic strips, and in a series of films. The character was first portrayed in live action by Danny Seagren in Spidey Super Stories, a The Electric Company skit which ran from 1974 to 1977.[12] In films, Spider-Man has been portrayed by actors Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield,[13] and in the Marvel Cinematic Universe by Tom Holland. He was voiced by Chris Pine and Jake Johnson in the animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Reeve Carney starred originally as Spider-Man in the 2010 Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.[14] Spider-Man has been well received as a superhero and comic book character, and he is often ranked as one of the most popular and iconic comic book characters of all time and one of the most popular characters in all fiction.
+
+In 1962, with the success of the Fantastic Four, Marvel Comics editor and head writer Stan Lee was casting about for a new superhero idea. He said the idea for Spider-Man arose from a surge in teenage demand for comic books, and the desire to create a character with whom teens could identify.[16]:1 In his autobiography, Lee cites the non-superhuman pulp magazine crime fighter the Spider as a great influence,[15]:130 and in a multitude of print and video interviews, Lee stated he was further inspired by seeing a spider climb up a wall—adding in his autobiography that he has told that story so often he has become unsure of whether or not this is true.[note 1] Although at the time teenage superheroes were usually given names ending with "boy", Lee says he chose "Spider-Man" because he wanted the character to age as the series progressed, and moreover felt the name "Spider-Boy" would have made the character sound inferior to other superheroes.[17] He also decided to insert a hyphen in the name, as he felt it looked too similar to Superman, another superhero with a red and blue costume which starts with an "S" and ends with "man".[18] At that time Lee had to get only the consent of Marvel publisher Martin Goodman for the character's approval. In a 1986 interview, Lee described in detail his arguments to overcome Goodman's objections.[note 2] Goodman eventually agreed to a Spider-Man tryout in what Lee in numerous interviews recalled as what would be the final issue of the science-fiction and supernatural anthology series Amazing Adult Fantasy, which was renamed Amazing Fantasy for that single issue, #15 (cover-dated August 1962, on sale June 5, 1962).[19] In particular, Lee stated that the fact that it had already been decided that Amazing Fantasy would be canceled after issue #15 was the only reason Goodman allowed him to use Spider-Man.[17] While this was indeed the final issue, its editorial page anticipated the comic continuing and that "The Spiderman [sic] ... will appear every month in Amazing."[19][20]
+
+Regardless, Lee received Goodman's approval for the name Spider-Man and the "ordinary teen" concept and approached artist Jack Kirby. As comics historian Greg Theakston recounts, Kirby told Lee about an unpublished character on which he had collaborated with Joe Simon in the 1950s, in which an orphaned boy living with an old couple finds a magic ring that granted him superhuman powers. Lee and Kirby "immediately sat down for a story conference", Theakston writes, and Lee afterward directed Kirby to flesh out the character and draw some pages.[21] Steve Ditko would be the inker.[note 3] When Kirby showed Lee the first six pages, Lee recalled, "I hated the way he was doing it! Not that he did it badly—it just wasn't the character I wanted; it was too heroic".[21]:12 Lee turned to Ditko, who developed a visual style Lee found satisfactory. Ditko recalled:
+
+One of the first things I did was to work up a costume. A vital, visual part of the character. I had to know how he looked ... before I did any breakdowns. For example: A clinging power so he wouldn't have hard shoes or boots, a hidden wrist-shooter versus a web gun and holster, etc. ... I wasn't sure Stan would like the idea of covering the character's face but I did it because it hid an obviously boyish face. It would also add mystery to the character....[22]
+
+Although the interior artwork was by Ditko alone, Lee rejected Ditko's cover art and commissioned Kirby to pencil a cover that Ditko inked.[19] As Lee explained in 2010, "I think I had Jack sketch out a cover for it because I always had a lot of confidence in Jack's covers."[23]
+
+In an early recollection of the character's creation, Ditko described his and Lee's contributions in a mail interview with Gary Martin published in Comic Fan #2 (Summer 1965): "Stan Lee thought the name up. I did costume, web gimmick on wrist & spider signal."[24] At the time, Ditko shared a Manhattan studio with noted fetish artist Eric Stanton, an art-school classmate who, in a 1988 interview with Theakston, recalled that although his contribution to Spider-Man was "almost nil", he and Ditko had "worked on storyboards together and I added a few ideas. But the whole thing was created by Steve on his own... I think I added the business about the webs coming out of his hands."[21]:14
+
+Kirby disputed Lee's version of the story and claimed Lee had minimal involvement in the character's creation. According to Kirby, the idea for Spider-Man had originated with Kirby and Joe Simon, who in the 1950s had developed a character called the Silver Spider for the Crestwood Publications comic Black Magic, who was subsequently not used.[note 4] Simon, in his 1990 autobiography, disputed Kirby's account, asserting that Black Magic was not a factor, and that he (Simon) devised the name "Spider-Man" (later changed to "The Silver Spider"), while Kirby outlined the character's story and powers. Simon later elaborated that his and Kirby's character conception became the basis for Simon's Archie Comics superhero the Fly.[25] Artist Steve Ditko stated that Lee liked the name Hawkman from DC Comics, and that "Spider-Man" was an outgrowth of that interest.[22]
+
+Simon concurred that Kirby had shown the original Spider-Man version to Lee, who liked the idea and assigned Kirby to draw sample pages of the new character but disliked the results—in Simon's description, "Captain America with cobwebs".[note 5] Writer Mark Evanier notes that Lee's reasoning that Kirby's character was too heroic seems unlikely—Kirby still drew the covers for Amazing Fantasy #15 and the first issue of The Amazing Spider-Man. Evanier also disputes Kirby's given reason that he was "too busy" to draw Spider-Man in addition to his other duties since Kirby was, said Evanier, "always busy".[26]:127 Neither Lee's nor Kirby's explanation explains why key story elements like the magic ring were dropped; Evanier states that the most plausible explanation for the sudden change was that Goodman, or one of his assistants, decided that Spider-Man, as drawn and envisioned by Kirby, was too similar to the Fly.[26]:127
+
+Author and Ditko scholar Blake Bell writes that it was Ditko who noted the similarities to the Fly. Ditko recalled that "Stan called Jack about the Fly", adding that "[d]ays later, Stan told me I would be penciling the story panel breakdowns from Stan's synopsis." It was at this point that the nature of the strip changed. "Out went the magic ring, adult Spider-Man and whatever legend ideas that Spider-Man story would have contained." Lee gave Ditko the premise of a teenager bitten by a spider and developing powers, a premise Ditko would expand upon to the point he became what Bell describes as "the first work for hire artist of his generation to create and control the narrative arc of his series". On the issue of the initial creation, Ditko states, "I still don't know whose idea was Spider-Man".[27] Kirby noted in a 1971 interview that it was Ditko who "got Spider-Man to roll, and the thing caught on because of what he did".[28] Lee, while claiming credit for the initial idea, has acknowledged Ditko's role, stating, "If Steve wants to be called co-creator, I think he deserves [it]".[29] He has further commented that Ditko's costume design was key to the character's success; since the costume completely covers Spider-Man's body, people of all races could visualize themselves inside the costume and thus more easily identify with the character.[17]
+
+A few months after Spider-Man's introduction, publisher Goodman reviewed the sales figures for that issue and was shocked to find it was one of the nascent Marvel's highest-selling comics.[30]:97 A solo ongoing series followed, beginning with The Amazing Spider-Man #1 (cover-dated March 1963). The title eventually became Marvel's top-selling series[9]:211 with the character swiftly becoming a cultural icon; a 1965 Esquire poll of college campuses found that college students ranked Spider-Man and fellow Marvel hero the Hulk alongside Bob Dylan and Che Guevara as their favorite revolutionary icons. One interviewee selected Spider-Man because he was "beset by woes, money problems, and the question of existence. In short, he is one of us."[9]:223 Following Ditko's departure after issue #38 (July 1966), John Romita Sr. replaced him as penciller and would draw the series for the next several years. In 1968, Romita would also draw the character's extra-length stories in the comics magazine The Spectacular Spider-Man, a proto-graphic novel designed to appeal to older readers. It only lasted for two issues, but it represented the first Spider-Man spin-off publication, aside from the original series' summer Annuals that began in 1964.[31]
+
+An early 1970s Spider-Man story ultimately led to the revision of the Comics Code. Previously, the Code forbade the depiction of the use of illegal drugs, even negatively. However, in 1970, the Nixon administration's Department of Health, Education, and Welfare asked Stan Lee to publish an anti-drug message in one of Marvel's top-selling titles.[9]:239 Lee chose the top-selling The Amazing Spider-Man; issues #96–98 (May–July 1971) feature a story arc depicting the negative effects of drug use. In the story, Peter Parker's friend Harry Osborn becomes addicted to pills. When Spider-Man fights the Green Goblin (Norman Osborn, Harry's father), Spider-Man defeats him by revealing Harry's drug addiction. While the story had a clear anti-drug message, the Comics Code Authority refused to issue its seal of approval. Marvel nevertheless published the three issues without the Comics Code Authority's approval or seal. The issues sold so well that the industry's self-censorship was undercut and the Code was subsequently revised.[9]:239
+
+In 1972, a second monthly ongoing series starring Spider-Man began: Marvel Team-Up, in which Spider-Man was paired with other superheroes and supervillains.[32] From that point on, there have generally been at least two ongoing Spider-Man series at any time. In 1976, his second solo series, Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man began running parallel to the main series.[33] A third series featuring Spider-Man, Web of Spider-Man, launched in 1985 to replace Marvel Team-Up.[34] The launch of a fourth monthly title in 1990, the "adjectiveless" Spider-Man (with the storyline "Torment"), written and drawn by popular artist Todd McFarlane, debuted with several different covers, all with the same interior content. The various versions combined sold over 3 million copies, an industry record at the time. Several miniseries, one-shot issues, and loosely related comics have also been published, and Spider-Man makes frequent cameos and guest appearances in other comic book series.[33][35] In 1996, The Sensational Spider-Man was created to replace Web of Spider-Man.[36]
+
+In 1998 writer-artist John Byrne revamped the origin of Spider-Man in the 13-issue limited series Spider-Man: Chapter One (Dec. 1998 – Oct. 1999), similar to Byrne's adding details and some revisions to Superman's origin in DC Comics' The Man of Steel.[37] At the same time, the original The Amazing Spider-Man was ended with issue #441 (Nov. 1998), and The Amazing Spider-Man was restarted with vol. 2, #1 (Jan. 1999).[38] In 2003, Marvel reintroduced the original numbering for The Amazing Spider-Man and what would have been vol. 2, #59 became issue #500 (Dec. 2003).[38]
+
+When the primary series The Amazing Spider-Man reached issue #545 (Dec. 2007), Marvel dropped its spin-off ongoing series and instead began publishing The Amazing Spider-Man three times monthly, beginning with #546–548 (all January 2008).[39] The three times-monthly scheduling of The Amazing Spider-Man lasted until November 2010, when the comic book was increased from 22 pages to 30 pages each issue and published only twice a month, beginning with #648–649 (both November 2010).[40][41] The following year, Marvel launched Avenging Spider-Man as the first spin-off ongoing series in addition to the still-twice monthly The Amazing Spider-Man since the previous ones were canceled at the end of 2007.[39] The Amazing series temporarily ended with issue #700 in December 2012, and was replaced by The Superior Spider-Man, which had Doctor Octopus serve as the new Spider-Man, his mind having taken over Peter Parker's body. Superior was an enormous commercial success for Marvel,[42] and ran for 31 issues before the real Peter Parker returned in a newly relaunched The Amazing Spider-Man #1 in April 2014.[43]
+
+Following the 2015 Secret Wars crossover event, a number of Spider-Man-related titles were either relaunched or created as part of the "All-New, All-Different Marvel" event. Among them, The Amazing Spider-Man was relaunched as well and primarily focuses on Peter Parker continuing to run Parker Industries, and becoming a successful businessman who is operating worldwide.[44]
+
+In Forest Hills, Queens, New York,[45] Midtown High School student Peter Benjamin Parker is a science-whiz orphan living with his Uncle Ben and Aunt May. As depicted in Amazing Fantasy #15 (Aug. 1962), he is bitten by a radioactive spider (erroneously classified as an insect in the panel) at a science exhibit and "acquires the agility and proportionate strength of an arachnid".[46] Along with heightened athletic abilities, Parker gains the ability to adhere to walls and ceilings. Through his native knack for science, he develops a gadget that lets him fire adhesive webbing of his own design through small, wrist-mounted barrels. Initially seeking to capitalize on his new abilities, Parker dons a costume and, as "Spider-Man", becomes a novelty television star. However, "He blithely ignores the chance to stop a fleeing thief, [and] his indifference ironically catches up with him when the same criminal later robs and kills his Uncle Ben." Spider-Man tracks and subdues the killer and learns, in the story's next-to-last caption, "With great power there must also come—great responsibility!"[47]
+
+Despite his superpowers, Parker struggles to help his widowed aunt pay the rent, is taunted by his peers—particularly football star Flash Thompson—and, as Spider-Man, engenders the editorial wrath of newspaper publisher J. Jonah Jameson.[48][49] As he battles his enemies for the first time,[50] Parker finds juggling his personal life and costumed adventures difficult. In time, Peter graduates from high school,[51] and enrolls at Empire State University (a fictional institution evoking the real-life Columbia University and New York University),[52] where he meets roommate and best friend Harry Osborn, and girlfriend Gwen Stacy,[53] and Aunt May introduces him to Mary Jane Watson.[50][54][55] As Peter deals with Harry's drug problems, and Harry's father is revealed to be Spider-Man's nemesis the Green Goblin, Peter even attempts to give up his costumed identity for a while.[56][57] Gwen Stacy's father, New York City Police detective captain George Stacy is accidentally killed during a battle between Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus (issue #90, November 1970).[58]
+
+In issue #121 (June 1973),[50] the Green Goblin throws Gwen Stacy from a tower of either the Brooklyn Bridge (as depicted in the art) or the George Washington Bridge (as given in the text).[59][60] She dies during Spider-Man's rescue attempt; a note on the letters page of issue #125 states: "It saddens us to say that the whiplash effect she underwent when Spidey's webbing stopped her so suddenly was, in fact, what killed her."[61] The following issue, the Goblin appears to kill himself accidentally in the ensuing battle with Spider-Man.[62]
+
+Working through his grief, Parker eventually develops tentative feelings toward Watson, and the two "become confidants rather than lovers".[63] A romantic relationship eventually develops, with Parker proposing to her in issue #182 (July 1978), and being turned down an issue later.[64] Parker went on to graduate from college in issue #185,[50] and becomes involved with the shy Debra Whitman and the extroverted, flirtatious costumed thief Felicia Hardy, a.k.a. the Black Cat,[65] whom he meets in issue #194 (July 1979).[50]
+
+From 1984 to 1988, Spider-Man wore a black costume with a white spider design on his chest. The new costume originated in the Secret Wars miniseries, on an alien planet where Spider-Man participates in a battle between Earth's major superheroes and supervillains.[66] He continues wearing the costume when he returns, starting in The Amazing Spider-Man #252. The change to a longstanding character's design met with controversy, "with many hardcore comics fans decrying it as tantamount to sacrilege. Spider-Man's traditional red and blue costume was iconic, they argued, on par with those of his D.C. rivals Superman and Batman."[67] The creators then revealed the costume was an alien symbiote which Spider-Man is able to reject after a difficult struggle,[68] though the symbiote returns several times as Venom for revenge.[50]
+Parker proposes to Watson in The Amazing Spider-Man #290 (July 1987), and she accepts two issues later, with the wedding taking place in The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21 (1987)—promoted with a real-life mock wedding using actors at Shea Stadium, with Stan Lee officiating, on June 5, 1987.[69] David Michelinie, who scripted based on a plot by editor-in-chief Jim Shooter, said in 2007, "I didn't think they actually should [have gotten] married. ... I had actually planned another version, one that wasn't used."[69] Parker published a book of Spider-Man photographs called Webs.[70] and returned to his Empire State University graduate studies in biochemistry in #310 (Dec. 1988).[50]
+
+In the controversial[71] 1990s storyline the "Clone Saga", a clone of Parker, created in 1970s comics by insane scientist Miles Warren, a.k.a. the Jackal, returns to New York City upon hearing of Aunt May's health worsening. The clone had lived incognito as "Ben Reilly", but now assumes the superhero guise the Scarlet Spider and allies with Parker. To the surprise of both, new tests indicate "Reilly" is the original and "Parker" the clone.[72] Complicating matters, Watson announces in The Spectacular Spider-Man #220 (Jan. 1995) that she is pregnant with Parker's baby.[50] Later, however, a resurrected Green Goblin (Norman Osborn) has Watson poisoned, causing premature labor and the death of her and Parker's unborn daughter.[73] The Green Goblin had switched the results of the clone test in an attempt to destroy Parker's life by making him believe himself to be the clone. Reilly is killed while saving Parker, in Peter Parker: Spider-Man #75 (Dec. 1996), and his body immediately crumbles into dust, confirming Reilly was the clone.[73]
+
+In issue #97 (Nov. 1998) of the second series titled Peter Parker: Spider-Man,[74] Parker learns his Aunt May was kidnapped by Norman Osborn and her apparent death in The Amazing Spider-Man #400 (April 1995) had been a hoax.[75][76] Shortly afterward, in The Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 2) #13 (#454, Jan. 2000), Watson is apparently killed in an airplane explosion.[77] She turns up alive and well in (vol. 2) #28 (#469, April 2001),[77] but she and Peter become separated in the following issue.[78]
+
+Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski began writing The Amazing Spider-Man, illustrated by John Romita Jr., beginning with (vol. 2) #30 (#471, June 2001). Two issues later, Parker, now employed as a teacher at his old high school, meets the enigmatic Ezekiel, who possesses similar spider powers and suggests that Parker having gained such abilities might not have been a fluke—that Parker has a connection to a totemic spider spirit. In (vol. 2) #37 (#478, Jan. 2002), May discovers her nephew Parker is Spider-Man, leading to a new openness in their relationship.[76] Parker and Watson reconcile in (vol. 2) #50 (#491, April 2003),[76] and in #512 (Nov. 2004)—the original issue numbering having returned with #500—Parker learns his late girlfriend Gwen Stacy had had two children with Norman Osborn.[79]
+
+He joins the superhero team the Avengers in New Avengers #1-2. After their respective homes are destroyed by a deranged, superpowered former high-school classmate, Parker, Watson, and May move into Stark Tower, and Parker begins working as Tony Stark's assistant while again freelancing for The Daily Bugle and continuing his teaching. In the 12-part 2005 story arc "The Other", Parker undergoes a transformation that evolves his powers. In the comic Civil War #2 (June 2006), part of the company-wide crossover arc of that title, the U.S. government's Superhuman Registration Act leads Spider-Man to reveal his true identity publicly. A growing unease about the Registration Act prompts him to escape with May and Watson and join the anti-registration underground.
+
+In issue #537 (Dec. 2006), May is critically wounded by a sniper and enters into a coma. Parker, desperate to save her, exhausts all possibilities and makes a pact with the demon-lord Mephisto, who saves May's life in exchange for Parker and Watson agreeing to have their marriage and all memory of it disappear. In this changed reality, Spider-Man's identity is secret once again, and in #545 (Jan. 2008), Watson returns and is cold toward him.
+
+That controversial[80] storyline, "One More Day", rolled back much of the fictional continuity at the behest of editor-in-chief Joe Quesada, who said, "Peter being single is an intrinsic part of the very foundation of the world of Spider-Man".[80] It caused unusual public friction between Quesada and writer Straczynski, who "told Joe that I was going to take my name off the last two issues of the [story] arc", but was talked out of doing so.[81] At issue with Straczynski's climax to the arc, Quesada said, was
+
+...that we didn't receive the story and methodology to the resolution that we were all expecting. What made that very problematic is that we had four writers and artists well underway on [the sequel arc] "Brand New Day" that were expecting and needed "One More Day" to end in the way that we had all agreed it would. ... The fact that we had to ask for the story to move back to its original intent understandably made Joe upset and caused some major delays and page increases in the series. Also, the science that Joe was going to apply to the retcon of the marriage would have made over 30 years of Spider-Man books worthless, because they never would have had happened. ...[I]t would have reset way too many things outside of the Spider-Man titles. We just couldn't go there....[81]
+
+In this new continuity, designed to have very limited repercussions throughout the remainder of the Marvel Universe, Parker returns to work at the Daily Bugle, which has been renamed The DB under a new publisher.[82] He soon switches to the alternative press paper The Front Line.[83] J. Jonah Jameson becomes the Mayor of New York City in issue #591 (June 2008).[79] Jameson's estranged father, J. Jonah Jameson, Sr., marries May in issue #600 (Sept. 2009).[79][84]
+
+After Osborn's fall and the Registration Act's abolition following the Siege of Asgard, MJ invited Peter over so the two of them could gain closure over the marriage that did not happen and the breakup.[85] Later, a massive war ensued between Doctor Octopus and Spider-Man to get Lily Hollister's and Norman Osborn's son, in which Spider-Man found that the child was actually Harry's, who later leaves town to raise him. Peter then finally starts a relationship with police officer Carlie Cooper.
+Spider-Man's heroic career rose up again, he joined the reassembled Avengers and also stayed with the New Avengers, who were outlaws no more. He learned that Michele was moving and he could not maintain his apartment anymore. However, Peter found a dream job, thanks to Jameson's wife Marla Madison, as a compensation for Jameson firing him, as a scientist at Horizon Labs where he had access to much more technology and resources while also giving him freedom to come and go as he liked so long as he delivered good results. Spider-Man assisted the Avengers in defeating Doctor Octopus' army of Macro-Octobots. He then faced a new Hobgoblin and the Kingpin, but days later, he lamentably lost Marla in a fight between Alistair Alphonso Smythe's Spider-Slayers.[86]
+
+After helping Anti-Venom (Eddie Brock) to reveal Mr. Negative's identity[87] (as well as learning that Aunt May was moving to Boston with Jay) Spider-Man found himself with a new problem: the Jackal returned and gave the majority of New Yorkers spider-powers.[88]
+The Queen was revealed as the true mastermind: she wanted to turn the whole human race into spiders. Mr. Fantastic created a cure using the Anti-Venom Symbiote, and after battling Peter (under the Jackal's influence), Peter's clone Kaine was accidentally cured from his mutations, turning him into a perfect clone.
+While he and the Avengers battled the Spider-Queen in Central Park, Kaine killed her and Peter managed to get the cure to every citizen via Doctor Octopus's (mentally controlled) Octobots. He met with Jay and May while they were leaving for Boston. Peter then ran into Kaine, who told Peter that he was leaving New York and with Peter's stealth suit, since Madame Web had told Kaine he may need it. Also, because of revealing he had spider-powers during the Spider-Island event, Peter's psychic blind spot was weakened, letting Carlie know he was Spider-Man, which caused her to break up with him. Before giving a last cure sample to MJ, who briefly attempted to keep some spider-powers, Spider-Man met with Madame Web on the roof of Horizon Labs. She told him that he could de-power himself with the cure sample and someone else will step in to take his place. Peter refuses, saying that throwing his gift away would be the most irresponsible thing he has ever done. Madame Web warns that he is to suffer a loss. He then cures MJ and they look at the Empire State Building, lit in red and blue in his honor.
+
+While adjusting to his new status quo, especially his position as the CEO of his very own company,[89] Peter learned of the existence of Cindy Moon, a second person to have been bit by the same radioactive spider which granted Peter his powers. Spider-Man tracked her down and freed her from a bunker owned by the late Ezekiel Simms, where Cindy had spent over a decade in voluntary confinement shortly after getting her powers, in order to avoid drawing Morlun's attention. While Peter notified Cindy that Morlun was dead, he had in fact survived his last encounter against Spider-Man.[90]
+Not long after rescuing Cindy, who went on to adopt her own superheroic identity as Silk,[91] Spider-Man was approached by a contingent of spider-people from all over the Multiverse that banded together to fight the Inheritors, a group of psychic vampires and the family of Morlun that had begun to hunt down the spider-totems of other realities.[92] During a mission to gather more recruits in A.D. 2099, the Spider-Army stumbled upon another party of spider-people led by Otto Octavius, or rather a version of him from the recent past who had been plucked out of time.[93]
+The combined Spider-Army were forced to retreat to Earth-3145 after their safe zone in Earth-13 had been compromised by the Inheritors, namely Morlun, his brother Jennix, and his father and leader of the Inheritors, Solus. With the help of Spider-Woman, who had previously infiltrated the Inheritor's base on Earth-001, the Spider-Army learned of a prophecy in which the Inheritors planned to sacrifice three key spiders: the Other, the Bride, and the Scion. These individuals were Kaine Parker, Cindy Moon, and Benjamin "Benjy" Parker of Earth-982, respectively.
+With the help of even more recruits from other realities and even a deviant Inheritor named Karn, the Spider-Army, including a version of Gwen Stacy with spider-powers known as "Spider-Gwen", launched one final attack on the Inheritors' home of Earth-001. The ritual was stopped, and the Inheritors were exiled with no means to return home to the radioactive wasteland that had become the world of Earth-3145. With the Inheritors neutralized, most of the spider-totems were sent home. Spider-Man and a few others stayed on Earth-001 for a little while longer to defeat the time-displaced Octavius, who had gone rogue after learning that Parker would eventually regain control of his body. Octavius was defeated and returned to the time he had come from, losing memory of the recent events in the process. With no more problems to confront, Spider-Man and the rest of the spiders were sent back home.
+
+Unbeknownst to anyone, Otto Octavius had created a digital back-up of his own mind, which ended up inhabiting the metallic body of Parker Industries' robotic assistant, the Living Brain.[94] Over the course of the following months, Octavius routinely hacked into the systems of the market share to manipulate its numbers in favor of Parker Industries. As a consequence of this, the company managed to expand into a global conglomerate with numerous bases in different countries, with the company's trademark invention being a mobile device called the Webware. This change in Peter's life impacted his superheroic alter ego as well. Spider-Man officially became the mascot of Parker Industries under the guise of being Peter's bodyguard.[95]
+
+One of Peter's biggest challenges during his tenure as a billionaire C.E.O was the emergence of a mysterious biotech company, operating out of the Transamerica Pyramid, called New U. Peter discovered it was a front for the operations of the Jackal, who claimed to have found a way to bring people back from the dead using cloning technology. In an attempt to persuade Peter to put Parker Industries' resources to help his plan, the Jackal created numerous clones of his late friends and foes, including Gwen Stacy. In a turn of events, the Jackal was revealed to be Ben Reilly, who had been brought to life by the original Jackal before taking his place. The Jackal's plan eventually fell apart following the triggering of cellular decay in the clones created by New U, which led to the release of the Carrion Virus worldwide. The crisis was adverted when Spider-Man had his Webwares transmit an audio frequency in a global scale which halted the cellular degeneration, but not before most of the clones died. The Jackal, being a clone himself, was left for dead, though he secretly escaped and returned to the mantle of the Scarlet Spider.
+
+Following Osborn's latest defeat, Peter's life was plagued with problems on both sides. As Spider-Man, now-Mayor Wilson Fisk, a.k.a the Kingpin, decided to be publicly accepting of him, while condemning all other vigilantes in order to isolate him from his superhero peers. As Peter Parker, his academic credentials were revoked after being accused of plagiarizing his doctoral dissertion from Octavius (and unable to defend himself without revealing his secret identity), resulting in his firing from the Daily Bugle again. On the other hand, Peter became romantically involved again with Mary Jane, and was given an opportunity to re-apply for his doctoral thesis on the recommendation of Dr. Curt Connors.[96] For a brief time, Peter Parker and Spider-Man were split into separate beings due to an accident involving the reverse-engineered Isotope Genome Accelerator. However, the separation split Peter down the middle, so both individuals did not share Peter's sense of responsibility, resulting in a reckless and vain Spider-Man. Peter eventually managed to reverse the process, and merge his two halves back together before the side-effects could worsen and result in their death.[97]
+
+More recently, Spider-Man has been plagued by visions of a mysterious villain named Kindred who has seemingly been working with Mysterio.[98] As this happened, villains the Black Ant and the Taskmaster captured animal-themed supervillains for Kraven the Hunter as part of a plan to destroy unworthy hunters. In the process, Dr. Connors' child Billy was kidnapped alongside the Black Cat and were forced to fight for their survival in New York's Central Park which was, at that time, surrounded by an energy field.[99] Meanwhile, the Vulture brainwashed a group of fellow supervillains and led an attack against the unworthy hunters. Spider-Man was tasked with finding Kraven the Hunter, whose ultimate goal through the hunt was to anger Spider-Man and lead him to kill him, ending his curse. After Spider-Man refused and Dr. Connors saved his child, Kraven lifted the force field from Central Park, allowing Spider-Man, Connors and Billy, and the Black Cat to escape while the Avengers rounded up all the loose criminals. The "Hunted" story arc ended with Kraven donning a Spider-Man disguise, effectively becoming the Spider, and allowing his cloned son to kill him.[100]
+
+Comics historian Peter Sanderson[101]
+
+Sally Kempton for the Village Voice opined in 1965 that "Spider-Man has a terrible identity problem, a marked inferiority complex, and a fear of women. He is anti-social, [sic] castration-ridden, racked with Oedipal guilt, and accident-prone ... [a] functioning neurotic".[45] Agonizing over his choices, always attempting to do right, he is nonetheless viewed with suspicion by the authorities, who seem unsure as to whether he is a helpful vigilante or a clever criminal.[102]
+
+Notes cultural historian Bradford W. Wright,
+
+Spider-Man's plight was to be misunderstood and persecuted by the very public that he swore to protect. In the first issue of The Amazing Spider-Man, J. Jonah Jameson, publisher of the Daily Bugle, launches an editorial campaign against the "Spider-Man menace." The resulting negative publicity exacerbates popular suspicions about the mysterious Spider-Man and makes it impossible for him to earn any more money by performing. Eventually, the bad press leads the authorities to brand him an outlaw. Ironically, Peter finally lands a job as a photographer for Jameson's Daily Bugle.[9]:212
+
+The mid-1960s stories reflected the political tensions of the time, as early 1960s Marvel stories had often dealt with the Cold War and Communism.[9]:220–223 As Wright observes,
+
+From his high-school beginnings to his entry into college life, Spider-Man remained the superhero most relevant to the world of young people. Fittingly, then, his comic book also contained some of the earliest references to the politics of young people. In 1968, in the wake of actual militant student demonstrations at Columbia University, Peter Parker finds himself in the midst of similar unrest at his Empire State University.... Peter has to reconcile his natural sympathy for the students with his assumed obligation to combat lawlessness as Spider-Man. As a law-upholding liberal, he finds himself caught between militant leftism and angry conservatives.[9]:234–235
+
+A bite from a radioactive spider triggers mutations in Peter Parker's body, granting him superpowers.[103] Since the original Lee-Ditko stories, Spider-Man has had the ability to cling to walls. This has been speculated to be based on a distance-dependent interaction between his body and surfaces, known as the van der Waals force,[citation needed] but other sources, such as the 2002 Spider-Man film, suggest instead that his hands and feet are lined with tiny clinging cilia in the manner of a real spider's feet. Spider-Man's other powers include significantly superhuman strength, a precognitive sixth sense famously referred to as his "spider-sense" or "spidey-sense" that alerts him to danger, perfect balance and equilibrium, as well as superhuman speed and agility.[103] The character was originally conceived by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko as intellectually gifted, but later writers have depicted his intellect at genius level.[104] Academically brilliant, Parker has expertise in the fields of applied science, chemistry, physics, biology, engineering, mathematics, and mechanics. With his talents, he sews his own costume to conceal his identity, and he constructs many devices that complement his powers, most notably mechanical web-shooters, to help navigate and trap his enemies along with a spider-signal as a flashlight and a warning beacon to criminals.[103]
+
+Spider-Man has had a large range of supporting characters introduced in the comics that are essential in the issues and storylines that star him. After his parents died, Peter Parker was raised by his loving aunt, May Parker, and his uncle and father figure, Ben Parker. After Uncle Ben is murdered by a burglar, Aunt May is virtually Peter's only family, and she and Peter are very close.[46]
+
+J. Jonah Jameson is the publisher of the Daily Bugle and is Peter Parker's boss. A harsh critic of Spider-Man, he constantly features negative articles about the superhero in his newspaper.
+
+Despite his role as Jameson's editor and confidant, Robbie Robertson is always depicted as a supporter of both Peter Parker and Spider-Man.[48]
+
+Eugene "Flash" Thompson is commonly depicted as Parker's high school tormentor and bully, but in later comic issues he becomes a friend to Peter.[48] Meanwhile, Harry Osborn, son of Norman Osborn, is most commonly recognized as Peter's best friend, but has also been depicted sometimes as his rival in the comics.[50]
+
+Peter Parker's romantic interests range between his first crush, fellow high-school student Liz Allan,[48] to having his first date with Betty Brant,[105]secretary to the Daily Bugle newspaper publisher J. Jonah Jameson. After his breakup with Betty Brant, Parker eventually falls in love with his college girlfriend Gwen Stacy,[50][53] daughter of New York City Police Department detective captain George Stacy, both of whom are later killed by supervillain enemies of Spider-Man.[58] Mary Jane Watson eventually became Peter's best friend and then his wife.[69] Felicia Hardy, the Black Cat, is a reformed cat burglar who had been Spider-Man's sole superhuman girlfriend and partner at one point.[65]
+
+Writers and artists over the years have established a rogues gallery of supervillains to face Spider-Man, in comics and in other media. As with the hero, the majority of the villains' powers originate with scientific accidents or the misuse of scientific technology, and many have animal-themed costumes or powers.[note 6] Examples are listed down below in the ordering of their original chronological appearance:
+
+Indicates a group.
+
+Todd McFarlane[151]
+
+Unlike a lot of well-known rivalries in comics book depictions, Spider-Man is cited to have more than one archenemy and it can be debated or disputed as to which one is worse:[156]
+
+Within the Marvel Universe there exists a multiverse with many variations of Spider-Men.[165] An early character included in the 1980s is the fictional anthropomorphic funny animal parody of Spider-Man in pig form named Spider-Ham (Peter Porker).[166] Many imprints of Spider-Men were created, like the futuristic version of Spider-Man in Marvel 2099 named Miguel O'Hara. In the MC2 imprint, Peter marries Mary Jane and has a daughter named Mayday Parker, who carries on Spider-Man's legacy and Marvel Noir has a 1930s version of Peter Parker.[165][167][168] Other themed versions exist within the early 2000s, such as a Marvel Mangaverse version and an Indian version from Spider-Man: India named Pavitr Prabhakar.[165][169]
+
+Ultimate Spider-Man was a popular modern retelling of Peter Parker. The version of Parker would later be depicted as being killed off and replaced by an Afro-Latino Spider-Man named Miles Morales.[170]
+
+The storyline "Spider-Verse" brought back many alternate takes on Spider-Man and introduced many newly inspired ones, such as an alternate world where Gwen Stacy gets bitten by a radioactive spider instead, along with a British-themed version named Spider-UK called Billy Braddock from the Captain Britain Corps.[167][171]
+
+In The Creation of Spider-Man, comic book writer-editor and historian Paul Kupperberg calls the character's superpowers "nothing too original"; what was original was that outside his secret identity, he was a "nerdy high school student".[173]:5 Going against typical superhero fare, Spider-Man included "heavy doses of soap-opera and elements of melodrama". Kupperberg feels that Lee and Ditko had created something new in the world of comics: "the flawed superhero with everyday problems". This idea spawned a "comics revolution".[173]:6 The insecurity and anxieties in Marvel's early 1960s comic books, such as The Amazing Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, The Fantastic Four, and The X-Men ushered in a new type of superhero, very different from the certain and all-powerful superheroes before them, and changed the public's perception of them.[174] Spider-Man has become one of the most recognizable fictional characters in the world, and has been used to sell toys, games, cereal, candy, soap, and many other products.[175]
+
+Spider-Man has become Marvel's flagship character and has often been used as the company mascot. When Marvel became the first comic book company to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1991, The Wall Street Journal announced "Spider-Man is coming to Wall Street"; the event was in turn promoted with an actor in a Spider-Man costume accompanying Stan Lee to the Stock Exchange.[9]:254 Since 1962, hundreds of millions of comics featuring the character have been sold around the world.[176] Spider-Man is the world's most profitable superhero.[177] In 2014, global retail sales of licensed products related to Spider-Man reached approximately $1.3 billion.[178] Comparatively, this amount exceeds the global licensing revenue of Batman, Superman, and the Avengers combined.[177]
+Spider-Man is also one of the highest-grossing franchise titles being the highest-grossing American comic book superhero[179][180]  est. $25.6 billion worldwide.[181][182]
+
+Spider-Man joined the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade from 1987 to 1998 as one of the balloon floats,[183] designed by John Romita Sr.,[184] one of the character's signature artists. A new, different Spider-Man balloon float also appeared from 2009 to 2014.[183]
+
+When Marvel wanted to issue a story dealing with the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the company chose the December 2001 issue of The Amazing Spider-Man.[185]
+In 2006, Spider-Man garnered major media coverage with the revelation of the character's secret identity,[186] an event detailed in a full-page story in the New York Post before the issue containing the story was even released.[187]
+
+In 2008, Marvel announced plans to release a series of educational comics the following year in partnership with the United Nations, depicting Spider-Man alongside the UN Peacekeeping Forces to highlight UN peacekeeping missions.[188] A BusinessWeek article listed Spider-Man as one of the top 10 most intelligent fictional characters in American comics.[189]
+
+Rapper Eminem has cited Spider-Man as one of his favorite comic book superheroes.[190][191]
+
+In 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States decided Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment, LLC, a case concerning royalties on a patent for an imitation web-shooter. The opinion for the Court, by Justice Elena Kagan, included several Spider-Man references, concluding with the statement that "with great power there must also come—great responsibility".[192]
+
+Spider-Man has become a subject of scientific inquiry. In 1987, researchers at Loyola University conducted a study into the utility of Spider-Man comics for informing children and parents about issues relating to child abuse.[193] In 2019, an Israeli study from Ariel University and Bar-Ilan University suggested that exposure to short clips from the Spider-Man movies could help to reduce an individual's arachnophobia.[194]
+
+—IGN staff on placing Spider-Man as the number one hero of Marvel.[195]
+
+Spider-Man was declared the number 1 superhero on Bravo's Ultimate Super Heroes, Vixens, and Villains TV series in 2005.[196] Empire magazine placed him as the fifth-greatest comic book character of all time.[197] Wizard magazine placed Spider-Man as the third-greatest comic book character on their website.[198] In 2011, Spider-Man placed third on IGN's Top 100 Comic Book Heroes of All Time, behind DC Comics characters Superman and Batman.[195] and sixth in their 2012 list of "The Top 50 Avengers".[199] In 2014, IGN identified Spider-Man the greatest Marvel Comics character of all time.[200] A 2015 poll at Comic Book Resources named Spider-Man the greatest Marvel character of all time.[201] IGN described him as the common everyman that represents many normal people, but also noting his uniqueness compared to many top-tiered superheroes with his many depicted flaws as a superhero. IGN noted that, despite being one of the most tragic superheroes of all time, he is "one of the most fun and snarky superheroes in existence."[195] Empire noted and praised that, despite the many tragedies that Spider-Man faces, he retains his sense of humor at all times with his witty wisecracks. The magazine website appraised the depiction of his "iconic" superhero poses describing it as "a top artist's dream".[198]
+
+George Marston of Newsarama placed Spider-Man's origin story as the greatest origin story of all time opining that "Spider-Man's origin combines all of the most classic aspects of pathos, tragedy and scientific wonder into the perfect blend for a superhero origin."[202]
+
+Real-life people who have been compared to Spider-Man for their climbing feats include:
+
+From the character's inception, Spider-Man stories have won numerous awards, including:
+
+Spider-Man has appeared in comics, cartoons, films, video games, coloring books, novels, records, children's books, and theme park rides.[175] On television, he first starred in the ABC animated series Spider-Man (1967–1970);[207] Spidey Super Stories (1974–1977) on PBS; and the CBS live action series The Amazing Spider-Man (1978–1979), starring Nicholas Hammond. Other animated series featuring the superhero include the syndicated Spider-Man (1981–1982), Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends (1981–1983), Fox Kids' Spider-Man (1994–1998), Spider-Man Unlimited (1999–2000), Spider-Man: The New Animated Series (2003), The Spectacular Spider-Man (2008–2009), Ultimate Spider-Man (2012–2017)[208]and Spider-Man(2017-present).
+
+A tokusatsu series featuring Spider-Man was produced by Toei and aired in Japan. It is commonly referred to by its Japanese pronunciation "Supaidā-Man".[209] Spider-Man also appeared in other print forms besides the comics, including novels, children's books, and the daily newspaper comic strip The Amazing Spider-Man, which debuted in January 1977, with the earliest installments written by Stan Lee and drawn by John Romita Sr.[210] Spider-Man has been adapted to other media including games, toys, collectibles, and miscellaneous memorabilia, and has appeared as the main character in numerous computer and video games on over 15 gaming platforms.
+
+Spider-Man was featured in a trilogy of live-action films directed by Sam Raimi and starring Tobey Maguire as the titular superhero. The first Spider-Man film of the trilogy was released on May 3, 2002; followed by Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Spider-Man 3 (2007). A third sequel was originally scheduled to be released in 2011; however, Sony later decided to reboot the franchise with a new director and cast. The reboot, titled The Amazing Spider-Man, was released on July 3, 2012; directed by Marc Webb and starring Andrew Garfield as the new Spider-Man.[211][212][213] It was followed by The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014).[214][215] In 2015, Sony and Disney made a deal for Spider-Man to appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.[216] Tom Holland made his debut as Spider-Man in the MCU film Captain America: Civil War (2016), before later starring in his standalone film Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017); directed by Jon Watts.[217][218] Holland reprised his role as Spider-Man in Avengers: Infinity War (2018),[219][220] Avengers: Endgame (2019),[221] and Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019).[222] Jake Johnson voiced an alternate universe version of Spider-Man in the animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.[223] Chris Pine also voiced another version of Peter Parker in the film.[224]
+
+Spider-Man will once again be seen in the MCU, as Sony and Disney have re-united for the production of the Spider-universe films.[225]
+
+A Broadway musical, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, began previews on November 14, 2010, at the Foxwoods Theatre on Broadway, with the official opening night on June 14, 2011.[226][227] The music and lyrics were written by Bono and The Edge of the rock group U2, with a book by Julie Taymor, Glen Berger, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa.[228] Turn Off the Dark is currently the most expensive musical in Broadway history, costing an estimated $70 million.[229] In addition, the show's unusually high running costs are reported to have been about $1.2 million per week.[230]
+
+In the fine arts, and starting with the Pop Art period and on a continuing basis since the 1960s, the character of Spider-Man has been "appropriated" by multiple visual artists and incorporated into contemporary artwork, most notably by Andy Warhol,[231][232] Roy Lichtenstein,[233] Mel Ramos,[234] Dulce Pinzon,[235] Mr. Brainwash,[236] F. Lennox Campello,[237] and others.

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+Spider-Man is a fictional superhero created by writer-editor Stan Lee and writer-artist Steve Ditko. He first appeared in the anthology comic book Amazing Fantasy #15 (Aug. 1962) in the Silver Age of Comic Books. He appears in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, as well as in a number of movies, television shows, and video game adaptations set in the Marvel Universe. In the stories, Spider-Man is the alias of Peter Parker, an orphan raised by his Aunt May and Uncle Ben in New York City after his parents Richard and Mary Parker died in a plane crash. Lee and Ditko had the character deal with the struggles of adolescence and financial issues, and accompanied him with many supporting characters, such as J. Jonah Jameson, Harry Osborn, Max Modell, romantic interests Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson, and foes such as Doctor Octopus, the Green Goblin and Venom. His origin story has him acquiring spider-related abilities after a bite from a radioactive spider; these include clinging to surfaces, superhuman strength and agility, and detecting danger with his "spider-sense." He then builds wrist-mounted "web-shooter" devices that shoot artificial spider-webbing of his own design.
+
+When Spider-Man first appeared in the early 1960s, teenagers in superhero comic books were usually relegated to the role of sidekick to the protagonist. The Spider-Man series broke ground by featuring Peter Parker, a high school student from Queens behind Spider-Man's secret identity and with whose "self-obsessions with rejection, inadequacy, and loneliness" young readers could relate.[9] While Spider-Man had all the makings of a sidekick, unlike previous teen heroes such as Bucky and Robin, Spider-Man had no superhero mentor like Captain America and Batman; he thus had to learn for himself that "with great power there must also come great responsibility"—a line included in a text box in the final panel of the first Spider-Man story but later retroactively attributed to his guardian, the late Uncle Ben Parker.
+
+Marvel has featured Spider-Man in several comic book series, the first and longest-lasting of which is The Amazing Spider-Man. Over the years, the Peter Parker character developed from a shy, nerdy New York City high school student to troubled but outgoing college student, to married high school teacher to, in the late 2000s, a single freelance photographer. In the 2010s, he joins the Avengers, Marvel's flagship superhero team. Spider-Man's nemesis Doctor Octopus also took on the identity for a story arc spanning 2012–2014, following a body swap plot in which Peter appears to die.[10] Marvel has also published books featuring alternate versions of Spider-Man, including Spider-Man 2099, which features the adventures of Miguel O'Hara, the Spider-Man of the future; Ultimate Spider-Man, which features the adventures of a teenaged Peter Parker in an alternate universe; and Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, which depicts the teenager Miles Morales, who takes up the mantle of Spider-Man after Ultimate Peter Parker's supposed death. Miles is later brought into mainstream continuity, where he sometimes works alongside Peter.
+
+Spider-Man is one of the most popular and commercially successful superheroes.[11] As Marvel's flagship character and company mascot, he has appeared in countless forms of media, including several animated and live action television series, syndicated newspaper comic strips, and in a series of films. The character was first portrayed in live action by Danny Seagren in Spidey Super Stories, a The Electric Company skit which ran from 1974 to 1977.[12] In films, Spider-Man has been portrayed by actors Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield,[13] and in the Marvel Cinematic Universe by Tom Holland. He was voiced by Chris Pine and Jake Johnson in the animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Reeve Carney starred originally as Spider-Man in the 2010 Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.[14] Spider-Man has been well received as a superhero and comic book character, and he is often ranked as one of the most popular and iconic comic book characters of all time and one of the most popular characters in all fiction.
+
+In 1962, with the success of the Fantastic Four, Marvel Comics editor and head writer Stan Lee was casting about for a new superhero idea. He said the idea for Spider-Man arose from a surge in teenage demand for comic books, and the desire to create a character with whom teens could identify.[16]:1 In his autobiography, Lee cites the non-superhuman pulp magazine crime fighter the Spider as a great influence,[15]:130 and in a multitude of print and video interviews, Lee stated he was further inspired by seeing a spider climb up a wall—adding in his autobiography that he has told that story so often he has become unsure of whether or not this is true.[note 1] Although at the time teenage superheroes were usually given names ending with "boy", Lee says he chose "Spider-Man" because he wanted the character to age as the series progressed, and moreover felt the name "Spider-Boy" would have made the character sound inferior to other superheroes.[17] He also decided to insert a hyphen in the name, as he felt it looked too similar to Superman, another superhero with a red and blue costume which starts with an "S" and ends with "man".[18] At that time Lee had to get only the consent of Marvel publisher Martin Goodman for the character's approval. In a 1986 interview, Lee described in detail his arguments to overcome Goodman's objections.[note 2] Goodman eventually agreed to a Spider-Man tryout in what Lee in numerous interviews recalled as what would be the final issue of the science-fiction and supernatural anthology series Amazing Adult Fantasy, which was renamed Amazing Fantasy for that single issue, #15 (cover-dated August 1962, on sale June 5, 1962).[19] In particular, Lee stated that the fact that it had already been decided that Amazing Fantasy would be canceled after issue #15 was the only reason Goodman allowed him to use Spider-Man.[17] While this was indeed the final issue, its editorial page anticipated the comic continuing and that "The Spiderman [sic] ... will appear every month in Amazing."[19][20]
+
+Regardless, Lee received Goodman's approval for the name Spider-Man and the "ordinary teen" concept and approached artist Jack Kirby. As comics historian Greg Theakston recounts, Kirby told Lee about an unpublished character on which he had collaborated with Joe Simon in the 1950s, in which an orphaned boy living with an old couple finds a magic ring that granted him superhuman powers. Lee and Kirby "immediately sat down for a story conference", Theakston writes, and Lee afterward directed Kirby to flesh out the character and draw some pages.[21] Steve Ditko would be the inker.[note 3] When Kirby showed Lee the first six pages, Lee recalled, "I hated the way he was doing it! Not that he did it badly—it just wasn't the character I wanted; it was too heroic".[21]:12 Lee turned to Ditko, who developed a visual style Lee found satisfactory. Ditko recalled:
+
+One of the first things I did was to work up a costume. A vital, visual part of the character. I had to know how he looked ... before I did any breakdowns. For example: A clinging power so he wouldn't have hard shoes or boots, a hidden wrist-shooter versus a web gun and holster, etc. ... I wasn't sure Stan would like the idea of covering the character's face but I did it because it hid an obviously boyish face. It would also add mystery to the character....[22]
+
+Although the interior artwork was by Ditko alone, Lee rejected Ditko's cover art and commissioned Kirby to pencil a cover that Ditko inked.[19] As Lee explained in 2010, "I think I had Jack sketch out a cover for it because I always had a lot of confidence in Jack's covers."[23]
+
+In an early recollection of the character's creation, Ditko described his and Lee's contributions in a mail interview with Gary Martin published in Comic Fan #2 (Summer 1965): "Stan Lee thought the name up. I did costume, web gimmick on wrist & spider signal."[24] At the time, Ditko shared a Manhattan studio with noted fetish artist Eric Stanton, an art-school classmate who, in a 1988 interview with Theakston, recalled that although his contribution to Spider-Man was "almost nil", he and Ditko had "worked on storyboards together and I added a few ideas. But the whole thing was created by Steve on his own... I think I added the business about the webs coming out of his hands."[21]:14
+
+Kirby disputed Lee's version of the story and claimed Lee had minimal involvement in the character's creation. According to Kirby, the idea for Spider-Man had originated with Kirby and Joe Simon, who in the 1950s had developed a character called the Silver Spider for the Crestwood Publications comic Black Magic, who was subsequently not used.[note 4] Simon, in his 1990 autobiography, disputed Kirby's account, asserting that Black Magic was not a factor, and that he (Simon) devised the name "Spider-Man" (later changed to "The Silver Spider"), while Kirby outlined the character's story and powers. Simon later elaborated that his and Kirby's character conception became the basis for Simon's Archie Comics superhero the Fly.[25] Artist Steve Ditko stated that Lee liked the name Hawkman from DC Comics, and that "Spider-Man" was an outgrowth of that interest.[22]
+
+Simon concurred that Kirby had shown the original Spider-Man version to Lee, who liked the idea and assigned Kirby to draw sample pages of the new character but disliked the results—in Simon's description, "Captain America with cobwebs".[note 5] Writer Mark Evanier notes that Lee's reasoning that Kirby's character was too heroic seems unlikely—Kirby still drew the covers for Amazing Fantasy #15 and the first issue of The Amazing Spider-Man. Evanier also disputes Kirby's given reason that he was "too busy" to draw Spider-Man in addition to his other duties since Kirby was, said Evanier, "always busy".[26]:127 Neither Lee's nor Kirby's explanation explains why key story elements like the magic ring were dropped; Evanier states that the most plausible explanation for the sudden change was that Goodman, or one of his assistants, decided that Spider-Man, as drawn and envisioned by Kirby, was too similar to the Fly.[26]:127
+
+Author and Ditko scholar Blake Bell writes that it was Ditko who noted the similarities to the Fly. Ditko recalled that "Stan called Jack about the Fly", adding that "[d]ays later, Stan told me I would be penciling the story panel breakdowns from Stan's synopsis." It was at this point that the nature of the strip changed. "Out went the magic ring, adult Spider-Man and whatever legend ideas that Spider-Man story would have contained." Lee gave Ditko the premise of a teenager bitten by a spider and developing powers, a premise Ditko would expand upon to the point he became what Bell describes as "the first work for hire artist of his generation to create and control the narrative arc of his series". On the issue of the initial creation, Ditko states, "I still don't know whose idea was Spider-Man".[27] Kirby noted in a 1971 interview that it was Ditko who "got Spider-Man to roll, and the thing caught on because of what he did".[28] Lee, while claiming credit for the initial idea, has acknowledged Ditko's role, stating, "If Steve wants to be called co-creator, I think he deserves [it]".[29] He has further commented that Ditko's costume design was key to the character's success; since the costume completely covers Spider-Man's body, people of all races could visualize themselves inside the costume and thus more easily identify with the character.[17]
+
+A few months after Spider-Man's introduction, publisher Goodman reviewed the sales figures for that issue and was shocked to find it was one of the nascent Marvel's highest-selling comics.[30]:97 A solo ongoing series followed, beginning with The Amazing Spider-Man #1 (cover-dated March 1963). The title eventually became Marvel's top-selling series[9]:211 with the character swiftly becoming a cultural icon; a 1965 Esquire poll of college campuses found that college students ranked Spider-Man and fellow Marvel hero the Hulk alongside Bob Dylan and Che Guevara as their favorite revolutionary icons. One interviewee selected Spider-Man because he was "beset by woes, money problems, and the question of existence. In short, he is one of us."[9]:223 Following Ditko's departure after issue #38 (July 1966), John Romita Sr. replaced him as penciller and would draw the series for the next several years. In 1968, Romita would also draw the character's extra-length stories in the comics magazine The Spectacular Spider-Man, a proto-graphic novel designed to appeal to older readers. It only lasted for two issues, but it represented the first Spider-Man spin-off publication, aside from the original series' summer Annuals that began in 1964.[31]
+
+An early 1970s Spider-Man story ultimately led to the revision of the Comics Code. Previously, the Code forbade the depiction of the use of illegal drugs, even negatively. However, in 1970, the Nixon administration's Department of Health, Education, and Welfare asked Stan Lee to publish an anti-drug message in one of Marvel's top-selling titles.[9]:239 Lee chose the top-selling The Amazing Spider-Man; issues #96–98 (May–July 1971) feature a story arc depicting the negative effects of drug use. In the story, Peter Parker's friend Harry Osborn becomes addicted to pills. When Spider-Man fights the Green Goblin (Norman Osborn, Harry's father), Spider-Man defeats him by revealing Harry's drug addiction. While the story had a clear anti-drug message, the Comics Code Authority refused to issue its seal of approval. Marvel nevertheless published the three issues without the Comics Code Authority's approval or seal. The issues sold so well that the industry's self-censorship was undercut and the Code was subsequently revised.[9]:239
+
+In 1972, a second monthly ongoing series starring Spider-Man began: Marvel Team-Up, in which Spider-Man was paired with other superheroes and supervillains.[32] From that point on, there have generally been at least two ongoing Spider-Man series at any time. In 1976, his second solo series, Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man began running parallel to the main series.[33] A third series featuring Spider-Man, Web of Spider-Man, launched in 1985 to replace Marvel Team-Up.[34] The launch of a fourth monthly title in 1990, the "adjectiveless" Spider-Man (with the storyline "Torment"), written and drawn by popular artist Todd McFarlane, debuted with several different covers, all with the same interior content. The various versions combined sold over 3 million copies, an industry record at the time. Several miniseries, one-shot issues, and loosely related comics have also been published, and Spider-Man makes frequent cameos and guest appearances in other comic book series.[33][35] In 1996, The Sensational Spider-Man was created to replace Web of Spider-Man.[36]
+
+In 1998 writer-artist John Byrne revamped the origin of Spider-Man in the 13-issue limited series Spider-Man: Chapter One (Dec. 1998 – Oct. 1999), similar to Byrne's adding details and some revisions to Superman's origin in DC Comics' The Man of Steel.[37] At the same time, the original The Amazing Spider-Man was ended with issue #441 (Nov. 1998), and The Amazing Spider-Man was restarted with vol. 2, #1 (Jan. 1999).[38] In 2003, Marvel reintroduced the original numbering for The Amazing Spider-Man and what would have been vol. 2, #59 became issue #500 (Dec. 2003).[38]
+
+When the primary series The Amazing Spider-Man reached issue #545 (Dec. 2007), Marvel dropped its spin-off ongoing series and instead began publishing The Amazing Spider-Man three times monthly, beginning with #546–548 (all January 2008).[39] The three times-monthly scheduling of The Amazing Spider-Man lasted until November 2010, when the comic book was increased from 22 pages to 30 pages each issue and published only twice a month, beginning with #648–649 (both November 2010).[40][41] The following year, Marvel launched Avenging Spider-Man as the first spin-off ongoing series in addition to the still-twice monthly The Amazing Spider-Man since the previous ones were canceled at the end of 2007.[39] The Amazing series temporarily ended with issue #700 in December 2012, and was replaced by The Superior Spider-Man, which had Doctor Octopus serve as the new Spider-Man, his mind having taken over Peter Parker's body. Superior was an enormous commercial success for Marvel,[42] and ran for 31 issues before the real Peter Parker returned in a newly relaunched The Amazing Spider-Man #1 in April 2014.[43]
+
+Following the 2015 Secret Wars crossover event, a number of Spider-Man-related titles were either relaunched or created as part of the "All-New, All-Different Marvel" event. Among them, The Amazing Spider-Man was relaunched as well and primarily focuses on Peter Parker continuing to run Parker Industries, and becoming a successful businessman who is operating worldwide.[44]
+
+In Forest Hills, Queens, New York,[45] Midtown High School student Peter Benjamin Parker is a science-whiz orphan living with his Uncle Ben and Aunt May. As depicted in Amazing Fantasy #15 (Aug. 1962), he is bitten by a radioactive spider (erroneously classified as an insect in the panel) at a science exhibit and "acquires the agility and proportionate strength of an arachnid".[46] Along with heightened athletic abilities, Parker gains the ability to adhere to walls and ceilings. Through his native knack for science, he develops a gadget that lets him fire adhesive webbing of his own design through small, wrist-mounted barrels. Initially seeking to capitalize on his new abilities, Parker dons a costume and, as "Spider-Man", becomes a novelty television star. However, "He blithely ignores the chance to stop a fleeing thief, [and] his indifference ironically catches up with him when the same criminal later robs and kills his Uncle Ben." Spider-Man tracks and subdues the killer and learns, in the story's next-to-last caption, "With great power there must also come—great responsibility!"[47]
+
+Despite his superpowers, Parker struggles to help his widowed aunt pay the rent, is taunted by his peers—particularly football star Flash Thompson—and, as Spider-Man, engenders the editorial wrath of newspaper publisher J. Jonah Jameson.[48][49] As he battles his enemies for the first time,[50] Parker finds juggling his personal life and costumed adventures difficult. In time, Peter graduates from high school,[51] and enrolls at Empire State University (a fictional institution evoking the real-life Columbia University and New York University),[52] where he meets roommate and best friend Harry Osborn, and girlfriend Gwen Stacy,[53] and Aunt May introduces him to Mary Jane Watson.[50][54][55] As Peter deals with Harry's drug problems, and Harry's father is revealed to be Spider-Man's nemesis the Green Goblin, Peter even attempts to give up his costumed identity for a while.[56][57] Gwen Stacy's father, New York City Police detective captain George Stacy is accidentally killed during a battle between Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus (issue #90, November 1970).[58]
+
+In issue #121 (June 1973),[50] the Green Goblin throws Gwen Stacy from a tower of either the Brooklyn Bridge (as depicted in the art) or the George Washington Bridge (as given in the text).[59][60] She dies during Spider-Man's rescue attempt; a note on the letters page of issue #125 states: "It saddens us to say that the whiplash effect she underwent when Spidey's webbing stopped her so suddenly was, in fact, what killed her."[61] The following issue, the Goblin appears to kill himself accidentally in the ensuing battle with Spider-Man.[62]
+
+Working through his grief, Parker eventually develops tentative feelings toward Watson, and the two "become confidants rather than lovers".[63] A romantic relationship eventually develops, with Parker proposing to her in issue #182 (July 1978), and being turned down an issue later.[64] Parker went on to graduate from college in issue #185,[50] and becomes involved with the shy Debra Whitman and the extroverted, flirtatious costumed thief Felicia Hardy, a.k.a. the Black Cat,[65] whom he meets in issue #194 (July 1979).[50]
+
+From 1984 to 1988, Spider-Man wore a black costume with a white spider design on his chest. The new costume originated in the Secret Wars miniseries, on an alien planet where Spider-Man participates in a battle between Earth's major superheroes and supervillains.[66] He continues wearing the costume when he returns, starting in The Amazing Spider-Man #252. The change to a longstanding character's design met with controversy, "with many hardcore comics fans decrying it as tantamount to sacrilege. Spider-Man's traditional red and blue costume was iconic, they argued, on par with those of his D.C. rivals Superman and Batman."[67] The creators then revealed the costume was an alien symbiote which Spider-Man is able to reject after a difficult struggle,[68] though the symbiote returns several times as Venom for revenge.[50]
+Parker proposes to Watson in The Amazing Spider-Man #290 (July 1987), and she accepts two issues later, with the wedding taking place in The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21 (1987)—promoted with a real-life mock wedding using actors at Shea Stadium, with Stan Lee officiating, on June 5, 1987.[69] David Michelinie, who scripted based on a plot by editor-in-chief Jim Shooter, said in 2007, "I didn't think they actually should [have gotten] married. ... I had actually planned another version, one that wasn't used."[69] Parker published a book of Spider-Man photographs called Webs.[70] and returned to his Empire State University graduate studies in biochemistry in #310 (Dec. 1988).[50]
+
+In the controversial[71] 1990s storyline the "Clone Saga", a clone of Parker, created in 1970s comics by insane scientist Miles Warren, a.k.a. the Jackal, returns to New York City upon hearing of Aunt May's health worsening. The clone had lived incognito as "Ben Reilly", but now assumes the superhero guise the Scarlet Spider and allies with Parker. To the surprise of both, new tests indicate "Reilly" is the original and "Parker" the clone.[72] Complicating matters, Watson announces in The Spectacular Spider-Man #220 (Jan. 1995) that she is pregnant with Parker's baby.[50] Later, however, a resurrected Green Goblin (Norman Osborn) has Watson poisoned, causing premature labor and the death of her and Parker's unborn daughter.[73] The Green Goblin had switched the results of the clone test in an attempt to destroy Parker's life by making him believe himself to be the clone. Reilly is killed while saving Parker, in Peter Parker: Spider-Man #75 (Dec. 1996), and his body immediately crumbles into dust, confirming Reilly was the clone.[73]
+
+In issue #97 (Nov. 1998) of the second series titled Peter Parker: Spider-Man,[74] Parker learns his Aunt May was kidnapped by Norman Osborn and her apparent death in The Amazing Spider-Man #400 (April 1995) had been a hoax.[75][76] Shortly afterward, in The Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 2) #13 (#454, Jan. 2000), Watson is apparently killed in an airplane explosion.[77] She turns up alive and well in (vol. 2) #28 (#469, April 2001),[77] but she and Peter become separated in the following issue.[78]
+
+Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski began writing The Amazing Spider-Man, illustrated by John Romita Jr., beginning with (vol. 2) #30 (#471, June 2001). Two issues later, Parker, now employed as a teacher at his old high school, meets the enigmatic Ezekiel, who possesses similar spider powers and suggests that Parker having gained such abilities might not have been a fluke—that Parker has a connection to a totemic spider spirit. In (vol. 2) #37 (#478, Jan. 2002), May discovers her nephew Parker is Spider-Man, leading to a new openness in their relationship.[76] Parker and Watson reconcile in (vol. 2) #50 (#491, April 2003),[76] and in #512 (Nov. 2004)—the original issue numbering having returned with #500—Parker learns his late girlfriend Gwen Stacy had had two children with Norman Osborn.[79]
+
+He joins the superhero team the Avengers in New Avengers #1-2. After their respective homes are destroyed by a deranged, superpowered former high-school classmate, Parker, Watson, and May move into Stark Tower, and Parker begins working as Tony Stark's assistant while again freelancing for The Daily Bugle and continuing his teaching. In the 12-part 2005 story arc "The Other", Parker undergoes a transformation that evolves his powers. In the comic Civil War #2 (June 2006), part of the company-wide crossover arc of that title, the U.S. government's Superhuman Registration Act leads Spider-Man to reveal his true identity publicly. A growing unease about the Registration Act prompts him to escape with May and Watson and join the anti-registration underground.
+
+In issue #537 (Dec. 2006), May is critically wounded by a sniper and enters into a coma. Parker, desperate to save her, exhausts all possibilities and makes a pact with the demon-lord Mephisto, who saves May's life in exchange for Parker and Watson agreeing to have their marriage and all memory of it disappear. In this changed reality, Spider-Man's identity is secret once again, and in #545 (Jan. 2008), Watson returns and is cold toward him.
+
+That controversial[80] storyline, "One More Day", rolled back much of the fictional continuity at the behest of editor-in-chief Joe Quesada, who said, "Peter being single is an intrinsic part of the very foundation of the world of Spider-Man".[80] It caused unusual public friction between Quesada and writer Straczynski, who "told Joe that I was going to take my name off the last two issues of the [story] arc", but was talked out of doing so.[81] At issue with Straczynski's climax to the arc, Quesada said, was
+
+...that we didn't receive the story and methodology to the resolution that we were all expecting. What made that very problematic is that we had four writers and artists well underway on [the sequel arc] "Brand New Day" that were expecting and needed "One More Day" to end in the way that we had all agreed it would. ... The fact that we had to ask for the story to move back to its original intent understandably made Joe upset and caused some major delays and page increases in the series. Also, the science that Joe was going to apply to the retcon of the marriage would have made over 30 years of Spider-Man books worthless, because they never would have had happened. ...[I]t would have reset way too many things outside of the Spider-Man titles. We just couldn't go there....[81]
+
+In this new continuity, designed to have very limited repercussions throughout the remainder of the Marvel Universe, Parker returns to work at the Daily Bugle, which has been renamed The DB under a new publisher.[82] He soon switches to the alternative press paper The Front Line.[83] J. Jonah Jameson becomes the Mayor of New York City in issue #591 (June 2008).[79] Jameson's estranged father, J. Jonah Jameson, Sr., marries May in issue #600 (Sept. 2009).[79][84]
+
+After Osborn's fall and the Registration Act's abolition following the Siege of Asgard, MJ invited Peter over so the two of them could gain closure over the marriage that did not happen and the breakup.[85] Later, a massive war ensued between Doctor Octopus and Spider-Man to get Lily Hollister's and Norman Osborn's son, in which Spider-Man found that the child was actually Harry's, who later leaves town to raise him. Peter then finally starts a relationship with police officer Carlie Cooper.
+Spider-Man's heroic career rose up again, he joined the reassembled Avengers and also stayed with the New Avengers, who were outlaws no more. He learned that Michele was moving and he could not maintain his apartment anymore. However, Peter found a dream job, thanks to Jameson's wife Marla Madison, as a compensation for Jameson firing him, as a scientist at Horizon Labs where he had access to much more technology and resources while also giving him freedom to come and go as he liked so long as he delivered good results. Spider-Man assisted the Avengers in defeating Doctor Octopus' army of Macro-Octobots. He then faced a new Hobgoblin and the Kingpin, but days later, he lamentably lost Marla in a fight between Alistair Alphonso Smythe's Spider-Slayers.[86]
+
+After helping Anti-Venom (Eddie Brock) to reveal Mr. Negative's identity[87] (as well as learning that Aunt May was moving to Boston with Jay) Spider-Man found himself with a new problem: the Jackal returned and gave the majority of New Yorkers spider-powers.[88]
+The Queen was revealed as the true mastermind: she wanted to turn the whole human race into spiders. Mr. Fantastic created a cure using the Anti-Venom Symbiote, and after battling Peter (under the Jackal's influence), Peter's clone Kaine was accidentally cured from his mutations, turning him into a perfect clone.
+While he and the Avengers battled the Spider-Queen in Central Park, Kaine killed her and Peter managed to get the cure to every citizen via Doctor Octopus's (mentally controlled) Octobots. He met with Jay and May while they were leaving for Boston. Peter then ran into Kaine, who told Peter that he was leaving New York and with Peter's stealth suit, since Madame Web had told Kaine he may need it. Also, because of revealing he had spider-powers during the Spider-Island event, Peter's psychic blind spot was weakened, letting Carlie know he was Spider-Man, which caused her to break up with him. Before giving a last cure sample to MJ, who briefly attempted to keep some spider-powers, Spider-Man met with Madame Web on the roof of Horizon Labs. She told him that he could de-power himself with the cure sample and someone else will step in to take his place. Peter refuses, saying that throwing his gift away would be the most irresponsible thing he has ever done. Madame Web warns that he is to suffer a loss. He then cures MJ and they look at the Empire State Building, lit in red and blue in his honor.
+
+While adjusting to his new status quo, especially his position as the CEO of his very own company,[89] Peter learned of the existence of Cindy Moon, a second person to have been bit by the same radioactive spider which granted Peter his powers. Spider-Man tracked her down and freed her from a bunker owned by the late Ezekiel Simms, where Cindy had spent over a decade in voluntary confinement shortly after getting her powers, in order to avoid drawing Morlun's attention. While Peter notified Cindy that Morlun was dead, he had in fact survived his last encounter against Spider-Man.[90]
+Not long after rescuing Cindy, who went on to adopt her own superheroic identity as Silk,[91] Spider-Man was approached by a contingent of spider-people from all over the Multiverse that banded together to fight the Inheritors, a group of psychic vampires and the family of Morlun that had begun to hunt down the spider-totems of other realities.[92] During a mission to gather more recruits in A.D. 2099, the Spider-Army stumbled upon another party of spider-people led by Otto Octavius, or rather a version of him from the recent past who had been plucked out of time.[93]
+The combined Spider-Army were forced to retreat to Earth-3145 after their safe zone in Earth-13 had been compromised by the Inheritors, namely Morlun, his brother Jennix, and his father and leader of the Inheritors, Solus. With the help of Spider-Woman, who had previously infiltrated the Inheritor's base on Earth-001, the Spider-Army learned of a prophecy in which the Inheritors planned to sacrifice three key spiders: the Other, the Bride, and the Scion. These individuals were Kaine Parker, Cindy Moon, and Benjamin "Benjy" Parker of Earth-982, respectively.
+With the help of even more recruits from other realities and even a deviant Inheritor named Karn, the Spider-Army, including a version of Gwen Stacy with spider-powers known as "Spider-Gwen", launched one final attack on the Inheritors' home of Earth-001. The ritual was stopped, and the Inheritors were exiled with no means to return home to the radioactive wasteland that had become the world of Earth-3145. With the Inheritors neutralized, most of the spider-totems were sent home. Spider-Man and a few others stayed on Earth-001 for a little while longer to defeat the time-displaced Octavius, who had gone rogue after learning that Parker would eventually regain control of his body. Octavius was defeated and returned to the time he had come from, losing memory of the recent events in the process. With no more problems to confront, Spider-Man and the rest of the spiders were sent back home.
+
+Unbeknownst to anyone, Otto Octavius had created a digital back-up of his own mind, which ended up inhabiting the metallic body of Parker Industries' robotic assistant, the Living Brain.[94] Over the course of the following months, Octavius routinely hacked into the systems of the market share to manipulate its numbers in favor of Parker Industries. As a consequence of this, the company managed to expand into a global conglomerate with numerous bases in different countries, with the company's trademark invention being a mobile device called the Webware. This change in Peter's life impacted his superheroic alter ego as well. Spider-Man officially became the mascot of Parker Industries under the guise of being Peter's bodyguard.[95]
+
+One of Peter's biggest challenges during his tenure as a billionaire C.E.O was the emergence of a mysterious biotech company, operating out of the Transamerica Pyramid, called New U. Peter discovered it was a front for the operations of the Jackal, who claimed to have found a way to bring people back from the dead using cloning technology. In an attempt to persuade Peter to put Parker Industries' resources to help his plan, the Jackal created numerous clones of his late friends and foes, including Gwen Stacy. In a turn of events, the Jackal was revealed to be Ben Reilly, who had been brought to life by the original Jackal before taking his place. The Jackal's plan eventually fell apart following the triggering of cellular decay in the clones created by New U, which led to the release of the Carrion Virus worldwide. The crisis was adverted when Spider-Man had his Webwares transmit an audio frequency in a global scale which halted the cellular degeneration, but not before most of the clones died. The Jackal, being a clone himself, was left for dead, though he secretly escaped and returned to the mantle of the Scarlet Spider.
+
+Following Osborn's latest defeat, Peter's life was plagued with problems on both sides. As Spider-Man, now-Mayor Wilson Fisk, a.k.a the Kingpin, decided to be publicly accepting of him, while condemning all other vigilantes in order to isolate him from his superhero peers. As Peter Parker, his academic credentials were revoked after being accused of plagiarizing his doctoral dissertion from Octavius (and unable to defend himself without revealing his secret identity), resulting in his firing from the Daily Bugle again. On the other hand, Peter became romantically involved again with Mary Jane, and was given an opportunity to re-apply for his doctoral thesis on the recommendation of Dr. Curt Connors.[96] For a brief time, Peter Parker and Spider-Man were split into separate beings due to an accident involving the reverse-engineered Isotope Genome Accelerator. However, the separation split Peter down the middle, so both individuals did not share Peter's sense of responsibility, resulting in a reckless and vain Spider-Man. Peter eventually managed to reverse the process, and merge his two halves back together before the side-effects could worsen and result in their death.[97]
+
+More recently, Spider-Man has been plagued by visions of a mysterious villain named Kindred who has seemingly been working with Mysterio.[98] As this happened, villains the Black Ant and the Taskmaster captured animal-themed supervillains for Kraven the Hunter as part of a plan to destroy unworthy hunters. In the process, Dr. Connors' child Billy was kidnapped alongside the Black Cat and were forced to fight for their survival in New York's Central Park which was, at that time, surrounded by an energy field.[99] Meanwhile, the Vulture brainwashed a group of fellow supervillains and led an attack against the unworthy hunters. Spider-Man was tasked with finding Kraven the Hunter, whose ultimate goal through the hunt was to anger Spider-Man and lead him to kill him, ending his curse. After Spider-Man refused and Dr. Connors saved his child, Kraven lifted the force field from Central Park, allowing Spider-Man, Connors and Billy, and the Black Cat to escape while the Avengers rounded up all the loose criminals. The "Hunted" story arc ended with Kraven donning a Spider-Man disguise, effectively becoming the Spider, and allowing his cloned son to kill him.[100]
+
+Comics historian Peter Sanderson[101]
+
+Sally Kempton for the Village Voice opined in 1965 that "Spider-Man has a terrible identity problem, a marked inferiority complex, and a fear of women. He is anti-social, [sic] castration-ridden, racked with Oedipal guilt, and accident-prone ... [a] functioning neurotic".[45] Agonizing over his choices, always attempting to do right, he is nonetheless viewed with suspicion by the authorities, who seem unsure as to whether he is a helpful vigilante or a clever criminal.[102]
+
+Notes cultural historian Bradford W. Wright,
+
+Spider-Man's plight was to be misunderstood and persecuted by the very public that he swore to protect. In the first issue of The Amazing Spider-Man, J. Jonah Jameson, publisher of the Daily Bugle, launches an editorial campaign against the "Spider-Man menace." The resulting negative publicity exacerbates popular suspicions about the mysterious Spider-Man and makes it impossible for him to earn any more money by performing. Eventually, the bad press leads the authorities to brand him an outlaw. Ironically, Peter finally lands a job as a photographer for Jameson's Daily Bugle.[9]:212
+
+The mid-1960s stories reflected the political tensions of the time, as early 1960s Marvel stories had often dealt with the Cold War and Communism.[9]:220–223 As Wright observes,
+
+From his high-school beginnings to his entry into college life, Spider-Man remained the superhero most relevant to the world of young people. Fittingly, then, his comic book also contained some of the earliest references to the politics of young people. In 1968, in the wake of actual militant student demonstrations at Columbia University, Peter Parker finds himself in the midst of similar unrest at his Empire State University.... Peter has to reconcile his natural sympathy for the students with his assumed obligation to combat lawlessness as Spider-Man. As a law-upholding liberal, he finds himself caught between militant leftism and angry conservatives.[9]:234–235
+
+A bite from a radioactive spider triggers mutations in Peter Parker's body, granting him superpowers.[103] Since the original Lee-Ditko stories, Spider-Man has had the ability to cling to walls. This has been speculated to be based on a distance-dependent interaction between his body and surfaces, known as the van der Waals force,[citation needed] but other sources, such as the 2002 Spider-Man film, suggest instead that his hands and feet are lined with tiny clinging cilia in the manner of a real spider's feet. Spider-Man's other powers include significantly superhuman strength, a precognitive sixth sense famously referred to as his "spider-sense" or "spidey-sense" that alerts him to danger, perfect balance and equilibrium, as well as superhuman speed and agility.[103] The character was originally conceived by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko as intellectually gifted, but later writers have depicted his intellect at genius level.[104] Academically brilliant, Parker has expertise in the fields of applied science, chemistry, physics, biology, engineering, mathematics, and mechanics. With his talents, he sews his own costume to conceal his identity, and he constructs many devices that complement his powers, most notably mechanical web-shooters, to help navigate and trap his enemies along with a spider-signal as a flashlight and a warning beacon to criminals.[103]
+
+Spider-Man has had a large range of supporting characters introduced in the comics that are essential in the issues and storylines that star him. After his parents died, Peter Parker was raised by his loving aunt, May Parker, and his uncle and father figure, Ben Parker. After Uncle Ben is murdered by a burglar, Aunt May is virtually Peter's only family, and she and Peter are very close.[46]
+
+J. Jonah Jameson is the publisher of the Daily Bugle and is Peter Parker's boss. A harsh critic of Spider-Man, he constantly features negative articles about the superhero in his newspaper.
+
+Despite his role as Jameson's editor and confidant, Robbie Robertson is always depicted as a supporter of both Peter Parker and Spider-Man.[48]
+
+Eugene "Flash" Thompson is commonly depicted as Parker's high school tormentor and bully, but in later comic issues he becomes a friend to Peter.[48] Meanwhile, Harry Osborn, son of Norman Osborn, is most commonly recognized as Peter's best friend, but has also been depicted sometimes as his rival in the comics.[50]
+
+Peter Parker's romantic interests range between his first crush, fellow high-school student Liz Allan,[48] to having his first date with Betty Brant,[105]secretary to the Daily Bugle newspaper publisher J. Jonah Jameson. After his breakup with Betty Brant, Parker eventually falls in love with his college girlfriend Gwen Stacy,[50][53] daughter of New York City Police Department detective captain George Stacy, both of whom are later killed by supervillain enemies of Spider-Man.[58] Mary Jane Watson eventually became Peter's best friend and then his wife.[69] Felicia Hardy, the Black Cat, is a reformed cat burglar who had been Spider-Man's sole superhuman girlfriend and partner at one point.[65]
+
+Writers and artists over the years have established a rogues gallery of supervillains to face Spider-Man, in comics and in other media. As with the hero, the majority of the villains' powers originate with scientific accidents or the misuse of scientific technology, and many have animal-themed costumes or powers.[note 6] Examples are listed down below in the ordering of their original chronological appearance:
+
+Indicates a group.
+
+Todd McFarlane[151]
+
+Unlike a lot of well-known rivalries in comics book depictions, Spider-Man is cited to have more than one archenemy and it can be debated or disputed as to which one is worse:[156]
+
+Within the Marvel Universe there exists a multiverse with many variations of Spider-Men.[165] An early character included in the 1980s is the fictional anthropomorphic funny animal parody of Spider-Man in pig form named Spider-Ham (Peter Porker).[166] Many imprints of Spider-Men were created, like the futuristic version of Spider-Man in Marvel 2099 named Miguel O'Hara. In the MC2 imprint, Peter marries Mary Jane and has a daughter named Mayday Parker, who carries on Spider-Man's legacy and Marvel Noir has a 1930s version of Peter Parker.[165][167][168] Other themed versions exist within the early 2000s, such as a Marvel Mangaverse version and an Indian version from Spider-Man: India named Pavitr Prabhakar.[165][169]
+
+Ultimate Spider-Man was a popular modern retelling of Peter Parker. The version of Parker would later be depicted as being killed off and replaced by an Afro-Latino Spider-Man named Miles Morales.[170]
+
+The storyline "Spider-Verse" brought back many alternate takes on Spider-Man and introduced many newly inspired ones, such as an alternate world where Gwen Stacy gets bitten by a radioactive spider instead, along with a British-themed version named Spider-UK called Billy Braddock from the Captain Britain Corps.[167][171]
+
+In The Creation of Spider-Man, comic book writer-editor and historian Paul Kupperberg calls the character's superpowers "nothing too original"; what was original was that outside his secret identity, he was a "nerdy high school student".[173]:5 Going against typical superhero fare, Spider-Man included "heavy doses of soap-opera and elements of melodrama". Kupperberg feels that Lee and Ditko had created something new in the world of comics: "the flawed superhero with everyday problems". This idea spawned a "comics revolution".[173]:6 The insecurity and anxieties in Marvel's early 1960s comic books, such as The Amazing Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, The Fantastic Four, and The X-Men ushered in a new type of superhero, very different from the certain and all-powerful superheroes before them, and changed the public's perception of them.[174] Spider-Man has become one of the most recognizable fictional characters in the world, and has been used to sell toys, games, cereal, candy, soap, and many other products.[175]
+
+Spider-Man has become Marvel's flagship character and has often been used as the company mascot. When Marvel became the first comic book company to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1991, The Wall Street Journal announced "Spider-Man is coming to Wall Street"; the event was in turn promoted with an actor in a Spider-Man costume accompanying Stan Lee to the Stock Exchange.[9]:254 Since 1962, hundreds of millions of comics featuring the character have been sold around the world.[176] Spider-Man is the world's most profitable superhero.[177] In 2014, global retail sales of licensed products related to Spider-Man reached approximately $1.3 billion.[178] Comparatively, this amount exceeds the global licensing revenue of Batman, Superman, and the Avengers combined.[177]
+Spider-Man is also one of the highest-grossing franchise titles being the highest-grossing American comic book superhero[179][180]  est. $25.6 billion worldwide.[181][182]
+
+Spider-Man joined the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade from 1987 to 1998 as one of the balloon floats,[183] designed by John Romita Sr.,[184] one of the character's signature artists. A new, different Spider-Man balloon float also appeared from 2009 to 2014.[183]
+
+When Marvel wanted to issue a story dealing with the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the company chose the December 2001 issue of The Amazing Spider-Man.[185]
+In 2006, Spider-Man garnered major media coverage with the revelation of the character's secret identity,[186] an event detailed in a full-page story in the New York Post before the issue containing the story was even released.[187]
+
+In 2008, Marvel announced plans to release a series of educational comics the following year in partnership with the United Nations, depicting Spider-Man alongside the UN Peacekeeping Forces to highlight UN peacekeeping missions.[188] A BusinessWeek article listed Spider-Man as one of the top 10 most intelligent fictional characters in American comics.[189]
+
+Rapper Eminem has cited Spider-Man as one of his favorite comic book superheroes.[190][191]
+
+In 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States decided Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment, LLC, a case concerning royalties on a patent for an imitation web-shooter. The opinion for the Court, by Justice Elena Kagan, included several Spider-Man references, concluding with the statement that "with great power there must also come—great responsibility".[192]
+
+Spider-Man has become a subject of scientific inquiry. In 1987, researchers at Loyola University conducted a study into the utility of Spider-Man comics for informing children and parents about issues relating to child abuse.[193] In 2019, an Israeli study from Ariel University and Bar-Ilan University suggested that exposure to short clips from the Spider-Man movies could help to reduce an individual's arachnophobia.[194]
+
+—IGN staff on placing Spider-Man as the number one hero of Marvel.[195]
+
+Spider-Man was declared the number 1 superhero on Bravo's Ultimate Super Heroes, Vixens, and Villains TV series in 2005.[196] Empire magazine placed him as the fifth-greatest comic book character of all time.[197] Wizard magazine placed Spider-Man as the third-greatest comic book character on their website.[198] In 2011, Spider-Man placed third on IGN's Top 100 Comic Book Heroes of All Time, behind DC Comics characters Superman and Batman.[195] and sixth in their 2012 list of "The Top 50 Avengers".[199] In 2014, IGN identified Spider-Man the greatest Marvel Comics character of all time.[200] A 2015 poll at Comic Book Resources named Spider-Man the greatest Marvel character of all time.[201] IGN described him as the common everyman that represents many normal people, but also noting his uniqueness compared to many top-tiered superheroes with his many depicted flaws as a superhero. IGN noted that, despite being one of the most tragic superheroes of all time, he is "one of the most fun and snarky superheroes in existence."[195] Empire noted and praised that, despite the many tragedies that Spider-Man faces, he retains his sense of humor at all times with his witty wisecracks. The magazine website appraised the depiction of his "iconic" superhero poses describing it as "a top artist's dream".[198]
+
+George Marston of Newsarama placed Spider-Man's origin story as the greatest origin story of all time opining that "Spider-Man's origin combines all of the most classic aspects of pathos, tragedy and scientific wonder into the perfect blend for a superhero origin."[202]
+
+Real-life people who have been compared to Spider-Man for their climbing feats include:
+
+From the character's inception, Spider-Man stories have won numerous awards, including:
+
+Spider-Man has appeared in comics, cartoons, films, video games, coloring books, novels, records, children's books, and theme park rides.[175] On television, he first starred in the ABC animated series Spider-Man (1967–1970);[207] Spidey Super Stories (1974–1977) on PBS; and the CBS live action series The Amazing Spider-Man (1978–1979), starring Nicholas Hammond. Other animated series featuring the superhero include the syndicated Spider-Man (1981–1982), Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends (1981–1983), Fox Kids' Spider-Man (1994–1998), Spider-Man Unlimited (1999–2000), Spider-Man: The New Animated Series (2003), The Spectacular Spider-Man (2008–2009), Ultimate Spider-Man (2012–2017)[208]and Spider-Man(2017-present).
+
+A tokusatsu series featuring Spider-Man was produced by Toei and aired in Japan. It is commonly referred to by its Japanese pronunciation "Supaidā-Man".[209] Spider-Man also appeared in other print forms besides the comics, including novels, children's books, and the daily newspaper comic strip The Amazing Spider-Man, which debuted in January 1977, with the earliest installments written by Stan Lee and drawn by John Romita Sr.[210] Spider-Man has been adapted to other media including games, toys, collectibles, and miscellaneous memorabilia, and has appeared as the main character in numerous computer and video games on over 15 gaming platforms.
+
+Spider-Man was featured in a trilogy of live-action films directed by Sam Raimi and starring Tobey Maguire as the titular superhero. The first Spider-Man film of the trilogy was released on May 3, 2002; followed by Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Spider-Man 3 (2007). A third sequel was originally scheduled to be released in 2011; however, Sony later decided to reboot the franchise with a new director and cast. The reboot, titled The Amazing Spider-Man, was released on July 3, 2012; directed by Marc Webb and starring Andrew Garfield as the new Spider-Man.[211][212][213] It was followed by The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014).[214][215] In 2015, Sony and Disney made a deal for Spider-Man to appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.[216] Tom Holland made his debut as Spider-Man in the MCU film Captain America: Civil War (2016), before later starring in his standalone film Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017); directed by Jon Watts.[217][218] Holland reprised his role as Spider-Man in Avengers: Infinity War (2018),[219][220] Avengers: Endgame (2019),[221] and Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019).[222] Jake Johnson voiced an alternate universe version of Spider-Man in the animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.[223] Chris Pine also voiced another version of Peter Parker in the film.[224]
+
+Spider-Man will once again be seen in the MCU, as Sony and Disney have re-united for the production of the Spider-universe films.[225]
+
+A Broadway musical, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, began previews on November 14, 2010, at the Foxwoods Theatre on Broadway, with the official opening night on June 14, 2011.[226][227] The music and lyrics were written by Bono and The Edge of the rock group U2, with a book by Julie Taymor, Glen Berger, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa.[228] Turn Off the Dark is currently the most expensive musical in Broadway history, costing an estimated $70 million.[229] In addition, the show's unusually high running costs are reported to have been about $1.2 million per week.[230]
+
+In the fine arts, and starting with the Pop Art period and on a continuing basis since the 1960s, the character of Spider-Man has been "appropriated" by multiple visual artists and incorporated into contemporary artwork, most notably by Andy Warhol,[231][232] Roy Lichtenstein,[233] Mel Ramos,[234] Dulce Pinzon,[235] Mr. Brainwash,[236] F. Lennox Campello,[237] and others.

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+Spider-Man is a fictional superhero created by writer-editor Stan Lee and writer-artist Steve Ditko. He first appeared in the anthology comic book Amazing Fantasy #15 (Aug. 1962) in the Silver Age of Comic Books. He appears in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, as well as in a number of movies, television shows, and video game adaptations set in the Marvel Universe. In the stories, Spider-Man is the alias of Peter Parker, an orphan raised by his Aunt May and Uncle Ben in New York City after his parents Richard and Mary Parker died in a plane crash. Lee and Ditko had the character deal with the struggles of adolescence and financial issues, and accompanied him with many supporting characters, such as J. Jonah Jameson, Harry Osborn, Max Modell, romantic interests Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson, and foes such as Doctor Octopus, the Green Goblin and Venom. His origin story has him acquiring spider-related abilities after a bite from a radioactive spider; these include clinging to surfaces, superhuman strength and agility, and detecting danger with his "spider-sense." He then builds wrist-mounted "web-shooter" devices that shoot artificial spider-webbing of his own design.
+
+When Spider-Man first appeared in the early 1960s, teenagers in superhero comic books were usually relegated to the role of sidekick to the protagonist. The Spider-Man series broke ground by featuring Peter Parker, a high school student from Queens behind Spider-Man's secret identity and with whose "self-obsessions with rejection, inadequacy, and loneliness" young readers could relate.[9] While Spider-Man had all the makings of a sidekick, unlike previous teen heroes such as Bucky and Robin, Spider-Man had no superhero mentor like Captain America and Batman; he thus had to learn for himself that "with great power there must also come great responsibility"—a line included in a text box in the final panel of the first Spider-Man story but later retroactively attributed to his guardian, the late Uncle Ben Parker.
+
+Marvel has featured Spider-Man in several comic book series, the first and longest-lasting of which is The Amazing Spider-Man. Over the years, the Peter Parker character developed from a shy, nerdy New York City high school student to troubled but outgoing college student, to married high school teacher to, in the late 2000s, a single freelance photographer. In the 2010s, he joins the Avengers, Marvel's flagship superhero team. Spider-Man's nemesis Doctor Octopus also took on the identity for a story arc spanning 2012–2014, following a body swap plot in which Peter appears to die.[10] Marvel has also published books featuring alternate versions of Spider-Man, including Spider-Man 2099, which features the adventures of Miguel O'Hara, the Spider-Man of the future; Ultimate Spider-Man, which features the adventures of a teenaged Peter Parker in an alternate universe; and Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, which depicts the teenager Miles Morales, who takes up the mantle of Spider-Man after Ultimate Peter Parker's supposed death. Miles is later brought into mainstream continuity, where he sometimes works alongside Peter.
+
+Spider-Man is one of the most popular and commercially successful superheroes.[11] As Marvel's flagship character and company mascot, he has appeared in countless forms of media, including several animated and live action television series, syndicated newspaper comic strips, and in a series of films. The character was first portrayed in live action by Danny Seagren in Spidey Super Stories, a The Electric Company skit which ran from 1974 to 1977.[12] In films, Spider-Man has been portrayed by actors Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield,[13] and in the Marvel Cinematic Universe by Tom Holland. He was voiced by Chris Pine and Jake Johnson in the animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Reeve Carney starred originally as Spider-Man in the 2010 Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.[14] Spider-Man has been well received as a superhero and comic book character, and he is often ranked as one of the most popular and iconic comic book characters of all time and one of the most popular characters in all fiction.
+
+In 1962, with the success of the Fantastic Four, Marvel Comics editor and head writer Stan Lee was casting about for a new superhero idea. He said the idea for Spider-Man arose from a surge in teenage demand for comic books, and the desire to create a character with whom teens could identify.[16]:1 In his autobiography, Lee cites the non-superhuman pulp magazine crime fighter the Spider as a great influence,[15]:130 and in a multitude of print and video interviews, Lee stated he was further inspired by seeing a spider climb up a wall—adding in his autobiography that he has told that story so often he has become unsure of whether or not this is true.[note 1] Although at the time teenage superheroes were usually given names ending with "boy", Lee says he chose "Spider-Man" because he wanted the character to age as the series progressed, and moreover felt the name "Spider-Boy" would have made the character sound inferior to other superheroes.[17] He also decided to insert a hyphen in the name, as he felt it looked too similar to Superman, another superhero with a red and blue costume which starts with an "S" and ends with "man".[18] At that time Lee had to get only the consent of Marvel publisher Martin Goodman for the character's approval. In a 1986 interview, Lee described in detail his arguments to overcome Goodman's objections.[note 2] Goodman eventually agreed to a Spider-Man tryout in what Lee in numerous interviews recalled as what would be the final issue of the science-fiction and supernatural anthology series Amazing Adult Fantasy, which was renamed Amazing Fantasy for that single issue, #15 (cover-dated August 1962, on sale June 5, 1962).[19] In particular, Lee stated that the fact that it had already been decided that Amazing Fantasy would be canceled after issue #15 was the only reason Goodman allowed him to use Spider-Man.[17] While this was indeed the final issue, its editorial page anticipated the comic continuing and that "The Spiderman [sic] ... will appear every month in Amazing."[19][20]
+
+Regardless, Lee received Goodman's approval for the name Spider-Man and the "ordinary teen" concept and approached artist Jack Kirby. As comics historian Greg Theakston recounts, Kirby told Lee about an unpublished character on which he had collaborated with Joe Simon in the 1950s, in which an orphaned boy living with an old couple finds a magic ring that granted him superhuman powers. Lee and Kirby "immediately sat down for a story conference", Theakston writes, and Lee afterward directed Kirby to flesh out the character and draw some pages.[21] Steve Ditko would be the inker.[note 3] When Kirby showed Lee the first six pages, Lee recalled, "I hated the way he was doing it! Not that he did it badly—it just wasn't the character I wanted; it was too heroic".[21]:12 Lee turned to Ditko, who developed a visual style Lee found satisfactory. Ditko recalled:
+
+One of the first things I did was to work up a costume. A vital, visual part of the character. I had to know how he looked ... before I did any breakdowns. For example: A clinging power so he wouldn't have hard shoes or boots, a hidden wrist-shooter versus a web gun and holster, etc. ... I wasn't sure Stan would like the idea of covering the character's face but I did it because it hid an obviously boyish face. It would also add mystery to the character....[22]
+
+Although the interior artwork was by Ditko alone, Lee rejected Ditko's cover art and commissioned Kirby to pencil a cover that Ditko inked.[19] As Lee explained in 2010, "I think I had Jack sketch out a cover for it because I always had a lot of confidence in Jack's covers."[23]
+
+In an early recollection of the character's creation, Ditko described his and Lee's contributions in a mail interview with Gary Martin published in Comic Fan #2 (Summer 1965): "Stan Lee thought the name up. I did costume, web gimmick on wrist & spider signal."[24] At the time, Ditko shared a Manhattan studio with noted fetish artist Eric Stanton, an art-school classmate who, in a 1988 interview with Theakston, recalled that although his contribution to Spider-Man was "almost nil", he and Ditko had "worked on storyboards together and I added a few ideas. But the whole thing was created by Steve on his own... I think I added the business about the webs coming out of his hands."[21]:14
+
+Kirby disputed Lee's version of the story and claimed Lee had minimal involvement in the character's creation. According to Kirby, the idea for Spider-Man had originated with Kirby and Joe Simon, who in the 1950s had developed a character called the Silver Spider for the Crestwood Publications comic Black Magic, who was subsequently not used.[note 4] Simon, in his 1990 autobiography, disputed Kirby's account, asserting that Black Magic was not a factor, and that he (Simon) devised the name "Spider-Man" (later changed to "The Silver Spider"), while Kirby outlined the character's story and powers. Simon later elaborated that his and Kirby's character conception became the basis for Simon's Archie Comics superhero the Fly.[25] Artist Steve Ditko stated that Lee liked the name Hawkman from DC Comics, and that "Spider-Man" was an outgrowth of that interest.[22]
+
+Simon concurred that Kirby had shown the original Spider-Man version to Lee, who liked the idea and assigned Kirby to draw sample pages of the new character but disliked the results—in Simon's description, "Captain America with cobwebs".[note 5] Writer Mark Evanier notes that Lee's reasoning that Kirby's character was too heroic seems unlikely—Kirby still drew the covers for Amazing Fantasy #15 and the first issue of The Amazing Spider-Man. Evanier also disputes Kirby's given reason that he was "too busy" to draw Spider-Man in addition to his other duties since Kirby was, said Evanier, "always busy".[26]:127 Neither Lee's nor Kirby's explanation explains why key story elements like the magic ring were dropped; Evanier states that the most plausible explanation for the sudden change was that Goodman, or one of his assistants, decided that Spider-Man, as drawn and envisioned by Kirby, was too similar to the Fly.[26]:127
+
+Author and Ditko scholar Blake Bell writes that it was Ditko who noted the similarities to the Fly. Ditko recalled that "Stan called Jack about the Fly", adding that "[d]ays later, Stan told me I would be penciling the story panel breakdowns from Stan's synopsis." It was at this point that the nature of the strip changed. "Out went the magic ring, adult Spider-Man and whatever legend ideas that Spider-Man story would have contained." Lee gave Ditko the premise of a teenager bitten by a spider and developing powers, a premise Ditko would expand upon to the point he became what Bell describes as "the first work for hire artist of his generation to create and control the narrative arc of his series". On the issue of the initial creation, Ditko states, "I still don't know whose idea was Spider-Man".[27] Kirby noted in a 1971 interview that it was Ditko who "got Spider-Man to roll, and the thing caught on because of what he did".[28] Lee, while claiming credit for the initial idea, has acknowledged Ditko's role, stating, "If Steve wants to be called co-creator, I think he deserves [it]".[29] He has further commented that Ditko's costume design was key to the character's success; since the costume completely covers Spider-Man's body, people of all races could visualize themselves inside the costume and thus more easily identify with the character.[17]
+
+A few months after Spider-Man's introduction, publisher Goodman reviewed the sales figures for that issue and was shocked to find it was one of the nascent Marvel's highest-selling comics.[30]:97 A solo ongoing series followed, beginning with The Amazing Spider-Man #1 (cover-dated March 1963). The title eventually became Marvel's top-selling series[9]:211 with the character swiftly becoming a cultural icon; a 1965 Esquire poll of college campuses found that college students ranked Spider-Man and fellow Marvel hero the Hulk alongside Bob Dylan and Che Guevara as their favorite revolutionary icons. One interviewee selected Spider-Man because he was "beset by woes, money problems, and the question of existence. In short, he is one of us."[9]:223 Following Ditko's departure after issue #38 (July 1966), John Romita Sr. replaced him as penciller and would draw the series for the next several years. In 1968, Romita would also draw the character's extra-length stories in the comics magazine The Spectacular Spider-Man, a proto-graphic novel designed to appeal to older readers. It only lasted for two issues, but it represented the first Spider-Man spin-off publication, aside from the original series' summer Annuals that began in 1964.[31]
+
+An early 1970s Spider-Man story ultimately led to the revision of the Comics Code. Previously, the Code forbade the depiction of the use of illegal drugs, even negatively. However, in 1970, the Nixon administration's Department of Health, Education, and Welfare asked Stan Lee to publish an anti-drug message in one of Marvel's top-selling titles.[9]:239 Lee chose the top-selling The Amazing Spider-Man; issues #96–98 (May–July 1971) feature a story arc depicting the negative effects of drug use. In the story, Peter Parker's friend Harry Osborn becomes addicted to pills. When Spider-Man fights the Green Goblin (Norman Osborn, Harry's father), Spider-Man defeats him by revealing Harry's drug addiction. While the story had a clear anti-drug message, the Comics Code Authority refused to issue its seal of approval. Marvel nevertheless published the three issues without the Comics Code Authority's approval or seal. The issues sold so well that the industry's self-censorship was undercut and the Code was subsequently revised.[9]:239
+
+In 1972, a second monthly ongoing series starring Spider-Man began: Marvel Team-Up, in which Spider-Man was paired with other superheroes and supervillains.[32] From that point on, there have generally been at least two ongoing Spider-Man series at any time. In 1976, his second solo series, Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man began running parallel to the main series.[33] A third series featuring Spider-Man, Web of Spider-Man, launched in 1985 to replace Marvel Team-Up.[34] The launch of a fourth monthly title in 1990, the "adjectiveless" Spider-Man (with the storyline "Torment"), written and drawn by popular artist Todd McFarlane, debuted with several different covers, all with the same interior content. The various versions combined sold over 3 million copies, an industry record at the time. Several miniseries, one-shot issues, and loosely related comics have also been published, and Spider-Man makes frequent cameos and guest appearances in other comic book series.[33][35] In 1996, The Sensational Spider-Man was created to replace Web of Spider-Man.[36]
+
+In 1998 writer-artist John Byrne revamped the origin of Spider-Man in the 13-issue limited series Spider-Man: Chapter One (Dec. 1998 – Oct. 1999), similar to Byrne's adding details and some revisions to Superman's origin in DC Comics' The Man of Steel.[37] At the same time, the original The Amazing Spider-Man was ended with issue #441 (Nov. 1998), and The Amazing Spider-Man was restarted with vol. 2, #1 (Jan. 1999).[38] In 2003, Marvel reintroduced the original numbering for The Amazing Spider-Man and what would have been vol. 2, #59 became issue #500 (Dec. 2003).[38]
+
+When the primary series The Amazing Spider-Man reached issue #545 (Dec. 2007), Marvel dropped its spin-off ongoing series and instead began publishing The Amazing Spider-Man three times monthly, beginning with #546–548 (all January 2008).[39] The three times-monthly scheduling of The Amazing Spider-Man lasted until November 2010, when the comic book was increased from 22 pages to 30 pages each issue and published only twice a month, beginning with #648–649 (both November 2010).[40][41] The following year, Marvel launched Avenging Spider-Man as the first spin-off ongoing series in addition to the still-twice monthly The Amazing Spider-Man since the previous ones were canceled at the end of 2007.[39] The Amazing series temporarily ended with issue #700 in December 2012, and was replaced by The Superior Spider-Man, which had Doctor Octopus serve as the new Spider-Man, his mind having taken over Peter Parker's body. Superior was an enormous commercial success for Marvel,[42] and ran for 31 issues before the real Peter Parker returned in a newly relaunched The Amazing Spider-Man #1 in April 2014.[43]
+
+Following the 2015 Secret Wars crossover event, a number of Spider-Man-related titles were either relaunched or created as part of the "All-New, All-Different Marvel" event. Among them, The Amazing Spider-Man was relaunched as well and primarily focuses on Peter Parker continuing to run Parker Industries, and becoming a successful businessman who is operating worldwide.[44]
+
+In Forest Hills, Queens, New York,[45] Midtown High School student Peter Benjamin Parker is a science-whiz orphan living with his Uncle Ben and Aunt May. As depicted in Amazing Fantasy #15 (Aug. 1962), he is bitten by a radioactive spider (erroneously classified as an insect in the panel) at a science exhibit and "acquires the agility and proportionate strength of an arachnid".[46] Along with heightened athletic abilities, Parker gains the ability to adhere to walls and ceilings. Through his native knack for science, he develops a gadget that lets him fire adhesive webbing of his own design through small, wrist-mounted barrels. Initially seeking to capitalize on his new abilities, Parker dons a costume and, as "Spider-Man", becomes a novelty television star. However, "He blithely ignores the chance to stop a fleeing thief, [and] his indifference ironically catches up with him when the same criminal later robs and kills his Uncle Ben." Spider-Man tracks and subdues the killer and learns, in the story's next-to-last caption, "With great power there must also come—great responsibility!"[47]
+
+Despite his superpowers, Parker struggles to help his widowed aunt pay the rent, is taunted by his peers—particularly football star Flash Thompson—and, as Spider-Man, engenders the editorial wrath of newspaper publisher J. Jonah Jameson.[48][49] As he battles his enemies for the first time,[50] Parker finds juggling his personal life and costumed adventures difficult. In time, Peter graduates from high school,[51] and enrolls at Empire State University (a fictional institution evoking the real-life Columbia University and New York University),[52] where he meets roommate and best friend Harry Osborn, and girlfriend Gwen Stacy,[53] and Aunt May introduces him to Mary Jane Watson.[50][54][55] As Peter deals with Harry's drug problems, and Harry's father is revealed to be Spider-Man's nemesis the Green Goblin, Peter even attempts to give up his costumed identity for a while.[56][57] Gwen Stacy's father, New York City Police detective captain George Stacy is accidentally killed during a battle between Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus (issue #90, November 1970).[58]
+
+In issue #121 (June 1973),[50] the Green Goblin throws Gwen Stacy from a tower of either the Brooklyn Bridge (as depicted in the art) or the George Washington Bridge (as given in the text).[59][60] She dies during Spider-Man's rescue attempt; a note on the letters page of issue #125 states: "It saddens us to say that the whiplash effect she underwent when Spidey's webbing stopped her so suddenly was, in fact, what killed her."[61] The following issue, the Goblin appears to kill himself accidentally in the ensuing battle with Spider-Man.[62]
+
+Working through his grief, Parker eventually develops tentative feelings toward Watson, and the two "become confidants rather than lovers".[63] A romantic relationship eventually develops, with Parker proposing to her in issue #182 (July 1978), and being turned down an issue later.[64] Parker went on to graduate from college in issue #185,[50] and becomes involved with the shy Debra Whitman and the extroverted, flirtatious costumed thief Felicia Hardy, a.k.a. the Black Cat,[65] whom he meets in issue #194 (July 1979).[50]
+
+From 1984 to 1988, Spider-Man wore a black costume with a white spider design on his chest. The new costume originated in the Secret Wars miniseries, on an alien planet where Spider-Man participates in a battle between Earth's major superheroes and supervillains.[66] He continues wearing the costume when he returns, starting in The Amazing Spider-Man #252. The change to a longstanding character's design met with controversy, "with many hardcore comics fans decrying it as tantamount to sacrilege. Spider-Man's traditional red and blue costume was iconic, they argued, on par with those of his D.C. rivals Superman and Batman."[67] The creators then revealed the costume was an alien symbiote which Spider-Man is able to reject after a difficult struggle,[68] though the symbiote returns several times as Venom for revenge.[50]
+Parker proposes to Watson in The Amazing Spider-Man #290 (July 1987), and she accepts two issues later, with the wedding taking place in The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #21 (1987)—promoted with a real-life mock wedding using actors at Shea Stadium, with Stan Lee officiating, on June 5, 1987.[69] David Michelinie, who scripted based on a plot by editor-in-chief Jim Shooter, said in 2007, "I didn't think they actually should [have gotten] married. ... I had actually planned another version, one that wasn't used."[69] Parker published a book of Spider-Man photographs called Webs.[70] and returned to his Empire State University graduate studies in biochemistry in #310 (Dec. 1988).[50]
+
+In the controversial[71] 1990s storyline the "Clone Saga", a clone of Parker, created in 1970s comics by insane scientist Miles Warren, a.k.a. the Jackal, returns to New York City upon hearing of Aunt May's health worsening. The clone had lived incognito as "Ben Reilly", but now assumes the superhero guise the Scarlet Spider and allies with Parker. To the surprise of both, new tests indicate "Reilly" is the original and "Parker" the clone.[72] Complicating matters, Watson announces in The Spectacular Spider-Man #220 (Jan. 1995) that she is pregnant with Parker's baby.[50] Later, however, a resurrected Green Goblin (Norman Osborn) has Watson poisoned, causing premature labor and the death of her and Parker's unborn daughter.[73] The Green Goblin had switched the results of the clone test in an attempt to destroy Parker's life by making him believe himself to be the clone. Reilly is killed while saving Parker, in Peter Parker: Spider-Man #75 (Dec. 1996), and his body immediately crumbles into dust, confirming Reilly was the clone.[73]
+
+In issue #97 (Nov. 1998) of the second series titled Peter Parker: Spider-Man,[74] Parker learns his Aunt May was kidnapped by Norman Osborn and her apparent death in The Amazing Spider-Man #400 (April 1995) had been a hoax.[75][76] Shortly afterward, in The Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 2) #13 (#454, Jan. 2000), Watson is apparently killed in an airplane explosion.[77] She turns up alive and well in (vol. 2) #28 (#469, April 2001),[77] but she and Peter become separated in the following issue.[78]
+
+Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski began writing The Amazing Spider-Man, illustrated by John Romita Jr., beginning with (vol. 2) #30 (#471, June 2001). Two issues later, Parker, now employed as a teacher at his old high school, meets the enigmatic Ezekiel, who possesses similar spider powers and suggests that Parker having gained such abilities might not have been a fluke—that Parker has a connection to a totemic spider spirit. In (vol. 2) #37 (#478, Jan. 2002), May discovers her nephew Parker is Spider-Man, leading to a new openness in their relationship.[76] Parker and Watson reconcile in (vol. 2) #50 (#491, April 2003),[76] and in #512 (Nov. 2004)—the original issue numbering having returned with #500—Parker learns his late girlfriend Gwen Stacy had had two children with Norman Osborn.[79]
+
+He joins the superhero team the Avengers in New Avengers #1-2. After their respective homes are destroyed by a deranged, superpowered former high-school classmate, Parker, Watson, and May move into Stark Tower, and Parker begins working as Tony Stark's assistant while again freelancing for The Daily Bugle and continuing his teaching. In the 12-part 2005 story arc "The Other", Parker undergoes a transformation that evolves his powers. In the comic Civil War #2 (June 2006), part of the company-wide crossover arc of that title, the U.S. government's Superhuman Registration Act leads Spider-Man to reveal his true identity publicly. A growing unease about the Registration Act prompts him to escape with May and Watson and join the anti-registration underground.
+
+In issue #537 (Dec. 2006), May is critically wounded by a sniper and enters into a coma. Parker, desperate to save her, exhausts all possibilities and makes a pact with the demon-lord Mephisto, who saves May's life in exchange for Parker and Watson agreeing to have their marriage and all memory of it disappear. In this changed reality, Spider-Man's identity is secret once again, and in #545 (Jan. 2008), Watson returns and is cold toward him.
+
+That controversial[80] storyline, "One More Day", rolled back much of the fictional continuity at the behest of editor-in-chief Joe Quesada, who said, "Peter being single is an intrinsic part of the very foundation of the world of Spider-Man".[80] It caused unusual public friction between Quesada and writer Straczynski, who "told Joe that I was going to take my name off the last two issues of the [story] arc", but was talked out of doing so.[81] At issue with Straczynski's climax to the arc, Quesada said, was
+
+...that we didn't receive the story and methodology to the resolution that we were all expecting. What made that very problematic is that we had four writers and artists well underway on [the sequel arc] "Brand New Day" that were expecting and needed "One More Day" to end in the way that we had all agreed it would. ... The fact that we had to ask for the story to move back to its original intent understandably made Joe upset and caused some major delays and page increases in the series. Also, the science that Joe was going to apply to the retcon of the marriage would have made over 30 years of Spider-Man books worthless, because they never would have had happened. ...[I]t would have reset way too many things outside of the Spider-Man titles. We just couldn't go there....[81]
+
+In this new continuity, designed to have very limited repercussions throughout the remainder of the Marvel Universe, Parker returns to work at the Daily Bugle, which has been renamed The DB under a new publisher.[82] He soon switches to the alternative press paper The Front Line.[83] J. Jonah Jameson becomes the Mayor of New York City in issue #591 (June 2008).[79] Jameson's estranged father, J. Jonah Jameson, Sr., marries May in issue #600 (Sept. 2009).[79][84]
+
+After Osborn's fall and the Registration Act's abolition following the Siege of Asgard, MJ invited Peter over so the two of them could gain closure over the marriage that did not happen and the breakup.[85] Later, a massive war ensued between Doctor Octopus and Spider-Man to get Lily Hollister's and Norman Osborn's son, in which Spider-Man found that the child was actually Harry's, who later leaves town to raise him. Peter then finally starts a relationship with police officer Carlie Cooper.
+Spider-Man's heroic career rose up again, he joined the reassembled Avengers and also stayed with the New Avengers, who were outlaws no more. He learned that Michele was moving and he could not maintain his apartment anymore. However, Peter found a dream job, thanks to Jameson's wife Marla Madison, as a compensation for Jameson firing him, as a scientist at Horizon Labs where he had access to much more technology and resources while also giving him freedom to come and go as he liked so long as he delivered good results. Spider-Man assisted the Avengers in defeating Doctor Octopus' army of Macro-Octobots. He then faced a new Hobgoblin and the Kingpin, but days later, he lamentably lost Marla in a fight between Alistair Alphonso Smythe's Spider-Slayers.[86]
+
+After helping Anti-Venom (Eddie Brock) to reveal Mr. Negative's identity[87] (as well as learning that Aunt May was moving to Boston with Jay) Spider-Man found himself with a new problem: the Jackal returned and gave the majority of New Yorkers spider-powers.[88]
+The Queen was revealed as the true mastermind: she wanted to turn the whole human race into spiders. Mr. Fantastic created a cure using the Anti-Venom Symbiote, and after battling Peter (under the Jackal's influence), Peter's clone Kaine was accidentally cured from his mutations, turning him into a perfect clone.
+While he and the Avengers battled the Spider-Queen in Central Park, Kaine killed her and Peter managed to get the cure to every citizen via Doctor Octopus's (mentally controlled) Octobots. He met with Jay and May while they were leaving for Boston. Peter then ran into Kaine, who told Peter that he was leaving New York and with Peter's stealth suit, since Madame Web had told Kaine he may need it. Also, because of revealing he had spider-powers during the Spider-Island event, Peter's psychic blind spot was weakened, letting Carlie know he was Spider-Man, which caused her to break up with him. Before giving a last cure sample to MJ, who briefly attempted to keep some spider-powers, Spider-Man met with Madame Web on the roof of Horizon Labs. She told him that he could de-power himself with the cure sample and someone else will step in to take his place. Peter refuses, saying that throwing his gift away would be the most irresponsible thing he has ever done. Madame Web warns that he is to suffer a loss. He then cures MJ and they look at the Empire State Building, lit in red and blue in his honor.
+
+While adjusting to his new status quo, especially his position as the CEO of his very own company,[89] Peter learned of the existence of Cindy Moon, a second person to have been bit by the same radioactive spider which granted Peter his powers. Spider-Man tracked her down and freed her from a bunker owned by the late Ezekiel Simms, where Cindy had spent over a decade in voluntary confinement shortly after getting her powers, in order to avoid drawing Morlun's attention. While Peter notified Cindy that Morlun was dead, he had in fact survived his last encounter against Spider-Man.[90]
+Not long after rescuing Cindy, who went on to adopt her own superheroic identity as Silk,[91] Spider-Man was approached by a contingent of spider-people from all over the Multiverse that banded together to fight the Inheritors, a group of psychic vampires and the family of Morlun that had begun to hunt down the spider-totems of other realities.[92] During a mission to gather more recruits in A.D. 2099, the Spider-Army stumbled upon another party of spider-people led by Otto Octavius, or rather a version of him from the recent past who had been plucked out of time.[93]
+The combined Spider-Army were forced to retreat to Earth-3145 after their safe zone in Earth-13 had been compromised by the Inheritors, namely Morlun, his brother Jennix, and his father and leader of the Inheritors, Solus. With the help of Spider-Woman, who had previously infiltrated the Inheritor's base on Earth-001, the Spider-Army learned of a prophecy in which the Inheritors planned to sacrifice three key spiders: the Other, the Bride, and the Scion. These individuals were Kaine Parker, Cindy Moon, and Benjamin "Benjy" Parker of Earth-982, respectively.
+With the help of even more recruits from other realities and even a deviant Inheritor named Karn, the Spider-Army, including a version of Gwen Stacy with spider-powers known as "Spider-Gwen", launched one final attack on the Inheritors' home of Earth-001. The ritual was stopped, and the Inheritors were exiled with no means to return home to the radioactive wasteland that had become the world of Earth-3145. With the Inheritors neutralized, most of the spider-totems were sent home. Spider-Man and a few others stayed on Earth-001 for a little while longer to defeat the time-displaced Octavius, who had gone rogue after learning that Parker would eventually regain control of his body. Octavius was defeated and returned to the time he had come from, losing memory of the recent events in the process. With no more problems to confront, Spider-Man and the rest of the spiders were sent back home.
+
+Unbeknownst to anyone, Otto Octavius had created a digital back-up of his own mind, which ended up inhabiting the metallic body of Parker Industries' robotic assistant, the Living Brain.[94] Over the course of the following months, Octavius routinely hacked into the systems of the market share to manipulate its numbers in favor of Parker Industries. As a consequence of this, the company managed to expand into a global conglomerate with numerous bases in different countries, with the company's trademark invention being a mobile device called the Webware. This change in Peter's life impacted his superheroic alter ego as well. Spider-Man officially became the mascot of Parker Industries under the guise of being Peter's bodyguard.[95]
+
+One of Peter's biggest challenges during his tenure as a billionaire C.E.O was the emergence of a mysterious biotech company, operating out of the Transamerica Pyramid, called New U. Peter discovered it was a front for the operations of the Jackal, who claimed to have found a way to bring people back from the dead using cloning technology. In an attempt to persuade Peter to put Parker Industries' resources to help his plan, the Jackal created numerous clones of his late friends and foes, including Gwen Stacy. In a turn of events, the Jackal was revealed to be Ben Reilly, who had been brought to life by the original Jackal before taking his place. The Jackal's plan eventually fell apart following the triggering of cellular decay in the clones created by New U, which led to the release of the Carrion Virus worldwide. The crisis was adverted when Spider-Man had his Webwares transmit an audio frequency in a global scale which halted the cellular degeneration, but not before most of the clones died. The Jackal, being a clone himself, was left for dead, though he secretly escaped and returned to the mantle of the Scarlet Spider.
+
+Following Osborn's latest defeat, Peter's life was plagued with problems on both sides. As Spider-Man, now-Mayor Wilson Fisk, a.k.a the Kingpin, decided to be publicly accepting of him, while condemning all other vigilantes in order to isolate him from his superhero peers. As Peter Parker, his academic credentials were revoked after being accused of plagiarizing his doctoral dissertion from Octavius (and unable to defend himself without revealing his secret identity), resulting in his firing from the Daily Bugle again. On the other hand, Peter became romantically involved again with Mary Jane, and was given an opportunity to re-apply for his doctoral thesis on the recommendation of Dr. Curt Connors.[96] For a brief time, Peter Parker and Spider-Man were split into separate beings due to an accident involving the reverse-engineered Isotope Genome Accelerator. However, the separation split Peter down the middle, so both individuals did not share Peter's sense of responsibility, resulting in a reckless and vain Spider-Man. Peter eventually managed to reverse the process, and merge his two halves back together before the side-effects could worsen and result in their death.[97]
+
+More recently, Spider-Man has been plagued by visions of a mysterious villain named Kindred who has seemingly been working with Mysterio.[98] As this happened, villains the Black Ant and the Taskmaster captured animal-themed supervillains for Kraven the Hunter as part of a plan to destroy unworthy hunters. In the process, Dr. Connors' child Billy was kidnapped alongside the Black Cat and were forced to fight for their survival in New York's Central Park which was, at that time, surrounded by an energy field.[99] Meanwhile, the Vulture brainwashed a group of fellow supervillains and led an attack against the unworthy hunters. Spider-Man was tasked with finding Kraven the Hunter, whose ultimate goal through the hunt was to anger Spider-Man and lead him to kill him, ending his curse. After Spider-Man refused and Dr. Connors saved his child, Kraven lifted the force field from Central Park, allowing Spider-Man, Connors and Billy, and the Black Cat to escape while the Avengers rounded up all the loose criminals. The "Hunted" story arc ended with Kraven donning a Spider-Man disguise, effectively becoming the Spider, and allowing his cloned son to kill him.[100]
+
+Comics historian Peter Sanderson[101]
+
+Sally Kempton for the Village Voice opined in 1965 that "Spider-Man has a terrible identity problem, a marked inferiority complex, and a fear of women. He is anti-social, [sic] castration-ridden, racked with Oedipal guilt, and accident-prone ... [a] functioning neurotic".[45] Agonizing over his choices, always attempting to do right, he is nonetheless viewed with suspicion by the authorities, who seem unsure as to whether he is a helpful vigilante or a clever criminal.[102]
+
+Notes cultural historian Bradford W. Wright,
+
+Spider-Man's plight was to be misunderstood and persecuted by the very public that he swore to protect. In the first issue of The Amazing Spider-Man, J. Jonah Jameson, publisher of the Daily Bugle, launches an editorial campaign against the "Spider-Man menace." The resulting negative publicity exacerbates popular suspicions about the mysterious Spider-Man and makes it impossible for him to earn any more money by performing. Eventually, the bad press leads the authorities to brand him an outlaw. Ironically, Peter finally lands a job as a photographer for Jameson's Daily Bugle.[9]:212
+
+The mid-1960s stories reflected the political tensions of the time, as early 1960s Marvel stories had often dealt with the Cold War and Communism.[9]:220–223 As Wright observes,
+
+From his high-school beginnings to his entry into college life, Spider-Man remained the superhero most relevant to the world of young people. Fittingly, then, his comic book also contained some of the earliest references to the politics of young people. In 1968, in the wake of actual militant student demonstrations at Columbia University, Peter Parker finds himself in the midst of similar unrest at his Empire State University.... Peter has to reconcile his natural sympathy for the students with his assumed obligation to combat lawlessness as Spider-Man. As a law-upholding liberal, he finds himself caught between militant leftism and angry conservatives.[9]:234–235
+
+A bite from a radioactive spider triggers mutations in Peter Parker's body, granting him superpowers.[103] Since the original Lee-Ditko stories, Spider-Man has had the ability to cling to walls. This has been speculated to be based on a distance-dependent interaction between his body and surfaces, known as the van der Waals force,[citation needed] but other sources, such as the 2002 Spider-Man film, suggest instead that his hands and feet are lined with tiny clinging cilia in the manner of a real spider's feet. Spider-Man's other powers include significantly superhuman strength, a precognitive sixth sense famously referred to as his "spider-sense" or "spidey-sense" that alerts him to danger, perfect balance and equilibrium, as well as superhuman speed and agility.[103] The character was originally conceived by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko as intellectually gifted, but later writers have depicted his intellect at genius level.[104] Academically brilliant, Parker has expertise in the fields of applied science, chemistry, physics, biology, engineering, mathematics, and mechanics. With his talents, he sews his own costume to conceal his identity, and he constructs many devices that complement his powers, most notably mechanical web-shooters, to help navigate and trap his enemies along with a spider-signal as a flashlight and a warning beacon to criminals.[103]
+
+Spider-Man has had a large range of supporting characters introduced in the comics that are essential in the issues and storylines that star him. After his parents died, Peter Parker was raised by his loving aunt, May Parker, and his uncle and father figure, Ben Parker. After Uncle Ben is murdered by a burglar, Aunt May is virtually Peter's only family, and she and Peter are very close.[46]
+
+J. Jonah Jameson is the publisher of the Daily Bugle and is Peter Parker's boss. A harsh critic of Spider-Man, he constantly features negative articles about the superhero in his newspaper.
+
+Despite his role as Jameson's editor and confidant, Robbie Robertson is always depicted as a supporter of both Peter Parker and Spider-Man.[48]
+
+Eugene "Flash" Thompson is commonly depicted as Parker's high school tormentor and bully, but in later comic issues he becomes a friend to Peter.[48] Meanwhile, Harry Osborn, son of Norman Osborn, is most commonly recognized as Peter's best friend, but has also been depicted sometimes as his rival in the comics.[50]
+
+Peter Parker's romantic interests range between his first crush, fellow high-school student Liz Allan,[48] to having his first date with Betty Brant,[105]secretary to the Daily Bugle newspaper publisher J. Jonah Jameson. After his breakup with Betty Brant, Parker eventually falls in love with his college girlfriend Gwen Stacy,[50][53] daughter of New York City Police Department detective captain George Stacy, both of whom are later killed by supervillain enemies of Spider-Man.[58] Mary Jane Watson eventually became Peter's best friend and then his wife.[69] Felicia Hardy, the Black Cat, is a reformed cat burglar who had been Spider-Man's sole superhuman girlfriend and partner at one point.[65]
+
+Writers and artists over the years have established a rogues gallery of supervillains to face Spider-Man, in comics and in other media. As with the hero, the majority of the villains' powers originate with scientific accidents or the misuse of scientific technology, and many have animal-themed costumes or powers.[note 6] Examples are listed down below in the ordering of their original chronological appearance:
+
+Indicates a group.
+
+Todd McFarlane[151]
+
+Unlike a lot of well-known rivalries in comics book depictions, Spider-Man is cited to have more than one archenemy and it can be debated or disputed as to which one is worse:[156]
+
+Within the Marvel Universe there exists a multiverse with many variations of Spider-Men.[165] An early character included in the 1980s is the fictional anthropomorphic funny animal parody of Spider-Man in pig form named Spider-Ham (Peter Porker).[166] Many imprints of Spider-Men were created, like the futuristic version of Spider-Man in Marvel 2099 named Miguel O'Hara. In the MC2 imprint, Peter marries Mary Jane and has a daughter named Mayday Parker, who carries on Spider-Man's legacy and Marvel Noir has a 1930s version of Peter Parker.[165][167][168] Other themed versions exist within the early 2000s, such as a Marvel Mangaverse version and an Indian version from Spider-Man: India named Pavitr Prabhakar.[165][169]
+
+Ultimate Spider-Man was a popular modern retelling of Peter Parker. The version of Parker would later be depicted as being killed off and replaced by an Afro-Latino Spider-Man named Miles Morales.[170]
+
+The storyline "Spider-Verse" brought back many alternate takes on Spider-Man and introduced many newly inspired ones, such as an alternate world where Gwen Stacy gets bitten by a radioactive spider instead, along with a British-themed version named Spider-UK called Billy Braddock from the Captain Britain Corps.[167][171]
+
+In The Creation of Spider-Man, comic book writer-editor and historian Paul Kupperberg calls the character's superpowers "nothing too original"; what was original was that outside his secret identity, he was a "nerdy high school student".[173]:5 Going against typical superhero fare, Spider-Man included "heavy doses of soap-opera and elements of melodrama". Kupperberg feels that Lee and Ditko had created something new in the world of comics: "the flawed superhero with everyday problems". This idea spawned a "comics revolution".[173]:6 The insecurity and anxieties in Marvel's early 1960s comic books, such as The Amazing Spider-Man, The Incredible Hulk, The Fantastic Four, and The X-Men ushered in a new type of superhero, very different from the certain and all-powerful superheroes before them, and changed the public's perception of them.[174] Spider-Man has become one of the most recognizable fictional characters in the world, and has been used to sell toys, games, cereal, candy, soap, and many other products.[175]
+
+Spider-Man has become Marvel's flagship character and has often been used as the company mascot. When Marvel became the first comic book company to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1991, The Wall Street Journal announced "Spider-Man is coming to Wall Street"; the event was in turn promoted with an actor in a Spider-Man costume accompanying Stan Lee to the Stock Exchange.[9]:254 Since 1962, hundreds of millions of comics featuring the character have been sold around the world.[176] Spider-Man is the world's most profitable superhero.[177] In 2014, global retail sales of licensed products related to Spider-Man reached approximately $1.3 billion.[178] Comparatively, this amount exceeds the global licensing revenue of Batman, Superman, and the Avengers combined.[177]
+Spider-Man is also one of the highest-grossing franchise titles being the highest-grossing American comic book superhero[179][180]  est. $25.6 billion worldwide.[181][182]
+
+Spider-Man joined the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade from 1987 to 1998 as one of the balloon floats,[183] designed by John Romita Sr.,[184] one of the character's signature artists. A new, different Spider-Man balloon float also appeared from 2009 to 2014.[183]
+
+When Marvel wanted to issue a story dealing with the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the company chose the December 2001 issue of The Amazing Spider-Man.[185]
+In 2006, Spider-Man garnered major media coverage with the revelation of the character's secret identity,[186] an event detailed in a full-page story in the New York Post before the issue containing the story was even released.[187]
+
+In 2008, Marvel announced plans to release a series of educational comics the following year in partnership with the United Nations, depicting Spider-Man alongside the UN Peacekeeping Forces to highlight UN peacekeeping missions.[188] A BusinessWeek article listed Spider-Man as one of the top 10 most intelligent fictional characters in American comics.[189]
+
+Rapper Eminem has cited Spider-Man as one of his favorite comic book superheroes.[190][191]
+
+In 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States decided Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment, LLC, a case concerning royalties on a patent for an imitation web-shooter. The opinion for the Court, by Justice Elena Kagan, included several Spider-Man references, concluding with the statement that "with great power there must also come—great responsibility".[192]
+
+Spider-Man has become a subject of scientific inquiry. In 1987, researchers at Loyola University conducted a study into the utility of Spider-Man comics for informing children and parents about issues relating to child abuse.[193] In 2019, an Israeli study from Ariel University and Bar-Ilan University suggested that exposure to short clips from the Spider-Man movies could help to reduce an individual's arachnophobia.[194]
+
+—IGN staff on placing Spider-Man as the number one hero of Marvel.[195]
+
+Spider-Man was declared the number 1 superhero on Bravo's Ultimate Super Heroes, Vixens, and Villains TV series in 2005.[196] Empire magazine placed him as the fifth-greatest comic book character of all time.[197] Wizard magazine placed Spider-Man as the third-greatest comic book character on their website.[198] In 2011, Spider-Man placed third on IGN's Top 100 Comic Book Heroes of All Time, behind DC Comics characters Superman and Batman.[195] and sixth in their 2012 list of "The Top 50 Avengers".[199] In 2014, IGN identified Spider-Man the greatest Marvel Comics character of all time.[200] A 2015 poll at Comic Book Resources named Spider-Man the greatest Marvel character of all time.[201] IGN described him as the common everyman that represents many normal people, but also noting his uniqueness compared to many top-tiered superheroes with his many depicted flaws as a superhero. IGN noted that, despite being one of the most tragic superheroes of all time, he is "one of the most fun and snarky superheroes in existence."[195] Empire noted and praised that, despite the many tragedies that Spider-Man faces, he retains his sense of humor at all times with his witty wisecracks. The magazine website appraised the depiction of his "iconic" superhero poses describing it as "a top artist's dream".[198]
+
+George Marston of Newsarama placed Spider-Man's origin story as the greatest origin story of all time opining that "Spider-Man's origin combines all of the most classic aspects of pathos, tragedy and scientific wonder into the perfect blend for a superhero origin."[202]
+
+Real-life people who have been compared to Spider-Man for their climbing feats include:
+
+From the character's inception, Spider-Man stories have won numerous awards, including:
+
+Spider-Man has appeared in comics, cartoons, films, video games, coloring books, novels, records, children's books, and theme park rides.[175] On television, he first starred in the ABC animated series Spider-Man (1967–1970);[207] Spidey Super Stories (1974–1977) on PBS; and the CBS live action series The Amazing Spider-Man (1978–1979), starring Nicholas Hammond. Other animated series featuring the superhero include the syndicated Spider-Man (1981–1982), Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends (1981–1983), Fox Kids' Spider-Man (1994–1998), Spider-Man Unlimited (1999–2000), Spider-Man: The New Animated Series (2003), The Spectacular Spider-Man (2008–2009), Ultimate Spider-Man (2012–2017)[208]and Spider-Man(2017-present).
+
+A tokusatsu series featuring Spider-Man was produced by Toei and aired in Japan. It is commonly referred to by its Japanese pronunciation "Supaidā-Man".[209] Spider-Man also appeared in other print forms besides the comics, including novels, children's books, and the daily newspaper comic strip The Amazing Spider-Man, which debuted in January 1977, with the earliest installments written by Stan Lee and drawn by John Romita Sr.[210] Spider-Man has been adapted to other media including games, toys, collectibles, and miscellaneous memorabilia, and has appeared as the main character in numerous computer and video games on over 15 gaming platforms.
+
+Spider-Man was featured in a trilogy of live-action films directed by Sam Raimi and starring Tobey Maguire as the titular superhero. The first Spider-Man film of the trilogy was released on May 3, 2002; followed by Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Spider-Man 3 (2007). A third sequel was originally scheduled to be released in 2011; however, Sony later decided to reboot the franchise with a new director and cast. The reboot, titled The Amazing Spider-Man, was released on July 3, 2012; directed by Marc Webb and starring Andrew Garfield as the new Spider-Man.[211][212][213] It was followed by The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014).[214][215] In 2015, Sony and Disney made a deal for Spider-Man to appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.[216] Tom Holland made his debut as Spider-Man in the MCU film Captain America: Civil War (2016), before later starring in his standalone film Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017); directed by Jon Watts.[217][218] Holland reprised his role as Spider-Man in Avengers: Infinity War (2018),[219][220] Avengers: Endgame (2019),[221] and Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019).[222] Jake Johnson voiced an alternate universe version of Spider-Man in the animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.[223] Chris Pine also voiced another version of Peter Parker in the film.[224]
+
+Spider-Man will once again be seen in the MCU, as Sony and Disney have re-united for the production of the Spider-universe films.[225]
+
+A Broadway musical, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, began previews on November 14, 2010, at the Foxwoods Theatre on Broadway, with the official opening night on June 14, 2011.[226][227] The music and lyrics were written by Bono and The Edge of the rock group U2, with a book by Julie Taymor, Glen Berger, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa.[228] Turn Off the Dark is currently the most expensive musical in Broadway history, costing an estimated $70 million.[229] In addition, the show's unusually high running costs are reported to have been about $1.2 million per week.[230]
+
+In the fine arts, and starting with the Pop Art period and on a continuing basis since the 1960s, the character of Spider-Man has been "appropriated" by multiple visual artists and incorporated into contemporary artwork, most notably by Andy Warhol,[231][232] Roy Lichtenstein,[233] Mel Ramos,[234] Dulce Pinzon,[235] Mr. Brainwash,[236] F. Lennox Campello,[237] and others.

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+Spinosaurus (meaning "spine lizard") is a genus of spinosaurid dinosaur that lived in what now is North Africa during the upper Albian to upper Turonian stages of the Cretaceous period, about 112 to 93.5 million years ago. This genus was known first from Egyptian remains discovered in 1912 and described by German paleontologist Ernst Stromer in 1915. The original remains were destroyed in World War II, but additional material has come to light in the early 21st century. It is unclear whether one or two species are represented in the fossils reported in the scientific literature. The best known species is S. aegyptiacus from Egypt, although a potential second species, S. maroccanus, has been recovered from Morocco. The contemporary spinosaurid genus Sigilmassasaurus has also been synonymized by some authors with S. aegyptiacus, though other researchers propose it to be a distinct taxon. Another possible junior synonym is Oxalaia from the Alcântara Formation in Brazil.
+
+Spinosaurus was among the largest of all known carnivorous dinosaurs, nearly as large as or even larger than other theropods such as Tyrannosaurus, Giganotosaurus and Carcharodontosaurus. Estimates published in 2005, 2007, and 2008 suggested that it was between 12.6–18 metres (41–59 ft) in length and 7 to 20.9 tonnes (7.7 to 23.0 short tons) in weight.[2][3][4] New estimates published in 2014 and 2018, based on a more complete specimen, supported the earlier research, finding that Spinosaurus could reach lengths of 15–16 m (49–52 ft).[5][6][7] The latest estimates suggest a weight of 6.4–7.5 tonnes (7.1–8.3 short tons).[6][7] The skull of Spinosaurus was long, low and narrow, similar to that of a modern crocodilian, and bore straight conical teeth with no serrations. It would have had large, robust forelimbs bearing three-fingered hands, with an enlarged claw on the first digit. The distinctive neural spines of Spinosaurus, which were long extensions of the vertebrae (or backbones), grew to at least 1.65 meters (5.4 ft) long and were likely to have had skin connecting them, forming a sail-like structure, although some authors[who?] have suggested that the spines were covered in fat and formed a hump. Spinosaurus's hip bones were reduced, and the legs were very short in proportion to the body. Its long and narrow tail was deepened by tall, thin neural spines and elongated chevrons, forming a flexible fin or paddle-like structure.
+
+Spinosaurus is known to have eaten fish, and most scientists believe that it hunted both terrestrial and aquatic prey. Evidence suggests that it was highly semiaquatic, and lived both on land and in water as modern crocodilians do. Spinosaurus's leg bones had osteosclerosis (high bone density), allowing for better buoyancy control, and the paddle-like tail was likely used for underwater propulsion. Multiple functions have been put forward for the dorsal sail, including thermoregulation and display; either to intimidate rivals or attract mates. Spinosaurus lived in a humid environment of tidal flats and mangrove forests alongside many other dinosaurs, as well as fish, crocodylomorphs, lizards, turtles, pterosaurs, and plesiosaurs.
+
+Two species of Spinosaurus have been named: Spinosaurus aegyptiacus (meaning "Egyptian spine lizard") and the disputed Spinosaurus maroccanus (meaning "Moroccan spine lizard").[8][9]
+
+The first described remains of Spinosaurus were found and described in the early 20th century. In 1912, Richard Markgraf discovered a partial skeleton of a giant theropod dinosaur in the Bahariya Formation of western Egypt. In 1915, German paleontologist Ernst Stromer published an article assigning the specimen to a new genus and species, Spinosaurus aegyptiacus.[10][8]
+
+Fragmentary additional remains from Bahariya, including vertebrae and hindlimb bones, were designated by Stromer as "Spinosaurus B" in 1934.[11] Stromer considered them different enough to belong to another species, and this has been borne out. With the advantage of more expeditions and material, it appears that they pertain either to Carcharodontosaurus[12] or to Sigilmassasaurus.[9]
+
+S. maroccanus was originally described by Dale Russell in 1996 as a new species based on the length of its neck vertebrae.[9] Specifically, Russell claimed that the ratio of the length of the centrum (body of vertebra) to the height of the posterior articular facet was 1.1 in S. aegyptiacus and 1.5 in S. maroccanus.[9] Later authors have been split on this topic. Some authors note that the length of the vertebrae can vary from individual to individual, that the holotype specimen was destroyed and thus cannot be compared directly with the S. maroccanus specimen, and that it is unknown which cervical vertebrae the S. maroccanus specimens represent. Therefore, though some have retained the species as valid without much comment,[13][14][15] most researchers regard S. maroccanus as a nomen dubium (dubious name)[4][16][17] or as a junior synonym of S. aegyptiacus.[12]
+
+Six main partial specimens of Spinosaurus have been described.
+
+BSP 1912 VIII 19, described by Stromer in 1915 from the Bahariya Formation, was the holotype.[10][8]  The material consisted of the following items, most of which were incomplete: right and left dentaries and splenials from the lower jaw measuring 75 centimeters (30 in) long; a straight piece of the left maxilla that was described but not drawn; 20 teeth; 2 cervical vertebrae; 7 dorsal (trunk) vertebrae; 3 sacral vertebrae; 1 caudal vertebra; 4 thoracic ribs; and gastralia.[10] Of the nine neural spines whose heights are given, the longest ("i," associated with a dorsal vertebra) was 1.65 meters (5.4 ft) in length.[10] Stromer claimed that the specimen was from the early Cenomanian, about 97 million years ago.[10][8]
+
+This specimen was destroyed in World War II, specifically "during the night of 24/25 April 1944 in a British bombing raid of Munich" that severely damaged the building housing the Paläontologisches Museum München (Bavarian State Collection of Paleontology).[8] However, detailed drawings and descriptions of the specimen remain. Stromer's son donated Stromer's archives to the Paläontologische Staatssammlung München in 1995, and Smith and colleagues analyzed two photographs of the Spinosaurus holotype specimen BSP 1912 VIII 19 discovered in the archives in 2000.[8] On the basis of a photograph of the lower jaw and a photograph of the entire specimen as mounted, Smith concluded that Stromer's original 1915 drawings were slightly inaccurate.[8]  In 2003, Oliver Rauhut suggested that Stromer's Spinosaurus holotype was a chimera, composed of vertebrae and neural spines from a carcharodontosaurid similar to Acrocanthosaurus and a dentary from Baryonyx or Suchomimus.[17] This analysis was rejected in at least one subsequent paper.[4]
+
+NMC 50791, held by the Canadian Museum of Nature, is a mid-cervical vertebra which is 19.5 centimeters (7.7 in) long from the Kem Kem Beds of Morocco.[9] It is the holotype of Spinosaurus maroccanus as described by Russell in 1996.[9] Other specimens referred to S. maroccanus in the same paper were two other mid-cervical vertebrae (NMC 41768 and NMC 50790), an anterior dentary fragment (NMC 50832), a mid-dentary fragment (NMC 50833), and an anterior dorsal neural arch (NMC 50813).[9]  Russell stated that "only general locality information could be provided" for the specimen, and therefore it could be dated only "possibly" to the Albian.[9]
+
+MNHN SAM 124, housed at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, is a snout (consisting of partial premaxillae, partial maxillae, vomers, and a dentary fragment).[18] Described by Taquet and Russell in 1998, the specimen is 13.4 to 13.6 centimeters (5.3–5.4 in) in width; no length was stated.[18] The specimen was located in Algeria, and "is of Albian age."[18] Taquet and Russell believed that this specimen along with a premaxilla fragment (SAM 125), two cervical vertebrae (SAM 126-127), and a dorsal neural arch (SAM 128), belonged to S. maroccanus.[18]
+
+BM231 (in the collection of the Office National des Mines, Tunis) was described by Buffetaut and Ouaja in 2002.[16]  It consists of a partial anterior dentary 11.5 centimetres (4.53 in) in length from an early Albian stratum of the Chenini Formation of Tunisia.[16] The dentary fragment, which included four alveoli and two partial teeth, was "extremely similar" to existing material of S. aegyptiacus.[16]
+
+UCPC-2 in the University of Chicago Paleontological Collection consists mainly of two narrow connected nasals with a fluted (ridged) crest from the region between the eyes.[4] The specimen, which is 18.0 centimetres (7.09 in) long, was located in an early Cenomanian part of the Moroccan Kem Kem Beds in 1996 and described in the scientific literature in 2005 by Cristiano Dal Sasso of the Civic Natural History Museum in Milan and colleagues.[4]
+
+MSNM V4047 (in the Museo di Storia Naturale di Milano), described by Dal Sasso and colleagues in 2005, consists of a snout (premaxillae, partial maxillae, and partial nasals) 98.8 centimetres (38.9 in) long from the Kem Kem Beds.[4] Like UCPC-2, it is thought to have come from the early Cenomanian. Arden and colleagues in 2018 tentatively assigned this specimen to Sigilmassasaurus brevicollis given its size. In the absence of associated material, however, it is difficult to be certain which material belongs to which taxon.[19]
+
+FSAC-KK 11888 is a partial subadult skeleton recovered from the Kem Kem beds of North Africa. Described by Ibrahim and colleagues (2014) and designated as the neotype specimen (although Evers and colleagues 2015 reject the neotype designation for FSAC-KK-11888).[20] It includes cervical vertebrae, dorsal vertebrae, neural spines, a complete sacrum, femora, tibiae, pedal phalanges, caudal vertebra, several dorsal ribs, and fragments of the skull.[5] The body proportions of this specimen have been debated as the hind limbs are disproportionately shorter in the specimen than in previous reconstructions. However, it has been demonstrated by multiple paleontologists that the specimen is not a chimaera, and is indeed a specimen of Spinosaurus that suggests that the animal had much smaller hind limbs than previously thought.[21][22][23]
+
+Other known specimens consist mainly of very fragmentary remains and scattered teeth. These include:
+
+MHNM.KK374 to.KK378 are five isolated quadrates (skull bones) of different sizes which were collected by locals and acquired commercially in
+the Kem Kem region of southeastern Morocco, provided by François Escuillié and are deposited in the collections of the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle of Marrakech. The quadrates show two different morphologies suggesting the existence of two spinosaurines in Morocco.[30]
+
+Material possibly belonging to Spinosaurus has been reported from the Turkana Grits of Kenya.[31]
+
+Some scientists have considered the genus Sigilmassasaurus a junior synonym of Spinosaurus. In Ibrahim and colleagues (2014), the specimens of Sigilmassasaurus was referred to Spinosaurus aegyptiacus together with "Spinosaurus B" as the neotype and Spinosaurus maroccanus was considered as a nomen dubium following the conclusions of the other papers.[4][5][12] A 2015 re-description of Sigilmassasaurus disputed these conclusions, and considered the genus valid.[20] This conclusion was further supported in 2018 by Arden and colleagues, who consider Sigilmassasaurus to be a distinct genus, though a very close relative of Spinosaurus, the two unified in the tribe Spinosaurini, coined in the study.[19]
+
+In an upcoming 2020 paper written by Symth et al. in assessing spinosaurine specimens from the Kem Kem Group suggested the Brazilian spinosaurine Oxalaia to be a potential junior synonym of Spinosaurus aegyptiacus. This was based on looking at the specimens assigned to Oxalaia, and the supposed autapomorphies of this taxon to be insignificant and fall within the hypodigm of Spinosaurus aegyptiacus. If supported by future studies, this would imply Spinosaurus aegyptiacus had a wider distribution and supports the faunal exchange between South America and Africa during this time. Additionally, the study further indicates synonymy between Spinosaurus and Sigilmassasaurus.[1]
+
+Since its discovery, Spinosaurus has been a contender for the longest and largest theropod dinosaur.[32] Both Friedrich von Huene in 1926[33] and Donald F. Glut in 1982 listed it as among the most massive theropods in their surveys, at 15 meters (49 ft) in length and upwards of 6 t (5.9 long tons; 6.6 short tons) in weight.[34] In 1988, Gregory Paul also listed it as the longest theropod at 15 meters (49 ft), but gave a lower mass estimate of 4 tonnes (3.9 long tons; 4.4 short tons).[35]
+
+In 2005, Dal Sasso and colleagues assumed that Spinosaurus and the spinosaurid Suchomimus had the same body proportions in relation to their skull lengths, and thereby calculated that Spinosaurus was 16 to 18 meters (52 to 59 ft) in length and 7 to 9 tonnes (6.9 to 8.9 long tons; 7.7 to 9.9 short tons) in weight.[4] These estimates were criticized because the skull length estimate was uncertain, and (assuming that body mass increases as the cube of body length) scaling Suchomimus which was 11 meters (36 ft) long and 3.8 tonnes (4.2 short tons) in mass to the range of estimated lengths of Spinosaurus would produce an estimated body mass of 11.7 to 16.7 tonnes (12.9 to 18.4 short tons).[3]
+
+François Therrien and Donald Henderson, in a 2007 paper using scaling based on skull length, challenged previous estimates of the size of Spinosaurus, finding the length too great and the weight too small.[3]  Based on estimated skull lengths of 1.5 to 1.75 meters (4.9 to 5.7 ft), their estimates include a body length of 12.6 to 14.3 meters (41 to 47 ft) and a body mass of 12 to 20.9 tonnes (11.8 to 20.6 long tons; 13.2 to 23.0 short tons).[3] The lower estimates for Spinosaurus would imply that the animal was shorter and lighter than Carcharodontosaurus and Giganotosaurus.[3] The Therrien and Henderson study has been criticized for the choice of theropods used for comparison (e.g., most of the theropods used to set the initial equations were tyrannosaurids and carnosaurs, which have a different build than spinosaurids), and for the assumption that the Spinosaurus skull could be as little as 1.5 meters (4.9 ft) in length.[36][37]
+
+The skull had a narrow snout filled with straight conical teeth that lacked serrations. There were six or seven teeth on each side of the very front of the upper jaw, in the premaxillae, and another twelve in both maxillae behind them.  The second and third teeth on each side were noticeably larger than the rest of the teeth in the premaxilla, creating a space between them and the large teeth in the front of the maxilla; large teeth in the lower jaw faced this space. The very tip of the snout holding those few large front teeth was expanded, and a small crest was present in front of the eyes.[4] Using the dimensions of three specimens known as MSNM V4047, UCPC-2, and BSP 1912 VIII 19, and assuming that the postorbital part of the skull of MSNM V4047 had a shape similar to the postorbital part of the skull of Irritator, Dal Sasso and colleagues (2005) estimated that the skull of Spinosaurus was 1.75 meters (5.7 ft) long,[4] but more recent estimates suggest a length of 1.6–1.68 meters (5.2–5.5 ft).[30][38] The Dal Sasso and colleagues skull length estimate is questioned because skull shapes can vary across spinosaurid species and because MSNM V4047 may not belong to Spinosaurus itself.[3][19]
+
+As a spinosaurid, Spinosaurus would have had a long, muscular neck, curved in a sigmoid, or S-shape. Its shoulders were prominent, and the forelimbs large and stocky, bearing three clawed digits on each hand. The first finger (or "thumb") would have been the largest. Spinosaurus had long phalanges (finger bones), and only somewhat recurved claws, suggesting that its hands were longer compared to those of other spinosaurids.[5][19][39]
+
+Very tall neural spines growing on the back vertebrae of Spinosaurus formed the basis of what is usually called the animal's "sail".  The lengths of the neural spines reached over 10 times the diameters of the centra (vertebral bodies) from which they extended.[40] The neural spines were slightly longer front to back at the base than higher up, and were unlike the thin rods seen in the pelycosaur finbacks Edaphosaurus and Dimetrodon, contrasting also with the thicker spines in the iguanodontian Ouranosaurus.[40]
+
+Spinosaurus sails were unusual, although other dinosaurs, namely Ouranosaurus, which lived a few million years earlier in the same general region as Spinosaurus, and the South American sauropod Amargasaurus, might have developed similar structural adaptations of their vertebrae. The sail may be an analog of the sail of the Permian synapsid Dimetrodon, which lived before the dinosaurs even appeared, produced by convergent evolution.[40]
+
+The structure may also have been more hump-like than sail-like, as noted by Stromer in 1915 ("one might rather think of the existence of a large hump of fat [German: Fettbuckel], to which the [neural spines] gave internal support")[10] and by Jack Bowman Bailey in 1997.[40] In support of his "buffalo-back" hypothesis, Bailey argued that in Spinosaurus, Ouranosaurus, and other dinosaurs with long neural spines, the spines were relatively shorter and thicker than the spines of pelycosaurs (which were known to have sails); instead, the dinosaurs' neural spines were similar to the neural spines of extinct hump-backed mammals such as Megacerops and Bison latifrons.[40] In 2014, Ibrahim and colleagues instead posited that the spines were covered tightly by skin, similar to a crested chameleon, given their compactness, sharp edges, and likely poor blood flow.[5]
+
+Spinosaurus had a significantly smaller pelvis (hip bone) than that of other giant theropods, with the surface area of the illium (main body of the pelvis) half that of most members of the clade. The hind limbs were short, at just over 25 percent of the total body length, with the tibia (calf bone) being longer than the femur (thigh bone). Unlike in other theropods, the hallux (or fourth toe) of Spinosaurus touched the ground, and the phalanges of the toe bones were unusually long and well-built. At their ends were shallow claws that had flat bottoms. This type of foot morphology is also seen in shorebirds, indicating that Spinosaurus's feet evolved for walking across unstable substrate and that they may have been webbed.[5]
+
+From the caudal vertebrae of the tail projected significantly elongated, thin neural spines, akin to the condition observed in some other spinosaurids,[19] though to a more extreme degree. Coupled with the also elongated chevron bones on the underside of the caudals, this resulted in a deep and narrow tail with a paddle or fin-like shape, comparable to the tails of newts and crocodilians.[41]
+
+Spinosaurus gives its name to the dinosaur family Spinosauridae, which includes two subfamilies: Baryonychinae and Spinosaurinae.  The Baryonychinae include Baryonyx from southern England and Suchomimus from Niger in central Africa. The Spinosaurinae include Spinosaurus, Sigilmassasaurus, Oxalaia, Siamosaurus, Ichthyovenator, Irritator from Brazil, and Angaturama (which maybe be synonymous with Irritator) from Brazil.[4][19] The Spinosaurinae share unserrated straight teeth that are widely spaced (e.g., 12 on one side of the maxilla), as opposed to the Baryonychinae which have serrated curved teeth that are numerous (e.g., 30 on one side of the maxilla).[4][13]
+
+An analysis of Spinosauridae by Arden and colleagues (2018) named the clade Spinosaurini and defined it as all spinosaurids closer to Spinosaurus aegyptiacus than to Irritator challengeri or Oxalaia quilombensis; it also found Siamosaurus suteethorni and Icthyovenator laosensis to be members of the Spinosaurinae.[19]
+
+The subfamily Spinosaurinae was named by Sereno in 1998, and defined by Holtz and colleagues (2004) as all taxa closer to Spinosaurus aegyptiacus than to Baryonyx walkeri. And the subfamily Baryonychinae was named by Charig & Milner in 1986. They erected both the subfamily and the family Baryonychinae for the newly discovered Baryonyx, before it was referred to the Spinosauridae. Their subfamily was defined by Holtz and colleagues in 2004, as the complementary clade of all taxa closer to Baryonyx walkeri than to Spinosaurus aegyptiacus. Examinations by Marcos Sales and Cesar Schultz and colleagues (2017) indicate that the South American spinosaurids Angaturama, Irritator, and Oxalaia were intermediate between Baronychinae and Spinosaurinae based on their craniodental features and cladistic analysis. This indicates that Baryonychinae may in fact be non-monophyletic. Their cladogram can be seen below.[42]
+
+Baryonyx
+
+Cristatusaurus
+
+Suchomimus
+
+Angaturama
+
+Oxalaia
+
+Spinosaurus
+
+The cladogram below depicts the findings of Arden and colleagues (2018):[19]
+
+Praia das Aguncheiras taxon
+
+Baryonyx walkeri
+
+Suchomimus tenerensis
+
+Siamosaurus suteethorni
+
+Eumeralla taxon
+
+Ichthyovenator laosensis
+
+Irritator challengeri
+
+Oxalaia quilombensis
+
+Gara Samani taxon
+
+Sigilmassasaurus brevicollis
+
+Spinosaurus aegyptiacus
+
+The function of the dinosaur's sail or hump is uncertain; scientists have proposed several hypotheses including heat regulation and display. In addition, such a prominent feature on its back could make it appear even larger than it was, intimidating other animals.[40]
+
+The structure may have been used for thermoregulation.  If the structure contained abundant blood vessels, the animal could have used the sail's large surface area to absorb heat. This would imply that the animal was only partly warm-blooded at best and lived in climates where nighttime temperatures were cool or low and the sky usually not cloudy. It is also possible that the structure was used to radiate excess heat from the body, rather than to collect it. Large animals, due to the relatively small ratio of surface area of their body compared to the overall volume (Haldane's principle), face far greater problems of dissipating excess heat at higher temperatures than gaining it at lower. Sails of large dinosaurs added considerably to the skin area of their bodies, with minimum increase of volume. Furthermore, if the sail was turned away from the sun, or positioned at a 90 degree angle towards a cooling wind, the animal would quite effectively cool itself in the warm climate of Cretaceous Africa.[43]  However, Bailey (1997) was of the opinion that a sail could have absorbed more heat than it radiated.[40] Bailey proposed instead that Spinosaurus and other dinosaurs with long neural spines had fatty humps on their backs for energy storage, insulation, and shielding from heat.[40]
+
+Many elaborate body structures of modern-day animals serve to attract members of the opposite sex during mating. It is possible that the sail of Spinosaurus was used for courtship, in a way similar to a peacock's tail. Stromer speculated that the size of the neural spines may have differed between males and females.[10]
+
+Gimsa and colleagues (2015) suggest that the dorsal sail of Spinosaurus was analogous to the dorsal fins of sailfish and served a hydrodynamic purpose.[44] Gimsa and others point out that more basal, long-legged spinosaurids had otherwise round or crescent-shaped dorsal sails, whereas in Spinosaurus, the dorsal neural spines formed a shape that was roughly rectangular, similar in shape to the dorsal fins of sailfish. They therefore argue that Spinosaurus used its dorsal neural sail in the same manner as sailfish, and that it also employed its long narrow tail to stun prey like a modern thresher shark. Sailfish employ their dorsal fins for herding schools of fish into a "bait ball" where they cooperate to trap the fish into a certain area where the sailfish can snatch the fish with their bills.
+The sail could have possibly reduced yaw rotation by counteracting the lateral force in the direction opposite to the slash as suggested by Gimsa and colleagues (2015).
+Gimsa and colleagues specifically wrote :
+
+Spinosaurus anatomy exhibits another feature that may have a modern analogy: its long tail resembled that of the thresher shark, employed to slap the water to herd and stun shoals of fish before devouring them (Oliver and colleagues, 2013).
+The strategies that sailfish and thresher sharks employ against shoaling fish are more effective when the shoal is first concentrated into a ‘bait ball’ (Helfman, Collette & Facey, 1997; Oliver and colleagues, 2013; Domenici and colleagues, 2014). Since this is difficult for individual predators to achieve, they cooperate in this effort. When herding a shoal of fish or squid, sailfish also raise their sails to make themselves appear larger. When they slash or wipe their bills through shoaling fish by turning their heads, their dorsal sail and fins are outstretched to stabilize their bodies hydrodynamically (Lauder & Drucker, 2004). Domenici and colleagues (2014) postulate that these fin extensions enhance the accuracy of tapping and slashing. The sail can reduce yaw rotation by counteracting the lateral force in the direction opposite to the slash. This means that prey is less likely to recognize the massive trunk as being part of an approaching predator (Marras and colleagues, 2015; Webb & Weihs 2015).
+
+Spinosaurus exhibited the anatomical features required to combine all three hunting strategies: a sail for herding prey more efficiently, as well as flexible tail and neck to slap the water for stunning, injuring or killing prey. The submerged dorsal sail would have provided a strong centreboard-like counterforce for powerful sidewards movements of the strong neck and long tail, as performed by sailfish (Domenici and colleagues, 2014) or thresher sharks (Oliver and colleagues, 2013). While smaller dorsal sails or fins make the dorsal water volume better accessible for slashing, it can be speculated that their smaller stabilization effect makes lateral slashing less efficient (e.g. for thresher sharks). Forming a hydrodynamic fulcrum and hydrodynamically stabilizing the trunk along the dorsoventral axis, Spinosaurus’ sail would also have compensated for the inertia of the lateral neck by tail movements and vice versa not only for predation but also for accelerated swimming. This behaviour might also have been one reason for Spinosaurus’ muscular chest and neck reported by Ibrahim and colleagues (2014).
+
+It is unclear whether Spinosaurus was primarily a terrestrial predator or a piscivore, as indicated by its elongated jaws, conical teeth and raised nostrils. The hypothesis of spinosaurs as specialized fish eaters has been suggested before by A. J. Charig and A. C. Milner for Baryonyx. They base this on the anatomical similarity with crocodilians and the presence of digestive acid-etched fish scales in the rib cage of the type specimen.[45] Large fish are known from the faunas containing other spinosaurids, including the Mawsonia, in the mid-Cretaceous of northern Africa and Brazil. Direct evidence for spinosaur diet comes from related European and South American taxa. Baryonyx was found with fish scales and bones from juvenile Iguanodon in its stomach, while a tooth embedded in a South American pterosaur bone suggests that spinosaurs occasionally preyed on pterosaurs,[46] but Spinosaurus was likely to have been a generalized and opportunistic predator, possibly a Cretaceous equivalent of large grizzly bears, being biased toward fishing, though it undoubtedly scavenged and took many kinds of small or medium-sized prey.[35]
+
+In 2009, Dal Sasso and colleagues. reported the results of X-ray computed tomography of the MSNM V4047 snout. As the foramina on the outside all communicated with a space on the inside of the snout, the authors speculated that Spinosaurus had pressure receptors inside the space that allowed it to hold its snout at the surface of the water to detect swimming prey species without seeing them.[47] A 2013 study by Andrew R. Cuff and Emily J. Rayfield concluded that bio-mechanical data suggests that Spinosaurus was not an obligate piscivore and that its diet was more closely associated with each individual's size. The characteristic rostral morphology of Spinosaurus allowed its jaws to resist bending in the vertical direction, however its jaws were poorly adapted with respect to resisting lateral bending compared to other members of this group (Baryonyx) and modern alligators, thus showing Spinosaurus preyed more regularly on fish than it did on land animals, although considered predators of the former too.[48]
+
+A 2010 isotope analysis by Romain Amiot and colleagues found that oxygen isotope ratios of spinosaurid teeth, including teeth of Spinosaurus, indicate semiaquatic lifestyles. Isotope ratios from tooth enamel and from other parts of Spinosaurus (found in Morocco and Tunisia) and of other predators from the same area such as Carcharodontosaurus were compared with isotopic compositions from contemporaneous theropods, turtles, and crocodilians. The study found that Spinosaurus teeth from five of six sampled localities had oxygen isotope ratios closer to those of turtles and crocodilians when compared with other theropod teeth from the same localities. The authors postulated that Spinosaurus switched between terrestrial and aquatic habitats to compete for food with large crocodilians and other large theropods respectively.[49] A 2018 study by Donald Henderson, however, refutes the claim that Spinosaurus was semiaquatic. By studying the buoyancy in lungs of crocodilians and comparing it to the lung placement in Spinosaurus, it was discovered that Spinosaurus could not sink or dive below the water surface. It was also capable of keeping its entire head above the water surface while floating, much like other non-aquatic theropods. Furthermore, the study found that Spinosaurus had to continually paddle its hind legs to prevent itself from tipping over onto its side, something that extant semiaquatic animals do not need to perform. Henderson therefore theorized that Spinosaurus probably did not hunt completely submerged in water as previously hypothesized, but instead would have spent much of its time on land or in shallow water.[50][6]
+
+Recent studies of the tail vertebrae of Spinosaurus refute Henderson's proposal that Spinosaurus mainly inhabited areas of land near and in shallow water and was too buoyant to submerge. Studies of the tail, thanks to specimens recovered and analyzed by Ibrahim, Pierce, Lauder, and Sereno and colleagues in 2018 indicate that Spinosaurus had a keeled tail that was well adapted to propelling the animal through water. The elongated neural spines and chevrons, which run to the end of the tail on both dorsal and ventral sides, indicate that Spinosaurus was able to swim in a similar manner to modern crocodilians. Through experimentation by Lauder and Pierce, the tail of Spinosaurus was found to have eight times as much forward thrust as the tails of terrestrial theropods like Coelophysis and Allosaurus, as well as being twice as efficient at achieving forward thrust. The discovery indicates that Spinosaurus may have had a lifestyle comparable to modern alligators and crocodiles, remaining in water for long periods of time while hunting.[41]
+
+Although traditionally depicted in the scientific community as a biped, Spinosaurus was often depicted in the mid-20th century as an obligate quadruped akin to Dimetrodon[51]. Starting in the mid-1970s, it was hypothesised Spinosaurus was at least an occasional quadruped,[34][43] bolstered by the discovery of Baryonyx, a relative with robust arms.[52] Because of the mass of the hypothesized fatty dorsal humps of Spinosaurus, Bailey (1997) was open to the possibility of a quadrupedal posture,[40] leading to new restorations of it as such.[52] Theropods, including spinosaurids, could not pronate their hands (rotate the forearm so the palm faced the ground),[53] but a resting position on the side of the hand was possible, as shown by fossil prints from an Early Jurassic theropod.[54] The hypothesis that Spinosaurus had a typical quadrupedal gait since fell out of favor, however it was still believed that spinosaurids may have crouched in a quadrupedal posture, due to biological and physiological constraints.[45][53]
+
+The possibility of a quadrupedal Spinosaurus was revived by a 2014 paper by Ibrahim and colleagues that described new material of the animal. The paper found that the hind limbs of Spinosaurus were much shorter than previously believed, and that its center of mass was located in the midpoint of the trunk region, as opposed to near the hip as in typical bipedal theropods. It was therefore proposed that Spinosaurus was poorly adapted for bipedal terrestrial locomotion, and must have been an obligate quadruped on land. The reconstruction used in the study was an extrapolation based on different sized individuals, scaled to what were assumed to be the correct proportions.[5] Palaeontologist John Hutchinson of the Royal Veterinary College of the University of London has expressed scepticism to the new reconstruction, and cautioned that using different specimens can result in inaccurate chimaeras.[55] Scott Hartman also expressed criticism because he believed the legs and the pelvis were inaccurately scaled (27% too short) and didn't match the published lengths.[56] However, Mark Witton expressed agreement with the proportions reported in the paper.[57] In their 2015 re-description of Sigilmassasaurus, Evers and colleagues argued that Sigilmassasaurus was in fact a distinct genus from Spinosaurus, and therefore doubted whether the material assigned to Spinosaurus by Ibrahim et. al. should be assigned to Spinosaurus or Sigilmassasaurus.[20] In 2018, an analysis by Henderson found that Spinosaurus probably was competent at bipedal terrestrial locomotion; the center of mass was instead found to be close to the hips, allowing Spinosaurus to stand upright like other bipedal theropods.[6]
+
+An ungual phalanx measuring 21 mm (0.83 in) belonging to a very young juvenile Spinosaurus indicates that the theropod developed its semiaquatic adaptations at a very young age or at birth and maintained them throughout its life. The specimen, found in 1999 and described by Simone Maganuco and Cristiano Dal Sasso and colleagues, is believed to have come from an animal measuring 1.78 m (5.8 ft) (assuming it resembled a smaller version of the adult), making it the smallest specimen of Spinosaurus currently known.[58]
+
+The environment inhabited by Spinosaurus is only partially understood, and covers a great deal of what is now northern Africa. The region of Africa Spinosaurus is preserved in dates from 112 to 93.5 million years ago,[59][8][2] although a potential specimen has been found in Campanian deposits.[60][61] A 1996 study concluded from Moroccan fossils that Spinosaurus, Carcharodontosaurus, and Deltadromeus "ranged across north Africa during the late Cretaceous (Cenomanian)."[62] Those Spinosaurus that lived in the Bahariya Formation of what is now Egypt may have contended with shoreline conditions on tidal flats and channels, living in mangrove forests alongside similarly large dinosaurian predators Bahariasaurus and Carcharodontosaurus, the titanosaur sauropods Paralititan and Aegyptosaurus, crocodylomorphs, bony and cartilaginous fish, turtles, lizards, and plesiosaurs.[63] In the dry season it might have resorted to preying on pterosaurs.[64] This situation resembles that in the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation of North America, which boasts up to five theropod genera over 1 tonne (1.1 short tons) in weight, as well as several smaller genera (Henderson, 1998; Holtz and colleagues, 2004). Differences in head shape and body size among the large North African theropods may have been enough to allow niche partitioning as seen among the many different predator species found today in the African savanna (Farlow & Pianka, 2002).
+
+Spinosaurus appeared in the 2001 film Jurassic Park III, replacing Tyrannosaurus as the main antagonist.[65] The film's consulting paleontologist John R. Horner was quoted as saying: "If we base the ferocious factor on the length of the animal, there was nothing that ever lived on this planet that could match this creature [Spinosaurus]. Also my hypothesis is that T-rex was actually a scavenger rather than a killer. Spinosaurus was really the predatory animal."[66] He has since retracted the statement about T. rex being a scavenger. In the film, Spinosaurus was portrayed as larger and more powerful than Tyrannosaurus: in a scene depicting a battle between the two resurrected predators, Spinosaurus emerges victorious by snapping the Tyrannosaurus' neck.[67] In the fourth film Jurassic World, there is a nod to this fight where the T. rex smashes through the skeleton of a Spinosaurus in the climatic fight near the end of the film.[68]
+
+Spinosaurus has long been depicted in popular books about dinosaurs, although only recently has there been enough information about spinosaurids for an accurate depiction. After an influential 1955 skeletal reconstruction by Lapparent and Lavocat[69] based on a 1936 diagram by Stromer,[70] it has been treated as a generalized upright theropod, with a skull similar to that of other large theropods and a sail on its back, even having four-fingered hands.[52]
+
+In addition to films, action figures, video games, and books, Spinosaurus has been depicted on postage stamps from countries such as Angola, The Gambia, and Tanzania.[71][72]
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+Spinosaurus (meaning "spine lizard") is a genus of spinosaurid dinosaur that lived in what now is North Africa during the upper Albian to upper Turonian stages of the Cretaceous period, about 112 to 93.5 million years ago. This genus was known first from Egyptian remains discovered in 1912 and described by German paleontologist Ernst Stromer in 1915. The original remains were destroyed in World War II, but additional material has come to light in the early 21st century. It is unclear whether one or two species are represented in the fossils reported in the scientific literature. The best known species is S. aegyptiacus from Egypt, although a potential second species, S. maroccanus, has been recovered from Morocco. The contemporary spinosaurid genus Sigilmassasaurus has also been synonymized by some authors with S. aegyptiacus, though other researchers propose it to be a distinct taxon. Another possible junior synonym is Oxalaia from the Alcântara Formation in Brazil.
+
+Spinosaurus was among the largest of all known carnivorous dinosaurs, nearly as large as or even larger than other theropods such as Tyrannosaurus, Giganotosaurus and Carcharodontosaurus. Estimates published in 2005, 2007, and 2008 suggested that it was between 12.6–18 metres (41–59 ft) in length and 7 to 20.9 tonnes (7.7 to 23.0 short tons) in weight.[2][3][4] New estimates published in 2014 and 2018, based on a more complete specimen, supported the earlier research, finding that Spinosaurus could reach lengths of 15–16 m (49–52 ft).[5][6][7] The latest estimates suggest a weight of 6.4–7.5 tonnes (7.1–8.3 short tons).[6][7] The skull of Spinosaurus was long, low and narrow, similar to that of a modern crocodilian, and bore straight conical teeth with no serrations. It would have had large, robust forelimbs bearing three-fingered hands, with an enlarged claw on the first digit. The distinctive neural spines of Spinosaurus, which were long extensions of the vertebrae (or backbones), grew to at least 1.65 meters (5.4 ft) long and were likely to have had skin connecting them, forming a sail-like structure, although some authors[who?] have suggested that the spines were covered in fat and formed a hump. Spinosaurus's hip bones were reduced, and the legs were very short in proportion to the body. Its long and narrow tail was deepened by tall, thin neural spines and elongated chevrons, forming a flexible fin or paddle-like structure.
+
+Spinosaurus is known to have eaten fish, and most scientists believe that it hunted both terrestrial and aquatic prey. Evidence suggests that it was highly semiaquatic, and lived both on land and in water as modern crocodilians do. Spinosaurus's leg bones had osteosclerosis (high bone density), allowing for better buoyancy control, and the paddle-like tail was likely used for underwater propulsion. Multiple functions have been put forward for the dorsal sail, including thermoregulation and display; either to intimidate rivals or attract mates. Spinosaurus lived in a humid environment of tidal flats and mangrove forests alongside many other dinosaurs, as well as fish, crocodylomorphs, lizards, turtles, pterosaurs, and plesiosaurs.
+
+Two species of Spinosaurus have been named: Spinosaurus aegyptiacus (meaning "Egyptian spine lizard") and the disputed Spinosaurus maroccanus (meaning "Moroccan spine lizard").[8][9]
+
+The first described remains of Spinosaurus were found and described in the early 20th century. In 1912, Richard Markgraf discovered a partial skeleton of a giant theropod dinosaur in the Bahariya Formation of western Egypt. In 1915, German paleontologist Ernst Stromer published an article assigning the specimen to a new genus and species, Spinosaurus aegyptiacus.[10][8]
+
+Fragmentary additional remains from Bahariya, including vertebrae and hindlimb bones, were designated by Stromer as "Spinosaurus B" in 1934.[11] Stromer considered them different enough to belong to another species, and this has been borne out. With the advantage of more expeditions and material, it appears that they pertain either to Carcharodontosaurus[12] or to Sigilmassasaurus.[9]
+
+S. maroccanus was originally described by Dale Russell in 1996 as a new species based on the length of its neck vertebrae.[9] Specifically, Russell claimed that the ratio of the length of the centrum (body of vertebra) to the height of the posterior articular facet was 1.1 in S. aegyptiacus and 1.5 in S. maroccanus.[9] Later authors have been split on this topic. Some authors note that the length of the vertebrae can vary from individual to individual, that the holotype specimen was destroyed and thus cannot be compared directly with the S. maroccanus specimen, and that it is unknown which cervical vertebrae the S. maroccanus specimens represent. Therefore, though some have retained the species as valid without much comment,[13][14][15] most researchers regard S. maroccanus as a nomen dubium (dubious name)[4][16][17] or as a junior synonym of S. aegyptiacus.[12]
+
+Six main partial specimens of Spinosaurus have been described.
+
+BSP 1912 VIII 19, described by Stromer in 1915 from the Bahariya Formation, was the holotype.[10][8]  The material consisted of the following items, most of which were incomplete: right and left dentaries and splenials from the lower jaw measuring 75 centimeters (30 in) long; a straight piece of the left maxilla that was described but not drawn; 20 teeth; 2 cervical vertebrae; 7 dorsal (trunk) vertebrae; 3 sacral vertebrae; 1 caudal vertebra; 4 thoracic ribs; and gastralia.[10] Of the nine neural spines whose heights are given, the longest ("i," associated with a dorsal vertebra) was 1.65 meters (5.4 ft) in length.[10] Stromer claimed that the specimen was from the early Cenomanian, about 97 million years ago.[10][8]
+
+This specimen was destroyed in World War II, specifically "during the night of 24/25 April 1944 in a British bombing raid of Munich" that severely damaged the building housing the Paläontologisches Museum München (Bavarian State Collection of Paleontology).[8] However, detailed drawings and descriptions of the specimen remain. Stromer's son donated Stromer's archives to the Paläontologische Staatssammlung München in 1995, and Smith and colleagues analyzed two photographs of the Spinosaurus holotype specimen BSP 1912 VIII 19 discovered in the archives in 2000.[8] On the basis of a photograph of the lower jaw and a photograph of the entire specimen as mounted, Smith concluded that Stromer's original 1915 drawings were slightly inaccurate.[8]  In 2003, Oliver Rauhut suggested that Stromer's Spinosaurus holotype was a chimera, composed of vertebrae and neural spines from a carcharodontosaurid similar to Acrocanthosaurus and a dentary from Baryonyx or Suchomimus.[17] This analysis was rejected in at least one subsequent paper.[4]
+
+NMC 50791, held by the Canadian Museum of Nature, is a mid-cervical vertebra which is 19.5 centimeters (7.7 in) long from the Kem Kem Beds of Morocco.[9] It is the holotype of Spinosaurus maroccanus as described by Russell in 1996.[9] Other specimens referred to S. maroccanus in the same paper were two other mid-cervical vertebrae (NMC 41768 and NMC 50790), an anterior dentary fragment (NMC 50832), a mid-dentary fragment (NMC 50833), and an anterior dorsal neural arch (NMC 50813).[9]  Russell stated that "only general locality information could be provided" for the specimen, and therefore it could be dated only "possibly" to the Albian.[9]
+
+MNHN SAM 124, housed at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, is a snout (consisting of partial premaxillae, partial maxillae, vomers, and a dentary fragment).[18] Described by Taquet and Russell in 1998, the specimen is 13.4 to 13.6 centimeters (5.3–5.4 in) in width; no length was stated.[18] The specimen was located in Algeria, and "is of Albian age."[18] Taquet and Russell believed that this specimen along with a premaxilla fragment (SAM 125), two cervical vertebrae (SAM 126-127), and a dorsal neural arch (SAM 128), belonged to S. maroccanus.[18]
+
+BM231 (in the collection of the Office National des Mines, Tunis) was described by Buffetaut and Ouaja in 2002.[16]  It consists of a partial anterior dentary 11.5 centimetres (4.53 in) in length from an early Albian stratum of the Chenini Formation of Tunisia.[16] The dentary fragment, which included four alveoli and two partial teeth, was "extremely similar" to existing material of S. aegyptiacus.[16]
+
+UCPC-2 in the University of Chicago Paleontological Collection consists mainly of two narrow connected nasals with a fluted (ridged) crest from the region between the eyes.[4] The specimen, which is 18.0 centimetres (7.09 in) long, was located in an early Cenomanian part of the Moroccan Kem Kem Beds in 1996 and described in the scientific literature in 2005 by Cristiano Dal Sasso of the Civic Natural History Museum in Milan and colleagues.[4]
+
+MSNM V4047 (in the Museo di Storia Naturale di Milano), described by Dal Sasso and colleagues in 2005, consists of a snout (premaxillae, partial maxillae, and partial nasals) 98.8 centimetres (38.9 in) long from the Kem Kem Beds.[4] Like UCPC-2, it is thought to have come from the early Cenomanian. Arden and colleagues in 2018 tentatively assigned this specimen to Sigilmassasaurus brevicollis given its size. In the absence of associated material, however, it is difficult to be certain which material belongs to which taxon.[19]
+
+FSAC-KK 11888 is a partial subadult skeleton recovered from the Kem Kem beds of North Africa. Described by Ibrahim and colleagues (2014) and designated as the neotype specimen (although Evers and colleagues 2015 reject the neotype designation for FSAC-KK-11888).[20] It includes cervical vertebrae, dorsal vertebrae, neural spines, a complete sacrum, femora, tibiae, pedal phalanges, caudal vertebra, several dorsal ribs, and fragments of the skull.[5] The body proportions of this specimen have been debated as the hind limbs are disproportionately shorter in the specimen than in previous reconstructions. However, it has been demonstrated by multiple paleontologists that the specimen is not a chimaera, and is indeed a specimen of Spinosaurus that suggests that the animal had much smaller hind limbs than previously thought.[21][22][23]
+
+Other known specimens consist mainly of very fragmentary remains and scattered teeth. These include:
+
+MHNM.KK374 to.KK378 are five isolated quadrates (skull bones) of different sizes which were collected by locals and acquired commercially in
+the Kem Kem region of southeastern Morocco, provided by François Escuillié and are deposited in the collections of the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle of Marrakech. The quadrates show two different morphologies suggesting the existence of two spinosaurines in Morocco.[30]
+
+Material possibly belonging to Spinosaurus has been reported from the Turkana Grits of Kenya.[31]
+
+Some scientists have considered the genus Sigilmassasaurus a junior synonym of Spinosaurus. In Ibrahim and colleagues (2014), the specimens of Sigilmassasaurus was referred to Spinosaurus aegyptiacus together with "Spinosaurus B" as the neotype and Spinosaurus maroccanus was considered as a nomen dubium following the conclusions of the other papers.[4][5][12] A 2015 re-description of Sigilmassasaurus disputed these conclusions, and considered the genus valid.[20] This conclusion was further supported in 2018 by Arden and colleagues, who consider Sigilmassasaurus to be a distinct genus, though a very close relative of Spinosaurus, the two unified in the tribe Spinosaurini, coined in the study.[19]
+
+In an upcoming 2020 paper written by Symth et al. in assessing spinosaurine specimens from the Kem Kem Group suggested the Brazilian spinosaurine Oxalaia to be a potential junior synonym of Spinosaurus aegyptiacus. This was based on looking at the specimens assigned to Oxalaia, and the supposed autapomorphies of this taxon to be insignificant and fall within the hypodigm of Spinosaurus aegyptiacus. If supported by future studies, this would imply Spinosaurus aegyptiacus had a wider distribution and supports the faunal exchange between South America and Africa during this time. Additionally, the study further indicates synonymy between Spinosaurus and Sigilmassasaurus.[1]
+
+Since its discovery, Spinosaurus has been a contender for the longest and largest theropod dinosaur.[32] Both Friedrich von Huene in 1926[33] and Donald F. Glut in 1982 listed it as among the most massive theropods in their surveys, at 15 meters (49 ft) in length and upwards of 6 t (5.9 long tons; 6.6 short tons) in weight.[34] In 1988, Gregory Paul also listed it as the longest theropod at 15 meters (49 ft), but gave a lower mass estimate of 4 tonnes (3.9 long tons; 4.4 short tons).[35]
+
+In 2005, Dal Sasso and colleagues assumed that Spinosaurus and the spinosaurid Suchomimus had the same body proportions in relation to their skull lengths, and thereby calculated that Spinosaurus was 16 to 18 meters (52 to 59 ft) in length and 7 to 9 tonnes (6.9 to 8.9 long tons; 7.7 to 9.9 short tons) in weight.[4] These estimates were criticized because the skull length estimate was uncertain, and (assuming that body mass increases as the cube of body length) scaling Suchomimus which was 11 meters (36 ft) long and 3.8 tonnes (4.2 short tons) in mass to the range of estimated lengths of Spinosaurus would produce an estimated body mass of 11.7 to 16.7 tonnes (12.9 to 18.4 short tons).[3]
+
+François Therrien and Donald Henderson, in a 2007 paper using scaling based on skull length, challenged previous estimates of the size of Spinosaurus, finding the length too great and the weight too small.[3]  Based on estimated skull lengths of 1.5 to 1.75 meters (4.9 to 5.7 ft), their estimates include a body length of 12.6 to 14.3 meters (41 to 47 ft) and a body mass of 12 to 20.9 tonnes (11.8 to 20.6 long tons; 13.2 to 23.0 short tons).[3] The lower estimates for Spinosaurus would imply that the animal was shorter and lighter than Carcharodontosaurus and Giganotosaurus.[3] The Therrien and Henderson study has been criticized for the choice of theropods used for comparison (e.g., most of the theropods used to set the initial equations were tyrannosaurids and carnosaurs, which have a different build than spinosaurids), and for the assumption that the Spinosaurus skull could be as little as 1.5 meters (4.9 ft) in length.[36][37]
+
+The skull had a narrow snout filled with straight conical teeth that lacked serrations. There were six or seven teeth on each side of the very front of the upper jaw, in the premaxillae, and another twelve in both maxillae behind them.  The second and third teeth on each side were noticeably larger than the rest of the teeth in the premaxilla, creating a space between them and the large teeth in the front of the maxilla; large teeth in the lower jaw faced this space. The very tip of the snout holding those few large front teeth was expanded, and a small crest was present in front of the eyes.[4] Using the dimensions of three specimens known as MSNM V4047, UCPC-2, and BSP 1912 VIII 19, and assuming that the postorbital part of the skull of MSNM V4047 had a shape similar to the postorbital part of the skull of Irritator, Dal Sasso and colleagues (2005) estimated that the skull of Spinosaurus was 1.75 meters (5.7 ft) long,[4] but more recent estimates suggest a length of 1.6–1.68 meters (5.2–5.5 ft).[30][38] The Dal Sasso and colleagues skull length estimate is questioned because skull shapes can vary across spinosaurid species and because MSNM V4047 may not belong to Spinosaurus itself.[3][19]
+
+As a spinosaurid, Spinosaurus would have had a long, muscular neck, curved in a sigmoid, or S-shape. Its shoulders were prominent, and the forelimbs large and stocky, bearing three clawed digits on each hand. The first finger (or "thumb") would have been the largest. Spinosaurus had long phalanges (finger bones), and only somewhat recurved claws, suggesting that its hands were longer compared to those of other spinosaurids.[5][19][39]
+
+Very tall neural spines growing on the back vertebrae of Spinosaurus formed the basis of what is usually called the animal's "sail".  The lengths of the neural spines reached over 10 times the diameters of the centra (vertebral bodies) from which they extended.[40] The neural spines were slightly longer front to back at the base than higher up, and were unlike the thin rods seen in the pelycosaur finbacks Edaphosaurus and Dimetrodon, contrasting also with the thicker spines in the iguanodontian Ouranosaurus.[40]
+
+Spinosaurus sails were unusual, although other dinosaurs, namely Ouranosaurus, which lived a few million years earlier in the same general region as Spinosaurus, and the South American sauropod Amargasaurus, might have developed similar structural adaptations of their vertebrae. The sail may be an analog of the sail of the Permian synapsid Dimetrodon, which lived before the dinosaurs even appeared, produced by convergent evolution.[40]
+
+The structure may also have been more hump-like than sail-like, as noted by Stromer in 1915 ("one might rather think of the existence of a large hump of fat [German: Fettbuckel], to which the [neural spines] gave internal support")[10] and by Jack Bowman Bailey in 1997.[40] In support of his "buffalo-back" hypothesis, Bailey argued that in Spinosaurus, Ouranosaurus, and other dinosaurs with long neural spines, the spines were relatively shorter and thicker than the spines of pelycosaurs (which were known to have sails); instead, the dinosaurs' neural spines were similar to the neural spines of extinct hump-backed mammals such as Megacerops and Bison latifrons.[40] In 2014, Ibrahim and colleagues instead posited that the spines were covered tightly by skin, similar to a crested chameleon, given their compactness, sharp edges, and likely poor blood flow.[5]
+
+Spinosaurus had a significantly smaller pelvis (hip bone) than that of other giant theropods, with the surface area of the illium (main body of the pelvis) half that of most members of the clade. The hind limbs were short, at just over 25 percent of the total body length, with the tibia (calf bone) being longer than the femur (thigh bone). Unlike in other theropods, the hallux (or fourth toe) of Spinosaurus touched the ground, and the phalanges of the toe bones were unusually long and well-built. At their ends were shallow claws that had flat bottoms. This type of foot morphology is also seen in shorebirds, indicating that Spinosaurus's feet evolved for walking across unstable substrate and that they may have been webbed.[5]
+
+From the caudal vertebrae of the tail projected significantly elongated, thin neural spines, akin to the condition observed in some other spinosaurids,[19] though to a more extreme degree. Coupled with the also elongated chevron bones on the underside of the caudals, this resulted in a deep and narrow tail with a paddle or fin-like shape, comparable to the tails of newts and crocodilians.[41]
+
+Spinosaurus gives its name to the dinosaur family Spinosauridae, which includes two subfamilies: Baryonychinae and Spinosaurinae.  The Baryonychinae include Baryonyx from southern England and Suchomimus from Niger in central Africa. The Spinosaurinae include Spinosaurus, Sigilmassasaurus, Oxalaia, Siamosaurus, Ichthyovenator, Irritator from Brazil, and Angaturama (which maybe be synonymous with Irritator) from Brazil.[4][19] The Spinosaurinae share unserrated straight teeth that are widely spaced (e.g., 12 on one side of the maxilla), as opposed to the Baryonychinae which have serrated curved teeth that are numerous (e.g., 30 on one side of the maxilla).[4][13]
+
+An analysis of Spinosauridae by Arden and colleagues (2018) named the clade Spinosaurini and defined it as all spinosaurids closer to Spinosaurus aegyptiacus than to Irritator challengeri or Oxalaia quilombensis; it also found Siamosaurus suteethorni and Icthyovenator laosensis to be members of the Spinosaurinae.[19]
+
+The subfamily Spinosaurinae was named by Sereno in 1998, and defined by Holtz and colleagues (2004) as all taxa closer to Spinosaurus aegyptiacus than to Baryonyx walkeri. And the subfamily Baryonychinae was named by Charig & Milner in 1986. They erected both the subfamily and the family Baryonychinae for the newly discovered Baryonyx, before it was referred to the Spinosauridae. Their subfamily was defined by Holtz and colleagues in 2004, as the complementary clade of all taxa closer to Baryonyx walkeri than to Spinosaurus aegyptiacus. Examinations by Marcos Sales and Cesar Schultz and colleagues (2017) indicate that the South American spinosaurids Angaturama, Irritator, and Oxalaia were intermediate between Baronychinae and Spinosaurinae based on their craniodental features and cladistic analysis. This indicates that Baryonychinae may in fact be non-monophyletic. Their cladogram can be seen below.[42]
+
+Baryonyx
+
+Cristatusaurus
+
+Suchomimus
+
+Angaturama
+
+Oxalaia
+
+Spinosaurus
+
+The cladogram below depicts the findings of Arden and colleagues (2018):[19]
+
+Praia das Aguncheiras taxon
+
+Baryonyx walkeri
+
+Suchomimus tenerensis
+
+Siamosaurus suteethorni
+
+Eumeralla taxon
+
+Ichthyovenator laosensis
+
+Irritator challengeri
+
+Oxalaia quilombensis
+
+Gara Samani taxon
+
+Sigilmassasaurus brevicollis
+
+Spinosaurus aegyptiacus
+
+The function of the dinosaur's sail or hump is uncertain; scientists have proposed several hypotheses including heat regulation and display. In addition, such a prominent feature on its back could make it appear even larger than it was, intimidating other animals.[40]
+
+The structure may have been used for thermoregulation.  If the structure contained abundant blood vessels, the animal could have used the sail's large surface area to absorb heat. This would imply that the animal was only partly warm-blooded at best and lived in climates where nighttime temperatures were cool or low and the sky usually not cloudy. It is also possible that the structure was used to radiate excess heat from the body, rather than to collect it. Large animals, due to the relatively small ratio of surface area of their body compared to the overall volume (Haldane's principle), face far greater problems of dissipating excess heat at higher temperatures than gaining it at lower. Sails of large dinosaurs added considerably to the skin area of their bodies, with minimum increase of volume. Furthermore, if the sail was turned away from the sun, or positioned at a 90 degree angle towards a cooling wind, the animal would quite effectively cool itself in the warm climate of Cretaceous Africa.[43]  However, Bailey (1997) was of the opinion that a sail could have absorbed more heat than it radiated.[40] Bailey proposed instead that Spinosaurus and other dinosaurs with long neural spines had fatty humps on their backs for energy storage, insulation, and shielding from heat.[40]
+
+Many elaborate body structures of modern-day animals serve to attract members of the opposite sex during mating. It is possible that the sail of Spinosaurus was used for courtship, in a way similar to a peacock's tail. Stromer speculated that the size of the neural spines may have differed between males and females.[10]
+
+Gimsa and colleagues (2015) suggest that the dorsal sail of Spinosaurus was analogous to the dorsal fins of sailfish and served a hydrodynamic purpose.[44] Gimsa and others point out that more basal, long-legged spinosaurids had otherwise round or crescent-shaped dorsal sails, whereas in Spinosaurus, the dorsal neural spines formed a shape that was roughly rectangular, similar in shape to the dorsal fins of sailfish. They therefore argue that Spinosaurus used its dorsal neural sail in the same manner as sailfish, and that it also employed its long narrow tail to stun prey like a modern thresher shark. Sailfish employ their dorsal fins for herding schools of fish into a "bait ball" where they cooperate to trap the fish into a certain area where the sailfish can snatch the fish with their bills.
+The sail could have possibly reduced yaw rotation by counteracting the lateral force in the direction opposite to the slash as suggested by Gimsa and colleagues (2015).
+Gimsa and colleagues specifically wrote :
+
+Spinosaurus anatomy exhibits another feature that may have a modern analogy: its long tail resembled that of the thresher shark, employed to slap the water to herd and stun shoals of fish before devouring them (Oliver and colleagues, 2013).
+The strategies that sailfish and thresher sharks employ against shoaling fish are more effective when the shoal is first concentrated into a ‘bait ball’ (Helfman, Collette & Facey, 1997; Oliver and colleagues, 2013; Domenici and colleagues, 2014). Since this is difficult for individual predators to achieve, they cooperate in this effort. When herding a shoal of fish or squid, sailfish also raise their sails to make themselves appear larger. When they slash or wipe their bills through shoaling fish by turning their heads, their dorsal sail and fins are outstretched to stabilize their bodies hydrodynamically (Lauder & Drucker, 2004). Domenici and colleagues (2014) postulate that these fin extensions enhance the accuracy of tapping and slashing. The sail can reduce yaw rotation by counteracting the lateral force in the direction opposite to the slash. This means that prey is less likely to recognize the massive trunk as being part of an approaching predator (Marras and colleagues, 2015; Webb & Weihs 2015).
+
+Spinosaurus exhibited the anatomical features required to combine all three hunting strategies: a sail for herding prey more efficiently, as well as flexible tail and neck to slap the water for stunning, injuring or killing prey. The submerged dorsal sail would have provided a strong centreboard-like counterforce for powerful sidewards movements of the strong neck and long tail, as performed by sailfish (Domenici and colleagues, 2014) or thresher sharks (Oliver and colleagues, 2013). While smaller dorsal sails or fins make the dorsal water volume better accessible for slashing, it can be speculated that their smaller stabilization effect makes lateral slashing less efficient (e.g. for thresher sharks). Forming a hydrodynamic fulcrum and hydrodynamically stabilizing the trunk along the dorsoventral axis, Spinosaurus’ sail would also have compensated for the inertia of the lateral neck by tail movements and vice versa not only for predation but also for accelerated swimming. This behaviour might also have been one reason for Spinosaurus’ muscular chest and neck reported by Ibrahim and colleagues (2014).
+
+It is unclear whether Spinosaurus was primarily a terrestrial predator or a piscivore, as indicated by its elongated jaws, conical teeth and raised nostrils. The hypothesis of spinosaurs as specialized fish eaters has been suggested before by A. J. Charig and A. C. Milner for Baryonyx. They base this on the anatomical similarity with crocodilians and the presence of digestive acid-etched fish scales in the rib cage of the type specimen.[45] Large fish are known from the faunas containing other spinosaurids, including the Mawsonia, in the mid-Cretaceous of northern Africa and Brazil. Direct evidence for spinosaur diet comes from related European and South American taxa. Baryonyx was found with fish scales and bones from juvenile Iguanodon in its stomach, while a tooth embedded in a South American pterosaur bone suggests that spinosaurs occasionally preyed on pterosaurs,[46] but Spinosaurus was likely to have been a generalized and opportunistic predator, possibly a Cretaceous equivalent of large grizzly bears, being biased toward fishing, though it undoubtedly scavenged and took many kinds of small or medium-sized prey.[35]
+
+In 2009, Dal Sasso and colleagues. reported the results of X-ray computed tomography of the MSNM V4047 snout. As the foramina on the outside all communicated with a space on the inside of the snout, the authors speculated that Spinosaurus had pressure receptors inside the space that allowed it to hold its snout at the surface of the water to detect swimming prey species without seeing them.[47] A 2013 study by Andrew R. Cuff and Emily J. Rayfield concluded that bio-mechanical data suggests that Spinosaurus was not an obligate piscivore and that its diet was more closely associated with each individual's size. The characteristic rostral morphology of Spinosaurus allowed its jaws to resist bending in the vertical direction, however its jaws were poorly adapted with respect to resisting lateral bending compared to other members of this group (Baryonyx) and modern alligators, thus showing Spinosaurus preyed more regularly on fish than it did on land animals, although considered predators of the former too.[48]
+
+A 2010 isotope analysis by Romain Amiot and colleagues found that oxygen isotope ratios of spinosaurid teeth, including teeth of Spinosaurus, indicate semiaquatic lifestyles. Isotope ratios from tooth enamel and from other parts of Spinosaurus (found in Morocco and Tunisia) and of other predators from the same area such as Carcharodontosaurus were compared with isotopic compositions from contemporaneous theropods, turtles, and crocodilians. The study found that Spinosaurus teeth from five of six sampled localities had oxygen isotope ratios closer to those of turtles and crocodilians when compared with other theropod teeth from the same localities. The authors postulated that Spinosaurus switched between terrestrial and aquatic habitats to compete for food with large crocodilians and other large theropods respectively.[49] A 2018 study by Donald Henderson, however, refutes the claim that Spinosaurus was semiaquatic. By studying the buoyancy in lungs of crocodilians and comparing it to the lung placement in Spinosaurus, it was discovered that Spinosaurus could not sink or dive below the water surface. It was also capable of keeping its entire head above the water surface while floating, much like other non-aquatic theropods. Furthermore, the study found that Spinosaurus had to continually paddle its hind legs to prevent itself from tipping over onto its side, something that extant semiaquatic animals do not need to perform. Henderson therefore theorized that Spinosaurus probably did not hunt completely submerged in water as previously hypothesized, but instead would have spent much of its time on land or in shallow water.[50][6]
+
+Recent studies of the tail vertebrae of Spinosaurus refute Henderson's proposal that Spinosaurus mainly inhabited areas of land near and in shallow water and was too buoyant to submerge. Studies of the tail, thanks to specimens recovered and analyzed by Ibrahim, Pierce, Lauder, and Sereno and colleagues in 2018 indicate that Spinosaurus had a keeled tail that was well adapted to propelling the animal through water. The elongated neural spines and chevrons, which run to the end of the tail on both dorsal and ventral sides, indicate that Spinosaurus was able to swim in a similar manner to modern crocodilians. Through experimentation by Lauder and Pierce, the tail of Spinosaurus was found to have eight times as much forward thrust as the tails of terrestrial theropods like Coelophysis and Allosaurus, as well as being twice as efficient at achieving forward thrust. The discovery indicates that Spinosaurus may have had a lifestyle comparable to modern alligators and crocodiles, remaining in water for long periods of time while hunting.[41]
+
+Although traditionally depicted in the scientific community as a biped, Spinosaurus was often depicted in the mid-20th century as an obligate quadruped akin to Dimetrodon[51]. Starting in the mid-1970s, it was hypothesised Spinosaurus was at least an occasional quadruped,[34][43] bolstered by the discovery of Baryonyx, a relative with robust arms.[52] Because of the mass of the hypothesized fatty dorsal humps of Spinosaurus, Bailey (1997) was open to the possibility of a quadrupedal posture,[40] leading to new restorations of it as such.[52] Theropods, including spinosaurids, could not pronate their hands (rotate the forearm so the palm faced the ground),[53] but a resting position on the side of the hand was possible, as shown by fossil prints from an Early Jurassic theropod.[54] The hypothesis that Spinosaurus had a typical quadrupedal gait since fell out of favor, however it was still believed that spinosaurids may have crouched in a quadrupedal posture, due to biological and physiological constraints.[45][53]
+
+The possibility of a quadrupedal Spinosaurus was revived by a 2014 paper by Ibrahim and colleagues that described new material of the animal. The paper found that the hind limbs of Spinosaurus were much shorter than previously believed, and that its center of mass was located in the midpoint of the trunk region, as opposed to near the hip as in typical bipedal theropods. It was therefore proposed that Spinosaurus was poorly adapted for bipedal terrestrial locomotion, and must have been an obligate quadruped on land. The reconstruction used in the study was an extrapolation based on different sized individuals, scaled to what were assumed to be the correct proportions.[5] Palaeontologist John Hutchinson of the Royal Veterinary College of the University of London has expressed scepticism to the new reconstruction, and cautioned that using different specimens can result in inaccurate chimaeras.[55] Scott Hartman also expressed criticism because he believed the legs and the pelvis were inaccurately scaled (27% too short) and didn't match the published lengths.[56] However, Mark Witton expressed agreement with the proportions reported in the paper.[57] In their 2015 re-description of Sigilmassasaurus, Evers and colleagues argued that Sigilmassasaurus was in fact a distinct genus from Spinosaurus, and therefore doubted whether the material assigned to Spinosaurus by Ibrahim et. al. should be assigned to Spinosaurus or Sigilmassasaurus.[20] In 2018, an analysis by Henderson found that Spinosaurus probably was competent at bipedal terrestrial locomotion; the center of mass was instead found to be close to the hips, allowing Spinosaurus to stand upright like other bipedal theropods.[6]
+
+An ungual phalanx measuring 21 mm (0.83 in) belonging to a very young juvenile Spinosaurus indicates that the theropod developed its semiaquatic adaptations at a very young age or at birth and maintained them throughout its life. The specimen, found in 1999 and described by Simone Maganuco and Cristiano Dal Sasso and colleagues, is believed to have come from an animal measuring 1.78 m (5.8 ft) (assuming it resembled a smaller version of the adult), making it the smallest specimen of Spinosaurus currently known.[58]
+
+The environment inhabited by Spinosaurus is only partially understood, and covers a great deal of what is now northern Africa. The region of Africa Spinosaurus is preserved in dates from 112 to 93.5 million years ago,[59][8][2] although a potential specimen has been found in Campanian deposits.[60][61] A 1996 study concluded from Moroccan fossils that Spinosaurus, Carcharodontosaurus, and Deltadromeus "ranged across north Africa during the late Cretaceous (Cenomanian)."[62] Those Spinosaurus that lived in the Bahariya Formation of what is now Egypt may have contended with shoreline conditions on tidal flats and channels, living in mangrove forests alongside similarly large dinosaurian predators Bahariasaurus and Carcharodontosaurus, the titanosaur sauropods Paralititan and Aegyptosaurus, crocodylomorphs, bony and cartilaginous fish, turtles, lizards, and plesiosaurs.[63] In the dry season it might have resorted to preying on pterosaurs.[64] This situation resembles that in the Late Jurassic Morrison Formation of North America, which boasts up to five theropod genera over 1 tonne (1.1 short tons) in weight, as well as several smaller genera (Henderson, 1998; Holtz and colleagues, 2004). Differences in head shape and body size among the large North African theropods may have been enough to allow niche partitioning as seen among the many different predator species found today in the African savanna (Farlow & Pianka, 2002).
+
+Spinosaurus appeared in the 2001 film Jurassic Park III, replacing Tyrannosaurus as the main antagonist.[65] The film's consulting paleontologist John R. Horner was quoted as saying: "If we base the ferocious factor on the length of the animal, there was nothing that ever lived on this planet that could match this creature [Spinosaurus]. Also my hypothesis is that T-rex was actually a scavenger rather than a killer. Spinosaurus was really the predatory animal."[66] He has since retracted the statement about T. rex being a scavenger. In the film, Spinosaurus was portrayed as larger and more powerful than Tyrannosaurus: in a scene depicting a battle between the two resurrected predators, Spinosaurus emerges victorious by snapping the Tyrannosaurus' neck.[67] In the fourth film Jurassic World, there is a nod to this fight where the T. rex smashes through the skeleton of a Spinosaurus in the climatic fight near the end of the film.[68]
+
+Spinosaurus has long been depicted in popular books about dinosaurs, although only recently has there been enough information about spinosaurids for an accurate depiction. After an influential 1955 skeletal reconstruction by Lapparent and Lavocat[69] based on a 1936 diagram by Stromer,[70] it has been treated as a generalized upright theropod, with a skull similar to that of other large theropods and a sail on its back, even having four-fingered hands.[52]
+
+In addition to films, action figures, video games, and books, Spinosaurus has been depicted on postage stamps from countries such as Angola, The Gambia, and Tanzania.[71][72]
+
+
+
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+Sport includes all forms of competitive physical activity or games which,[1] through casual or organized participation, at least in part aim to use, maintain or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants, and in some cases, entertainment for spectators.[2] Sports can bring positive results to one's physical health. Hundreds of sports exist, from those between single contestants, through to those with hundreds of simultaneous participants, either in teams or competing as individuals. In certain sports such as racing, many contestants may compete, simultaneously or consecutively, with one winner; in others, the contest (a match) is between two sides, each attempting to exceed the other. Some sports allow a "tie" or "draw", in which there is no single winner; others provide tie-breaking methods to ensure one winner and one loser. A number of contests may be arranged in a tournament producing a champion. Many sports leagues make an annual champion by arranging games in a regular sports season, followed in some cases by playoffs.
+
+Sport is generally recognised as system of activities which are based in physical athleticism or physical dexterity, with the largest major competitions such as the Olympic Games admitting only sports meeting this definition,[3] and other organisations such as the Council of Europe using definitions precluding activities without a physical element from classification as sports.[2] However, a number of competitive, but non-physical, activities claim recognition as mind sports. The International Olympic Committee (through ARISF) recognises both chess and bridge as bona fide sports, and SportAccord, the international sports federation association, recognises five non-physical sports: bridge, chess, draughts (checkers), Go and xiangqi,[4][5] and limits the number of mind games which can be admitted as sports.[1]
+
+Sport is usually governed by a set of rules or customs, which serve to ensure fair competition, and allow consistent adjudication of the winner. Winning can be determined by physical events such as scoring goals or crossing a line first. It can also be determined by judges who are scoring elements of the sporting performance, including objective or subjective measures such as technical performance or artistic impression.
+
+Records of performance are often kept, and for popular sports, this information may be widely announced or reported in sport news. Sport is also a major source of entertainment for non-participants, with spectator sport drawing large crowds to sport venues, and reaching wider audiences through broadcasting. Sport betting is in some cases severely regulated, and in some cases is central to the sport.
+
+According to A.T. Kearney, a consultancy, the global sporting industry is worth up to $620 billion as of 2013.[6] The world's most accessible and practised sport is running, while association football is the most popular spectator sport.[7]
+
+The word "sport" comes from the Old French desport meaning "leisure", with the oldest definition in English from around 1300 being "anything humans find amusing or entertaining".[8]
+
+Other meanings include gambling and events staged for the purpose of gambling; hunting; and games and diversions, including ones that require exercise.[9] Roget's defines the noun sport as an "activity engaged in for relaxation and amusement" with synonyms including diversion and recreation.[10]
+
+The singular term "sport" is used in most English dialects to describe the overall concept (e.g. "children taking part in sport"), with "sports" used to describe multiple activities (e.g. "football and rugby are the most popular sports in England"). American English uses "sports" for both terms.
+
+The precise definition of what separates a sport from other leisure activities varies between sources. The closest to an international agreement on a definition is provided by SportAccord, which is the association for all the largest international sports federations (including association football, athletics, cycling, tennis, equestrian sports, and more), and is therefore the de facto representative of international sport.
+
+SportAccord uses the following criteria, determining that a sport should:[1]
+
+They also recognise that sport can be primarily physical (such as rugby or athletics), primarily mind (such as chess or Go), predominantly motorised (such as Formula 1 or powerboating), primarily co-ordination (such as billiard sports), or primarily animal-supported (such as equestrian sport).[1]
+
+The inclusion of mind sports within sport definitions has not been universally accepted, leading to legal challenges from governing bodies in regards to being denied funding available to sports.[11] Whilst SportAccord recognises a small number of mind sports, it is not open to admitting any further mind sports.
+
+There has been an increase in the application of the term "sport" to a wider set of non-physical challenges such as video games, also called esports, especially due to the large scale of participation and organised competition, but these are not widely recognised by mainstream sports organisations. According to Council of Europe, European Sports Charter, article 2.i, "'Sport' means all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim at expressing or improving physical fitness and mental well-being, forming social relationships or obtaining results in competition at all levels."[12]
+
+There are opposing views on the necessity of competition as a defining element of a sport, with almost all professional sports involving competition, and governing bodies requiring competition as a prerequisite of recognition by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) or SportAccord.[1]
+
+Other bodies advocate widening the definition of sport to include all physical activity. For instance, the Council of Europe include all forms of physical exercise, including those competed just for fun.
+
+In order to widen participation, and reduce the impact of losing on less able participants, there has been an introduction of non-competitive physical activity to traditionally competitive events such as school sports days, although moves like this are often controversial.[13][14]
+
+In competitive events, participants are graded or classified based on their "result" and often divided into groups of comparable performance, (e.g. gender, weight and age). The measurement of the result may be objective or subjective, and corrected with "handicaps" or penalties. In a race, for example, the time to complete the course is an objective measurement. In gymnastics or diving the result is decided by a panel of judges, and therefore subjective. There are many shades of judging between boxing and mixed martial arts, where victory is assigned by judges if neither competitor has lost at the end of the match time.
+
+Artifacts and structures suggest sport in China as early as 2000 BC.[15] Gymnastics appears to have been popular in China's ancient past. Monuments to the Pharaohs indicate that a number of sports, including swimming and fishing, were well-developed and regulated several thousands of years ago in ancient Egypt.[16] Other Egyptian sports included javelin throwing, high jump, and wrestling. Ancient Persian sports such as the traditional Iranian martial art of Zourkhaneh had a close connection to warfare skills.[17] Among other sports that originated in ancient Persia are polo and jousting.
+
+A wide range of sports were already established by the time of Ancient Greece and the military culture and the development of sport in Greece influenced one another considerably. Sport became such a prominent part of their culture that the Greeks created the Olympic Games, which in ancient times were held every four years in a small village in the Peloponnesus called Olympia.[18]
+
+Sports have been increasingly organised and regulated from the time of the ancient Olympics up to the present century. Industrialisation has brought increased leisure time, letting people attend and follow spectator sports and participate in athletic activities. These trends continued with the advent of mass media and global communication. Professionalism became prevalent, further adding to the increase in sport's popularity, as sports fans followed the exploits of professional athletes – all while enjoying the exercise and competition associated with amateur participation in sports. Since the turn of the 21st century, there has been increasing debate about whether transgender sportspersons should be able to participate in sport events that conform with their post-transition gender identity.[19]
+
+Sportsmanship is an attitude that strives for fair play, courtesy toward teammates and opponents, ethical behaviour and integrity, and grace in victory or defeat.[20][21][22]
+
+Sportsmanship expresses an aspiration or ethos that the activity will be enjoyed for its own sake. The well-known sentiment by sports journalist Grantland Rice, that it's "not that you won or lost but how you played the game", and the modern Olympic creed expressed by its founder Pierre de Coubertin: "The most important thing... is not winning but taking part" are typical expressions of this sentiment.
+
+Key principles of sport include that the result should not be predetermined, and that both sides should have equal opportunity to win. Rules are in place to ensure fair play, but participants can break these rules in order to gain advantage.
+
+Participants may cheat in order to unfairly increase their chance of winning, or in order to achieve other advantages such as financial gains. The widespread existence of gambling on the results of sports fixtures creates a motivation for match fixing, where a participant or participants deliberately work to ensure a given outcome rather than simply playing to win.
+
+The competitive nature of sport encourages some participants to attempt to enhance their performance through the use of medicines, or through other means such as increasing the volume of blood in their bodies through artificial means.
+
+All sports recognised by the IOC or SportAccord are required to implement a testing programme, looking for a list of banned drugs, with suspensions or bans being placed on participants who test positive for banned substances.
+
+Violence in sports involves crossing the line between fair competition and intentional aggressive violence. Athletes, coaches, fans, and parents sometimes unleash violent behaviour on people or property, in misguided shows of loyalty, dominance, anger, or celebration. Rioting or hooliganism by fans in particular is a problem at some national and international sporting contests.
+
+Female participation in sports continues to rise alongside the opportunity for involvement and the value of sports for child development and physical fitness. Despite gains during the last three decades, a gap persists in the enrollment figures between male and female players. Female players account for 39% of the total participation in US interscholastic athletics. Gender balance has been accelerating from a 32% increase in 1973–74 to a 63% increase in 1994–95. Hessel (2000).[full citation needed]
+
+Youth sport presents children with opportunities for fun, socialisation, forming peer relationships, physical fitness, and athletic scholarships. Activists for education and the war on drugs encourage youth sport as a means to increase educational participation and to fight the illegal drug trade. According to the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital, the biggest risk for youth sport is death or serious injury including concussion. These risks come from running, basketball, association football, volleyball, gridiron, gymnastics, and ice hockey.[23] Youth sport in the US is a $15 billion industry including equipment up to private coaching.[24]
+
+Disabled sports also adaptive sports or parasports, are sports played by persons with a disability, including physical and intellectual disabilities. As many of these are based on existing sports modified to meet the needs of persons with a disability, they are sometimes referred to as adapted sports. However, not all disabled sports are adapted; several sports that have been specifically created for persons with a disability have no equivalent in able-bodied sports.
+
+The competition element of sport, along with the aesthetic appeal of some sports, result in the popularity of people attending to watch sport being played. This has led to the specific phenomenon of spectator sport.
+
+Both amateur and professional sports attract spectators, both in person at the sport venue, and through broadcast media including radio, television and internet broadcast. Both attendance in person and viewing remotely can incur a sometimes substantial charge, such as an entrance ticket, or pay-per-view television broadcast.
+
+It is common for popular sports to attract large broadcast audiences, leading to rival broadcasters bidding large amounts of money for the rights to show certain fixtures. The football World Cup attracts a global television audience of hundreds of millions; the 2006 final alone attracted an estimated worldwide audience of well over 700 million and the 2011 Cricket World Cup Final  attracted an estimated audience of 135 million in India alone.[25]
+
+In the United States, the championship game of the NFL, the Super Bowl, has become one of the most watched television broadcasts of the year.[26][27]
+Super Bowl Sunday is a de facto national holiday in America;[28][29] the viewership being so great that in 2015, advertising space was reported as being sold at $4.5m for a 30-second slot.[26]
+
+Sport can be undertaken on an amateur, professional or semi-professional basis, depending on whether participants are incentivised for participation (usually through payment of a wage or salary). Amateur participation in sport at lower levels is often called "grassroots sport".[2][30]
+
+The popularity of spectator sport as a recreation for non-participants has led to sport becoming a major business in its own right, and this has incentivised a high paying professional sport culture, where high performing participants are rewarded with pay far in excess of average wages, which can run into millions of dollars.[31]
+
+Some sports, or individual competitions within a sport, retain a policy of allowing only amateur sport. The Olympic Games started with a principle of amateur competition with those who practised a sport professionally considered to have an unfair advantage over those who practised it merely as a hobby.[32] From 1971, Olympic athletes were allowed to receive compensation and sponsorship,[33] and from 1986, the IOC decided to make all professional athletes eligible for the Olympics,[33][34] with the exceptions of boxing,[35][36] and wrestling.[37][38]
+
+Technology plays an important part in modern sport. With it being a necessary part of some sports (such as motorsport), it is used in others to improve performance. Some sports also use it to allow off-field decision making.
+
+Sports science is a widespread academic discipline, and can be applied to areas including athlete performance, such as the use of video analysis to fine-tune technique, or to equipment, such as improved running shoes or competitive swimwear. Sports engineering emerged as a discipline in 1998 with an increasing focus not just on materials design but also the use of technology in sport, from analytics and big data to wearable technology.[39] In order to control the impact of technology on fair play, governing bodies frequently have specific rules that are set to control the impact of technical advantage between participants. For example, in 2010, full-body, non-textile swimsuits were banned by FINA, as they were enhancing swimmers' performances.[40][41]
+
+The increase in technology has also allowed many decisions in sports matches to be taken, or reviewed, off-field, with another official using instant replays to make decisions. In some sports, players can now challenge decisions made by officials. In Association football, goal-line technology makes decisions on whether a ball has crossed the goal line or not.[42] The technology is not compulsory,[43] but was used in the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil,[44] and the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup in Canada,[45] as well as in the Premier League from 2013–14,[46] and the Bundesliga from 2015–16.[47] In the NFL, a referee can ask for a review from the replay booth, or a head coach can issue a challenge to review the play using replays. The final decision rests with the referee.[48] A video referee (commonly known as a Television Match Official or TMO) can also use replays to help decision-making in rugby (both league and union).[49][50] In international cricket, an umpire can ask the Third umpire for a decision, and the third umpire makes the final decision.[51][52] Since 2008, a decision review system for players to review decisions has been introduced and used in ICC-run tournaments, and optionally in other matches.[51][53] Depending on the host broadcaster, a number of different technologies are used during an umpire or player review, including instant replays, Hawk-Eye, Hot Spot and Real Time Snickometer.[54][55] Hawk-Eye is also used in tennis to challenge umpiring decisions.[56][57]
+
+Research suggests that sports have the capacity to connect youth to positive adult role models and provide positive development opportunities, as well as promote the learning and application of life skills.[58][59] In recent years the use of sport to reduce crime, as well as to prevent violent extremism and radicalization, has become more widespread, especially as a tool to improve self-esteem, enhance social bonds and provide participants with a feeling of purpose.[59]
+
+There is no high-quality evidence that shows the effectiveness of interventions to increase sports participation of the community in sports such as mass media campaigns, educational sessions, and policy changes.[60] There is also no high-quality studies that investigate the effect of such interventions in promoting healthy behavior change in the community.[61]
+
+Benito Mussolini used the 1934 FIFA World Cup, which was held in Italy, to showcase Fascist Italy.[62][63] Adolf Hitler also used the 1936 Summer Olympics held in Berlin, and the 1936 Winter Olympics held in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, to promote the Nazi ideology of the superiority of the Aryan race, and inferiority of the Jews and other "undesirables".[63][64] Germany used the Olympics to give of itself a peaceful image while it was very actively preparing the war.[65]
+
+When apartheid was the official policy in South Africa, many sports people, particularly in rugby union, adopted the conscientious approach that they should not appear in competitive sports there. Some feel this was an effective contribution to the eventual demolition of the policy of apartheid, others feel that it may have prolonged and reinforced its worst effects.[66]
+
+In the history of Ireland, Gaelic sports were connected with cultural nationalism. Until the mid-20th century a person could have been banned from playing Gaelic football, hurling, or other sports administered by the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) if she/he played or supported Association football, or other games seen to be of British origin. Until recently the GAA continued to ban the playing of football and rugby union at Gaelic venues. This ban, also known as Rule 42,[67] is still enforced, but was modified to allow football and rugby to be played in Croke Park while Lansdowne Road was redeveloped into Aviva Stadium. Until recently, under Rule 21, the GAA also banned members of the British security forces and members of the RUC from playing Gaelic games, but the advent of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 led to the eventual removal of the ban.
+
+Nationalism is often evident in the pursuit of sport, or in its reporting: people compete in national teams, or commentators and audiences can adopt a partisan view. On occasion, such tensions can lead to violent confrontation among players or spectators within and beyond the sporting venue, as in the Football War. These trends are seen by many as contrary to the fundamental ethos of sport being carried on for its own sake and for the enjoyment of its participants.
+
+Sport and politics collided in the 1972 Olympics in Munich. Masked men entered the hotel of the Israeli Olympic team and killed many of their men. This was known as the Munich massacre.
+
+A study of US elections has shown that the result of sports events can affect the results. A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed that when the home team wins the game before the election, the incumbent candidates can increase their share of the vote by 1.5 percent. A loss had the opposite effect, and the effect is greater for higher-profile teams or unexpected wins and losses.[68] Also, when Washington Redskins win their final game before an election, then the incumbent President is more likely to win, and if the Redskins lose, then the opposition candidate is more likely to win; this has become known as the Redskins Rule.[69][70]
+
+Étienne de La Boétie, in his essay Discourse on Voluntary Servitude describes athletic spectacles as means for tyrants to control their subjects by distracting them.
+
+Do not imagine that there is any bird more easily caught by decoy, nor any fish sooner fixed on the hook by wormy bait, than are all these poor fools neatly tricked into servitude by the slightest feather passed, so to speak, before their mouths. Truly it is a marvelous thing that they let themselves be caught so quickly at the slightest tickling of their fancy. Plays, farces, spectacles, gladiators, strange beasts, medals, pictures, and other such opiates, these were for ancient peoples the bait toward slavery, the price of their liberty, the instruments of tyranny. By these practices and enticements the ancient dictators so successfully lulled their subjects under the yoke, that the stupefied peoples, fascinated by the pastimes and vain pleasures flashed before their eyes, learned subservience as naïvely, but not so creditably, as little children learn to read by looking at bright picture books.[71]
+
+Sport was an important form of worship in Ancient Greek religion. The ancient Olympic Games, called the Olympiad, were held in honour of the head deity, Zeus, and featured various forms of religious dedication to him and other gods.[72] As many Greeks travelled to see the games, this combination of religion and sport also served as a way of uniting them.
+
+The practice of athletic competitions has been criticised by some Christian thinkers as a form of idolatry, in which "human beings extol themselves, adore themselves, sacrifice themselves and reward themselves."[73] Sports are seen by these critics as a manifestation of "collective pride" and "national self-deification" in which feats of human power are idolized at the expense of divine worship.[73]
+
+Tertullian condemns the athletic performances of his day, insisting "the entire apparatus of the shows is based upon idolatry."[74] The shows, says Tertullian, excite passions foreign to the calm temperament cultivated by the Christian:
+
+God has enjoined us to deal calmly, gently, quietly, and peacefully with the Holy Spirit, because these things are alone in keeping with the goodness of His nature, with His tenderness and sensitiveness. ... Well, how shall this be made to accord with the shows? For the show always leads to spiritual agitation, since where there is pleasure, there is keenness of feeling giving pleasure its zest; and where there is keenness of feeling, there is rivalry giving in turn its zest to that. Then, too, where you have rivalry, you have rage, bitterness, wrath and grief, with all bad things which flow from them – the whole entirely out of keeping with the religion of Christ.[75]
+
+Popularity in 2018 of major sports by size of fan base:[7]
+
+Related topics
+
+This article incorporates text from a free content work.  Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO Strengthening the rule of law through education: a guide for policymakers,  UNESCO, UNESCO. UNESCO. To learn how to add open license text to Wikipedia articles, please see this how-to page. For information on reusing text from Wikipedia, please see the terms of use.

en/5487.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,118 @@
+
+
+
+
+Sport includes all forms of competitive physical activity or games which,[1] through casual or organized participation, at least in part aim to use, maintain or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants, and in some cases, entertainment for spectators.[2] Sports can bring positive results to one's physical health. Hundreds of sports exist, from those between single contestants, through to those with hundreds of simultaneous participants, either in teams or competing as individuals. In certain sports such as racing, many contestants may compete, simultaneously or consecutively, with one winner; in others, the contest (a match) is between two sides, each attempting to exceed the other. Some sports allow a "tie" or "draw", in which there is no single winner; others provide tie-breaking methods to ensure one winner and one loser. A number of contests may be arranged in a tournament producing a champion. Many sports leagues make an annual champion by arranging games in a regular sports season, followed in some cases by playoffs.
+
+Sport is generally recognised as system of activities which are based in physical athleticism or physical dexterity, with the largest major competitions such as the Olympic Games admitting only sports meeting this definition,[3] and other organisations such as the Council of Europe using definitions precluding activities without a physical element from classification as sports.[2] However, a number of competitive, but non-physical, activities claim recognition as mind sports. The International Olympic Committee (through ARISF) recognises both chess and bridge as bona fide sports, and SportAccord, the international sports federation association, recognises five non-physical sports: bridge, chess, draughts (checkers), Go and xiangqi,[4][5] and limits the number of mind games which can be admitted as sports.[1]
+
+Sport is usually governed by a set of rules or customs, which serve to ensure fair competition, and allow consistent adjudication of the winner. Winning can be determined by physical events such as scoring goals or crossing a line first. It can also be determined by judges who are scoring elements of the sporting performance, including objective or subjective measures such as technical performance or artistic impression.
+
+Records of performance are often kept, and for popular sports, this information may be widely announced or reported in sport news. Sport is also a major source of entertainment for non-participants, with spectator sport drawing large crowds to sport venues, and reaching wider audiences through broadcasting. Sport betting is in some cases severely regulated, and in some cases is central to the sport.
+
+According to A.T. Kearney, a consultancy, the global sporting industry is worth up to $620 billion as of 2013.[6] The world's most accessible and practised sport is running, while association football is the most popular spectator sport.[7]
+
+The word "sport" comes from the Old French desport meaning "leisure", with the oldest definition in English from around 1300 being "anything humans find amusing or entertaining".[8]
+
+Other meanings include gambling and events staged for the purpose of gambling; hunting; and games and diversions, including ones that require exercise.[9] Roget's defines the noun sport as an "activity engaged in for relaxation and amusement" with synonyms including diversion and recreation.[10]
+
+The singular term "sport" is used in most English dialects to describe the overall concept (e.g. "children taking part in sport"), with "sports" used to describe multiple activities (e.g. "football and rugby are the most popular sports in England"). American English uses "sports" for both terms.
+
+The precise definition of what separates a sport from other leisure activities varies between sources. The closest to an international agreement on a definition is provided by SportAccord, which is the association for all the largest international sports federations (including association football, athletics, cycling, tennis, equestrian sports, and more), and is therefore the de facto representative of international sport.
+
+SportAccord uses the following criteria, determining that a sport should:[1]
+
+They also recognise that sport can be primarily physical (such as rugby or athletics), primarily mind (such as chess or Go), predominantly motorised (such as Formula 1 or powerboating), primarily co-ordination (such as billiard sports), or primarily animal-supported (such as equestrian sport).[1]
+
+The inclusion of mind sports within sport definitions has not been universally accepted, leading to legal challenges from governing bodies in regards to being denied funding available to sports.[11] Whilst SportAccord recognises a small number of mind sports, it is not open to admitting any further mind sports.
+
+There has been an increase in the application of the term "sport" to a wider set of non-physical challenges such as video games, also called esports, especially due to the large scale of participation and organised competition, but these are not widely recognised by mainstream sports organisations. According to Council of Europe, European Sports Charter, article 2.i, "'Sport' means all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim at expressing or improving physical fitness and mental well-being, forming social relationships or obtaining results in competition at all levels."[12]
+
+There are opposing views on the necessity of competition as a defining element of a sport, with almost all professional sports involving competition, and governing bodies requiring competition as a prerequisite of recognition by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) or SportAccord.[1]
+
+Other bodies advocate widening the definition of sport to include all physical activity. For instance, the Council of Europe include all forms of physical exercise, including those competed just for fun.
+
+In order to widen participation, and reduce the impact of losing on less able participants, there has been an introduction of non-competitive physical activity to traditionally competitive events such as school sports days, although moves like this are often controversial.[13][14]
+
+In competitive events, participants are graded or classified based on their "result" and often divided into groups of comparable performance, (e.g. gender, weight and age). The measurement of the result may be objective or subjective, and corrected with "handicaps" or penalties. In a race, for example, the time to complete the course is an objective measurement. In gymnastics or diving the result is decided by a panel of judges, and therefore subjective. There are many shades of judging between boxing and mixed martial arts, where victory is assigned by judges if neither competitor has lost at the end of the match time.
+
+Artifacts and structures suggest sport in China as early as 2000 BC.[15] Gymnastics appears to have been popular in China's ancient past. Monuments to the Pharaohs indicate that a number of sports, including swimming and fishing, were well-developed and regulated several thousands of years ago in ancient Egypt.[16] Other Egyptian sports included javelin throwing, high jump, and wrestling. Ancient Persian sports such as the traditional Iranian martial art of Zourkhaneh had a close connection to warfare skills.[17] Among other sports that originated in ancient Persia are polo and jousting.
+
+A wide range of sports were already established by the time of Ancient Greece and the military culture and the development of sport in Greece influenced one another considerably. Sport became such a prominent part of their culture that the Greeks created the Olympic Games, which in ancient times were held every four years in a small village in the Peloponnesus called Olympia.[18]
+
+Sports have been increasingly organised and regulated from the time of the ancient Olympics up to the present century. Industrialisation has brought increased leisure time, letting people attend and follow spectator sports and participate in athletic activities. These trends continued with the advent of mass media and global communication. Professionalism became prevalent, further adding to the increase in sport's popularity, as sports fans followed the exploits of professional athletes – all while enjoying the exercise and competition associated with amateur participation in sports. Since the turn of the 21st century, there has been increasing debate about whether transgender sportspersons should be able to participate in sport events that conform with their post-transition gender identity.[19]
+
+Sportsmanship is an attitude that strives for fair play, courtesy toward teammates and opponents, ethical behaviour and integrity, and grace in victory or defeat.[20][21][22]
+
+Sportsmanship expresses an aspiration or ethos that the activity will be enjoyed for its own sake. The well-known sentiment by sports journalist Grantland Rice, that it's "not that you won or lost but how you played the game", and the modern Olympic creed expressed by its founder Pierre de Coubertin: "The most important thing... is not winning but taking part" are typical expressions of this sentiment.
+
+Key principles of sport include that the result should not be predetermined, and that both sides should have equal opportunity to win. Rules are in place to ensure fair play, but participants can break these rules in order to gain advantage.
+
+Participants may cheat in order to unfairly increase their chance of winning, or in order to achieve other advantages such as financial gains. The widespread existence of gambling on the results of sports fixtures creates a motivation for match fixing, where a participant or participants deliberately work to ensure a given outcome rather than simply playing to win.
+
+The competitive nature of sport encourages some participants to attempt to enhance their performance through the use of medicines, or through other means such as increasing the volume of blood in their bodies through artificial means.
+
+All sports recognised by the IOC or SportAccord are required to implement a testing programme, looking for a list of banned drugs, with suspensions or bans being placed on participants who test positive for banned substances.
+
+Violence in sports involves crossing the line between fair competition and intentional aggressive violence. Athletes, coaches, fans, and parents sometimes unleash violent behaviour on people or property, in misguided shows of loyalty, dominance, anger, or celebration. Rioting or hooliganism by fans in particular is a problem at some national and international sporting contests.
+
+Female participation in sports continues to rise alongside the opportunity for involvement and the value of sports for child development and physical fitness. Despite gains during the last three decades, a gap persists in the enrollment figures between male and female players. Female players account for 39% of the total participation in US interscholastic athletics. Gender balance has been accelerating from a 32% increase in 1973–74 to a 63% increase in 1994–95. Hessel (2000).[full citation needed]
+
+Youth sport presents children with opportunities for fun, socialisation, forming peer relationships, physical fitness, and athletic scholarships. Activists for education and the war on drugs encourage youth sport as a means to increase educational participation and to fight the illegal drug trade. According to the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital, the biggest risk for youth sport is death or serious injury including concussion. These risks come from running, basketball, association football, volleyball, gridiron, gymnastics, and ice hockey.[23] Youth sport in the US is a $15 billion industry including equipment up to private coaching.[24]
+
+Disabled sports also adaptive sports or parasports, are sports played by persons with a disability, including physical and intellectual disabilities. As many of these are based on existing sports modified to meet the needs of persons with a disability, they are sometimes referred to as adapted sports. However, not all disabled sports are adapted; several sports that have been specifically created for persons with a disability have no equivalent in able-bodied sports.
+
+The competition element of sport, along with the aesthetic appeal of some sports, result in the popularity of people attending to watch sport being played. This has led to the specific phenomenon of spectator sport.
+
+Both amateur and professional sports attract spectators, both in person at the sport venue, and through broadcast media including radio, television and internet broadcast. Both attendance in person and viewing remotely can incur a sometimes substantial charge, such as an entrance ticket, or pay-per-view television broadcast.
+
+It is common for popular sports to attract large broadcast audiences, leading to rival broadcasters bidding large amounts of money for the rights to show certain fixtures. The football World Cup attracts a global television audience of hundreds of millions; the 2006 final alone attracted an estimated worldwide audience of well over 700 million and the 2011 Cricket World Cup Final  attracted an estimated audience of 135 million in India alone.[25]
+
+In the United States, the championship game of the NFL, the Super Bowl, has become one of the most watched television broadcasts of the year.[26][27]
+Super Bowl Sunday is a de facto national holiday in America;[28][29] the viewership being so great that in 2015, advertising space was reported as being sold at $4.5m for a 30-second slot.[26]
+
+Sport can be undertaken on an amateur, professional or semi-professional basis, depending on whether participants are incentivised for participation (usually through payment of a wage or salary). Amateur participation in sport at lower levels is often called "grassroots sport".[2][30]
+
+The popularity of spectator sport as a recreation for non-participants has led to sport becoming a major business in its own right, and this has incentivised a high paying professional sport culture, where high performing participants are rewarded with pay far in excess of average wages, which can run into millions of dollars.[31]
+
+Some sports, or individual competitions within a sport, retain a policy of allowing only amateur sport. The Olympic Games started with a principle of amateur competition with those who practised a sport professionally considered to have an unfair advantage over those who practised it merely as a hobby.[32] From 1971, Olympic athletes were allowed to receive compensation and sponsorship,[33] and from 1986, the IOC decided to make all professional athletes eligible for the Olympics,[33][34] with the exceptions of boxing,[35][36] and wrestling.[37][38]
+
+Technology plays an important part in modern sport. With it being a necessary part of some sports (such as motorsport), it is used in others to improve performance. Some sports also use it to allow off-field decision making.
+
+Sports science is a widespread academic discipline, and can be applied to areas including athlete performance, such as the use of video analysis to fine-tune technique, or to equipment, such as improved running shoes or competitive swimwear. Sports engineering emerged as a discipline in 1998 with an increasing focus not just on materials design but also the use of technology in sport, from analytics and big data to wearable technology.[39] In order to control the impact of technology on fair play, governing bodies frequently have specific rules that are set to control the impact of technical advantage between participants. For example, in 2010, full-body, non-textile swimsuits were banned by FINA, as they were enhancing swimmers' performances.[40][41]
+
+The increase in technology has also allowed many decisions in sports matches to be taken, or reviewed, off-field, with another official using instant replays to make decisions. In some sports, players can now challenge decisions made by officials. In Association football, goal-line technology makes decisions on whether a ball has crossed the goal line or not.[42] The technology is not compulsory,[43] but was used in the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil,[44] and the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup in Canada,[45] as well as in the Premier League from 2013–14,[46] and the Bundesliga from 2015–16.[47] In the NFL, a referee can ask for a review from the replay booth, or a head coach can issue a challenge to review the play using replays. The final decision rests with the referee.[48] A video referee (commonly known as a Television Match Official or TMO) can also use replays to help decision-making in rugby (both league and union).[49][50] In international cricket, an umpire can ask the Third umpire for a decision, and the third umpire makes the final decision.[51][52] Since 2008, a decision review system for players to review decisions has been introduced and used in ICC-run tournaments, and optionally in other matches.[51][53] Depending on the host broadcaster, a number of different technologies are used during an umpire or player review, including instant replays, Hawk-Eye, Hot Spot and Real Time Snickometer.[54][55] Hawk-Eye is also used in tennis to challenge umpiring decisions.[56][57]
+
+Research suggests that sports have the capacity to connect youth to positive adult role models and provide positive development opportunities, as well as promote the learning and application of life skills.[58][59] In recent years the use of sport to reduce crime, as well as to prevent violent extremism and radicalization, has become more widespread, especially as a tool to improve self-esteem, enhance social bonds and provide participants with a feeling of purpose.[59]
+
+There is no high-quality evidence that shows the effectiveness of interventions to increase sports participation of the community in sports such as mass media campaigns, educational sessions, and policy changes.[60] There is also no high-quality studies that investigate the effect of such interventions in promoting healthy behavior change in the community.[61]
+
+Benito Mussolini used the 1934 FIFA World Cup, which was held in Italy, to showcase Fascist Italy.[62][63] Adolf Hitler also used the 1936 Summer Olympics held in Berlin, and the 1936 Winter Olympics held in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, to promote the Nazi ideology of the superiority of the Aryan race, and inferiority of the Jews and other "undesirables".[63][64] Germany used the Olympics to give of itself a peaceful image while it was very actively preparing the war.[65]
+
+When apartheid was the official policy in South Africa, many sports people, particularly in rugby union, adopted the conscientious approach that they should not appear in competitive sports there. Some feel this was an effective contribution to the eventual demolition of the policy of apartheid, others feel that it may have prolonged and reinforced its worst effects.[66]
+
+In the history of Ireland, Gaelic sports were connected with cultural nationalism. Until the mid-20th century a person could have been banned from playing Gaelic football, hurling, or other sports administered by the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) if she/he played or supported Association football, or other games seen to be of British origin. Until recently the GAA continued to ban the playing of football and rugby union at Gaelic venues. This ban, also known as Rule 42,[67] is still enforced, but was modified to allow football and rugby to be played in Croke Park while Lansdowne Road was redeveloped into Aviva Stadium. Until recently, under Rule 21, the GAA also banned members of the British security forces and members of the RUC from playing Gaelic games, but the advent of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 led to the eventual removal of the ban.
+
+Nationalism is often evident in the pursuit of sport, or in its reporting: people compete in national teams, or commentators and audiences can adopt a partisan view. On occasion, such tensions can lead to violent confrontation among players or spectators within and beyond the sporting venue, as in the Football War. These trends are seen by many as contrary to the fundamental ethos of sport being carried on for its own sake and for the enjoyment of its participants.
+
+Sport and politics collided in the 1972 Olympics in Munich. Masked men entered the hotel of the Israeli Olympic team and killed many of their men. This was known as the Munich massacre.
+
+A study of US elections has shown that the result of sports events can affect the results. A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed that when the home team wins the game before the election, the incumbent candidates can increase their share of the vote by 1.5 percent. A loss had the opposite effect, and the effect is greater for higher-profile teams or unexpected wins and losses.[68] Also, when Washington Redskins win their final game before an election, then the incumbent President is more likely to win, and if the Redskins lose, then the opposition candidate is more likely to win; this has become known as the Redskins Rule.[69][70]
+
+Étienne de La Boétie, in his essay Discourse on Voluntary Servitude describes athletic spectacles as means for tyrants to control their subjects by distracting them.
+
+Do not imagine that there is any bird more easily caught by decoy, nor any fish sooner fixed on the hook by wormy bait, than are all these poor fools neatly tricked into servitude by the slightest feather passed, so to speak, before their mouths. Truly it is a marvelous thing that they let themselves be caught so quickly at the slightest tickling of their fancy. Plays, farces, spectacles, gladiators, strange beasts, medals, pictures, and other such opiates, these were for ancient peoples the bait toward slavery, the price of their liberty, the instruments of tyranny. By these practices and enticements the ancient dictators so successfully lulled their subjects under the yoke, that the stupefied peoples, fascinated by the pastimes and vain pleasures flashed before their eyes, learned subservience as naïvely, but not so creditably, as little children learn to read by looking at bright picture books.[71]
+
+Sport was an important form of worship in Ancient Greek religion. The ancient Olympic Games, called the Olympiad, were held in honour of the head deity, Zeus, and featured various forms of religious dedication to him and other gods.[72] As many Greeks travelled to see the games, this combination of religion and sport also served as a way of uniting them.
+
+The practice of athletic competitions has been criticised by some Christian thinkers as a form of idolatry, in which "human beings extol themselves, adore themselves, sacrifice themselves and reward themselves."[73] Sports are seen by these critics as a manifestation of "collective pride" and "national self-deification" in which feats of human power are idolized at the expense of divine worship.[73]
+
+Tertullian condemns the athletic performances of his day, insisting "the entire apparatus of the shows is based upon idolatry."[74] The shows, says Tertullian, excite passions foreign to the calm temperament cultivated by the Christian:
+
+God has enjoined us to deal calmly, gently, quietly, and peacefully with the Holy Spirit, because these things are alone in keeping with the goodness of His nature, with His tenderness and sensitiveness. ... Well, how shall this be made to accord with the shows? For the show always leads to spiritual agitation, since where there is pleasure, there is keenness of feeling giving pleasure its zest; and where there is keenness of feeling, there is rivalry giving in turn its zest to that. Then, too, where you have rivalry, you have rage, bitterness, wrath and grief, with all bad things which flow from them – the whole entirely out of keeping with the religion of Christ.[75]
+
+Popularity in 2018 of major sports by size of fan base:[7]
+
+Related topics
+
+This article incorporates text from a free content work.  Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO Strengthening the rule of law through education: a guide for policymakers,  UNESCO, UNESCO. UNESCO. To learn how to add open license text to Wikipedia articles, please see this how-to page. For information on reusing text from Wikipedia, please see the terms of use.

en/5488.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,118 @@
+
+
+
+
+Sport includes all forms of competitive physical activity or games which,[1] through casual or organized participation, at least in part aim to use, maintain or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants, and in some cases, entertainment for spectators.[2] Sports can bring positive results to one's physical health. Hundreds of sports exist, from those between single contestants, through to those with hundreds of simultaneous participants, either in teams or competing as individuals. In certain sports such as racing, many contestants may compete, simultaneously or consecutively, with one winner; in others, the contest (a match) is between two sides, each attempting to exceed the other. Some sports allow a "tie" or "draw", in which there is no single winner; others provide tie-breaking methods to ensure one winner and one loser. A number of contests may be arranged in a tournament producing a champion. Many sports leagues make an annual champion by arranging games in a regular sports season, followed in some cases by playoffs.
+
+Sport is generally recognised as system of activities which are based in physical athleticism or physical dexterity, with the largest major competitions such as the Olympic Games admitting only sports meeting this definition,[3] and other organisations such as the Council of Europe using definitions precluding activities without a physical element from classification as sports.[2] However, a number of competitive, but non-physical, activities claim recognition as mind sports. The International Olympic Committee (through ARISF) recognises both chess and bridge as bona fide sports, and SportAccord, the international sports federation association, recognises five non-physical sports: bridge, chess, draughts (checkers), Go and xiangqi,[4][5] and limits the number of mind games which can be admitted as sports.[1]
+
+Sport is usually governed by a set of rules or customs, which serve to ensure fair competition, and allow consistent adjudication of the winner. Winning can be determined by physical events such as scoring goals or crossing a line first. It can also be determined by judges who are scoring elements of the sporting performance, including objective or subjective measures such as technical performance or artistic impression.
+
+Records of performance are often kept, and for popular sports, this information may be widely announced or reported in sport news. Sport is also a major source of entertainment for non-participants, with spectator sport drawing large crowds to sport venues, and reaching wider audiences through broadcasting. Sport betting is in some cases severely regulated, and in some cases is central to the sport.
+
+According to A.T. Kearney, a consultancy, the global sporting industry is worth up to $620 billion as of 2013.[6] The world's most accessible and practised sport is running, while association football is the most popular spectator sport.[7]
+
+The word "sport" comes from the Old French desport meaning "leisure", with the oldest definition in English from around 1300 being "anything humans find amusing or entertaining".[8]
+
+Other meanings include gambling and events staged for the purpose of gambling; hunting; and games and diversions, including ones that require exercise.[9] Roget's defines the noun sport as an "activity engaged in for relaxation and amusement" with synonyms including diversion and recreation.[10]
+
+The singular term "sport" is used in most English dialects to describe the overall concept (e.g. "children taking part in sport"), with "sports" used to describe multiple activities (e.g. "football and rugby are the most popular sports in England"). American English uses "sports" for both terms.
+
+The precise definition of what separates a sport from other leisure activities varies between sources. The closest to an international agreement on a definition is provided by SportAccord, which is the association for all the largest international sports federations (including association football, athletics, cycling, tennis, equestrian sports, and more), and is therefore the de facto representative of international sport.
+
+SportAccord uses the following criteria, determining that a sport should:[1]
+
+They also recognise that sport can be primarily physical (such as rugby or athletics), primarily mind (such as chess or Go), predominantly motorised (such as Formula 1 or powerboating), primarily co-ordination (such as billiard sports), or primarily animal-supported (such as equestrian sport).[1]
+
+The inclusion of mind sports within sport definitions has not been universally accepted, leading to legal challenges from governing bodies in regards to being denied funding available to sports.[11] Whilst SportAccord recognises a small number of mind sports, it is not open to admitting any further mind sports.
+
+There has been an increase in the application of the term "sport" to a wider set of non-physical challenges such as video games, also called esports, especially due to the large scale of participation and organised competition, but these are not widely recognised by mainstream sports organisations. According to Council of Europe, European Sports Charter, article 2.i, "'Sport' means all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim at expressing or improving physical fitness and mental well-being, forming social relationships or obtaining results in competition at all levels."[12]
+
+There are opposing views on the necessity of competition as a defining element of a sport, with almost all professional sports involving competition, and governing bodies requiring competition as a prerequisite of recognition by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) or SportAccord.[1]
+
+Other bodies advocate widening the definition of sport to include all physical activity. For instance, the Council of Europe include all forms of physical exercise, including those competed just for fun.
+
+In order to widen participation, and reduce the impact of losing on less able participants, there has been an introduction of non-competitive physical activity to traditionally competitive events such as school sports days, although moves like this are often controversial.[13][14]
+
+In competitive events, participants are graded or classified based on their "result" and often divided into groups of comparable performance, (e.g. gender, weight and age). The measurement of the result may be objective or subjective, and corrected with "handicaps" or penalties. In a race, for example, the time to complete the course is an objective measurement. In gymnastics or diving the result is decided by a panel of judges, and therefore subjective. There are many shades of judging between boxing and mixed martial arts, where victory is assigned by judges if neither competitor has lost at the end of the match time.
+
+Artifacts and structures suggest sport in China as early as 2000 BC.[15] Gymnastics appears to have been popular in China's ancient past. Monuments to the Pharaohs indicate that a number of sports, including swimming and fishing, were well-developed and regulated several thousands of years ago in ancient Egypt.[16] Other Egyptian sports included javelin throwing, high jump, and wrestling. Ancient Persian sports such as the traditional Iranian martial art of Zourkhaneh had a close connection to warfare skills.[17] Among other sports that originated in ancient Persia are polo and jousting.
+
+A wide range of sports were already established by the time of Ancient Greece and the military culture and the development of sport in Greece influenced one another considerably. Sport became such a prominent part of their culture that the Greeks created the Olympic Games, which in ancient times were held every four years in a small village in the Peloponnesus called Olympia.[18]
+
+Sports have been increasingly organised and regulated from the time of the ancient Olympics up to the present century. Industrialisation has brought increased leisure time, letting people attend and follow spectator sports and participate in athletic activities. These trends continued with the advent of mass media and global communication. Professionalism became prevalent, further adding to the increase in sport's popularity, as sports fans followed the exploits of professional athletes – all while enjoying the exercise and competition associated with amateur participation in sports. Since the turn of the 21st century, there has been increasing debate about whether transgender sportspersons should be able to participate in sport events that conform with their post-transition gender identity.[19]
+
+Sportsmanship is an attitude that strives for fair play, courtesy toward teammates and opponents, ethical behaviour and integrity, and grace in victory or defeat.[20][21][22]
+
+Sportsmanship expresses an aspiration or ethos that the activity will be enjoyed for its own sake. The well-known sentiment by sports journalist Grantland Rice, that it's "not that you won or lost but how you played the game", and the modern Olympic creed expressed by its founder Pierre de Coubertin: "The most important thing... is not winning but taking part" are typical expressions of this sentiment.
+
+Key principles of sport include that the result should not be predetermined, and that both sides should have equal opportunity to win. Rules are in place to ensure fair play, but participants can break these rules in order to gain advantage.
+
+Participants may cheat in order to unfairly increase their chance of winning, or in order to achieve other advantages such as financial gains. The widespread existence of gambling on the results of sports fixtures creates a motivation for match fixing, where a participant or participants deliberately work to ensure a given outcome rather than simply playing to win.
+
+The competitive nature of sport encourages some participants to attempt to enhance their performance through the use of medicines, or through other means such as increasing the volume of blood in their bodies through artificial means.
+
+All sports recognised by the IOC or SportAccord are required to implement a testing programme, looking for a list of banned drugs, with suspensions or bans being placed on participants who test positive for banned substances.
+
+Violence in sports involves crossing the line between fair competition and intentional aggressive violence. Athletes, coaches, fans, and parents sometimes unleash violent behaviour on people or property, in misguided shows of loyalty, dominance, anger, or celebration. Rioting or hooliganism by fans in particular is a problem at some national and international sporting contests.
+
+Female participation in sports continues to rise alongside the opportunity for involvement and the value of sports for child development and physical fitness. Despite gains during the last three decades, a gap persists in the enrollment figures between male and female players. Female players account for 39% of the total participation in US interscholastic athletics. Gender balance has been accelerating from a 32% increase in 1973–74 to a 63% increase in 1994–95. Hessel (2000).[full citation needed]
+
+Youth sport presents children with opportunities for fun, socialisation, forming peer relationships, physical fitness, and athletic scholarships. Activists for education and the war on drugs encourage youth sport as a means to increase educational participation and to fight the illegal drug trade. According to the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital, the biggest risk for youth sport is death or serious injury including concussion. These risks come from running, basketball, association football, volleyball, gridiron, gymnastics, and ice hockey.[23] Youth sport in the US is a $15 billion industry including equipment up to private coaching.[24]
+
+Disabled sports also adaptive sports or parasports, are sports played by persons with a disability, including physical and intellectual disabilities. As many of these are based on existing sports modified to meet the needs of persons with a disability, they are sometimes referred to as adapted sports. However, not all disabled sports are adapted; several sports that have been specifically created for persons with a disability have no equivalent in able-bodied sports.
+
+The competition element of sport, along with the aesthetic appeal of some sports, result in the popularity of people attending to watch sport being played. This has led to the specific phenomenon of spectator sport.
+
+Both amateur and professional sports attract spectators, both in person at the sport venue, and through broadcast media including radio, television and internet broadcast. Both attendance in person and viewing remotely can incur a sometimes substantial charge, such as an entrance ticket, or pay-per-view television broadcast.
+
+It is common for popular sports to attract large broadcast audiences, leading to rival broadcasters bidding large amounts of money for the rights to show certain fixtures. The football World Cup attracts a global television audience of hundreds of millions; the 2006 final alone attracted an estimated worldwide audience of well over 700 million and the 2011 Cricket World Cup Final  attracted an estimated audience of 135 million in India alone.[25]
+
+In the United States, the championship game of the NFL, the Super Bowl, has become one of the most watched television broadcasts of the year.[26][27]
+Super Bowl Sunday is a de facto national holiday in America;[28][29] the viewership being so great that in 2015, advertising space was reported as being sold at $4.5m for a 30-second slot.[26]
+
+Sport can be undertaken on an amateur, professional or semi-professional basis, depending on whether participants are incentivised for participation (usually through payment of a wage or salary). Amateur participation in sport at lower levels is often called "grassroots sport".[2][30]
+
+The popularity of spectator sport as a recreation for non-participants has led to sport becoming a major business in its own right, and this has incentivised a high paying professional sport culture, where high performing participants are rewarded with pay far in excess of average wages, which can run into millions of dollars.[31]
+
+Some sports, or individual competitions within a sport, retain a policy of allowing only amateur sport. The Olympic Games started with a principle of amateur competition with those who practised a sport professionally considered to have an unfair advantage over those who practised it merely as a hobby.[32] From 1971, Olympic athletes were allowed to receive compensation and sponsorship,[33] and from 1986, the IOC decided to make all professional athletes eligible for the Olympics,[33][34] with the exceptions of boxing,[35][36] and wrestling.[37][38]
+
+Technology plays an important part in modern sport. With it being a necessary part of some sports (such as motorsport), it is used in others to improve performance. Some sports also use it to allow off-field decision making.
+
+Sports science is a widespread academic discipline, and can be applied to areas including athlete performance, such as the use of video analysis to fine-tune technique, or to equipment, such as improved running shoes or competitive swimwear. Sports engineering emerged as a discipline in 1998 with an increasing focus not just on materials design but also the use of technology in sport, from analytics and big data to wearable technology.[39] In order to control the impact of technology on fair play, governing bodies frequently have specific rules that are set to control the impact of technical advantage between participants. For example, in 2010, full-body, non-textile swimsuits were banned by FINA, as they were enhancing swimmers' performances.[40][41]
+
+The increase in technology has also allowed many decisions in sports matches to be taken, or reviewed, off-field, with another official using instant replays to make decisions. In some sports, players can now challenge decisions made by officials. In Association football, goal-line technology makes decisions on whether a ball has crossed the goal line or not.[42] The technology is not compulsory,[43] but was used in the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil,[44] and the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup in Canada,[45] as well as in the Premier League from 2013–14,[46] and the Bundesliga from 2015–16.[47] In the NFL, a referee can ask for a review from the replay booth, or a head coach can issue a challenge to review the play using replays. The final decision rests with the referee.[48] A video referee (commonly known as a Television Match Official or TMO) can also use replays to help decision-making in rugby (both league and union).[49][50] In international cricket, an umpire can ask the Third umpire for a decision, and the third umpire makes the final decision.[51][52] Since 2008, a decision review system for players to review decisions has been introduced and used in ICC-run tournaments, and optionally in other matches.[51][53] Depending on the host broadcaster, a number of different technologies are used during an umpire or player review, including instant replays, Hawk-Eye, Hot Spot and Real Time Snickometer.[54][55] Hawk-Eye is also used in tennis to challenge umpiring decisions.[56][57]
+
+Research suggests that sports have the capacity to connect youth to positive adult role models and provide positive development opportunities, as well as promote the learning and application of life skills.[58][59] In recent years the use of sport to reduce crime, as well as to prevent violent extremism and radicalization, has become more widespread, especially as a tool to improve self-esteem, enhance social bonds and provide participants with a feeling of purpose.[59]
+
+There is no high-quality evidence that shows the effectiveness of interventions to increase sports participation of the community in sports such as mass media campaigns, educational sessions, and policy changes.[60] There is also no high-quality studies that investigate the effect of such interventions in promoting healthy behavior change in the community.[61]
+
+Benito Mussolini used the 1934 FIFA World Cup, which was held in Italy, to showcase Fascist Italy.[62][63] Adolf Hitler also used the 1936 Summer Olympics held in Berlin, and the 1936 Winter Olympics held in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, to promote the Nazi ideology of the superiority of the Aryan race, and inferiority of the Jews and other "undesirables".[63][64] Germany used the Olympics to give of itself a peaceful image while it was very actively preparing the war.[65]
+
+When apartheid was the official policy in South Africa, many sports people, particularly in rugby union, adopted the conscientious approach that they should not appear in competitive sports there. Some feel this was an effective contribution to the eventual demolition of the policy of apartheid, others feel that it may have prolonged and reinforced its worst effects.[66]
+
+In the history of Ireland, Gaelic sports were connected with cultural nationalism. Until the mid-20th century a person could have been banned from playing Gaelic football, hurling, or other sports administered by the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) if she/he played or supported Association football, or other games seen to be of British origin. Until recently the GAA continued to ban the playing of football and rugby union at Gaelic venues. This ban, also known as Rule 42,[67] is still enforced, but was modified to allow football and rugby to be played in Croke Park while Lansdowne Road was redeveloped into Aviva Stadium. Until recently, under Rule 21, the GAA also banned members of the British security forces and members of the RUC from playing Gaelic games, but the advent of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 led to the eventual removal of the ban.
+
+Nationalism is often evident in the pursuit of sport, or in its reporting: people compete in national teams, or commentators and audiences can adopt a partisan view. On occasion, such tensions can lead to violent confrontation among players or spectators within and beyond the sporting venue, as in the Football War. These trends are seen by many as contrary to the fundamental ethos of sport being carried on for its own sake and for the enjoyment of its participants.
+
+Sport and politics collided in the 1972 Olympics in Munich. Masked men entered the hotel of the Israeli Olympic team and killed many of their men. This was known as the Munich massacre.
+
+A study of US elections has shown that the result of sports events can affect the results. A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed that when the home team wins the game before the election, the incumbent candidates can increase their share of the vote by 1.5 percent. A loss had the opposite effect, and the effect is greater for higher-profile teams or unexpected wins and losses.[68] Also, when Washington Redskins win their final game before an election, then the incumbent President is more likely to win, and if the Redskins lose, then the opposition candidate is more likely to win; this has become known as the Redskins Rule.[69][70]
+
+Étienne de La Boétie, in his essay Discourse on Voluntary Servitude describes athletic spectacles as means for tyrants to control their subjects by distracting them.
+
+Do not imagine that there is any bird more easily caught by decoy, nor any fish sooner fixed on the hook by wormy bait, than are all these poor fools neatly tricked into servitude by the slightest feather passed, so to speak, before their mouths. Truly it is a marvelous thing that they let themselves be caught so quickly at the slightest tickling of their fancy. Plays, farces, spectacles, gladiators, strange beasts, medals, pictures, and other such opiates, these were for ancient peoples the bait toward slavery, the price of their liberty, the instruments of tyranny. By these practices and enticements the ancient dictators so successfully lulled their subjects under the yoke, that the stupefied peoples, fascinated by the pastimes and vain pleasures flashed before their eyes, learned subservience as naïvely, but not so creditably, as little children learn to read by looking at bright picture books.[71]
+
+Sport was an important form of worship in Ancient Greek religion. The ancient Olympic Games, called the Olympiad, were held in honour of the head deity, Zeus, and featured various forms of religious dedication to him and other gods.[72] As many Greeks travelled to see the games, this combination of religion and sport also served as a way of uniting them.
+
+The practice of athletic competitions has been criticised by some Christian thinkers as a form of idolatry, in which "human beings extol themselves, adore themselves, sacrifice themselves and reward themselves."[73] Sports are seen by these critics as a manifestation of "collective pride" and "national self-deification" in which feats of human power are idolized at the expense of divine worship.[73]
+
+Tertullian condemns the athletic performances of his day, insisting "the entire apparatus of the shows is based upon idolatry."[74] The shows, says Tertullian, excite passions foreign to the calm temperament cultivated by the Christian:
+
+God has enjoined us to deal calmly, gently, quietly, and peacefully with the Holy Spirit, because these things are alone in keeping with the goodness of His nature, with His tenderness and sensitiveness. ... Well, how shall this be made to accord with the shows? For the show always leads to spiritual agitation, since where there is pleasure, there is keenness of feeling giving pleasure its zest; and where there is keenness of feeling, there is rivalry giving in turn its zest to that. Then, too, where you have rivalry, you have rage, bitterness, wrath and grief, with all bad things which flow from them – the whole entirely out of keeping with the religion of Christ.[75]
+
+Popularity in 2018 of major sports by size of fan base:[7]
+
+Related topics
+
+This article incorporates text from a free content work.  Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO Strengthening the rule of law through education: a guide for policymakers,  UNESCO, UNESCO. UNESCO. To learn how to add open license text to Wikipedia articles, please see this how-to page. For information on reusing text from Wikipedia, please see the terms of use.

en/5489.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,118 @@
+
+
+
+
+Sport includes all forms of competitive physical activity or games which,[1] through casual or organized participation, at least in part aim to use, maintain or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants, and in some cases, entertainment for spectators.[2] Sports can bring positive results to one's physical health. Hundreds of sports exist, from those between single contestants, through to those with hundreds of simultaneous participants, either in teams or competing as individuals. In certain sports such as racing, many contestants may compete, simultaneously or consecutively, with one winner; in others, the contest (a match) is between two sides, each attempting to exceed the other. Some sports allow a "tie" or "draw", in which there is no single winner; others provide tie-breaking methods to ensure one winner and one loser. A number of contests may be arranged in a tournament producing a champion. Many sports leagues make an annual champion by arranging games in a regular sports season, followed in some cases by playoffs.
+
+Sport is generally recognised as system of activities which are based in physical athleticism or physical dexterity, with the largest major competitions such as the Olympic Games admitting only sports meeting this definition,[3] and other organisations such as the Council of Europe using definitions precluding activities without a physical element from classification as sports.[2] However, a number of competitive, but non-physical, activities claim recognition as mind sports. The International Olympic Committee (through ARISF) recognises both chess and bridge as bona fide sports, and SportAccord, the international sports federation association, recognises five non-physical sports: bridge, chess, draughts (checkers), Go and xiangqi,[4][5] and limits the number of mind games which can be admitted as sports.[1]
+
+Sport is usually governed by a set of rules or customs, which serve to ensure fair competition, and allow consistent adjudication of the winner. Winning can be determined by physical events such as scoring goals or crossing a line first. It can also be determined by judges who are scoring elements of the sporting performance, including objective or subjective measures such as technical performance or artistic impression.
+
+Records of performance are often kept, and for popular sports, this information may be widely announced or reported in sport news. Sport is also a major source of entertainment for non-participants, with spectator sport drawing large crowds to sport venues, and reaching wider audiences through broadcasting. Sport betting is in some cases severely regulated, and in some cases is central to the sport.
+
+According to A.T. Kearney, a consultancy, the global sporting industry is worth up to $620 billion as of 2013.[6] The world's most accessible and practised sport is running, while association football is the most popular spectator sport.[7]
+
+The word "sport" comes from the Old French desport meaning "leisure", with the oldest definition in English from around 1300 being "anything humans find amusing or entertaining".[8]
+
+Other meanings include gambling and events staged for the purpose of gambling; hunting; and games and diversions, including ones that require exercise.[9] Roget's defines the noun sport as an "activity engaged in for relaxation and amusement" with synonyms including diversion and recreation.[10]
+
+The singular term "sport" is used in most English dialects to describe the overall concept (e.g. "children taking part in sport"), with "sports" used to describe multiple activities (e.g. "football and rugby are the most popular sports in England"). American English uses "sports" for both terms.
+
+The precise definition of what separates a sport from other leisure activities varies between sources. The closest to an international agreement on a definition is provided by SportAccord, which is the association for all the largest international sports federations (including association football, athletics, cycling, tennis, equestrian sports, and more), and is therefore the de facto representative of international sport.
+
+SportAccord uses the following criteria, determining that a sport should:[1]
+
+They also recognise that sport can be primarily physical (such as rugby or athletics), primarily mind (such as chess or Go), predominantly motorised (such as Formula 1 or powerboating), primarily co-ordination (such as billiard sports), or primarily animal-supported (such as equestrian sport).[1]
+
+The inclusion of mind sports within sport definitions has not been universally accepted, leading to legal challenges from governing bodies in regards to being denied funding available to sports.[11] Whilst SportAccord recognises a small number of mind sports, it is not open to admitting any further mind sports.
+
+There has been an increase in the application of the term "sport" to a wider set of non-physical challenges such as video games, also called esports, especially due to the large scale of participation and organised competition, but these are not widely recognised by mainstream sports organisations. According to Council of Europe, European Sports Charter, article 2.i, "'Sport' means all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim at expressing or improving physical fitness and mental well-being, forming social relationships or obtaining results in competition at all levels."[12]
+
+There are opposing views on the necessity of competition as a defining element of a sport, with almost all professional sports involving competition, and governing bodies requiring competition as a prerequisite of recognition by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) or SportAccord.[1]
+
+Other bodies advocate widening the definition of sport to include all physical activity. For instance, the Council of Europe include all forms of physical exercise, including those competed just for fun.
+
+In order to widen participation, and reduce the impact of losing on less able participants, there has been an introduction of non-competitive physical activity to traditionally competitive events such as school sports days, although moves like this are often controversial.[13][14]
+
+In competitive events, participants are graded or classified based on their "result" and often divided into groups of comparable performance, (e.g. gender, weight and age). The measurement of the result may be objective or subjective, and corrected with "handicaps" or penalties. In a race, for example, the time to complete the course is an objective measurement. In gymnastics or diving the result is decided by a panel of judges, and therefore subjective. There are many shades of judging between boxing and mixed martial arts, where victory is assigned by judges if neither competitor has lost at the end of the match time.
+
+Artifacts and structures suggest sport in China as early as 2000 BC.[15] Gymnastics appears to have been popular in China's ancient past. Monuments to the Pharaohs indicate that a number of sports, including swimming and fishing, were well-developed and regulated several thousands of years ago in ancient Egypt.[16] Other Egyptian sports included javelin throwing, high jump, and wrestling. Ancient Persian sports such as the traditional Iranian martial art of Zourkhaneh had a close connection to warfare skills.[17] Among other sports that originated in ancient Persia are polo and jousting.
+
+A wide range of sports were already established by the time of Ancient Greece and the military culture and the development of sport in Greece influenced one another considerably. Sport became such a prominent part of their culture that the Greeks created the Olympic Games, which in ancient times were held every four years in a small village in the Peloponnesus called Olympia.[18]
+
+Sports have been increasingly organised and regulated from the time of the ancient Olympics up to the present century. Industrialisation has brought increased leisure time, letting people attend and follow spectator sports and participate in athletic activities. These trends continued with the advent of mass media and global communication. Professionalism became prevalent, further adding to the increase in sport's popularity, as sports fans followed the exploits of professional athletes – all while enjoying the exercise and competition associated with amateur participation in sports. Since the turn of the 21st century, there has been increasing debate about whether transgender sportspersons should be able to participate in sport events that conform with their post-transition gender identity.[19]
+
+Sportsmanship is an attitude that strives for fair play, courtesy toward teammates and opponents, ethical behaviour and integrity, and grace in victory or defeat.[20][21][22]
+
+Sportsmanship expresses an aspiration or ethos that the activity will be enjoyed for its own sake. The well-known sentiment by sports journalist Grantland Rice, that it's "not that you won or lost but how you played the game", and the modern Olympic creed expressed by its founder Pierre de Coubertin: "The most important thing... is not winning but taking part" are typical expressions of this sentiment.
+
+Key principles of sport include that the result should not be predetermined, and that both sides should have equal opportunity to win. Rules are in place to ensure fair play, but participants can break these rules in order to gain advantage.
+
+Participants may cheat in order to unfairly increase their chance of winning, or in order to achieve other advantages such as financial gains. The widespread existence of gambling on the results of sports fixtures creates a motivation for match fixing, where a participant or participants deliberately work to ensure a given outcome rather than simply playing to win.
+
+The competitive nature of sport encourages some participants to attempt to enhance their performance through the use of medicines, or through other means such as increasing the volume of blood in their bodies through artificial means.
+
+All sports recognised by the IOC or SportAccord are required to implement a testing programme, looking for a list of banned drugs, with suspensions or bans being placed on participants who test positive for banned substances.
+
+Violence in sports involves crossing the line between fair competition and intentional aggressive violence. Athletes, coaches, fans, and parents sometimes unleash violent behaviour on people or property, in misguided shows of loyalty, dominance, anger, or celebration. Rioting or hooliganism by fans in particular is a problem at some national and international sporting contests.
+
+Female participation in sports continues to rise alongside the opportunity for involvement and the value of sports for child development and physical fitness. Despite gains during the last three decades, a gap persists in the enrollment figures between male and female players. Female players account for 39% of the total participation in US interscholastic athletics. Gender balance has been accelerating from a 32% increase in 1973–74 to a 63% increase in 1994–95. Hessel (2000).[full citation needed]
+
+Youth sport presents children with opportunities for fun, socialisation, forming peer relationships, physical fitness, and athletic scholarships. Activists for education and the war on drugs encourage youth sport as a means to increase educational participation and to fight the illegal drug trade. According to the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital, the biggest risk for youth sport is death or serious injury including concussion. These risks come from running, basketball, association football, volleyball, gridiron, gymnastics, and ice hockey.[23] Youth sport in the US is a $15 billion industry including equipment up to private coaching.[24]
+
+Disabled sports also adaptive sports or parasports, are sports played by persons with a disability, including physical and intellectual disabilities. As many of these are based on existing sports modified to meet the needs of persons with a disability, they are sometimes referred to as adapted sports. However, not all disabled sports are adapted; several sports that have been specifically created for persons with a disability have no equivalent in able-bodied sports.
+
+The competition element of sport, along with the aesthetic appeal of some sports, result in the popularity of people attending to watch sport being played. This has led to the specific phenomenon of spectator sport.
+
+Both amateur and professional sports attract spectators, both in person at the sport venue, and through broadcast media including radio, television and internet broadcast. Both attendance in person and viewing remotely can incur a sometimes substantial charge, such as an entrance ticket, or pay-per-view television broadcast.
+
+It is common for popular sports to attract large broadcast audiences, leading to rival broadcasters bidding large amounts of money for the rights to show certain fixtures. The football World Cup attracts a global television audience of hundreds of millions; the 2006 final alone attracted an estimated worldwide audience of well over 700 million and the 2011 Cricket World Cup Final  attracted an estimated audience of 135 million in India alone.[25]
+
+In the United States, the championship game of the NFL, the Super Bowl, has become one of the most watched television broadcasts of the year.[26][27]
+Super Bowl Sunday is a de facto national holiday in America;[28][29] the viewership being so great that in 2015, advertising space was reported as being sold at $4.5m for a 30-second slot.[26]
+
+Sport can be undertaken on an amateur, professional or semi-professional basis, depending on whether participants are incentivised for participation (usually through payment of a wage or salary). Amateur participation in sport at lower levels is often called "grassroots sport".[2][30]
+
+The popularity of spectator sport as a recreation for non-participants has led to sport becoming a major business in its own right, and this has incentivised a high paying professional sport culture, where high performing participants are rewarded with pay far in excess of average wages, which can run into millions of dollars.[31]
+
+Some sports, or individual competitions within a sport, retain a policy of allowing only amateur sport. The Olympic Games started with a principle of amateur competition with those who practised a sport professionally considered to have an unfair advantage over those who practised it merely as a hobby.[32] From 1971, Olympic athletes were allowed to receive compensation and sponsorship,[33] and from 1986, the IOC decided to make all professional athletes eligible for the Olympics,[33][34] with the exceptions of boxing,[35][36] and wrestling.[37][38]
+
+Technology plays an important part in modern sport. With it being a necessary part of some sports (such as motorsport), it is used in others to improve performance. Some sports also use it to allow off-field decision making.
+
+Sports science is a widespread academic discipline, and can be applied to areas including athlete performance, such as the use of video analysis to fine-tune technique, or to equipment, such as improved running shoes or competitive swimwear. Sports engineering emerged as a discipline in 1998 with an increasing focus not just on materials design but also the use of technology in sport, from analytics and big data to wearable technology.[39] In order to control the impact of technology on fair play, governing bodies frequently have specific rules that are set to control the impact of technical advantage between participants. For example, in 2010, full-body, non-textile swimsuits were banned by FINA, as they were enhancing swimmers' performances.[40][41]
+
+The increase in technology has also allowed many decisions in sports matches to be taken, or reviewed, off-field, with another official using instant replays to make decisions. In some sports, players can now challenge decisions made by officials. In Association football, goal-line technology makes decisions on whether a ball has crossed the goal line or not.[42] The technology is not compulsory,[43] but was used in the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil,[44] and the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup in Canada,[45] as well as in the Premier League from 2013–14,[46] and the Bundesliga from 2015–16.[47] In the NFL, a referee can ask for a review from the replay booth, or a head coach can issue a challenge to review the play using replays. The final decision rests with the referee.[48] A video referee (commonly known as a Television Match Official or TMO) can also use replays to help decision-making in rugby (both league and union).[49][50] In international cricket, an umpire can ask the Third umpire for a decision, and the third umpire makes the final decision.[51][52] Since 2008, a decision review system for players to review decisions has been introduced and used in ICC-run tournaments, and optionally in other matches.[51][53] Depending on the host broadcaster, a number of different technologies are used during an umpire or player review, including instant replays, Hawk-Eye, Hot Spot and Real Time Snickometer.[54][55] Hawk-Eye is also used in tennis to challenge umpiring decisions.[56][57]
+
+Research suggests that sports have the capacity to connect youth to positive adult role models and provide positive development opportunities, as well as promote the learning and application of life skills.[58][59] In recent years the use of sport to reduce crime, as well as to prevent violent extremism and radicalization, has become more widespread, especially as a tool to improve self-esteem, enhance social bonds and provide participants with a feeling of purpose.[59]
+
+There is no high-quality evidence that shows the effectiveness of interventions to increase sports participation of the community in sports such as mass media campaigns, educational sessions, and policy changes.[60] There is also no high-quality studies that investigate the effect of such interventions in promoting healthy behavior change in the community.[61]
+
+Benito Mussolini used the 1934 FIFA World Cup, which was held in Italy, to showcase Fascist Italy.[62][63] Adolf Hitler also used the 1936 Summer Olympics held in Berlin, and the 1936 Winter Olympics held in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, to promote the Nazi ideology of the superiority of the Aryan race, and inferiority of the Jews and other "undesirables".[63][64] Germany used the Olympics to give of itself a peaceful image while it was very actively preparing the war.[65]
+
+When apartheid was the official policy in South Africa, many sports people, particularly in rugby union, adopted the conscientious approach that they should not appear in competitive sports there. Some feel this was an effective contribution to the eventual demolition of the policy of apartheid, others feel that it may have prolonged and reinforced its worst effects.[66]
+
+In the history of Ireland, Gaelic sports were connected with cultural nationalism. Until the mid-20th century a person could have been banned from playing Gaelic football, hurling, or other sports administered by the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) if she/he played or supported Association football, or other games seen to be of British origin. Until recently the GAA continued to ban the playing of football and rugby union at Gaelic venues. This ban, also known as Rule 42,[67] is still enforced, but was modified to allow football and rugby to be played in Croke Park while Lansdowne Road was redeveloped into Aviva Stadium. Until recently, under Rule 21, the GAA also banned members of the British security forces and members of the RUC from playing Gaelic games, but the advent of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 led to the eventual removal of the ban.
+
+Nationalism is often evident in the pursuit of sport, or in its reporting: people compete in national teams, or commentators and audiences can adopt a partisan view. On occasion, such tensions can lead to violent confrontation among players or spectators within and beyond the sporting venue, as in the Football War. These trends are seen by many as contrary to the fundamental ethos of sport being carried on for its own sake and for the enjoyment of its participants.
+
+Sport and politics collided in the 1972 Olympics in Munich. Masked men entered the hotel of the Israeli Olympic team and killed many of their men. This was known as the Munich massacre.
+
+A study of US elections has shown that the result of sports events can affect the results. A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed that when the home team wins the game before the election, the incumbent candidates can increase their share of the vote by 1.5 percent. A loss had the opposite effect, and the effect is greater for higher-profile teams or unexpected wins and losses.[68] Also, when Washington Redskins win their final game before an election, then the incumbent President is more likely to win, and if the Redskins lose, then the opposition candidate is more likely to win; this has become known as the Redskins Rule.[69][70]
+
+Étienne de La Boétie, in his essay Discourse on Voluntary Servitude describes athletic spectacles as means for tyrants to control their subjects by distracting them.
+
+Do not imagine that there is any bird more easily caught by decoy, nor any fish sooner fixed on the hook by wormy bait, than are all these poor fools neatly tricked into servitude by the slightest feather passed, so to speak, before their mouths. Truly it is a marvelous thing that they let themselves be caught so quickly at the slightest tickling of their fancy. Plays, farces, spectacles, gladiators, strange beasts, medals, pictures, and other such opiates, these were for ancient peoples the bait toward slavery, the price of their liberty, the instruments of tyranny. By these practices and enticements the ancient dictators so successfully lulled their subjects under the yoke, that the stupefied peoples, fascinated by the pastimes and vain pleasures flashed before their eyes, learned subservience as naïvely, but not so creditably, as little children learn to read by looking at bright picture books.[71]
+
+Sport was an important form of worship in Ancient Greek religion. The ancient Olympic Games, called the Olympiad, were held in honour of the head deity, Zeus, and featured various forms of religious dedication to him and other gods.[72] As many Greeks travelled to see the games, this combination of religion and sport also served as a way of uniting them.
+
+The practice of athletic competitions has been criticised by some Christian thinkers as a form of idolatry, in which "human beings extol themselves, adore themselves, sacrifice themselves and reward themselves."[73] Sports are seen by these critics as a manifestation of "collective pride" and "national self-deification" in which feats of human power are idolized at the expense of divine worship.[73]
+
+Tertullian condemns the athletic performances of his day, insisting "the entire apparatus of the shows is based upon idolatry."[74] The shows, says Tertullian, excite passions foreign to the calm temperament cultivated by the Christian:
+
+God has enjoined us to deal calmly, gently, quietly, and peacefully with the Holy Spirit, because these things are alone in keeping with the goodness of His nature, with His tenderness and sensitiveness. ... Well, how shall this be made to accord with the shows? For the show always leads to spiritual agitation, since where there is pleasure, there is keenness of feeling giving pleasure its zest; and where there is keenness of feeling, there is rivalry giving in turn its zest to that. Then, too, where you have rivalry, you have rage, bitterness, wrath and grief, with all bad things which flow from them – the whole entirely out of keeping with the religion of Christ.[75]
+
+Popularity in 2018 of major sports by size of fan base:[7]
+
+Related topics
+
+This article incorporates text from a free content work.  Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO Strengthening the rule of law through education: a guide for policymakers,  UNESCO, UNESCO. UNESCO. To learn how to add open license text to Wikipedia articles, please see this how-to page. For information on reusing text from Wikipedia, please see the terms of use.

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+A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit, while simultaneously making loans.[1] Lending activities can be performed either directly or indirectly through capital markets.
+
+Due to the importance of banks in the financial stability of a country, most jurisdictions exercise a high degree of regulation over banks. Most countries have institutionalized a system known as fractional reserve banking, under which banks hold liquid assets equal to only a portion of their current liabilities. In addition to other regulations intended to ensure liquidity, banks are generally subject to minimum capital requirements based on an international set of capital standards, the Basel Accords.
+
+Banking in its modern sense evolved in the fourteenth century in the prosperous cities of Renaissance Italy but in many ways functioned as a continuation of ideas and concepts of credit and lending that had their roots in the ancient world. In the history of banking, a number of banking dynasties – notably, the  Medicis, the Fuggers, the Welsers, the  Berenbergs, and the  Rothschilds – have played a central role over many centuries. The oldest existing retail bank is Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena (founded in 1472), while the oldest existing merchant bank is Berenberg Bank (founded in 1590).
+
+The concept of banking may have begun in ancient Assyria and Babylonia, with the merchants offering loans of grain as collateral within a barter system. Lenders in ancient Greece and during the Roman Empire added two important innovations: they accepted deposits and changed money.[citation needed] Archaeology from this period in ancient China and India also shows evidence of money lending.
+
+The present era of banking can be traced to medieval and early Renaissance Italy, to the rich cities in the centre and north like Florence, Lucca, Siena, Venice and Genoa. The Bardi and Peruzzi families dominated banking in 14th-century Florence, establishing branches in many other parts of Europe.[2] One of the most famous Italian banks was the Medici Bank, set up by Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici in 1397.[3] The earliest known state deposit bank, Banco di San Giorgio (Bank of St. George), was founded in 1407 at Genoa, Italy.[4]
+
+Fractional reserve banking and the issue of banknotes emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries. Merchants started to store their gold with the goldsmiths of London, who possessed private vaults, and charged a fee for that service. In exchange for each deposit of precious metal, the goldsmiths issued receipts certifying the quantity and purity of the metal they held as a bailee; these receipts could not be assigned, only the original depositor could collect the stored goods.
+
+Gradually the goldsmiths began to lend the money out on behalf of the depositor, and promissory notes (which evolved into banknotes) were issued for money deposited as a loan to the goldsmith.[5] The goldsmith paid interest on these deposits. Since the promissory notes were payable on demand, and the advances (loans) to the goldsmith's customers were repayable over a longer time period, this was an early form of fractional reserve banking. The promissory notes developed into an assignable instrument which could circulate as a safe and convenient form of money backed by the goldsmith's promise to pay,[6] allowing goldsmiths to advance loans with little risk of default.[7] Thus, the goldsmiths of London became the forerunners of banking by creating new money based on credit.
+
+The Bank of England was the first to begin the permanent issue of banknotes, in 1695.[8] The Royal Bank of Scotland established the first overdraft facility in 1728.[9] By the beginning of the 19th century a bankers' clearing house was established in London to allow multiple banks to clear transactions. The Rothschilds pioneered international finance on a large scale, financing the purchase of the Suez canal for the British government.[10][11][12]
+
+The word  bank was taken Middle English from Middle French banque, from Spanish banca,from Old Italian banca, meaning "table", from Old High German banc, bank "bench, counter". Benches were used as makeshift desks or exchange counters during the Renaissance by Florentine bankers, who used to make their transactions atop desks covered by green tablecloths.[13][14]
+
+The definition of a bank varies from country to country. See the relevant country pages for more information.
+
+Under English common law, a banker is defined as a person who carries on the business of banking by conducting current accounts for his customers, paying cheques drawn on him/her and also collecting cheques for his/her customers.[15]
+
+In most common law jurisdictions there is a Bills of Exchange Act that codifies the law in relation to negotiable instruments, including cheques, and this Act contains a statutory definition of the term banker: banker includes a body of persons, whether incorporated or not, who carry on the business of banking' (Section 2, Interpretation). Although this definition seems circular, it is actually functional, because it ensures that the legal basis for bank transactions such as cheques does not depend on how the bank is structured or regulated.
+
+The business of banking is in many common law countries not defined by statute but by common law, the definition above. In other English common law jurisdictions there are statutory definitions of the business of banking or banking business. When looking at these definitions it is important to keep in mind that they are defining the business of banking for the purposes of the legislation, and not necessarily in general. In particular, most of the definitions are from legislation that has the purpose of regulating and supervising banks rather than regulating the actual business of banking. However, in many cases the statutory definition closely mirrors the common law one. Examples of statutory definitions:
+
+Since the advent of EFTPOS (Electronic Funds Transfer at Point Of Sale), direct credit, direct debit and internet banking, the cheque has lost its primacy in most banking systems as a payment instrument. This has led legal theorists to suggest that the cheque based definition should be broadened to include financial institutions that conduct current accounts for customers and enable customers to pay and be paid by third parties, even if they do not pay and collect cheques .[17]
+
+Banks act as payment agents by conducting checking or current accounts for customers, paying cheques drawn by customers in the bank, and collecting cheques deposited to customers' current accounts. Banks also enable customer payments via other payment methods such as Automated Clearing House (ACH), Wire transfers or telegraphic transfer, EFTPOS, and automated teller machines (ATMs).
+
+Banks borrow money by accepting funds deposited on current accounts, by accepting term deposits, and by issuing debt securities such as banknotes and bonds. Banks lend money by making advances to customers on current accounts, by making installment loans, and by investing in marketable debt securities and other forms of money lending.
+
+Banks provide different payment services, and a bank account is considered indispensable by most businesses and individuals. Non-banks that provide payment services such as remittance companies are normally not considered as an adequate substitute for a bank account.
+
+Banks can create new money when they make a loan. New loans throughout the banking system generate new deposits elsewhere in the system. The money supply is usually increased by the act of lending, and reduced when loans are repaid faster than new ones are generated. In the United Kingdom between 1997 and 2007, there was an increase in the money supply, largely caused by much more bank lending, which served to push up property prices and increase private debt. The amount of money in the economy as measured by M4 in the UK went from £750 billion to £1700 billion between 1997 and 2007, much of the increase caused by bank lending.[18] If all the banks increase their lending together, then they can expect new deposits to return to them and the amount of money in the economy will increase. Excessive or risky lending can cause borrowers to default, the banks then become more cautious, so there is less lending and therefore less money so that the economy can go from boom to bust as happened in the UK and many other Western economies after 2007.
+
+Activities undertaken by banks include personal banking, corporate banking, investment banking, private banking, transaction banking, insurance, consumer finance, foreign exchange trading, commodity trading, trading in equities, futures and options trading and money market trading.
+
+Banks offer many different channels to access their banking and other services:
+
+A bank can generate revenue in a variety of different ways including interest, transaction fees and financial advice. Traditionally, the most significant method is via charging interest on the capital it lends out to customers.[19] The bank profits from the difference between the level of interest it pays for deposits and other sources of funds, and the level of interest it charges in its lending activities.
+
+This difference is referred to as the spread between the cost of funds and the loan interest rate. Historically, profitability from lending activities has been cyclical and dependent on the needs and strengths of loan customers and the stage of the economic cycle. Fees and financial advice constitute a more stable revenue stream and banks have therefore placed more emphasis on these revenue lines to smooth their financial performance.
+
+In the past 20 years, American banks have taken many measures to ensure that they remain profitable while responding to increasingly changing market conditions.
+
+This helps in making a profit and facilitates economic development as a whole.[21]
+
+Recently, as banks have been faced with pressure from fintechs, new and additional business models have been suggested such as freemium, monetization of data, white-labeling of banking and payment applications, or the cross-selling of complementary products.[22]
+
+Banks face a number of risks in order to conduct their business, and how well these risks are managed and understood is a key driver behind profitability, and how much capital a bank is required to hold. Bank capital consists principally of equity, retained earnings and subordinated debt.
+
+After the 2007-2009 financial crisis, regulators force banks to issue Contingent convertible bonds (CoCos).These are hybrid capital securities that absorb losses in accordance with their contractual terms when the capital of the issuing bank falls below a certain level. Then debt is reduced and bank capitalization gets a boost. Owing to their capacity to absorb losses, CoCos have the potential to satisfy regulatory capital requirement.[23][24]
+
+Some of the main risks faced by banks include:
+
+The capital requirement is a bank regulation, which sets a framework within which a bank or depository institution must manage its balance sheet. The categorization of assets and capital is highly standardized so that it can be risk weighted.
+
+The economic functions of banks include:
+
+Banks are susceptible to many forms of risk which have triggered occasional systemic crises.[27] These include liquidity risk (where many depositors may request withdrawals in excess of available funds), credit risk (the chance that those who owe money to the bank will not repay it), and interest rate risk (the possibility that the bank will become unprofitable, if rising interest rates force it to pay relatively more on its deposits than it receives on its loans).
+
+Banking crises have developed many times throughout history when one or more risks have emerged for a banking sector as a whole. Prominent examples include the bank run that occurred during the Great Depression, the U.S. Savings and Loan crisis in the 1980s and early 1990s, the Japanese banking crisis during the 1990s, and the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the 2000s.
+
+Assets of the largest 1,000 banks in the world grew by 6.8% in the 2008/2009 financial year to a record US$96.4 trillion while profits declined by 85% to US$115 billion. Growth in assets in adverse market conditions was largely a result of recapitalization. EU banks held the largest share of the total, 56% in 2008/2009, down from 61% in the previous year. Asian banks' share increased from 12% to 14% during the year, while the share of US banks increased from 11% to 13%. Fee revenue generated by global investment banking totalled US$66.3 billion in 2009, up 12% on the previous year.[28]
+
+The United States has the most banks in the world in terms of institutions (5,330 as of 2015) and possibly branches (81,607 as of 2015).[29] This is an indicator of the geography and regulatory structure of the US, resulting in a large number of small to medium-sized institutions in its banking system. As of November 2009, China's top 4 banks have in excess of 67,000 branches (ICBC:18000+, BOC:12000+, CCB:13000+, ABC:24000+) with an additional 140 smaller banks with an undetermined number of branches.
+Japan had 129 banks and 12,000 branches. In 2004, Germany, France, and Italy each had more than 30,000 branches – more than double the 15,000 branches in the UK.[28]
+
+Between 1985 and 2018 banks engaged in around 28,798 mergers or acquisitions, either as the acquirer or the target company. The overall known value of these deals cumulates to around 5,169 bil. USD.[30] In terms of value, there have been two major waves (1999 and 2007) which both peaked at around 460 bil. USD followed by a steep decline (-82% from 2007 until 2018).
+
+Here is a list of the largest deals in history in terms of value with participation from at least one bank:
+
+Currently, commercial banks are regulated in most jurisdictions by government entities and require a special bank license to operate.
+
+Usually, the definition of the business of banking for the purposes of regulation is extended to include acceptance of deposits, even if they are not repayable to the customer's order – although money lending, by itself, is generally not included in the definition.
+
+Unlike most other regulated industries, the regulator is typically also a participant in the market, being either a publicly or privately governed central bank. Central banks also typically have a monopoly on the business of issuing banknotes. However, in some countries this is not the case. In the UK, for example, the Financial Services Authority licenses banks, and some commercial banks (such as the Bank of Scotland) issue their own banknotes in addition to those issued by the Bank of England, the UK government's central bank.
+
+Banking law is based on a contractual analysis of the relationship between the bank (defined above) and the customer – defined as any entity for which the bank agrees to conduct an account.
+
+The law implies rights and obligations into this relationship as follows:
+
+These implied contractual terms may be modified by express agreement between the customer and the bank. The statutes and regulations in force within a particular jurisdiction may also modify the above terms and/or create new rights, obligations or limitations relevant to the bank-customer relationship.
+
+Some types of financial institution, such as building societies and credit unions, may be partly or wholly exempt from bank license requirements, and therefore regulated under separate rules.
+
+The requirements for the issue of a bank license vary between jurisdictions but typically include:
+
+Banks' activities can be divided into:
+
+Most banks are profit-making, private enterprises. However, some are owned by government, or are non-profit organizations.
+
+The United States banking industry is one of the most heavily regulated and guarded in the world,[33] with multiple specialized and focused regulators. All banks with FDIC-insured deposits have the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as a regulator. However, for soundness examinations (i.e., whether a bank is operating in a sound manner), the Federal Reserve is the primary federal regulator for Fed-member state banks; the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) is the primary federal regulator for national banks. State non-member banks are examined by the state agencies as well as the FDIC. National banks have one primary regulator – the OCC.
+
+Each regulatory agency has their own set of rules and regulations to which banks and thrifts must adhere.
+The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) was established in 1979 as a formal inter-agency body empowered to prescribe uniform principles, standards, and report forms for the federal examination of financial institutions. Although the FFIEC has resulted in a greater degree of regulatory consistency between the agencies, the rules and regulations are constantly changing.
+
+In addition to changing regulations, changes in the industry have led to consolidations within the Federal Reserve, FDIC, OTS, and OCC. Offices have been closed, supervisory regions have been merged, staff levels have been reduced and budgets have been cut. The remaining regulators face an increased burden with increased workload and more banks per regulator. While banks struggle to keep up with the changes in the regulatory environment, regulators struggle to manage their workload and effectively regulate their banks. The impact of these changes is that banks are receiving less hands-on assessment by the regulators, less time spent with each institution, and the potential for more problems slipping through the cracks, potentially resulting in an overall increase in bank failures across the United States.
+
+The changing economic environment has a significant impact on banks and thrifts as they struggle to effectively manage their interest rate spread in the face of low rates on loans, rate competition for deposits and the general market changes, industry trends and economic fluctuations. It has been a challenge for banks to effectively set their growth strategies with the recent economic market. A rising interest rate environment may seem to help financial institutions, but the effect of the changes on consumers and businesses is not predictable and the challenge remains for banks to grow and effectively manage the spread to generate a return to their shareholders.
+
+The management of the banks’ asset portfolios also remains a challenge in today's economic environment. Loans are a bank's primary asset category and when loan quality becomes suspect, the foundation of a bank is shaken to the core. While always an issue for banks, declining asset quality has become a big problem for financial institutions.
+
+There are several reasons for this, one of which is the lax attitude some banks have adopted because of the years of “good times.” The potential for this is exacerbated by the reduction in the regulatory oversight of banks and in some cases depth of management. Problems are more likely to go undetected, resulting in a significant impact on the bank when they are discovered. In addition, banks, like any business, struggle to cut costs and have consequently eliminated certain expenses, such as adequate employee training programs.
+
+Banks also face a host of other challenges such as ageing ownership groups. Across the country, many banks’ management teams and board of directors are ageing. Banks also face ongoing pressure by shareholders, both public and private, to achieve earnings and growth projections. Regulators place added pressure on banks to manage the various categories of risk. Banking is also an extremely competitive industry. Competing in the financial services industry has become tougher with the entrance of such players as insurance agencies, credit unions, cheque cashing services, credit card companies, etc.
+
+As a reaction, banks have developed their activities in financial instruments, through financial market operations such as brokerage and have become big players in such activities.
+
+Another major challenge is the ageing infrastructure, also called legacy IT. Backend systems were built decades ago and are incompatible to new applications. Fixing bugs and creating interfaces costs huge sums, as knowledgeable programmers become scarce.[34]
+
+To be able to provide home buyers and builders with the funds needed, banks must compete for deposits. The phenomenon of disintermediation had to dollars moving from savings accounts and into direct market instruments such as U.S. Department of Treasury obligations, agency securities, and corporate debt. One of the greatest factors in recent years in the movement of deposits was the tremendous growth of money market funds whose higher interest rates attracted consumer deposits.[35]
+
+To compete for deposits, US savings institutions offer many different types of plans:[35]
+
+Bank statements are accounting records produced by banks under the various accounting standards of the world. Under GAAP there are two kinds of accounts: debit and credit. Credit accounts are Revenue, Equity and Liabilities. Debit Accounts are Assets and Expenses. The bank credits a credit account to increase its balance, and debits a credit account to decrease its balance.[36]
+
+The customer debits his or her savings/bank (asset) account in his ledger when making a deposit (and the account is normally in debit), while the customer credits a credit card (liability) account in his ledger every time he spends money (and the account is normally in credit). When the customer reads his bank statement, the statement will show a credit to the account for deposits, and debits for withdrawals of funds. The customer with a positive balance will see this balance reflected as a credit balance on the bank statement. If the customer is overdrawn, he will have a negative balance, reflected as a debit balance on the bank statement.
+
+One source of deposits for banks is brokers who deposit large sums of money on behalf of investors through trust corporations. This money will generally go to the banks which offer the most favourable terms, often better than those offered local depositors. It is possible for a bank to engage in business with no local deposits at all, all funds being brokered deposits. Accepting a significant quantity of such deposits, or "hot money" as it is sometimes called, puts a bank in a difficult and sometimes risky position, as the funds must be lent or invested in a way that yields a return sufficient to pay the high interest being paid on the brokered deposits. This may result in risky decisions and even in eventual failure of the bank. Banks which failed during 2008 and 2009 in the United States during the global financial crisis had, on average, four times more brokered deposits as a percent of their deposits than the average bank. Such deposits, combined with risky real estate investments, factored into the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s. Regulation of brokered deposits is opposed by banks on the grounds that the practice can be a source of external funding to growing communities with insufficient local deposits.[37] There are different types of accounts: saving, recurring and current accounts.
+
+Custodial accounts are accounts in which assets are held for a third party. For example, businesses that accept custody of funds for clients prior to their conversion, return or transfer may have a custodial account at a bank for this purposes.
+
+In modern time there has been huge reductions to the barriers of global competition in the banking industry. Increases in telecommunications and other financial technologies, such as Bloomberg, have allowed banks to extend their reach all over the world, since they no longer have to be near customers to manage both their finances and their risk. The growth in cross-border activities has also increased the demand for banks that can provide various services across borders to different nationalities.
+However, despite these reductions in barriers and growth in cross-border activities, the banking industry is nowhere near as globalized as some other industries. In the US, for instance, very few banks even worry about the Riegle–Neal Act, which promotes more efficient interstate banking. In the vast majority of nations around the globe the market share for foreign owned banks is currently less than a tenth of all market shares for banks in a particular nation.
+One reason the banking industry has not been fully globalized is that it is more convenient to have local banks provide loans to small business and individuals. On the other hand, for large corporations, it is not as important in what nation the bank is in, since the corporation's financial information is available around the globe.[38]
+
+Types of institutions:
+
+
+
+Terms and concepts:
+
+
+
+Terms and concepts:
+
+
+
+Crime:
+
+Cyber Crime
+
+Lists:
+
+
+
+Banking by country
+
+
+
+Banking, Banks, and Credit Unions from UCB Libraries GovPubs
+

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+Scholastic Press (USA)
+
+Harry Potter is a series of fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The novels chronicle the lives of a young wizard, Harry Potter, and his friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The main story arc concerns Harry's struggle against Lord Voldemort, a dark wizard who intends to become immortal, overthrow the wizard governing body known as the Ministry of Magic and subjugate all wizards and Muggles (non-magical people).
+
+Since the release of the first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, on 26 June 1997, the books have found immense popularity, critical acclaim and commercial success worldwide. They have attracted a wide adult audience as well as younger readers and are often considered cornerstones of modern young adult literature.[2] As of February 2018[update], the books have sold more than 500 million copies worldwide, making them the best-selling book series in history, and have been translated into eighty languages.[3] The last four books consecutively set records as the fastest-selling books in history, with the final installment selling roughly eleven million copies in the United States within twenty-four hours of its release.
+
+The series was originally published in English by two major publishers, Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom and Scholastic Press in the United States. A play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, based on a story co-written by Rowling, premiered in London on 30 July 2016 at the Palace Theatre, and its script was published by Little, Brown. The original seven books were adapted into an eight-part namesake film series by Warner Bros. Pictures, which is the third highest-grossing film series of all time as of February 2020[update]. In 2016, the total value of the Harry Potter franchise was estimated at $25 billion,[4] making Harry Potter one of the highest-grossing media franchises of all time.
+
+A series of many genres, including fantasy, drama, coming of age, and the British school story (which includes elements of mystery, thriller, adventure, horror, and romance), the world of Harry Potter explores numerous themes and includes many cultural meanings and references.[5] According to Rowling, the main theme is death.[6] Other major themes in the series include prejudice, corruption, and madness.[7]
+
+The success of the books and films has allowed the Harry Potter franchise to expand with numerous derivative works, a travelling exhibition that premiered in Chicago in 2009, a studio tour in London that opened in 2012, a digital platform on which J. K. Rowling updates the series with new information and insight, and a pentalogy of spin-off films premiering in November 2016 with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, among many other developments. Most recently, themed attractions, collectively known as The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, have been built at several Universal Parks & Resorts amusement parks around the world.
+
+The central character in the series is Harry Potter, a boy who lives in the fictional town of Little Whinging, Surrey with his aunt, uncle, and cousin – the Dursleys – and discovers at the age of eleven that he is a wizard, though he lives in the ordinary world of non-magical people known as Muggles.[8] The wizarding world exists parallel to the Muggle world, albeit hidden and in secrecy. His magical ability is inborn, and children with such abilities are invited to attend exclusive magic schools that teach the necessary skills to succeed in the wizarding world.[9]
+
+Harry becomes a student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a wizarding academy in Scotland, and it is here where most of the events in the series take place. As Harry develops through his adolescence, he learns to overcome the problems that face him: magical, social, and emotional, including ordinary teenage challenges such as friendships, infatuation, romantic relationships, schoolwork and exams, anxiety, depression, stress, and the greater test of preparing himself for the confrontation that lies ahead in wizarding Britain's increasingly-violent second wizarding war.[10]
+
+Each novel chronicles one year in Harry's life[11] during the period from 1991 to 1998.[12] The books also contain many flashbacks, which are frequently experienced by Harry viewing the memories of other characters in a device called a Pensieve.
+
+The environment Rowling created is intimately connected to reality. The British magical community of the Harry Potter books is inspired by 1990s British culture, European folklore, classical mythology and alchemy, incorporating objects and wildlife such as magic wands, magic plants, potions, spells, flying broomsticks, centaurs and other magical creatures, and the Philosopher's Stone, beside others invented by Rowling. While the fantasy land of Narnia is an alternate universe and the Lord of the Rings' Middle-earth a mythic past, the wizarding world of Harry Potter exists parallel to the real world and contains magical versions of the ordinary elements of everyday life, with the action mostly set in Scotland (Hogwarts), the West Country, Devon, London, and Surrey in southeast England.[13] The world only accessible to wizards and magical beings comprises a fragmented collection of overlooked hidden streets, ancient pubs, lonely country manors, and secluded castles invisible to the Muggle population.[9]
+
+When the first novel of the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, opens, it is apparent that some significant event has taken place in the wizarding world – an event so very remarkable that even Muggles (non-magical people) notice signs of it. The full background to this event and Harry Potter's past is revealed gradually throughout the series. After the introductory chapter, the book leaps forward to a time shortly before Harry Potter's eleventh birthday, and it is at this point that his magical background begins to be revealed.
+
+Despite Harry's aunt and uncle's desperate prevention of Harry learning about his abilities,[14] their efforts are in vain. Harry meets a half-giant, Rubeus Hagrid, who is also his first contact with the wizarding world. Hagrid reveals himself to be the Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts as well as some of Harry's history.[14] Harry learns that, as a baby, he witnessed his parents' murder by the power-obsessed dark wizard Lord Voldemort, who subsequently attempted to kill him as well.[14] Instead, the unexpected happened: Harry survived with only a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead as a memento of the attack, and Voldemort disappeared soon afterwards, gravely weakened by his own rebounding curse.
+
+As its inadvertent saviour from Voldemort's reign of terror, Harry has become a living legend in the wizarding world. However, at the orders of the venerable and well-known wizard Albus Dumbledore, the orphaned Harry had been placed in the home of his unpleasant Muggle relatives, the Dursleys, who have kept him safe but treated him poorly, including confining him to a cupboard without meals and treating him as their servant. Hagrid then officially invites Harry to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a famous magic school in Scotland that educates young teenagers on their magical development for seven years, from age eleven to seventeen.
+
+With Hagrid's help, Harry prepares for and undertakes his first year of study at Hogwarts. As Harry begins to explore the magical world, the reader is introduced to many of the primary locations used throughout the series. Harry meets most of the main characters and gains his two closest friends: Ron Weasley, a fun-loving member of an ancient, large, happy, but poor wizarding family, and Hermione Granger, a gifted, bright, and hardworking witch of non-magical parentage.[14][15] Harry also encounters the school's potions master, Severus Snape, who displays a conspicuously deep and abiding dislike for him, the rich brat Draco Malfoy whom he quickly makes enemies with, and the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Quirinus Quirrell, who later turns out to be allied with Lord Voldemort. He also discovers a talent of flying on broomsticks and is recruited for his house's Quidditch team, a sport in the wizarding world where players fly on broomsticks. The first book concludes with Harry's second confrontation with Lord Voldemort, who, in his quest to regain a body, yearns to gain the power of the Philosopher's Stone, a substance that bestows everlasting life and turns any metal into pure gold.[14]
+
+The series continues with Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, describing Harry's second year at Hogwarts. He and his friends investigate a 50-year-old mystery that appears uncannily related to recent sinister events at the school. Ron's younger sister, Ginny Weasley, enrolls in her first year at Hogwarts, and finds an old notebook in her belongings which turns out to be the diary of a previous student, Tom Marvolo Riddle, later revealed to be Voldemort's younger self, who is bent on ridding the school of "mudbloods", a derogatory term describing wizards and witches of non-magical parentage. The memory of Tom Riddle resides inside of the diary and when Ginny begins to confide in the diary, Voldemort is able to possess her.
+
+Through the diary, Ginny acts on Voldemort's orders and unconsciously opens the "Chamber of Secrets", unleashing an ancient monster, later revealed to be a basilisk, which begins attacking students at Hogwarts. It kills those who make direct eye contact with it and petrifies those who look at it indirectly. The book also introduces a new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Gilderoy Lockhart, a highly cheerful, self-conceited wizard with a pretentious facade, later turning out to be a fraud. Harry discovers that prejudice exists in the Wizarding World through delving into the school's history, and learns that Voldemort's reign of terror was often directed at wizards and witches who were descended from Muggles.
+
+Harry also learns that his ability to speak the snake language Parseltongue is rare and often associated with the Dark Arts. When Hermione is attacked and petrified, Harry and Ron finally piece together the puzzles and unlock the Chamber of Secrets, with Harry destroying the diary for good and saving Ginny, and, as they learn later, also destroying a part of Voldemort's soul. The end of the book reveals Lucius Malfoy, Draco's father and rival of Ron and Ginny's father, to be the culprit who slipped the book into Ginny's belongings.
+
+The third novel, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, follows Harry in his third year of magical education. It is the only book in the series which does not feature Lord Voldemort in any form, only being mentioned. Instead, Harry must deal with the knowledge that he has been targeted by Sirius Black, his father's best friend, and, according to the Wizarding World, an escaped mass murderer who assisted in the murder of Harry's parents. As Harry struggles with his reaction to the dementors – dark creatures with the power to devour a human soul and feed on despair – which are ostensibly protecting the school, he reaches out to Remus Lupin, a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher who is eventually revealed to be a werewolf. Lupin teaches Harry defensive measures which are well above the level of magic generally executed by people his age. Harry comes to know that both Lupin and Black were best friends of his father and that Black was framed by their fourth friend, Peter Pettigrew, who had been hiding as Ron's pet rat, Scabbers.[16] In this book, a recurring theme throughout the series is emphasised – in every book there is a new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, none of whom lasts more than one school year.
+
+During Harry's fourth year of school (detailed in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire), Harry is unwillingly entered as a participant in the Triwizard Tournament, a dangerous yet exciting contest where three "champions", one from each participating school, must compete with each other in three tasks in order to win the Triwizard Cup. This year, Harry must compete against a witch and a wizard "champion" from overseas schools Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, as well as another Hogwarts student, causing Harry's friends to distance themselves from him.[17]
+
+Harry is guided through the tournament by their new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody, who turns out to be an impostor – one of Voldemort's supporters named Barty Crouch, Jr. in disguise, who secretly entered Harry's name into the tournament. The point at which the mystery is unravelled marks the series' shift from foreboding and uncertainty into open conflict. Voldemort's plan to have Crouch use the tournament to bring Harry to Voldemort succeeds. Although Harry manages to escape, Cedric Diggory, the other Hogwarts champion in the tournament, is killed by Peter Pettigrew and Voldemort re-enters the Wizarding World with a physical body.
+
+In the fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry must confront the newly resurfaced Voldemort. In response to Voldemort's reappearance, Dumbledore re-activates the Order of the Phoenix, a secret society which works from Sirius Black's dark family home to defeat Voldemort's minions and protect Voldemort's targets, especially Harry. Despite Harry's description of Voldemort's recent activities, the Ministry of Magic and many others in the magical world refuse to believe that Voldemort has returned. In an attempt to counter and eventually discredit Dumbledore, who along with Harry is the most prominent voice in the Wizarding World attempting to warn of Voldemort's return, the Ministry appoints Dolores Umbridge as the High Inquisitor of Hogwarts and the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. She transforms the school into a dictatorial regime and refuses to allow the students to learn ways to defend themselves against dark magic.[18]
+
+Hermione and Ron form "Dumbledore's Army", a secret study group in which Harry agrees to teach his classmates the higher-level skills of Defence Against the Dark Arts that he has learned from his previous encounters with Dark wizards. Through those lessons, Harry begins to develop a crush on the popular and attractive Cho Chang. Juggling schoolwork, Umbridge's incessant and persistent efforts to land him in trouble and the defensive lessons, Harry begins to lose sleep as he constantly receives disturbing dreams about a dark corridor in the Ministry of Magic, followed by a burning desire to learn more. An important prophecy concerning Harry and Lord Voldemort is then revealed,[19] and Harry discovers that he and Voldemort have a painful connection, allowing Harry to view some of Voldemort's actions telepathically. In the novel's climax, Harry is tricked into seeing Sirius tortured and races to the Ministry of Magic. He and his friends face off against Voldemort's followers (nicknamed Death Eaters) at the Ministry of Magic. Although the timely arrival of members of the Order of the Phoenix saves the teenagers' lives, Sirius Black is killed in the conflict.
+
+In the sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Voldemort begins waging open warfare. Harry and his friends are relatively protected from that danger at Hogwarts. They are subject to all the difficulties of adolescence – Harry eventually begins dating Ginny, Ron establishes a strong infatuation with fellow Hogwarts student Lavender Brown, and Hermione starts to develop romantic feelings towards Ron. Near the beginning of the novel, lacking his own book, Harry is given an old potions textbook filled with many annotations and recommendations signed by a mysterious writer titled; "the Half-Blood Prince". This book is a source of scholastic success and great recognition from their new potions master, Horace Slughorn, but because of the potency of the spells that are written in it, becomes a source of concern.
+
+With war drawing near, Harry takes private lessons with Dumbledore, who shows him various memories concerning the early life of Voldemort in a device called a Pensieve. These reveal that in order to preserve his life, Voldemort has split his soul into pieces, used to create a series of Horcruxes – evil enchanted items hidden in various locations, one of which was the diary destroyed in the second book.[20] Draco, who has joined with the Death Eaters, attempts to attack Dumbledore upon his return from collecting a Horcrux, and the book culminates in the killing of Dumbledore by Professor Snape, the titular Half-Blood Prince.
+
+Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the last original novel in the series, begins directly after the events of the sixth book. Lord Voldemort has completed his ascension to power and gained control of the Ministry of Magic. Harry, Ron and Hermione drop out of school so that they can find and destroy Voldemort's remaining Horcruxes. To ensure their own safety as well as that of their family and friends, they are forced to isolate themselves. A ghoul pretends to be Ron ill with a contagious disease, Harry and the Dursleys separate, and Hermione wipes her parents' memories and sends them abroad.
+
+As the trio searches for the Horcruxes, they learn details about an ancient prophecy of the Deathly Hallows, three legendary items that when united under one Keeper, would supposedly allow that person to be the Master of Death. Harry discovers his handy Invisibility Cloak to be one of those items, and Voldemort to be searching for another: the Elder Wand, the most powerful wand in history. At the end of the book, Harry and his friends learn about Dumbledore's past, as well as Snape's true motives – he had worked on Dumbledore's behalf since the murder of Harry's mother. Eventually, Snape is killed by Voldemort out of paranoia.
+
+The book culminates in the Battle of Hogwarts. Harry, Ron and Hermione, in conjunction with members of the Order of the Phoenix and many of the teachers and students, defend Hogwarts from Voldemort, his Death Eaters, and various dangerous magical creatures. Several major characters are killed in the first wave of the battle, including Remus Lupin and Fred Weasley, Ron's older brother. After learning that he himself is a Horcrux, Harry surrenders himself to Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest, who casts a killing curse (Avada Kedavra) at him. The defenders of Hogwarts do not surrender after learning of Harry's presumed death and continue to fight on. Harry awakens and faces Voldemort, whose Horcruxes have all been destroyed. In the final battle, Voldemort's killing curse rebounds off Harry's defensive spell (Expelliarmus), killing Voldemort.
+
+An epilogue "Nineteen Years Later" (set on 1 September 2017)[21] describes the lives of the surviving characters and the effects of Voldemort's death on the Wizarding World. In the epilogue, Harry and Ginny are married with three children, and Ron and Hermione are married with two children.[22]
+
+Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a two-part West End stage play.[23] It was written by Jack Thorne, based on a story by J. K. Rowling, Thorne and director John Tiffany. The play opened on 30 July 2016 at the Palace Theatre, London, England. The script was released on 31 July 2016.[24] The story is set nineteen years after the ending of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and follows Harry Potter, now a Ministry of Magic employee, and his younger son Albus Severus Potter. The play's official synopsis was released on 23 October 2015:[25]
+
+It was always difficult being Harry Potter and it isn't much easier now that he is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband, and father of three school-age children.
+While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places.
+
+Rowling expanded the Harry Potter universe with several short books produced for various charities.[26][27] In 2001, she released Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (a purported Hogwarts textbook) and Quidditch Through the Ages (a book Harry reads for fun). Proceeds from the sale of these two books benefited the charity Comic Relief.[28] In 2007, Rowling composed seven handwritten copies of The Tales of Beedle the Bard, a collection of fairy tales that is featured in the final novel, one of which was auctioned to raise money for the Children's High Level Group, a fund for mentally disabled children in poor countries. The book was published internationally on 4 December 2008.[29][30] Rowling also wrote an 800-word prequel in 2008 as part of a fundraiser organised by the bookseller Waterstones.[31] All three of these books contain extra information about the wizarding world not included in the original novels.
+
+In 2016, she released three new e-books: Hogwarts: An Incomplete and Unreliable Guide, Short Stories from Hogwarts of Power, Politics and Pesky Poltergeists
+and Short Stories from Hogwarts of Heroism, Hardship and Dangerous Hobbies.[32]
+
+In 2011, Rowling launched a new website announcing an upcoming project called Pottermore.[33] Pottermore opened to the general public on 14 April 2012.[34] Pottermore allows users to be sorted, be chosen by their wand and play various minigames. The main purpose of the website was to allow the user to journey through the story with access to content not revealed by JK Rowling previously, with over 18,000 words of additional content.[35]
+
+In September 2015, the website was completely overhauled and most of the features were removed. The site has been redesigned and it mainly focuses on the information already available, rather than exploration.[36]
+
+The Harry Potter novels are mainly directed at a young adult audience as opposed to an audience of middle grade readers, children, or adults. The novels fall within the genre of fantasy literature, and qualify as a type of fantasy called "urban fantasy", "contemporary fantasy", or "low fantasy". They are mainly dramas, and maintain a fairly serious and dark tone throughout, though they do contain some notable instances of tragicomedy and black humour. In many respects, they are also examples of the bildungsroman, or coming of age novel,[37] and contain elements of mystery, adventure, horror, thriller, and romance. The books are also, in the words of Stephen King, "shrewd mystery tales",[38] and each book is constructed in the manner of a Sherlock Holmes-style mystery adventure. The stories are told from a third person limited point of view with very few exceptions (such as the opening chapters of Philosopher's Stone, Goblet of Fire and Deathly Hallows and the first two chapters of Half-Blood Prince).
+
+The series can be considered part of the British children's boarding school genre, which includes Rudyard Kipling's Stalky & Co., Enid Blyton's Malory Towers, St. Clare's and the Naughtiest Girl series, and Frank Richards's Billy Bunter novels: the Harry Potter books are predominantly set in Hogwarts, a fictional British boarding school for wizards, where the curriculum includes the use of magic.[39] In this sense they are "in a direct line of descent from Thomas Hughes's Tom Brown's School Days and other Victorian and Edwardian novels of British public school life", though they are, as many note, more contemporary, grittier, darker, and more mature than the typical boarding school novel, addressing serious themes of death, love, loss, prejudice, coming-of-age, and the loss of innocence in a 1990s British setting.[40][41]
+
+The Harry Potter stories feature medieval imagery and motifs drawn from the King Arthur stories. Hogwarts resembles a medieval university-cum-castle with several professors who belonging to an Order of Merlin; Old Professor Binns still lectures about the International Warlock Convention of 1289; and a real historical person, a 14th-century scribe, Sir Nicolas Flamel, is described as a holder of the Philosopher's Stone.[42] Other medieval elements in Hogwarts include coats-of-arms and medieval weapons on the walls, letters written on parchment and sealed with wax, the Great Hall of Hogwarts which is similar to the Great Hall of Camelot, the use of Latin phrases, the tents put up for Quidditch tournaments are similar to the "marvellous tents" put up for knightly tournaments, imaginary animals like dragons and unicorns which exist around Hogwarts, and the banners with heraldic animals for the four Houses of Hogwarts.[42]
+
+Many of the motifs of the Potter stories such as the hero's quest invoking objects that confer invisibility, magical animals and trees, a forest full of danger and the recognition of a character based upon scars are drawn from medieval French Arthurian romances.[42] Other aspects borrowed from French Arthurian romances include the use of owls as messengers, werewolves as characters, and white deer.[42] The American scholars Heather Arden and Kathrn Lorenz in particular argue that many aspects of the Potter stories are inspired by a 14th-century French Arthurian romance, Claris et Laris, writing of the "startling" similarities between the adventures of Potter and the knight Claris.[42] Arden and Lorenz noted that Rowling graduated from the University of Exeter in 1986 with a degree in French literature and spent a year living in France afterwards.[42]
+
+Arnden and Lorenz wrote about the similarity between the Arthurian romances, where Camelot is a place of wonder and safety, and from where the heroic knights must venture forth facing various perils, usually in an enchanted forest; and Hogwarts, likewise a wondrous safe place, where Harry Potter and friends must periodically venture forth from to the magical forest that surrounds Hogwarts.[42] In the same way that knights in the Arthurian romances usually have a female helper, who is very intelligent and has a connection with nature, Harry has Hermione who plays a similar role.[42]
+
+Like an Arthurian knight, Harry receives advice and encouragement from his mentor, Albus Dumbledore, who resembles both Merlin and King Arthur, but must vanquish his foes alone.[42] Arnden and Lorenz wrote that with Rowling's books, the characters are "...not a simple reworking of the well-known heroes of romance, but a protean melding of different characters to form new ones...".[42] However, Lorenz and Arnden argue the main inspiration for Harry Potter was Sir Percival, one of the Knights of the Round Table who searches for the Holy Grail.[42] Both Potter and Sir Percival had an "orphaned or semi-orphaned youth, with inherent nobility and powers", being raised by relatives who tried to keep them away from the places where they really belong, Hogwarts and Camelot respectively.[42]
+
+Both Percival and Potter are however outsiders in the places that they belong, unfamiliar with the rules of knighthood and magic, but both show extraordinary natural abilities with Percival proving himself an exceptional fighter while Potter is an excellent player of Quidditch.[42] And finally, both Percival and Potter found love and acceptance from surrogate families, in the form of the Knights of the Round Table and the Weasley family respectively.[42]
+
+Each of the seven books is set over the course of one school year. Harry struggles with the problems he encounters, and dealing with them often involves the need to violate some school rules. If students are caught breaking rules, they are often disciplined by Hogwarts professors. The stories reach their climax in the summer term, near or just after final exams, when events escalate far beyond in-school squabbles and struggles, and Harry must confront either Voldemort or one of his followers, the Death Eaters, with the stakes a matter of life and death – a point underlined, as the series progresses, by characters being killed in each of the final four books.[43][44] In the aftermath, he learns important lessons through exposition and discussions with head teacher and mentor Albus Dumbledore. The only exception to this school-centred setting is the final novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, in which Harry and his friends spend most of their time away from Hogwarts, and only return there to face Voldemort at the dénouement.[43]
+
+According to Rowling, a major theme in the series is death: "My books are largely about death. They open with the death of Harry's parents. There is Voldemort's obsession with conquering death and his quest for immortality at any price, the goal of anyone with magic. I so understand why Voldemort wants to conquer death. We're all frightened of it."[6]
+
+Rowling stated that "Harry Potter books have always, in fact, dealt explicitly with religious themes and questions" and that she did not reveal its Christian parallels in the beginning because doing so would have "give[n] too much away to fans who might then see the parallels".[45] In the final book of the series Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Rowling makes the book's Christian imagery more explicit, quoting both Matthew 6:21 and 1 Corinthians 15:26 (King James Version) when Harry visits his parents' graves.[45]
+
+Hermione Granger teaches Harry Potter that the meaning of these verses from the Christian Bible are "living beyond death. Living after death", which Rowling states is "one of the central foundations of resurrection theology" and that these bible verses "epitomize the whole series".[45][46][47] Rowling also exhibits Christian values in developing Albus Dumbledore as a God-like character, the divine, trusted leader of the series, guiding the long-suffering hero along his quest. In the seventh novel, Harry speaks with and questions the deceased Dumbledore much like a person of faith would talk to and question God.[48]
+
+Academics and journalists have developed many other interpretations of themes in the books, some more complex than others, and some including political subtexts. Themes such as normality, oppression, survival, and overcoming imposing odds have all been considered as prevalent throughout the series.[49] Similarly, the theme of making one's way through adolescence and "going over one's most harrowing ordeals – and thus coming to terms with them" has also been considered.[50] Rowling has stated that the books comprise "a prolonged argument for tolerance, a prolonged plea for an end to bigotry" and that they also pass on a message to "question authority and... not assume that the establishment or the press tells you all of the truth".[51]
+
+While the books could be said to comprise many other themes, such as power/abuse of power, violence and hatred, love, loss, prejudice, and free choice, they are, as Rowling states, "deeply entrenched in the whole plot"; the writer prefers to let themes "grow organically", rather than sitting down and consciously attempting to impart such ideas to her readers.[7] Along the same lines is the ever-present theme of adolescence, in whose depiction Rowling has been purposeful in acknowledging her characters' sexualities and not leaving Harry, as she put it, "stuck in a state of permanent pre-pubescence". Rowling has also been praised for her nuanced depiction of the ways in which death and violence affects youth, and humanity as a whole.[52]
+
+Rowling said that, to her, the moral significance of the tales seems "blindingly obvious". The key for her was the choice between what is right and what is easy, "because that ... is how tyranny is started, with people being apathetic and taking the easy route and suddenly finding themselves in deep trouble."[53]
+
+In 1990, Rowling was on a crowded train from Manchester to London when the idea for Harry suddenly "fell into her head". Rowling gives an account of the experience on her website saying:[54]
+
+"I had been writing almost continuously since the age of six but I had never been so excited about an idea before. I simply sat and thought, for four (delayed train) hours, and all the details bubbled up in my brain, and this scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who did not know he was a wizard became more and more real to me."
+
+Rowling completed Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in 1995 and the manuscript was sent off to several prospective agents.[55] The second agent she tried, Christopher Little, offered to represent her and sent the manuscript to Bloomsbury.
+
+After eight other publishers had rejected Philosopher's Stone, Bloomsbury offered Rowling a £2,500 advance for its publication.[57][58] Despite Rowling's statement that she did not have any particular age group in mind when beginning to write the Harry Potter books, the publishers initially targeted children aged nine to eleven.[59] On the eve of publishing, Rowling was asked by her publishers to adopt a more gender-neutral pen name in order to appeal to the male members of this age group, fearing that they would not be interested in reading a novel they knew to be written by a woman. She elected to use J. K. Rowling (Joanne Kathleen Rowling), using her grandmother's name as her second name because she has no middle name.[58][60]
+
+Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was published by Bloomsbury, the publisher of all Harry Potter books in the United Kingdom, on 26 June 1997.[61] It was released in the United States on 1 September 1998 by Scholastic – the American publisher of the books – as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone,[62] after Rowling had received US$105,000 for the American rights – a record amount for a children's book by an unknown author.[63] Fearing that American readers would not associate the word "philosopher" with magic (although the Philosopher's Stone is an ancient tradition in alchemy), Scholastic insisted that the book be given the title Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for the American market.[64]
+
+The second book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, was originally published in the UK on 2 July 1998 and in the US on 2 June 1999. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was published a year later in the UK on 8 July 1999 and in the US on 8 September 1999.[65] Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was published on 8 July 2000 at the same time by Bloomsbury and Scholastic.[66] 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.[67] It was published worldwide in English on 21 June 2003.[68] Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was published on 16 July 2005; it sold 9 million copies in the first 24 hours of its worldwide release.[69][70] The seventh and final novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was published on 21 July 2007.[71] The book sold 11 million copies in the first 24 hours of release, breaking down to 2.7 million copies in the UK and 8.3 million in the US.[70]
+
+The series has been translated into 80 languages,[3] placing Rowling among the most translated authors in history.[72] The books have seen translations to diverse languages such as Korean, Armenian, Ukrainian, Arabic, Urdu, Hindi, Bengali, Bulgarian, Welsh, Afrikaans, Albanian, Latvian, Vietnamese and Hawaiian. The first volume has been translated into Latin and even Ancient Greek,[73] making it the longest published work in Ancient Greek since the novels of Heliodorus of Emesa in the 3rd century AD.[74] The second volume has also been translated into Latin.[75]
+
+Some of the translators hired to work on the books were well-known authors before their work on Harry Potter, such as Viktor Golyshev, who oversaw the Russian translation of the series' fifth book. The Turkish translation of books two to seven was undertaken by Sevin Okyay, a popular literary critic and cultural commentator.[76] For reasons of secrecy, translation on a given book could only start after it had been released in English, leading to a lag of several months before the translations were available. This led to more and more copies of the English editions being sold to impatient fans in non-English speaking countries; for example, such was the clamour to read the fifth book that its English language edition became the first English-language book ever to top the best-seller list in France.[77]
+
+The United States editions were adapted into American English to make them more understandable to a young American audience.[78]
+
+In December 2005, Rowling stated on her web site, "2006 will be the year when I write the final book in the Harry Potter series."[79] Updates then followed in her online diary chronicling the progress of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, with the release date of 21 July 2007. The book itself was finished on 11 January 2007 in the Balmoral Hotel, Edinburgh, where she scrawled a message on the back of a bust of Hermes. It read: "J. K. Rowling finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in this room (552) on 11 January 2007."[80]
+
+Rowling herself has stated that the last chapter of the final book (in fact, the epilogue) was completed "in something like 1990".[81][82] In June 2006, Rowling, on an appearance on the British talk show Richard & Judy, announced that the chapter had been modified as one character "got a reprieve" and two others who previously survived the story had in fact been killed. On 28 March 2007, the cover art for the Bloomsbury Adult and Child versions and the Scholastic version were released.[83][84]
+
+In September 2012, Rowling mentioned in an interview that she might go back to make a "director's cut" of two of the existing Harry Potter books.[85]
+
+For cover art, Bloomsbury chose painted art in a classic style of design, with the first cover a watercolour and pencil drawing by illustrator Thomas Taylor showing Harry boarding the Hogwarts Express, and a title in the font Cochin Bold.[86] The first releases of the successive books in the series followed in the same style but somewhat more realistic, illustrating scenes from the books. These covers were created by first Cliff Wright and then Jason Cockroft.[87]
+
+Due to the appeal of the books among an adult audience, Bloomsbury commissioned a second line of editions in an 'adult' style. These initially used black-and-white photographic art for the covers showing objects from the books (including a very American Hogwarts Express) without depicting people, but later shifted to partial colourisation with a picture of Slytherin's locket on the cover of the final book.
+
+International and later editions have been created by a range of designers, including Mary GrandPré for U.S. audiences and Mika Launis in Finland.[88][89] For a later American release, Kazu Kibuishi created covers in a somewhat anime-influenced style.[90][91]
+
+Fans of the series were so eager for the latest instalment that bookstores around the world began holding events to coincide with the midnight release of the books, beginning with the 2000 publication of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The events, commonly featuring mock sorting, games, face painting, and other live entertainment have achieved popularity with Potter fans and have been highly successful in attracting fans and selling books with nearly nine million of the 10.8 million initial print copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince sold in the first 24 hours.[92][93]
+
+The final book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows became the fastest selling book in history, moving 11 million units in the first twenty-four hours of release.[94] The series has also gathered adult fans, leading to the release of two editions of each Harry Potter book, identical in text but with one edition's cover artwork aimed at children and the other aimed at adults.[95] Besides meeting online through blogs, podcasts, and fansites, Harry Potter super-fans can also meet at Harry Potter symposia.
+
+The word Muggle has spread beyond its Harry Potter origins, becoming one of few pop culture words to land in the Oxford English Dictionary.[96] The Harry Potter fandom has embraced podcasts as a regular, often weekly, insight to the latest discussion in the fandom. Both MuggleCast and PotterCast[97] have reached the top spot of iTunes podcast rankings and have been polled one of the top 50 favourite podcasts.[98]
+
+Some lessons identified in the series include diversity, acceptance, political tolerance, and equality. Surveys of over 1,000 college students in the United States show that those who read the books were significantly different from those who had not. Readers of the series were found to be more tolerant, more opposed to violence and torture, less authoritarian, and less cynical. Although it is not known if this is a cause-and-effect relationship, there is a clear correlation, and it seems that Harry Potter's cultural impact may be stronger than just a fandom bond.[99]
+
+Many fan fiction and fan art works about Harry Potter have been made. In March 2007, "Harry Potter" was the most commonly searched fan fiction subject on the internet.[100] At the University of Michigan in 2009, StarKid Productions performed an original musical parodying the Harry Potter series called A Very Potter Musical. The musical was awarded Entertainment Weekly's 10 Best Viral Videos of 2009.[101]
+
+The sport Quidditch, played by characters in the Harry Potter series, was created in 2005 and is played worldwide including at universities such as Harvard University, Yale University, and Washington University in St. Louis.[102][103][104][105] Characters and elements from the series have inspired scientific names of several organisms, including the dinosaur Dracorex hogwartsia, the spider Eriovixia gryffindori, the wasp Ampulex dementor, and the crab Harryplax severus.[106]
+
+The popularity of the Harry Potter series has translated into substantial financial success for Rowling, her publishers, and other Harry Potter related license holders. This success has made Rowling the first and thus far only billionaire author.[107] The books have sold more than 500 million copies worldwide and have also given rise to the popular film adaptations produced by Warner Bros., all of which have been highly successful in their own right.[108][109] The films have in turn spawned eight video games and have led to the licensing of more than 400 additional Harry Potter products. The Harry Potter brand has been estimated to be worth as much as $25 billion.[4]
+
+The great demand for Harry Potter books motivated The New York Times to create a separate best-seller list for children's literature in 2000, just before the release of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. By 24 June 2000, Rowling's novels had been on the list for 79 straight weeks; the first three novels were each on the hardcover best-seller list.[110] On 12 April 2007, Barnes & Noble declared that Deathly Hallows had broken its pre-order record, with more than 500,000 copies pre-ordered through its site.[111] For the release of Goblet of Fire, 9,000 FedEx trucks were used with no other purpose than to deliver the book.[112]
+
+Together, Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble pre-sold more than 700,000 copies of the book.[112] In the United States, the book's initial printing run was 3.8 million copies.[112] This record statistic was broken by Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, with 8.5 million, which was then shattered by Half-Blood Prince with 10.8 million copies.[113] 6.9 million copies of Prince were sold in the U.S. within the first 24 hours of its release; in the United Kingdom more than two million copies were sold on the first day.[114] The initial U.S. print run for Deathly Hallows was 12 million copies, and more than a million were pre-ordered through Amazon and Barnes & Noble.[115]
+
+The Harry Potter series has been recognised by a host of awards since the initial publication of Philosopher's Stone including four Whitaker Platinum Book Awards (all of which were awarded in 2001),[116] three Nestlé Smarties Book Prizes (1997–1999),[117] two Scottish Arts Council Book Awards (1999 and 2001),[118] the inaugural Whitbread children's book of the year award (1999),[119] the WHSmith book of the year (2006),[120] among others. In 2000, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Novel, and in 2001, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire won said award.[121] Honours include a commendation for the Carnegie Medal (1997),[122] a short listing for the Guardian Children's Award (1998), and numerous listings on the notable books, editors' Choices, and best books lists of the American Library Association, The New York Times, Chicago Public Library, and Publishers Weekly.[123]
+
+In 2002, sociologist Andrew Blake named Harry Potter a British pop culture icon along with the likes of James Bond and Sherlock Holmes.[124] In 2003, four of the books were named in the top 24 of the BBC's The Big Read survey of the best loved novels in the UK.[125] A 2004 study found that books in the series were commonly read aloud in elementary schools in San Diego County, California.[126] Based on a 2007 online poll, the U.S. National Education Association listed the series in its "Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children".[127] Three of the books placed among the "Top 100 Chapter Books" of all time, or children's novels, in a 2012 survey published by School Library Journal: Sorcerer's Stone ranked number three, Prisoner of Azkaban 12th, and Goblet of Fire 98th.[128] In 2012, the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London featured a 100-foot tall rendition of Lord Voldemort in a segment designed to show off the UK's cultural icons.[129] In November 2019, the BBC listed the Harry Potter series on its list of the 100 most influential novels.[130]
+
+Early in its history, Harry Potter received positive reviews. On publication, the first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, attracted attention from the Scottish newspapers, such as The Scotsman, which said it had "all the makings of a classic,"[131] and The Glasgow Herald, which called it "Magic stuff".[131] Soon the English newspapers joined in, with more than one comparing it to Roald Dahl's work: The Mail on Sunday rated it as "the most imaginative debut since Roald Dahl",[131] a view echoed by The Sunday Times ("comparisons to Dahl are, this time, justified"),[131] while The Guardian called it "a richly textured novel given lift-off by an inventive wit".[131]
+
+By the time of the release of the fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the books began to receive strong criticism from a number of literary scholars. Yale professor, literary scholar, and critic Harold Bloom raised criticisms of the books' literary merits, saying, "Rowling's mind is so governed by clichés and dead metaphors that she has no other style of writing."[132] A. S. Byatt authored an op-ed article in The New York Times calling Rowling's universe a "secondary secondary world, made up of intelligently patchworked derivative motifs from all sorts of children's literature ... written for people whose imaginative lives are confined to TV cartoons, and the exaggerated (more exciting, not threatening) mirror-worlds of soaps, reality TV and celebrity gossip."[133]
+
+Michael Rosen, a novelist and poet, advocated the books were not suited for children, as they would be unable to grasp the complex themes. Rosen also stated that "J. K. Rowling is more of an adult writer."[134] The critic Anthony Holden wrote in The Observer on his experience of judging Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban for the 1999 Whitbread Awards. His overall view of the series was negative – "the Potter saga was essentially patronising, conservative, highly derivative, dispiritingly nostalgic for a bygone Britain," and he speaks of "a pedestrian, ungrammatical prose style."[135] Ursula K. Le Guin said, "I have no great opinion of it. When so many adult critics were carrying on about the 'incredible originality' of the first Harry Potter book, I read it to find out what the fuss was about, and remained somewhat puzzled; it seemed a lively kid's fantasy crossed with a 'school novel,' good fare for its age group, but stylistically ordinary, imaginatively derivative, and ethically rather mean-spirited."[136]
+
+By contrast, author Fay Weldon, while admitting that the series is "not what the poets hoped for," nevertheless goes on to say, "but this is not poetry, it is readable, saleable, everyday, useful prose."[137] The literary critic A. N. Wilson praised the Harry Potter series in The Times, stating, "There are not many writers who have JK's Dickensian ability to make us turn the pages, to weep – openly, with tears splashing – and a few pages later to laugh, at invariably good jokes ... We have lived through a decade in which we have followed the publication of the liveliest, funniest, scariest and most moving children's stories ever written."[138]
+
+Charles Taylor of Salon.com, who is primarily a movie critic,[139] took issue with Byatt's criticisms in particular. While he conceded that she may have "a valid cultural point – a teeny one – about the impulses that drive us to reassuring pop trash and away from the troubling complexities of art,"[140] he rejected her claims that the series is lacking in serious literary merit and that it owes its success merely to the childhood reassurances it offers. Taylor stressed the progressively darker tone of the books, shown by the murder of a classmate and close friend and the psychological wounds and social isolation each causes. Taylor also argued that Philosopher's Stone, said to be the most light-hearted of the seven published books, disrupts the childhood reassurances that Byatt claims spur the series' success: the book opens with news of a double murder, for example.[140]
+
+Stephen King called the series "a feat of which only a superior imagination is capable," and declared "Rowling's punning, one-eyebrow-cocked sense of humor" to be "remarkable". However, he wrote that despite the story being "a good one," he is "a little tired of discovering Harry at home with his horrible aunt and uncle," the formulaic beginning of all seven books.[38] King has also joked that "Rowling's never met an adverb she did not like!" He does however predict that Harry Potter "will indeed stand time's test and wind up on a shelf where only the best are kept; I think Harry will take his place with Alice, Huck, Frodo, and Dorothy and this is one series not just for the decade, but for the ages."[141]
+
+Sameer Rahim of The Daily Telegraph disagreed, saying "It depresses me to see 16- and 17-year-olds reading the series when they could be reading the great novels of childhood such as Oliver Twist or A House for Mr Biswas. What that says about the adults who are fanatical fans I'm not sure – but I suspect in years to come people will make a link between our plump, comfortable, infantilising society and the popularity of Potter."[142]
+
+There is ongoing discussion regarding the extent to which the series was inspired by Tolkien's Lord of the Rings books.[143]
+
+Although Time magazine named Rowling as a runner-up for its 2007 Person of the Year award, noting the social, moral, and political inspiration she has given her fandom,[144] cultural comments on the series have been mixed. The Washington Post book critic Ron Charles opined in July 2007 that the large numbers of adults reading the Potter series but few other books may represent a "bad case of cultural infantilism", and that the straightforward "good vs. evil" theme of the series is "childish". He also argued "through no fault of Rowling's", the cultural and marketing "hysteria" marked by the publication of the later books "trains children and adults to expect the roar of the coliseum, a mass-media experience that no other novel can possibly provide".[145]
+
+Librarian Nancy Knapp pointed out the books' potential to improve literacy by motivating children to read much more than they otherwise would.[146] The seven-book series has a word count of 1,083,594 (US edition). Agreeing about the motivating effects, Diane Penrod also praised the books' blending of simple entertainment with "the qualities of highbrow literary fiction", but expressed concern about the distracting effect of the prolific merchandising that accompanies the book launches.[147] However, the assumption that Harry Potter books have increased literacy among young people is "largely a folk legend".[148]
+
+Research by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has found no increase in reading among children coinciding with the Harry Potter publishing phenomenon, nor has the broader downward trend in reading among Americans been arrested during the rise in the popularity of the Harry Potter books.[148][149] The research also found that children who read Harry Potter books were not more likely to go on to read outside the fantasy and mystery genres.[148] NEA chairman Dana Gioia said the series, "got millions of kids to read a long and reasonably complex series of books. The trouble is that one Harry Potter novel every few years is not enough to reverse the decline in reading."[150]
+
+Jennifer Conn used Snape's and Quidditch coach Madam Hooch's teaching methods as examples of what to avoid and what to emulate in clinical teaching,[151] and 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".[152]
+
+From the early 2000s onwards several news reports appeared in the UK of the Harry Potter book and movie series driving demand for pet owls[153] and even reports that after the end of the movie series these same pet owls were now being abandoned by their owners.[154] This led J. K. Rowling to issue several statements urging Harry Potter fans to refrain from purchasing pet owls.[155] Despite the media flurry, research into the popularity of Harry Potter and sales of owls in the UK failed to find any evidence that the Harry Potter franchise had influenced the buying of owls in the country or the number of owls reaching animal shelters and sanctuaries.[156]
+
+Jenny Sawyer wrote in The Christian Science Monitor on 25 July 2007 that the books represent a "disturbing trend in commercial storytelling and Western society" in that stories' "moral center [sic] have all but vanished from much of today's pop culture ... after 10 years, 4,195 pages, and over 375 million copies, J. K. Rowling's towering achievement lacks the cornerstone of almost all great children's literature: the hero's moral journey". Harry Potter, Sawyer argues, neither faces a "moral struggle" nor undergoes any ethical growth, and is thus "no guide in circumstances in which right and wrong are anything less than black and white".[157] In contrast Emily Griesinger described Harry's first passage through to Platform ​9 3⁄4 as an application of faith and hope, and his encounter with the Sorting Hat as the first of many in which Harry is shaped by the choices he makes. She also noted the "deeper magic" by which the self-sacrifice of Harry's mother protects the boy throughout the series, and which the power-hungry Voldemort fails to understand.[158]
+
+In an 8 November 2002 Slate article, Chris Suellentrop likened Potter to a "trust-fund kid whose success at school is largely attributable to the gifts his friends and relatives lavish upon him". Noting that in Rowling's fiction, magical ability potential is "something you are born to, not something you can achieve", Suellentrop wrote that Dumbledore's maxim that "It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities" is hypocritical, as "the school that Dumbledore runs values native gifts above all else".[159] In a 12 August 2007, review of Deathly Hallows in The New York Times, however, Christopher Hitchens praised Rowling for "unmooring" her "English school story" from literary precedents "bound up with dreams of wealth and class and snobbery", arguing that she had instead created "a world of youthful democracy and diversity".[160]
+
+In 2010, coinciding with the release of the film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, a series of articles were written about Private Harry Potter of the British army.[161] This real-life Harry Potter was killed in the Arab Revolt near Hebron in 1939. His grave, located in the British cemetery in Ramla, Israel, began to receive curious visitors leading the Ramla Municipality to list it on their website.[162]
+
+In 2016, an article written by Diana C. Mutz compares the politics of Harry Potter to the 2016 Donald Trump presidential campaign. She states that 3 themes throughout the books are widely predominant '1) the value of tolerance and respect for difference; 2) opposition to violence and punitiveness; and 3) the dangers of authoritarianism.' She suggests that these themes are also present in the presidential election and it may play a significant role in how Americans have responded to the campaign.[163]
+
+The books have been the subject of a number of legal proceedings, stemming from various conflicts over copyright and trademark infringements. The popularity and high market value of the series has led Rowling, her publishers, and film distributor Warner Bros. to take legal measures to protect their copyright, which have included banning the sale of Harry Potter imitations, targeting the owners of websites over the "Harry Potter" domain name, and suing author Nancy Stouffer to counter her accusations that Rowling had plagiarised her work.[164][165][166] Various religious fundamentalists have claimed that the books promote witchcraft and religions such as Wicca and are therefore unsuitable for children,[167][168][169] while a number of critics have criticised the books for promoting various political agendas.[170][171]
+
+The books also aroused controversies in the literary and publishing worlds. From 1997 to 1998, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone won almost all the UK awards judged by children, but none of the children's book awards judged by adults,[172] and Sandra Beckett suggested the reason was intellectual snobbery towards books that were popular among children.[173] In 1999, the winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year award children's division was entered for the first time on the shortlist for the main award, and one judge threatened to resign if Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was declared the overall winner; it finished second, very close behind the winner of the poetry prize, Seamus Heaney's translation of the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf.[173]
+
+In 2000, shortly before the publication of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the previous three Harry Potter books topped The New York Times fiction best-seller list and a third of the entries were children's books. The newspaper created a new children's section covering children's books, including both fiction and non-fiction, and initially counting only hardback sales. The move was supported by publishers and booksellers.[110] In 2004, The New York Times further split the children's list, which was still dominated by Harry Potter books into sections for series and individual books, and removed the Harry Potter books from the section for individual books.[174] The split in 2000 attracted condemnation, praise and some comments that presented both benefits and disadvantages of the move.[175] Time suggested that, on the same principle, Billboard should have created a separate "mop-tops" list in 1964 when the Beatles held the top five places in its list, and Nielsen should have created a separate game-show list when Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? dominated the ratings.[176]
+
+In 1998, Rowling sold the film rights of the first four Harry Potter books to Warner Bros. for a reported £1 million ($1,982,900).[177][178] Rowling demanded the principal cast be kept strictly British, nonetheless allowing for the inclusion of Irish actors such as the late Richard Harris as Dumbledore, and for casting of French and Eastern European actors in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire where characters from the book are specified as such.[179] After many directors including Steven Spielberg, Terry Gilliam, Jonathan Demme, and Alan Parker were considered, Chris Columbus was appointed on 28 March 2000 as the director for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (titled "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" in the United States), with Warner Bros. citing his work on other family films such as Home Alone and Mrs. Doubtfire and proven experience with directing children as influences for their decision.[180]
+
+After extensive casting, filming began in October 2000 at Leavesden Film Studios and in London itself, with production ending in July 2001.[181][182] Philosopher's Stone was released on 14 November 2001. Just three days after the film's release, production for Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, also directed by Columbus, began. Filming was completed in summer 2002, with the film being released on 15 November 2002.[183] Daniel Radcliffe portrayed Harry Potter, doing so for all succeeding films in the franchise.
+
+Columbus declined to direct Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, only acting as producer. Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón took over the job, and after shooting in 2003, the film was released on 4 June 2004. Due to the fourth film beginning its production before the third's release, Mike Newell was chosen as the director for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, released on 18 November 2005.[184] Newell became the first British director of the series, with television director David Yates following suit after he was chosen to helm Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Production began in January 2006 and the film was released the following year in July 2007.[185] After executives were "really delighted" with his work on the film, Yates was selected to direct Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, which was released on 15 July 2009.[186][187][188][189]
+
+In March 2008, Warner Bros. President and COO Alan F. Horn announced that the final instalment in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, would be released in two cinematic parts: Part 1 on 19 November 2010 and Part 2 on 15 July 2011. Production of both parts started in February 2009, with the final day of principal photography taking place on 12 June 2010.[190][191]
+
+Rowling had creative control on the film series, observing the filmmaking process of Philosopher's Stone and serving as producer on the two-part Deathly Hallows, alongside David Heyman and David Barron.[192] The Harry Potter films have been top-rank box office hits, with all eight releases on the list of highest-grossing films worldwide. Philosopher's Stone was the highest-grossing Harry Potter film up until the release of the final instalment of the series, Deathly Hallows Part 2, while Prisoner of Azkaban grossed the least.[193] As well as being a financial success, the film series has also been a success among film critics.[194][195]
+
+Opinions of the films are generally divided among fans, with one group preferring the more faithful approach of the first two films, and another group preferring the more stylised character-driven approach of the later films.[196] Rowling has been constantly supportive of all the films and evaluated Deathly Hallows as her "favourite one" in the series.[197][198][199][200] She wrote on her website of the changes in the book-to-film transition, "It is simply impossible to incorporate every one of my storylines into a film that has to be kept under four hours long. Obviously films have restrictions novels do not have, constraints of time and budget; I can create dazzling effects relying on nothing but the interaction of my own and my readers' imaginations".[201]
+
+At the 64th British Academy Film Awards in February 2011, Rowling was joined by producers David Heyman and David Barron along with directors David Yates, Alfonso Cuarón and Mike Newell in collecting the Michael Balcon Award for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema on behalf of all the films in the series. Actors Rupert Grint and Emma Watson, who play main characters Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, were also in attendance.[202][203]
+
+A new prequel series consisting of five films will take place before the main series.[204] The first film Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was released in November 2016, followed by the second Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald in November 2018; the next three are due to be released in 2021, 2022 and 2024 respectively.[205] Rowling wrote the screenplay for the first three instalments,[206] marking her foray into screenwriting.
+
+A number of other non-interactive media games and board games have been released such as Cluedo Harry Potter Edition, Scene It? Harry Potter and Lego Harry Potter models, which are influenced by the themes of both the novels and films.
+
+There are thirteen Harry Potter video games, eight corresponding with the films and books and five spin-offs. The film/book-based games are produced by Electronic Arts, as was Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup, with the game version of the first entry in the series, Philosopher's Stone, being released in November 2001. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone went on to become one of the best-selling PlayStation games ever.[207] The video games were released to coincide with the films, containing scenery and details from the films as well as the tone and spirit of the books. Objectives usually occur in and around Hogwarts, along with various other magical areas. The story and design of the games follow the selected film's characterisation and plot; EA worked closely with Warner Bros. to include scenes from the films. The last game in the series, Deathly Hallows, was split, with Part 1 released in November 2010 and Part 2 debuting on consoles in July 2011. The two-part game forms the first entry to convey an intense theme of action and violence, with the gameplay revolving around a third-person shooter style format.[208][209]
+
+The spin-off games Lego Harry Potter: Years 1–4 and Lego Harry Potter: Years 5–7 were developed by Traveller's Tales and published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. The spin-off games Book of Spells and Book of Potions were developed by SCE London Studio and use the Wonderbook, an augmented reality book designed to be used in conjunction with the PlayStation Move and PlayStation Eye.[210] The Harry Potter universe is also featured in Lego Dimensions, with the settings and side characters featured in the Harry Potter Adventure World, and Harry, Voldemort, and Hermione as playable characters. In 2017, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment opened its own Harry Potter-themed game design studio, by the name of Portkey Games, before releasing Hogwarts Mystery in 2018, developed by Jam City.[211]
+
+All seven Harry Potter books have been released in unabridged audiobook versions, with Stephen Fry reading the UK editions and Jim Dale voicing the series for the American editions.[212][213]
+
+Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Parts I and II is a play which serves as a sequel to the books, beginning nineteen years after the events of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It was written by Jack Thorne based on an original new story by Thorne, Rowling and John Tiffany.[214] It has run at the Palace Theatre in London's West End since previews began on 7 June 2016 with an official premiere on 30 June 2016.[215] The first four months of tickets for the June–September performances were sold out within several hours upon release.[216] Forthcoming productions are planned for Broadway[217] and Melbourne.[218]
+
+The script was released as a book at the time of the premiere, with a revised version following the next year.
+
+Puffs, or Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic and Magic is a play which is a spin-off from the Harry Potter franchise. It takes place at the same time of the book series but focuses on the "Puffs", who only wish to be in as much glory as Mr. Potter. It is written by Matt Cox and was originally directed by Kristin McCarthy Parker. It played off-off-Broadway at the Peoples' Improv Theatre from December 3, 2015 to fall 2016. It then transferred to the off-Broadway Elektra Theater where it was modified by Parker and Cox. However, Puffs soon transferred to a more prominent off-broadway space, New World Stages, where it played from July 17, 2017 – August 18, 2019. Soon after, a production was performed at The Entertainment Quarter in Sydney, Australia for a limited run. Another production ran at The Lower Ossington Theatre in Toronto, Canada from June 7 – August 14 in 2019. Since then, the rights to the show has been released (including a junior version) through Samuel French, Inc. (now Concord Theatricals).
+
+Since the COVID-19 pandemic has begun, Cox has written three additional plays to the Puffs universe. Nineteen-ish Years After or; There and Back Again was performed on April 4, 2020. A Patreon link was included in the bio of the livestream and all the proceeds from the event went to Queens Feeds Hospitals. A second play, Dude, Where's My Fantastic Friends?, was broadcast live on April 17, 2020. The proceeds from this event went to the New York Humaine Society. Finally, on April 24, 2020, PUF3S: Eventfulness Maximus was broadcast as the finale to the Puffs tetralogy. The proceeds went to the Ali Forney Center. All of these readings were performed over Zoom and broadcast live on YouTube. While all the readings were free, the donations from watchers combined came out to $10,200.
+
+They have also hosted several Q+A's and watchings of Puffs on their YouTube and Instagram accounts.
+
+After the success of the films and books, Universal and Warner Brothers announced they would create The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, a new Harry Potter-themed expansion to the Islands of Adventure theme park at Universal Orlando Resort in Florida. The land officially opened to the public on 18 June 2010.[219] It includes a re-creation of Hogsmeade and several rides. The flagship attraction is Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, which exists within a re-creation of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Other rides include Dragon Challenge, a pair of inverted roller coasters, and Flight of the Hippogriff, a family roller coaster.
+
+Four years later, on 8 July 2014, Universal opened a Harry Potter-themed area at the Universal Studios Florida theme park. It includes a re-creation of Diagon Alley and connecting alleys and a small section of Muggle London. The flagship attraction is Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts roller coaster ride. Universal also added a completely functioning recreation of the Hogwarts Express connecting Kings Cross Station at Universal Studios Florida to the Hogsmeade station at Islands of Adventure. Both Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley contain many shops and restaurants from the book series, including Weasley's Wizard Wheezes and The Leaky Cauldron.
+
+On 15 July 2014, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter opened at the Universal Studios Japan theme park in Osaka, Japan. It includes the village of Hogsmeade, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride, and Flight of the Hippogriff roller coaster.[220][221]
+
+On 7 April 2016, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter opened at the Universal Studios Hollywood theme park near Los Angeles, California.[222][223]
+
+In March 2011, Warner Bros. announced plans to build a tourist attraction in the United Kingdom to showcase the Harry Potter film series. The Making of Harry Potter is a behind-the-scenes walking tour featuring authentic sets, costumes and props from the film series. The attraction is located at Warner Bros. Studios, Leavesden, where all eight of the Harry Potter films were made. Warner Bros. constructed two new sound stages to house and showcase the famous sets from each of the British-made productions, following a £100 million investment.[224] It opened to the public in March 2012.[225]
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+
+
+The skeleton  is the body part that provides support, shape and protection to the soft tissues and delicate organs of animals. There are several different skeletal types: the exoskeleton, which is the stable outer shell of an organism, the endoskeleton, which forms the support structure inside the body, the hydroskeleton, a flexible skeleton supported by fluid pressure, and the cytoskeleton present in the cytoplasm of all cells, including bacteria, and archaea. The term comes from Greek  σκελετός (skeletós), meaning 'dried up'.[1]
+
+There are two major types of skeletons: solid and fluid. Solid skeletons can be internal, called an endoskeleton, or external, called an exoskeleton, and may be further classified as pliant (elastic/movable) or rigid (hard/non-movable).[2] Fluid skeletons are always internal.
+
+Exoskeletons are external, and are found in many invertebrates; they enclose and protect the soft tissues and organs of the body. Some kinds of exoskeletons undergo periodic moulting or ecdysis as the animal grows, as is the case in many arthropods including insects and crustaceans.
+
+The exoskeleton of insects is not only a form of protection, but also serves as a surface for muscle attachment, as a watertight protection against drying, and as a sense organ to interact with the environment. The shell of mollusks also performs all of the same functions, except that in most cases it does not contain sense organs.
+
+An external skeleton can be quite heavy in relation to the overall mass of an animal, so on land, organisms that have an exoskeleton are mostly relatively small. Somewhat larger aquatic animals can support an exoskeleton because weight is less of a consideration underwater. The southern giant clam, a species of extremely large saltwater clam in the Pacific Ocean, has a shell that is massive in both size and weight. Syrinx aruanus is a species of sea snail with a very large shell.
+
+The endoskeleton is the internal support structure of an animal, composed of mineralized tissue and is typical of vertebrates. Endoskeletons vary in complexity from functioning purely for support (as in the case of sponges), to serving as an attachment site for muscles and a mechanism for transmitting muscular forces. A true endoskeleton is derived from mesodermal tissue. Such a skeleton is present in echinoderms and chordates.
+
+Pliant skeletons are capable of movement; thus, when stress is applied to the skeletal structure, it deforms and then reverts to its original shape. This skeletal structure is used in some invertebrates, for instance in the hinge of bivalve shells or the mesoglea of cnidarians such as jellyfish. Pliant skeletons are beneficial because only muscle contractions are needed to bend the skeleton; upon muscle relaxation, the skeleton will return to its original shape. Cartilage is one material that a pliant skeleton may be composed of, but most pliant skeletons are formed from a mixture of proteins, polysaccharides, and water.[2] For additional structure or protection, pliant skeletons may be supported by rigid skeletons. Organisms that have pliant skeletons typically live in water, which supports body structure in the absence of a rigid skeleton.[3]
+
+Rigid skeletons are not capable of movement when stressed, creating a strong support system most common in terrestrial animals. Such a skeleton type used by animals that live in water are more for protection (such as barnacle and snail shells) or for fast-moving animals that require additional support of musculature needed for swimming through water. Rigid skeletons are formed from materials including chitin (in arthropods), calcium compounds such as calcium carbonate (in stony corals and mollusks) and silicate (for diatoms and radiolarians).
+
+The cytoskeleton (gr. kytos = cell) is used to stabilize and preserve the form of the cells. It is a dynamic structure that maintains cell shape, protects the cell, enables cellular motion (using structures such as flagella, cilia and lamellipodia), and plays important roles in both intracellular transport (the movement of vesicles and organelles, for example) and cellular division.
+
+A hydrostatic skeleton is a semi-rigid, soft tissue structure filled with liquid under pressure, surrounded by muscles. Longitudinal and circular muscles around their body sectors allow movement by alternate lengthening and contractions along their lengths. A common example of this is the earthworm.
+
+The endoskeletons of echinoderms and some other soft-bodied invertebrates such as jellyfish and earthworms are also termed hydrostatic; a body cavity the coelom is filled with coelomic fluid and the pressure from this fluid acts together with the surrounding muscles to change the organism's shape and produce movement.
+
+The skeleton of sponges consists of microscopic calcareous or silicious spicules. The demosponges include 90% of all species of sponges. Their "skeletons" are made of spicules consisting of fibers of the protein spongin, the mineral silica, or both. Where spicules of silica are present, they have a different shape from those in the otherwise similar glass sponges.[4]
+
+The skeleton of the echinoderms, which include, among other things, the starfish, is composed of calcite and a small amount of magnesium oxide. It lies below the epidermis in the mesoderm and is within cell clusters of frame-forming cells. This structure formed is porous and therefore firm and at the same time light. It coalesces into small calcareous ossicles (bony plates), which can grow in all directions and thus can replace the loss of a body part. Connected by joints, the individual skeletal parts can be moved by the muscles.
+
+In most vertebrates, the main skeletal component is referred to as bone. These bones compose a unique skeletal system for each type of animal. Another important component is cartilage which in mammals is found mainly in the joint areas. In other animals, such as the cartilaginous fishes, which include the sharks, the skeleton is composed entirely of cartilage. The segmental pattern of the skeleton is present in all vertebrates (mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians) with basic units being repeated. This segmental pattern is particularly evident in the vertebral column and the ribcage.
+
+Bones in addition to supporting the body also serve, at the cellular level, as calcium and phosphate storage.
+
+The skeleton, which forms the support structure inside the fish is either made of cartilage as in the (Chondrichthyes), or bones as in the (Osteichthyes). The main skeletal element is the vertebral column, composed of articulating vertebrae which are lightweight yet strong. The ribs attach to the spine and there are no limbs or limb girdles. They are supported only by the muscles. The main external features of the fish, the fins, are composed of either bony or soft spines called rays, which with the exception of the caudal fin (tail fin), have no direct connection with the spine. They are supported by the muscles which compose the main part of the trunk.
+
+The bird skeleton is highly adapted for flight. It is extremely lightweight, yet still strong enough to withstand the stresses of taking off, flying, and landing. One key adaptation is the fusing of bones into single ossifications, such as the pygostyle. Because of this, birds usually have a smaller number of bones than other terrestrial vertebrates. Birds also lack teeth or even a true jaw, instead having evolved a beak, which is far more lightweight. The beaks of many baby birds have a projection called an egg tooth, which facilitates their exit from the amniotic egg.
+
+To facilitate the movement of marine mammals in water, the hind legs were either lost altogether, as in the whales and manatees, or united in a single tail fin as in the pinnipeds (seals). In the whale, the cervical vertebrae are typically fused, an adaptation trading flexibility for stability during swimming.[5][6]
+
+The skeleton consists of both fused and individual bones supported and supplemented by ligaments, tendons, muscles and cartilage. It serves as a scaffold which supports organs, anchors muscles, and protects organs such as the brain, lungs, heart and spinal cord. Although the teeth do not consist of tissue commonly found in bones, the teeth are usually considered as members of the skeletal system.[7]
+The biggest bone in the body is the femur in the upper leg, and the smallest is the stapes bone in the middle ear. In an adult, the skeleton comprises around 14% of the total body weight,[8] and half of this weight is water.
+
+Fused bones include those of the pelvis and the cranium. Not all bones are interconnected directly: There are three bones in each middle ear called the ossicles that articulate only with each other. The hyoid bone, which is located in the neck and serves as the point of attachment for the tongue, does not articulate with any other bones in the body, being supported by muscles and ligaments.
+
+There are 206 bones in the adult human skeleton, although this number depends on whether the pelvic bones (the hip bones on each side) are counted as one or three bones on each side (ilium, ischium, and pubis), whether the coccyx or tail bone is counted as one or four separate bones, and does not count the variable wormian bones between skull sutures. Similarly, the sacrum is usually counted as a single bone, rather than five fused vertebrae. There is also a variable number of small sesamoid bones, commonly found in tendons. The patella or kneecap on each side is an example of a larger sesamoid bone. The patellae are counted in the total, as they are constant. The number of bones varies between individuals and with age – newborn babies have over 270 bones[9][10][11] some of which fuse together. These bones are organized into a longitudinal axis, the axial skeleton, to which the appendicular skeleton is attached.[12]
+
+The human skeleton takes 20 years before it is fully developed, and the bones contain marrow, which produces blood cells.
+
+There exist several general differences between the male and female skeletons. The male skeleton, for example, is generally larger and heavier than the female skeleton. In the female skeleton, the bones of the skull are generally less angular. The female skeleton also has wider and shorter breastbone and slimmer wrists. There exist significant differences between the male and female pelvis which are related to the female's pregnancy and childbirth capabilities. The female pelvis is wider and shallower than the male pelvis. Female pelvises also have an enlarged pelvic outlet and a wider and more circular pelvic inlet. The angle between the pubic bones is known to be sharper in males, which results in a more circular, narrower, and near heart-shaped pelvis.[13][14]
+
+Bones are rigid organs that form part of the endoskeleton of vertebrates. They function to move, support, and protect the various organs of the body, produce red and white blood cells and store minerals. Bone tissue is a type of dense connective tissue. Bones have a variety of shapes with a complex internal and external structure they are also lightweight, yet strong and hard. One of the types of tissue that makes up bone tissue is mineralized tissue and this
+gives it rigidity and a honeycomb-like three-dimensional internal structure. Other types of tissue found in bones include marrow, endosteum and periosteum, nerves, blood vessels and cartilage.
+
+During embryonic development the precursor to bone development is cartilage that mostly becomes replaced by bone, after flesh such as muscle has formed around it. Cartilage is a stiff and inflexible connective tissue found in many areas including the joints between bones, the rib cage, the ear, the nose, the elbow, the knee, the ankle, the bronchial tubes and the intervertebral discs. It is not as hard and rigid as bone but is stiffer and less flexible than muscle.
+
+Cartilage is composed of specialized cells called chondrocytes that produce a large amount of extracellular matrix composed of Type II collagen (except fibrocartilage which also contains type I collagen) fibers, abundant ground substance rich in proteoglycans, and elastin fibers. Cartilage is classified in three types, elastic cartilage, hyaline cartilage and fibrocartilage, which differ in the relative amounts of these three main components.
+
+Unlike other connective tissues, cartilage does not contain blood vessels. The chondrocytes are supplied by diffusion, helped by the pumping action generated by compression of the articular cartilage or flexion of the elastic cartilage. Thus, compared to other connective tissues, cartilage grows and repairs more slowly.
+
+In Western culture, the human skeleton is oftentimes seen as a fearful symbol of death and the paranormal.  It is a popular motif in the holiday Halloween, as well as Day of the Dead.
+
+Skeletons can also be found in movies. Skeletons in movies can be often depicted coming to life, commonly in horror movies. Skeletons can also be depicted in movies wearing chainmail, helmets, and shields. Commonly holding an axe or sword. In these types of movies they are commonly getting attacked, "killed", or fighting with character(s). Skeletons can also be found in a more "welcoming" and "friendly" way in movies. Such as, playing as a decoration, a Halloween costume/face paint, ETC. Another way skeletons can be shown in movies is debatably more common than the other depictions is a sign of severe burning from things such as chemicals, fire, and acid. This can also be a case of deterioration over time.[15]
+
+Media related to Skeletons at Wikimedia Commons

en/5492.html.txt

@@ -0,0 +1,271 @@
+
+
+Coordinates: 7°N 81°E / 7°N 81°E / 7; 81
+
+Sri Lanka (UK: /sri ˈlæŋkə, ʃriː -/, US: /- ˈlɑːŋkə/ (listen);[10][11] Sinhala: ශ්‍රී ලංකා Śrī Laṃkā; Tamil: இலங்கை Ilaṅkai), officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an island country in South Asia, located in the Indian Ocean southwest of the Bay of Bengal and southeast of the Arabian Sea. It is geographically separated from the Indian subcontinent by the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait. Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte is its legislative capital, and Colombo is its largest city and centre of commerce.
+
+Sri Lanka's documented history spans 3,000 years, with evidence of prehistoric human settlements dating back at least 125,000 years.[12] It has a rich cultural heritage, and the first known Buddhist writings of Sri Lanka, the Pāli Canon, date back to the Fourth Buddhist council in 29 BC.[13][14] Its geographic location and deep harbours made it of great strategic importance from the time of the ancient Silk Road through to the modern Maritime Silk Road.[15][16][17] Its location as a major trading hub made it known to both the far East as well as the European continent from as far back as the Anuradhapura period. The country's trade in luxury goods and spices attracted traders of many nations, creating Sri Lanka's diverse population. During a period of great political crisis the Portuguese, whose arrival in Sri Lanka was largely accidental, sought to control the island's maritime regions and its lucrative external trade. The Portuguese possessions were later taken over by the Dutch. The Dutch possessions were then taken by the British, who later extended their control over the whole island, colonising it from 1815 to 1948. Resistance to the British was immediate. A national movement for political independence arose in the early 20th century; and in 1948, Ceylon became a republic, and it adopted its current name in 1972. Sri Lanka's recent history has been marred by a 26-year civil war, which ended decisively when the Sri Lanka Armed Forces defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in 2009.[18]
+
+Sri Lanka's current constitution stipulates it as a republic and unitary state governed by a semi-presidential system. It has had a long history of international engagement, as a founding member of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), and a member of the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations, the G77, and the Non-Aligned Movement. Sri Lanka is rated "high" on the Human Development Index (HDI), with its HDI rating and per capita income the highest among South Asian nations.[19] The Sri Lankan constitution accords Buddhism the "foremost place", although it does not identify it as a state religion. Buddhism is given special privileges in the Sri Lankan constitution.[20]
+
+Sri Lanka is home to many cultures, languages and ethnicities. The majority of the population are from the Sinhalese ethnicity, while a large minority of Tamils have also played an influential role in the island's history. Moors, Burghers, Malays, Chinese, and the indigenous Vedda are also established groups.[21]
+
+In antiquity, Sri Lanka was known to travellers by a variety of names. According to the Mahavamsa, the legendary Prince Vijaya named the land Tambapanni ('copper-red hands' or 'copper-red earth'), because his followers' hands were reddened by the red soil of the area.[22][23] In Hindu mythology, such as the Ramayana, the island was referred to as Lankā ('Island'). The Tamil term Eelam (Tamil: ஈழம், romanized: īḻam), was used to designate the whole island in Sangam literature.[24][25] The island was known under Chola rule as Mummudi Cholamandalam ('realm of the three crowned Cholas').[26]
+
+Ancient Greek geographers called it Taprobanā (Ancient Greek: Ταπροβανᾶ) or Taprobanē (Ταπροβανῆ)[27] from the word Tambapanni. The Persians and Arabs referred to it as Sarandīb (the origin of the word "serendipity") from Sanskrit Siṃhaladvīpaḥ.[28][29] Ceilão, the name given to Sri Lanka by the Portuguese Empire when it arrived in 1505,[30] was transliterated into English as Ceylon.[31] As a British crown colony, the island was known as Ceylon; it achieved independence as Ceylon in 1948.
+
+The country is now known in Sinhala as Śrī Laṃkā (Sinhala: ශ්‍රී ලංකා) and in Tamil as Ilaṅkai (Tamil: இலங்கை, IPA: [iˈlaŋɡai]). In 1972, its formal name was changed to "Free, Sovereign and Independent Republic of Sri Lanka". Later, in 1978, it was changed to the "Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka".[32] As the name Ceylon still appears in the names of a number of organisations, the Sri Lankan government announced in 2011 a plan to rename all those over which it has authority.[33]
+
+The pre-history of Sri Lanka goes back 125,000 years and possibly even as far back as 500,000 years.[34] The era spans the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, and early Iron Ages. Among the Paleolithic human settlements discovered in Sri Lanka, Pahiyangala (named after the Chinese traveller monk Faxian), which dates back to 37,000 BP,[35] Batadombalena (28,500 BP)[36] and Belilena (12,000 BP) are the most important. In these caves, archaeologists have found the remains of anatomically modern humans which they have named Balangoda Man, and other evidence[37] suggesting that they may have engaged in agriculture and kept domestic dogs for driving game.[38]
+
+One of the first written references to the island is found in the Indian epic Ramayana, which provides details of a kingdom named Lanka that was created by the divine sculptor Vishwakarma for Kubera, the Lord of Wealth.[39] It is said that Kubera was overthrown by his demon stepbrother Ravana, the powerful emperor who built a mythical flying machine named Dandu Monara.[40] The modern city of Wariyapola is described as Ravana's airport.[41]
+
+Early inhabitants of Sri Lanka were probably ancestors of the Vedda people,[42] an indigenous people numbering approximately 2,500 living in modern-day Sri Lanka. The 19th-century Irish historian James Emerson Tennent theorised that Galle, a city in southern Sri Lanka, was the ancient seaport of Tarshish from which King Solomon is said to have drawn ivory, peacocks, and other valuables.
+
+According to the Mahāvamsa, a Sinhalese chronicle written in Pāḷi, the original inhabitants of Sri Lanka are said to be the Yakshas and Nagas. Ancient cemeteries that were used before 600 BC and other signs of advanced civilisation have also been discovered in Sri Lanka.[43] Sinhalese history traditionally starts in 543 BC with the arrival of Prince Vijaya, a semi-legendary prince who sailed with 700 followers to Sri Lanka, after being expelled from Vanga Kingdom (present-day Bengal).[44] He established the Kingdom of Tambapanni, near modern-day Mannar. Vijaya (Singha) is the first of the approximately 189 monarchs of Sri Lanka described in chronicles such as the Dipavamsa, Mahāvaṃsa, Cūḷavaṃsa, and Rājāvaliya.[45]
+
+The Anuradhapura period (377 BC–1017 AD) began with the establishment of the Anuradhapura Kingdom in 380 BC during the reign of Pandukabhaya. Thereafter, Anuradhapura served as the capital city of the country for nearly 1,400 years.[46] Ancient Sri Lankans excelled at building certain types of structures such as tanks, dagobas and palaces.[47] Society underwent a major transformation during the reign of Devanampiya Tissa, with the arrival of Buddhism from India. In 250 BC,[48] Mahinda, a bhikkhu and the son of the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka arrived in Mihintale carrying the message of Buddhism.[49] His mission won over the monarch, who embraced the faith and propagated it throughout the Sinhalese population.[50]
+
+Succeeding kingdoms of Sri Lanka would maintain many Buddhist schools and monasteries and support the propagation of Buddhism into other countries in Southeast Asia. Sri Lankan Bhikkhus studied in India's famous ancient Buddhist University of Nalanda, which was destroyed by Bakhtiyar Khilji. It is probable that many of the scriptures from Nalanda are preserved in Sri Lanka's many monasteries and that the written form of the Tipitaka, including Sinhalese Buddhist literature, were part of the University of Nalanda.[51] In 245 BC, bhikkhuni Sangamitta arrived with the Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi tree, which is considered to be a sapling from the historical Bodhi tree under which Gautama Buddha became enlightened.[52] It is considered the oldest human-planted tree (with a continuous historical record) in the world. (Bodhivamsa)[53]
+
+Sri Lanka experienced the first of many foreign invasions during the reign of Suratissa, who was defeated by two horse traders named Sena and Guttika from South India.[50] The next invasion came immediately in 205 BC by a Chola named Elara, who overthrew Asela and ruled the country for 44 years. Dutugemunu, the eldest son of the southern regional sub-king, Kavan Tissa, defeated Elara in the Battle of Vijithapura. During its two and a half millennia of existence, the Sinhala Kingdom was invaded at least eight times by neighbouring South Indian dynasties such as the Chola, Pandya, Chera, and Pallava. These invaders were all subsequently driven back.[54] There also were incursions by the kingdoms of Kalinga (modern Odisha) and from the Malay Peninsula as well.
+
+The Fourth Buddhist council of Theravada Buddhism was held at the Anuradhapura Maha Viharaya in Sri Lanka under the patronage of Valagamba of Anuradhapura in 25 BC. The council was held in response to a year in which the harvests in Sri Lanka were particularly poor and many Buddhist monks subsequently died of starvation. Because the Pāli Canon was at that time oral literature maintained in several recensions by dhammabhāṇakas (dharma reciters), the surviving monks recognised the danger of not writing it down so that even if some of the monks whose duty it was to study and remember parts of the Canon for later generations died, the teachings would not be lost.[55] After the Council, palm-leaf manuscripts containing the completed Canon were taken to other countries such as Burma, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos.
+
+Sri Lanka was the first Asian country known to have a female ruler: Anula of Anuradhapura (r. 47–42 BC).[56] Sri Lankan monarchs undertook some remarkable construction projects such as Sigiriya, the so-called "Fortress in the Sky", built during the reign of Kashyapa I of Anuradhapura, who ruled between 477 and 495. The Sigiriya rock fortress is surrounded by an extensive network of ramparts and moats. Inside this protective enclosure were gardens, ponds, pavilions, palaces and other structures.[57][58]
+
+In AD 993, the invasion of Chola emperor Rajaraja I forced the then Sinhalese ruler Mahinda V to flee to the southern part of Sri Lanka. Taking advantage of this situation, Rajendra I, son of Rajaraja I, launched a large invasion in 1017. Mahinda V was captured and taken to India, and the Cholas sacked the city of Anuradhapura causing the fall of Anuradhapura Kingdom. Subsequently, they moved the capital to Polonnaruwa.[59]
+
+Following a seventeen-year-long campaign, Vijayabahu I successfully drove the Chola out of Sri Lanka in 1070, reuniting the country for the first time in over a century.[60][61] Upon his request, ordained monks were sent from Burma to Sri Lanka to re-establish Buddhism, which had almost disappeared from the country during the Chola reign.[62] During the medieval period, Sri Lanka was divided into three sub-territories, namely Ruhunu, Pihiti and Maya.[63]
+
+Sri Lanka's irrigation system was extensively expanded during the reign of Parākramabāhu the Great (1153–1186).[64] This period is considered as a time when Sri Lanka was at the height of its power.[65][66] He built 1470 reservoirs – the highest number by any ruler in Sri Lanka's history – repaired 165 dams, 3910 canals, 163 major reservoirs, and 2376 mini-reservoirs.[67] His most famous construction is the Parakrama Samudra,[68] the largest irrigation project of medieval Sri Lanka. Parākramabāhu's reign is memorable for two major campaigns – in the south of India as part of a Pandyan war of succession, and a punitive strike against the kings of Ramanna (Burma) for various perceived insults to Sri Lanka.[69]
+
+After his demise, Sri Lanka gradually decayed in power. In 1215, Kalinga Magha, a South Indian with uncertain origins, identified as the founder of the Jaffna kingdom, invaded and captured the Kingdom of Polonnaruwa. He sailed from Kalinga[67] 690 nautical miles on 100 large ships with a 24,000 strong army. Unlike previous invaders, he looted, ransacked, and destroyed everything in the ancient Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa Kingdoms beyond recovery.[70] His priorities in ruling were to extract as much as possible from the land and overturn as many of the traditions of Rajarata as possible. His reign saw the massive migration of native Sinhalese people to the south and west of Sri Lanka, and into the mountainous interior, in a bid to escape his power.[71][72]
+
+Sri Lanka never really recovered from the impact of Kalinga Magha's invasion. King Vijayabâhu III, who led the resistance, brought the kingdom to Dambadeniya. The north, in the meanwhile, eventually evolved into the Jaffna kingdom.[71][72] The Jaffna kingdom never came under the rule of any kingdom of the south except on one occasion; in 1450, following the conquest led by king Parâkramabâhu VI's adopted son, Prince Sapumal.[73] He ruled the North from AD 1450 to 1467.[74]
+
+The next three centuries starting from 1215 were marked by kaleidoscopically shifting collections of kingdoms in south and central Sri Lanka, including Dambadeniya, Yapahuwa, Gampola, Raigama, Kotte,[75] Sitawaka, and finally, Kandy. Chinese admiral Zheng He and his naval expeditionary force landed at Galle, Sri Lanka in 1409 and got into battle with the local king Vira Alakesvara of Gampola. Zheng He captured King Vira Alakesvara and later released him.[76][77][78][79] Zheng He erected the Galle Trilingual Inscription, a stone tablet at Galle written in three languages (Chinese, Tamil, and Persian), to commemorate his visit.[80][81] The stele was discovered by S. H. Thomlin at Galle in 1911 and is now preserved in the Colombo National Museum.
+
+The early modern period of Sri Lanka begins with the arrival of Portuguese soldier and explorer Lourenço de Almeida, the son of Francisco de Almeida, in 1505.[82] In 1517, the Portuguese built a fort at the port city of Colombo and gradually extended their control over the coastal areas. In 1592, after decades of intermittent warfare with the Portuguese, Vimaladharmasuriya I moved his kingdom to the inland city of Kandy, a location he thought more secure from attack.[83] In 1619, succumbing to attacks by the Portuguese, the independent existence of the Jaffna kingdom came to an end.[84]
+
+During the reign of the Rajasinghe II, Dutch explorers arrived on the island. In 1638, the king signed a treaty with the Dutch East India Company to get rid of the Portuguese who ruled most of the coastal areas.[85] The following Dutch–Portuguese War resulted in a Dutch victory, with Colombo falling into Dutch hands by 1656. The Dutch remained in the areas they had captured, thereby violating the treaty they had signed in 1638. The Burgher people, a distinct ethnic group, emerged as a result of intermingling between the Dutch and native Sri Lankans in this period.[86]
+
+The Kingdom of Kandy was the last independent monarchy of Sri Lanka.[87] In 1595, Vimaladharmasurya brought the sacred Tooth Relic – the traditional symbol of royal and religious authority amongst the Sinhalese – to Kandy, and built the Temple of the Tooth.[87] In spite of on-going intermittent warfare with Europeans, the kingdom survived. Later, a crisis of succession emerged in Kandy upon king Vira Narendrasinha's death in 1739. He was married to a Telugu-speaking Nayakkar princess from South India (Madurai) and was childless by her.[87]
+
+Eventually, with the support of bhikku Weliwita Sarankara, the crown passed to the brother of one of Narendrasinha's princesses, overlooking the right of "Unambuwe Bandara", Narendrasinha's own son by a Sinhalese concubine.[88] The new king was crowned Sri Vijaya Rajasinha later that year. Kings of the Nayakkar dynasty launched several attacks on Dutch controlled areas, which proved to be unsuccessful.[89]
+
+During the Napoleonic Wars, fearing that French control of the Netherlands might deliver Sri Lanka to the French, Great Britain occupied the coastal areas of the island (which they called Ceylon) with little difficulty in 1796.[90] Two years later, in 1798, Sri Rajadhi Rajasinha, third of the four Nayakkar kings of Sri Lanka, died of a fever. Following his death, a nephew of Rajadhi Rajasinha, eighteen-year-old Kannasamy, was crowned.[91] The young king, now named Sri Vikrama Rajasinha, faced a British invasion in 1803 but successfully retaliated. The First Kandyan War ended in a stalemate.[91]
+
+By then the entire coastal area was under the British East India Company as a result of the Treaty of Amiens. On 14 February 1815, Kandy was occupied by the British in the second Kandyan War, ending Sri Lanka's independence.[91] Sri Vikrama Rajasinha, the last native monarch of Sri Lanka, was exiled to India.[92] The Kandyan Convention formally ceded the entire country to the British Empire. Attempts by Sri Lankan noblemen to undermine British power in 1818 during the Uva Rebellion were thwarted by Governor Robert Brownrigg.[93]
+
+The beginning of the modern period of Sri Lanka is marked by the Colebrooke-Cameron reforms of 1833.[94] They introduced a utilitarian and liberal political culture to the country based on the rule of law and amalgamated the Kandyan and maritime provinces as a single unit of government.[94] An executive council and a legislative council were established, later becoming the foundation of a representative legislature. By this time, experiments with coffee plantations were largely successful.[95]
+
+Soon, coffee became the primary commodity export of Sri Lanka. Falling coffee prices as a result of the depression of 1847 stalled economic development and prompted the governor to introduce a series of taxes on firearms, dogs, shops, boats, etc., and to reintroduce a form of rajakariya, requiring six days free labour on roads or payment of a cash equivalent.[95] These harsh measures antagonised the locals, and another rebellion broke out in 1848.[96] A devastating leaf disease, Hemileia vastatrix, struck the coffee plantations in 1869, destroying the entire industry within fifteen years.[97] The British quickly found a replacement: abandoning coffee, they began cultivating tea instead. Tea production in Sri Lanka thrived in the following decades. Large-scale rubber plantations began in the early 20th century.
+
+By the end of the 19th century, a new educated social class transcending race and caste arose through British attempts to staff the Ceylon Civil Service and the legal, educational, and medical professions.[98] New leaders represented the various ethnic groups of the population in the Ceylon Legislative Council on a communal basis. Buddhist and Hindu revivalism reacted against Christian missionary activities.[99][100] The first two decades in the 20th century are noted by the unique harmony among Sinhalese and Tamil political leadership, which has since been lost.[101]
+
+In 1919, major Sinhalese and Tamil political organisations united to form the Ceylon National Congress, under the leadership of Ponnambalam Arunachalam,[102] pressing colonial masters for more constitutional reforms. But without massive popular support, and with the governor's encouragement for "communal representation" by creating a "Colombo seat" that dangled between Sinhalese and Tamils, the Congress lost momentum towards the mid-1920s.[103]
+
+The Donoughmore reforms of 1931 repudiated the communal representation and introduced universal adult franchise (the franchise stood at 4% before the reforms). This step was strongly criticised by the Tamil political leadership, who realised that they would be reduced to a minority in the newly created State Council of Ceylon, which succeeded the legislative council.[104][105] In 1937, Tamil leader G. G. Ponnambalam demanded a 50–50 representation (50% for the Sinhalese and 50% for other ethnic groups) in the State Council. However, this demand was not met by the Soulbury reforms of 1944–45.
+
+The Soulbury constitution ushered in dominion status, with independence proclaimed on 4 February 1948.[106] D. S. Senanayake became the first Prime Minister of Ceylon.[107] Prominent Tamil leaders including Ponnambalam and Arunachalam Mahadeva joined his cabinet.[104][108] The British Royal Navy remained stationed at Trincomalee until 1956. A countrywide popular demonstration against withdrawal of the rice ration, known as Hartal 1953, resulted in the resignation of prime minister Dudley Senanayake.[109]
+
+S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike was elected prime minister in 1956. His three-year rule had a profound impact through his self-proclaimed role of "defender of the besieged Sinhalese culture".[110] He introduced the controversial Sinhala Only Act, recognising Sinhala as the only official language of the government. Although partially reversed in 1958, the bill posed a grave concern for the Tamil community, which perceived in it a threat to their language and culture.[111][112][113]
+
+The Federal Party (FP) launched a movement of non-violent resistance (satyagraha) against the bill, which prompted Bandaranaike to reach an agreement (Bandaranaike–Chelvanayakam Pact) with S. J. V. Chelvanayakam, leader of the FP, to resolve the looming ethnic conflict.[114] The pact proved ineffective in the face of ongoing protests by opposition and the Buddhist clergy. The bill, together with various government colonisation schemes, contributed much towards the political rancour between Sinhalese and Tamil political leaders.[115] Bandaranaike was assassinated by an extremist Buddhist monk in 1959.[116]
+
+Sirimavo Bandaranaike, the widow of Bandaranaike, took office as prime minister in 1960, and withstood an attempted coup d'état in 1962. During her second term as prime minister, the government instituted socialist economic policies, strengthening ties with the Soviet Union and China, while promoting a policy of non-alignment. In 1971, Ceylon experienced a Marxist insurrection, which was quickly suppressed. In 1972, the country became a republic named Sri Lanka, repudiating its dominion status. Prolonged minority grievances and the use of communal emotionalism as an election campaign weapon by both Sinhalese and Tamil leaders abetted a fledgling Tamil militancy in the north during the 1970s.[117] The policy of standardisation by the Sirimavo government to rectify disparities created in university enrolment, which was in essence an affirmative action to assist geographically disadvantaged students to obtain tertiary education,[118] resulted in reducing the proportion of Tamil students at university level and acted as the immediate catalyst for the rise of militancy.[119][120] The assassination of Jaffna Mayor Alfred Duraiyappah in 1975 by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) marked a crisis point.[121][122]
+
+The government of J. R. Jayawardene swept to power in 1977, defeating the largely unpopular United Front government.[123] Jayawardene introduced a new constitution, together with a free-market economy and a powerful executive presidency modelled after that of France. It made Sri Lanka the first South Asian country to liberalise its economy.[124] Beginning in 1983, ethnic tensions were manifested in an on-and-off insurgency against the government by the LTTE. An LTTE attack on 13 soldiers resulted in the anti-Tamil race riots in July 1983, allegedly backed by Sinhalese hard-line ministers, which resulted in more than 150,000 Tamil civilians fleeing the island, seeking asylum in other countries.[125][126]
+
+Lapses in foreign policy resulted in India strengthening the Tigers by providing arms and training.[127][128][129] In 1987, the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord was signed and the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) was deployed in northern Sri Lanka to stabilise the region by neutralising the LTTE.[130] The same year, the JVP launched its second insurrection in Southern Sri Lanka,[131] necessitating redeployment of the IPKF in 1990.[132] In October 1990, the LTTE expelled Sri Lankan Moors (Muslims by religion) from northern Sri Lanka.[133] In 2002, the Sri Lankan government and LTTE signed a Norwegian-mediated ceasefire agreement.[113]
+
+The 2004 Asian tsunami killed over 35,000 in Sri Lanka.[134] From 1985 to 2006, the Sri Lankan government and Tamil insurgents held four rounds of peace talks without success. Both LTTE and the government resumed fighting in 2006, and the government officially backed out of the ceasefire in 2008.[113] In 2009, under the Presidency of Mahinda Rajapaksa, the Sri Lanka Armed Forces defeated the LTTE and re-established control of the entire country by the Sri Lankan Government.[135] Overall, between 60,000 and 100,000 people were killed during the 26 years of conflict.[136][137]
+
+Forty thousand Tamil civilians may have been killed in the final phases of the Sri Lankan civil war, according to an Expert Panel convened by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. The exact number of Tamils killed is still a speculation that needs further study.[138] Following the LTTE's defeat, the Tamil National Alliance, the largest Tamil political party in Sri Lanka, dropped its demand for a separate state in favour of a federal solution.[139][140] The final stages of the war left some 294,000 people displaced.[141][142] The UN Human Rights Council has documented over 12,000 named individuals who have undergone disappearance after detention by security forces in Sri Lanka, the second highest figure in the world since the Working Group came into being in 1980. In March 2009, 378 people had been killed in one day and at least another 1,212 injured. The report was based only on those casualties brought to the hospital. The UN described the situation as a "bloodbath", and one that its Colombo office had been warning against for some time. Their spokesperson Gordon Weiss said that over 100 children had been killed over the weekend in the "large-scale killing of civilians".[143][144]
+
+According to the Ministry of Resettlement, most of the displaced persons had been released or returned to their places of origin, leaving only 6,651 in the camps as of December 2011.[145] In May 2010, President Rajapaksa appointed the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) to assess the conflict between the time of the ceasefire agreement in 2002 and the defeat of the LTTE in 2009.[146][147] Sri Lanka has emerged from its 26-year war to become one of the fastest-growing economies of the world.[148][149]
+
+Sri Lanka lies on the Indian Plate, a major tectonic plate that was formerly part of the Indo-Australian Plate.[150] It is in the Indian Ocean southwest of the Bay of Bengal, between latitudes 5° and 10° N, and longitudes 79° and 82° E.[151] Sri Lanka is separated from the mainland portion of the Indian subcontinent by the Gulf of Mannar and Palk Strait. According to Hindu mythology, a land bridge existed between the Indian mainland and Sri Lanka. It now amounts to only a chain of limestone shoals remaining above sea level.[152] Legends claim that it was passable on foot up to 1480 AD, until cyclones deepened the channel.[153][154] Portions are still as shallow as 1 metre (3 ft), hindering navigation.[155] The island consists mostly of flat to rolling coastal plains, with mountains rising only in the south-central part. The highest point is Pidurutalagala, reaching 2,524 metres (8,281 ft) above sea level.
+
+Sri Lanka has 103 rivers. The longest of these is the Mahaweli River, extending 335 kilometres (208 mi).[156] These waterways give rise to 51 natural waterfalls of 10 metres (33 ft) or more. The highest is Bambarakanda Falls, with a height of 263 metres (863 ft).[157] Sri Lanka's coastline is 1,585 km (985 mi) long.[158] Sri Lanka claims an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) extending 200 nautical miles, which is approximately 6.7 times Sri Lanka's land area. The coastline and adjacent waters support highly productive marine ecosystems such as fringing coral reefs and shallow beds of coastal and estuarine seagrasses.[159]
+
+Sri Lanka has 45 estuaries and 40 lagoons.[158] Sri Lanka's mangrove ecosystem spans over 7,000 hectares and played a vital role in buffering the force of the waves in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.[160] The island is rich in minerals such as ilmenite, feldspar, graphite, silica, kaolin, mica and thorium.[161][162] Existence of petroleum and gas in the Gulf of Mannar has also been confirmed and the extraction of recoverable quantities is underway.[163]
+
+The climate is tropical and warm, due to the moderating effects of ocean winds. Mean temperatures range from 17 °C (62.6 °F) in the central highlands, where frost may occur for several days in the winter, to a maximum of 33 °C (91.4 °F) in other low-altitude areas. Average yearly temperatures range from 28 °C (82.4 °F) to nearly 31 °C (87.8 °F). Day and night temperatures may vary by 14 °C (25.2 °F) to 18 °C (32.4 °F).[164]
+
+Rainfall pattern is influenced by monsoon winds from the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal. The "wet zone" and some of the windward slopes of the central highlands receive up to 2,500 millimetres (98.4 in) of rain each year, but the leeward slopes in the east and northeast receive little rain. Most of the east, southeast, and northern parts of Sri Lanka comprise the "dry zone", which receives between 1,200 and 1,900 mm (47 and 75 in) of rain annually.[165]
+
+The arid northwest and southeast coasts receive the least amount of rain at 800 to 1,200 mm (31 to 47 in) per year. Periodic squalls occur and sometimes tropical cyclones bring overcast skies and rains to the southwest, northeast, and eastern parts of the island. Humidity is typically higher in the southwest and mountainous areas and depends on the seasonal patterns of rainfall.[166]
+
+An increase in average rainfall coupled with heavier rainfall events has resulted in recurrent flooding and related damages to infrastructure, utility supply and the urban economy.[167]
+
+Lying within the Indomalayan realm, Sri Lanka is one of 25 biodiversity hotspots in the world.[169] Although the country is relatively small in size, it has the highest biodiversity density in Asia.[170] A remarkably high proportion of the species among its flora and fauna, 27% of the 3,210 flowering plants and 22% of the mammals (see List), are endemic.[171] Sri Lanka has declared 24 wildlife reserves, which are home to a wide range of native species such as Asian elephants, leopards, sloth bears, the unique small loris, a variety of deer, the purple-faced langur, the endangered wild boar, porcupines and Indian pangolins.[172]
+
+Flowering acacias flourish on the arid Jaffna Peninsula. Among the trees of the dry-land forests are valuable species such as satinwood, ebony, ironwood, mahogany and teak. The wet zone is a tropical evergreen forest with tall trees, broad foliage, and a dense undergrowth of vines and creepers. Subtropical evergreen forests resembling those of temperate climates flourish in the higher altitudes.[173]
+
+Yala National Park in the southeast protects herds of elephant, deer, and peacocks. The Wilpattu National Park in the northwest, the largest national park, preserves the habitats of many water birds such as storks, pelicans, ibis, and spoonbills. The island has four biosphere reserves: Bundala, Hurulu Forest Reserve, the Kanneliya-Dediyagala-Nakiyadeniya, and Sinharaja.[174] Of these, Sinharaja forest reserve is home to 26 endemic birds and 20 rainforest species, including the elusive red-faced malkoha, the green-billed coucal and the Sri Lanka blue magpie.
+
+The untapped genetic potential of Sinharaja flora is enormous. Of the 211 woody trees and lianas within the reserve, 139 (66%) are endemic. The total vegetation density, including trees, shrubs, herbs and seedlings, has been estimated at 240,000 individuals per hectare. The Minneriya National Park borders the Minneriya tank, which is an important source of water for numerous elephants (Elephus maximus) inhabiting the surrounding forests. Dubbed "The Gathering", the congregation of elephants can be seen on the tank-bed in the late dry season (August to October) as the surrounding water sources steadily disappear. The park also encompasses a range of micro-habitats which include classic dry zone tropical monsoonal evergreen forest, thick stands of giant bamboo, hilly pastures (patanas). and grasslands (talawas).[175]
+
+Sri Lanka is home to over 250 types of resident birds (see List). It has declared several bird sanctuaries including Kumana.[176] During the Mahaweli Program of the 1970s and 1980s in northern Sri Lanka, the government set aside four areas of land totalling 1,900 km2 (730 sq mi) as national parks. Sri Lanka's forest cover, which was around 49% in 1920, had fallen to approximately 24% by 2009.[177][178]
+
+Sri Lanka is the oldest democracy in Asia.[179] The Donoughmore Constitution, drafted by the Donoughmore Commission in 1931, enabled general elections with adult universal suffrage (universal adult voting) in the country.[180] The first election under the universal adult franchise, held in June 1931, was for the Ceylon State Council. Sir Don Baron Jayatilaka was elected as Leader of the House.[181]
+
+In 1944, the Soulbury Commission was appointed to draft a new constitution. During this time, struggle for independence was fought on "constitutionalist" lines under the leadership of D. S. Senanayake.[182] The draft constitution was enacted in the same year, and Senanayake was appointed Prime Minister following the parliamentary election in 1947. The Soulbury constitution ushered in Dominion status and granted independence to Sri Lanka in 1948.[180]
+
+The current political culture in Sri Lanka is a contest between two rival coalitions led by the centre-leftist and progressivist United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA), an offspring of Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), and the comparatively right-wing and pro-capitalist United National Party (UNP).[183] Sri Lanka is essentially a multi-party democracy with many smaller Buddhist, socialist and Tamil nationalist political parties. As of July 2011, the number of registered political parties in the country is 67.[184] Of these, the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP), established in 1935, is the oldest.[185]
+
+The UNP, established by D. S. Senanayake in 1946, was until recently the largest single political party.[186] It is the only political group which had representation in all parliaments since independence.[186] SLFP was founded by S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike, who was the Cabinet minister of Local Administration before he left the UNP in July 1951.[187] SLFP registered its first victory in 1956, defeating the ruling UNP in 1956 Parliamentary election.[187] Following the parliamentary election in July 1960, Sirimavo Bandaranaike became the prime minister and the world's first elected female head of government.[188]
+
+G. G. Ponnambalam, the Tamil nationalist counterpart of S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike,[189] founded the All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC) in 1944. Objecting to Ponnambalam's cooperation with D. S. Senanayake, a dissident group led by S.J.V. Chelvanayakam broke away in 1949 and formed the Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK), also known as the Federal Party, becoming the main Tamil political party in Sri Lanka for next two decades.[190] The Federal Party advocated a more aggressive stance toward the Sinhalese.[191]
+
+With the constitutional reforms of 1972, the All Ceylon Tamil Congress (ACTC) and Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK) created a common front called the Tamil United Front (later Tamil United Liberation Front). Following a period of turbulence as Tamil militants rose to power in the late 1970s, these Tamil political parties were succeeded in October 2001 by the Tamil National Alliance.[191][192] Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna, a Marxist–Leninist political party founded by Rohana Wijeweera in 1965, serves as a third force in the current political context.[193] It endorses leftist policies which are more radical than the traditionalist leftist politics of the LSSP and the Communist Party.[191] Founded in 1981, the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress is the largest Muslim political party in Sri Lanka.[194]
+
+Sri Lanka is a democratic republic and a unitary state which is governed by a semi-presidential system, with a mixture of a presidential system and a parliamentary system.[197] Most provisions of the constitution can be amended by a two-thirds majority in parliament. The amendment of certain basic features such as the clauses on language, religion, and reference to Sri Lanka as a unitary state require both a two-thirds majority and approval in a nationwide referendum.
+
+In common with many democracies, the Sri Lankan government has three branches:
+
+For administrative purposes, Sri Lanka is divided into nine provinces[206] and twenty-five districts.[207]
+
+Provinces
+There have been provinces in Sri Lanka since the 19th century, but they had no legal status until 1987 when the 13th Amendment to the 1978 constitution established provincial councils after several decades of increasing demand for a decentralisation of the Government of Sri Lanka.[208] Each provincial council is an autonomous body not under the authority of any Ministry. Some of its functions had been undertaken by central government ministries, departments, corporations, and statutory authorities,[208] but authority over land and police is not as a rule given to provincial councils.[209][210] Between 1989 and 2006, the Northern and Eastern provinces were temporarily merged to form the North-East Province.[211][212] Prior to 1987, all administrative tasks for the provinces were handled by a district-based civil service which had been in place since colonial times. Now each province is administered by a directly elected provincial council:
+
+Districts and local authorities
+Sri Lanka is also divided into 25 districts.[213] Each district is administered under a District Secretariat. The districts are further subdivided into 256 divisional secretariats, and these, in turn, to approximately 14,008 Grama Niladhari divisions.[214] The Districts are known in Sinhala as Disa and in Tamil as Māwaddam. Originally, a Disa (usually rendered into English as Dissavony) was a duchy, notably Matale and Uva. A government agent, who is known as District Secretary, administers a district.
+
+There are three other types of local authorities: Municipal Councils (18), Urban councils (13) and Pradeshiya Sabha, also called Pradesha Sabhai (256).[215] Local authorities were originally based on feudal counties named korale and rata, and were formerly known as 'D.R.O. divisions' after the 'Divisional Revenue Officer'.[216] Later the D.R.O.s became 'Assistant Government Agents' and the divisions were known as 'A.G.A. divisions'. These Divisional Secretariats are currently administered by a 'Divisional Secretary'.
+
+Sri Lanka is a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). While ensuring that it maintains its independence, Sri Lanka has cultivated relations with India.[217] Sri Lanka became a member of the United Nations in 1955. Today, it is also a member of the Commonwealth, the SAARC, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Asian Development Bank, and the Colombo Plan.
+
+One of the two parties that have governed Sri Lanka since its independence, the United National Party, has traditionally favoured links with the West, while its left-leaning counterpart, the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, has favoured links with the East.[217] Sri Lankan Finance Minister J. R. Jayewardene, together with then Australian Foreign Minister Sir Percy Spencer, proposed the Colombo Plan at the Commonwealth Foreign Minister's Conference held in Colombo in 1950.[218] At the San Francisco Peace Conference in 1951, while many countries were reluctant, Sri Lanka argued for a free Japan and refused to accept payment of reparations for World War II damage because it believed it would harm Japan's economy.[219] Sri Lanka-China relations started as soon as the PRC was formed in 1949. The two countries signed an important Rice-Rubber Pact in 1952.[220] Sri Lanka played a vital role at the Asian–African Conference in 1955, which was an important step in the crystallisation of the NAM.[221]
+
+The Bandaranaike government of 1956 significantly changed the pro-western policies set by the previous UNP government. It recognised Cuba under Fidel Castro in 1959. Shortly afterward, Cuba's revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara paid a visit to Sri Lanka.[222] The Sirima-Shastri Pact of 1964[223] and Sirima-Gandhi Pact of 1974[224] were signed between Sri Lankan and Indian leaders in an attempt to solve the long-standing dispute over the status of plantation workers of Indian origin. In 1974, Kachchatheevu, a small island in Palk Strait, was formally ceded to Sri Lanka.[225] By this time, Sri Lanka was strongly involved in the NAM and Colombo held the fifth NAM summit in 1976.[226] The relationship between Sri Lanka and India became tense under the government of J. R. Jayawardene.[132][227] As a result, India intervened in the Sri Lankan Civil War and subsequently deployed an Indian Peace Keeping Force in 1987.[228] In the present, Sri Lanka enjoys extensive relations with China,[229] Russia,[230] and Pakistan.[231]
+
+The Sri Lanka Armed Forces, comprising the Sri Lanka Army, the Sri Lanka Navy, and the Sri Lanka Air Force, come under the purview of the Ministry of Defence (MoD).[232] The total strength of the three services is around 346,000 personnel, with nearly 36,000 reserves.[233] Sri Lanka has not enforced military conscription.[234] Paramilitary units include the Special Task Force, the Civil Security Force, and the Sri Lanka Coast Guard.[235][236]
+
+Since independence in 1948, the primary focus of the armed forces has been internal security, crushing three major insurgencies, two by Marxist militants of the JVP and a 26-year-long conflict with the LTTE. The armed forces have been in a continuous mobilised state for the last 30 years.[237][238]
+
+The Sri Lankan Armed Forces have engaged in United Nations peacekeeping operations since the early 1960s, contributing forces to permanent contingents deployed in several UN peacekeeping missions in Chad, Lebanon, and Haiti.[239]
+
+According to the International Monetary Fund, Sri Lanka's GDP in terms of purchasing power parity is the second most highest in the South Asian region in terms of per capita income.
+
+In the 19th and 20th centuries, Sri Lanka became a plantation economy famous for its production and export of cinnamon, rubber, and Ceylon tea, which remains a trademark national export.[240] The development of modern ports under British rule raised the strategic importance of the island as a centre of trade.[241] From 1948 to 1977, socialism strongly influenced the government's economic policies. Colonial plantations were dismantled, industries were nationalised, and a welfare state established. In 1977, the free market economy was introduced to the country incorporating privatisation, deregulation, and the promotion of private enterprise.[124]
+
+While the production and export of tea, rubber, coffee, sugar, and other commodities remain important, industrialisation has increased the importance of food processing, textiles, telecommunications, and finance. The country's main economic sectors are tourism, tea export, clothing, rice production, and other agricultural products. In addition to these economic sectors, overseas employment, especially in the Middle East, contributes substantially in foreign exchange.[242]
+
+As of 2010[update], the service sector makes up 60% of GDP, the industrial sector 28%, and the agriculture sector 12%.[242] The private sector accounts for 85% of the economy.[243] China, India and the United States are Sri Lanka's largest trading partners.[244] Economic disparities exist between the provinces with the Western Province contributing 45.1% of the GDP and the Southern Province and the Central Province contributing 10.7% and 10%, respectively.[245] With the end of the war, the Northern Province reported a record 22.9% GDP growth in 2010.[246]
+
+The per capita income of Sri Lanka has doubled since 2005.[248] During the same period, poverty has dropped from 15.2% to 7.6%, unemployment rate has dropped from 7.2% to 4.9%, market capitalisation of the Colombo Stock Exchange has quadrupled and the budget deficit has doubled.[242] Over 90% of the households in Sri Lanka are electrified. 87.3% of the population have access to safe drinking water and 39% have access to pipe-borne water.[242] Income inequality has also dropped in recent years, indicated by a Gini coefficient of 0.36 in 2010.[249] Sri Lanka's cellular subscriber base has shown a staggering 550% growth from 2005 to 2010.[242] Sri Lanka was the first country in the South Asian region to introduce 3G, 3.5G (HSDPA), 3.75G (HSUPA) and 4G (LTE) mobile telecommunication technologies.[250]
+
+The Global Competitiveness Report, published by the World Economic Forum, has described Sri Lanka's economy as transitioning from the factor-driven stage to the efficiency-driven stage and that it ranks 52nd in global competitiveness.[251] Also, out of the 142 countries surveyed, Sri Lanka ranked 45th in health and primary education, 32nd in business sophistication, 42nd in innovation, and 41st in goods market efficiency. Sri Lanka ranks 5th in the World Giving Index, registering high levels of contentment and charitable behaviour in its society.[252] In 2010, The New York Times placed Sri Lanka at the top of its list of 31 places to visit.[253] S&P Dow Jones Indices classifies Sri Lanka as a frontier market as of 2018,[254] and Citigroup classified it as a 3G country in February 2011.[255] Sri Lanka ranks well above other South Asian countries in the Human Development Index (HDI) with an index of 0.750.
+
+Sri Lanka's road network consists of 35 A-Grade highways and two controlled-access highways (E01 and E03).[256][257] The railway network, operated by the state-run national railway operator Sri Lanka Railways, spans 1,447 kilometres (900 mi).[258] Sri Lanka also has three deep-water ports at Colombo, Galle, and Trincomalee, in addition to the newest port being built at Hambantota. The port at Trincomalee is the fifth largest natural harbour in the world; during World War II, the British stated that they could place their entire navy in the harbour with room to spare.[citation needed] Sri Lanka's flag carrier airline is SriLankan Airlines. Fitch Ratings has affirmed Sri Lanka's Foreign- and Local-Currency Issuer Default Ratings (IDRs) at 'BB-' with a "stable" outlook. With a grant of 20 million dollars from the US and help from China, a space academy has been set up for the purpose of developing an indigenous space sector to launch satellites of other nations as well as of Sri Lanka. This dual use of launching technology will also serve to develop missile technology. On 26 September 2012 China launched Sri Lanka's first satellite, with plans for more launches in the coming years.[259][260][261]
+
+During the past few years, the country's debt has soared as it was developing its infrastructure to the point of near bankruptcy which required a bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF)[262] The IMF had agreed to provide a US$1.5 billion bailout loan in April 2016 after Sri Lanka provided a set of criteria intended to improve its economy. By the fourth quarter of 2016, the debt was estimated to be $64.9 billion. Additional debt had been incurred in the past by state-owned organisations and this was said to be at least $9.5 billion. Since early 2015, domestic debt increased by 12 percent and external debt by 25 percent.[263]
+
+In November 2016, the International Monetary Fund reported that the initial disbursement was larger than US$150 million originally planned, a full US$162.6 million (SDR 119.894 million), to Sri Lanka. The agency's evaluation for the first tranche  was cautiously optimistic about the future. Under the program Sri Lankan government implemented a new Inland Revenue Act and an automatic fuel pricing formula which were noted by the IMF in its fourth review. In 2018 China agreed to bail out Sri Lanka with a loan of $1.25 billion to deal with  foreign debt repayment spikes in 2019 to 2021.[264][265][266]
+
+Sri Lanka is the 57th most populated nation in the world,[5] with roughly 21,670,000 people, and an annual population growth rate of 1.14%. Sri Lanka has a birth rate of 17.6 births per 1,000 people and a death rate of 6.2 deaths per 1,000 people.[242] Population density is highest in western Sri Lanka, especially in and around the capital. Sinhalese constitute the largest ethnic group in the country, with 74.8% of the total population.[267]
+
+Sri Lankan Tamils are the second major ethnic group in the island, with a percentage of 11.2%. Sri Lankan Moors comprise 9.2%. Tamils of Indian origin were brought into the country as indentured labourers by British colonists to work on estate plantations. Nearly 50% of them were repatriated following independence in 1948.[268] They are distinguished from the native Tamil population that has resided in Sri Lanka since ancient times. There are also small ethnic groups such as the Burghers (of mixed European descent) and Malays from Southeast Asia. Moreover, there is a small population of Vedda people who are believed to be the original indigenous group to inhabit the island.[269]
+
+Sinhala and Tamil are the two official languages of Sri Lanka.[270] The Constitution defines English as the link language. English is widely used for education, scientific and commercial purposes. Members of the Burgher community speak variant forms of Portuguese Creole and Dutch with varying proficiency, while members of the Malay community speak a form of Creole Malay that is unique to the island.[271]
+
+Religion in Sri Lanka (2012 census)[272][273]
+
+Sri Lanka is a multi-religious country. Buddhists comprise 70% of the population,[274] with the Theravada school being predominant.[275] Most Buddhists are of the Sinhalese ethnic group. Buddhism was introduced to Sri Lanka in the 2nd century BCE by Venerable Mahinda.[275] A sapling of the Bodhi Tree under which the Buddha attained enlightenment was brought to Sri Lanka during the same time. The Pāli Canon (Thripitakaya), having previously been preserved as an oral tradition, was first committed to writing in Sri Lanka around 30 BCE.[276]
+
+Sri Lanka has the longest continuous history of Buddhism of any predominantly Buddhist nation,[275] with the Sangha having existed in a largely unbroken lineage since its introduction in the 2nd century BCE. During periods of decline, the Sri Lankan monastic lineage was revived through contact with Thailand and Burma.[276] Buddhism is given special recognition in the Constitution which requires Sri Lankans to "protect and foster the Buddha Sasana".[277]
+
+Hinduism is the second most prevalent religion in Sri Lanka and predates Buddhism. Today, Hinduism is dominant in Northern, Eastern and Central Sri Lanka.[278]
+
+Islam is the third most prevalent religion in the country, having first been brought to the island by Arab traders over the course of many centuries, starting around the 7th century CE. Most Muslims are Sunni who follow the Shafi'i school.[279] Most followers of Islam in Sri Lanka today are believed to be descendants of those Arab traders and the local women they married.[280]
+
+Christianity reached the country through Western colonists in the early 16th century.[281] Around 7.4% of the Sri Lankan population are Christians, of whom 82% are Roman Catholics who trace their religious heritage directly to the Portuguese. Sri Lankan Tamil Catholics attribute their religious heritage to St. Francis Xavier as well as Portuguese missionaries. The remaining Christians are evenly split between the Anglican Church of Ceylon and other Protestant denominations.[282]
+
+There is also a small population of Zoroastrian immigrants from India (Parsis) who settled in Ceylon during the period of British rule,[283] but this community has steadily dwindled in recent years.[284] Religion plays a prominent role in the life and culture of Sri Lankans. The Buddhist majority observe Poya Days each month according to the Lunar calendar, and Hindus and Muslims also observe their own holidays. In a 2008 Gallup poll, Sri Lanka was ranked the third most religious country in the world, with 99% of Sri Lankans saying religion was an important part of their daily life.[285]
+
+Colombo
+
+Kandy
+
+Galle
+
+Jaffna
+
+Sri Lankans have a life expectancy of 77.9 years at birth, which is 10% higher than the world average.[242] The infant mortality rate stands at 8.5 per 1,000 births and the maternal mortality rate at 0.39 per 1,000 births, which is on par with figures from the developed countries. The universal "pro-poor"[287] health care system adopted by the country has contributed much towards these figures.[288]
+
+Sri Lanka ranks first among southeast Asian countries with respect to commitment of suicide, with 33 deaths per 100,000 persons. According to the Department of Census and Statistics, poverty, destructive pastimes and inability to cope with stressful situations, are the main causes behind the high suicide rates.[289]
+
+With a literacy rate of 92.5%,[242] Sri Lanka has one of the most literate populations amongst developing nations.[290] Its youth literacy rate stands at 98%,[291] computer literacy rate at 35%,[292] and primary school enrolment rate at over 99%.[293] An education system which dictates 9 years of compulsory schooling for every child is in place. The free education system established in 1945,[294] is a result of the initiative of C. W. W. Kannangara and A. Ratnayake.[295][296] It is one of the few countries in the world that provide universal free education from primary to tertiary stage.[297]
+
+Kannangara led the establishment of the Madhya Maha Vidyalayas (Central Schools) in different parts of the country in order to provide education to Sri Lanka's rural children.[292] In 1942 a special education committee proposed extensive reforms to establish an efficient and quality education system for the people. However, in the 1980s changes to this system saw the separation of the administration of schools between the central government and the provincial government. Thus the elite National Schools are controlled directly by the Ministry of Education and the provincial schools by the provincial government. Sri Lanka has approximately 9675 government schools, 817 private schools and Pirivenas.[242]
+
+Sri Lanka has 15 public universities.[298] A lack of responsiveness of the education system to labour market requirements, disparities in access to quality education, lack of an effective linkage between secondary and tertiary education remain major challenges for the education sector.[299] A number of private, degree awarding institutions have emerged in recent times to fill in these gaps, yet the participation at tertiary level education remains at 5.1%.[300] The proposed private university bill has been withdrawn by the Higher Education Ministry after university students' heavy demonstrations and resistance.[301]
+
+The late British science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke served as Chancellor of Moratuwa University in Sri Lanka from 1979 to 2002.[302]
+
+Sri Lanka has an extensive road network for inland transportation. With more than 100,000 km (62,000 mi) of paved roads,[303] it has one of the highest road densities in the world (1.5 km or 0.93 mi of paved roads per every 1 km2 or 0.39 sq mi of land). E-grade highways are the latest addition to Sri Lanka's road network. These are access-controlled, high-mobility roads with permitted speeds up to 100 km/h (62 mph).[304] These highways connect local communities together, by-passing busy and congested town centres.
+
+A and B grade roads are national (arterial) highways administered by Road Development Authority.[305] C and D grade roads are provincial roads coming under the purview of the Provincial Road Development Authority of the respective province. The other roads are local roads falling under local government authorities.
+
+The rail network of Sri Lanka consists of main lines, coastal lines, and up-country lines.[306] In addition, air- and water-based transportation modalities augment the inland transport of the country.
+
+The Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation (formerly Radio Ceylon) is the oldest-running radio station in Asia,[307] established in 1923 by Edward Harper just three years after broadcasting began in Europe.[307] The station broadcasts services in Sinhala, Tamil, English and Hindi. Since the 1980s, many private radio stations have also been introduced. Broadcast television was introduced to the country in 1979 when the Independent Television Network was launched. Initially, all Television stations were state-controlled, but private television networks began broadcasts in 1992.[308]
+
+As of 2010[update], 51 newspapers (30 Sinhala, 10 Tamil, 11 English) are published and 34 TV stations and 52 radio stations are in operation.[242] In recent years, freedom of the press in Sri Lanka has been alleged by media freedom groups to be amongst the poorest in democratic countries.[309] Alleged abuse of a newspaper editor by a senior government minister[310] achieved international notoriety because of the unsolved murder of the editor's predecessor, Lasantha Wickrematunge,[311] who had also been a critic of the government and had presaged his own death in a posthumously published article.[312]
+
+Officially, the constitution of Sri Lanka guarantees human rights as ratified by the United Nations. However, human rights in Sri Lanka have come under criticism by Amnesty International, Freedom from Torture, Human Rights Watch,[313] and the United States Department of State.[314] British colonial rulers,[315] the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), and the government of Sri Lanka are accused of violating human rights. A report by an advisory panel to the UN secretary-general has accused both the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government of alleged war crimes during final stages of the civil war.[316][317] Corruption remains a problem in Sri Lanka, and there is currently very little protection for those who stand up against corruption.[318] The 135-year-old Article 365 of the Sri Lankan Penal Code criminalises gay sex and provides for a penalty of up to ten years in prison.[319]
+
+The UN Human Rights Council has documented over 12,000 named individuals who have undergone disappearance after detention by security forces in Sri Lanka, the second highest figure in the world since the Working Group came into being in 1980.[320] The Sri Lankan government has confirmed that 6,445 of these are dead. Allegations of human rights abuses have not ended with the close of the ethnic conflict.[321]
+
+UN Human Rights Commissioner Navanethem Pillay visited Sri Lanka in May 2013. After her visit, she said: "The war may have ended [in Sri Lanka], but in the meantime democracy has been undermined and the rule of law eroded." Pillay spoke about the military's increasing involvement in civilian life and reports of military land grabbing. She also said that, while in Sri Lanka, she had been allowed to go wherever she wanted, but that Sri Lankans who came to meet her were harassed and intimidated by security forces.[322][323]
+
+In 2012, the UK charity Freedom from Torture reported that it had received 233 referrals of torture survivors from Sri Lanka for clinical treatment or other services provided by the charity. In the same year, Freedom from Torture published Out of the Silence, which documents evidence of torture in Sri Lanka and demonstrates that the practice has continued long after the end of the civil war in May 2009.[324]
+
+The culture of Sri Lanka dates back over 2500 years.[325] It is influenced primarily by Buddhism and Hinduism.[326] Sri Lanka is the home to two main traditional cultures: the Sinhalese (centred in the ancient cities of Kandy and Anuradhapura) and the Tamil (centred in the city of Jaffna). In more recent times, the British colonial culture has also influenced the locals. Sri Lanka claims a democratic tradition matched by few other developing countries.[327]
+
+The first Tamil immigration was probably around the 3rd century BC.[326] Tamils co-existed with the Sinhalese people since then, and the early mixing rendered the two ethnic groups almost physically indistinct.[328] Ancient Sri Lanka is marked for its genius in hydraulic engineering and architecture. The rich cultural traditions shared by all Sri Lankan cultures is the basis of the country's long life expectancy, advanced health standards and high literacy rate.[327]
+
+Dishes include rice and curry, pittu, kiribath, wholemeal roti, string hoppers, wattalapam (a rich pudding of Malay origin made of coconut milk, jaggery, cashew nuts, eggs, and spices including cinnamon and nutmeg), kottu, and hoppers.[329] Jackfruit may sometimes replace rice. Traditionally food is served on a plantain leaf or lotus leaf.
+
+Middle Eastern influences and practices are found in traditional Moor dishes, while Dutch and Portuguese influences are found with the island's Burgher community preserving their culture through traditional dishes such as Lamprais (rice cooked in stock and baked in a banana leaf), Breudher (Dutch Holiday Biscuit), and Bolo Fiado (Portuguese-style layer cake).
+
+In April, Sri Lankans celebrate the Buddhist and Hindu new year festival.[330] Esala Perahera is a symbolic Buddhist festival consisting of dances and decorated elephants held in Kandy in July and August.[331] Fire-dances, whip-dances, Kandian dances and various other cultural dances are integral parts of the festival. Christians celebrate Christmas on 25 December to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ and Easter to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. Tamils celebrate Thai Pongal and Maha Shivaratri, and Muslims celebrate Hajj and Ramadan.
+
+The movie Kadawunu Poronduwa (The broken promise), produced by S. M. Nayagam of Chitra Kala Movietone, heralded the coming of Sri Lankan cinema in 1947. Ranmuthu Duwa (Island of treasures, 1962) marked the transition cinema from black-and-white to colour. It in the recent years has featured subjects such as family melodrama, social transformation and the years of conflict between the military and the LTTE.[332] The Sri Lankan cinematic style is similar to Bollywood movies. In 1979, movie attendance rose to an all-time high, but has been in steady decline since then.[333]
+
+An influential filmmaker is Lester James Peiris, who has directed a number of movies which led to global acclaim, including Rekava (Line of destiny, 1956), Gamperaliya (The changing village, 1964), Nidhanaya (The treasure, 1970) and Golu Hadawatha (Cold heart, 1968).[334] Sri Lankan-Canadian poet Rienzi Crusz, is the subject of a documentary on his life in Sri Lanka. His work is published in Sinhala and English. Similarly, naturalised-Canadian Michael Ondaatje, is well known for his English-language novels and three films.
+
+The earliest music in Sri Lanka came from theatrical performances such as Kolam, Sokari and Nadagam.[335] Traditional music instruments such as Béra, Thammátama, Daŭla and Răbān were performed at these dramas. The first music album, Nurthi, recorded in 1903, was released through Radio Ceylon (founded in 1925). Songwriters like Mahagama Sekara and Ananda Samarakoon and musicians such as W. D. Amaradeva, Victor Ratnayake, Nanda Malini and Clarence Wijewardene have contributed much towards the upliftment of Sri Lankan music.[336] Baila is another popular music genre in the country, originated among Kaffirs or the Afro-Sinhalese community.[337]
+
+There are three main styles of Sri Lankan classical dance. They are, the Kandyan dances, low country dances and Sabaragamuwa dances. Of these, the Kandyan style, which flourished under kings of the Kingdom of Kandy, is more prominent. It is a sophisticated form of dance,[338] that consists of five sub-categories: Ves dance, Naiyandi dance, Udekki dance, Pantheru dance and 18 Vannam.[339] An elaborate headdress is worn by the male dancers and a drum called Geta Béraya is used to assist the dancer to keep on rhythm.[340] In addition, four folk drama variants named Sokri, Kolam Nadagam, Pasu, and several devil dance variants such as Sanni Yakuma and Kohomba Kankariya can be also observed.[339]
+
+The history of Sri Lankan painting and sculpture can be traced as far back as to the 2nd or 3rd century BC.[341] The earliest mention about the art of painting on Mahavamsa, is to the drawing of a palace on cloth using cinnabar in the 2nd century BC. The chronicles have description of various paintings in relic-chambers of Buddhist stupas, and in monastic residence.
+
+Theatre moved into the country when a Parsi theatre company from Mumbai introduced Nurti, a blend of European and Indian theatrical conventions to the Colombo audience in the 19th century.[339] The golden age of Sri Lankan drama and theatre began with the staging of Maname, a play written by Ediriweera Sarachchandra in 1956.[342] It was followed by a series of popular dramas like Sinhabāhu, Pabāvatī, Mahāsāra, Muudu Puththu and Subha saha Yasa.
+
+Sri Lankan literature spans at least two millennia, and is heir to the Aryan literary tradition as embodied in the hymns of the Rigveda.[343] The Pāli Canon, the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, was written down in Sri Lanka during the Fourth Buddhist council, at the Alulena cave temple, Kegalle, as early as 29 BC.[344] Ancient chronicles such as the Mahāvamsa, written in the 6th century, provide vivid descriptions of Sri Lankan dynasties. According to the German philosopher Wilhelm Geiger, the chronicles are based on Sinhala Atthakatha (commentary), that dates few more centuries back.[343] The oldest surviving prose work is the Dhampiya-Atuva-Getapadaya, compiled in the 9th century.[343]
+
+The greatest literary feats of medieval Sri Lanka include Sandesha Kāvya (poetic messages) such as Girā Sandeshaya (Parrot message), Hansa Sandeshaya (Swan message) and Salalihini Sandeshaya (Myna message). Poetry including Kavsilumina, Kavya-Sekharaya (diadem of poetry) and proses such as Saddharma-Ratnāvaliya, Amāvatura (Flood of nectar) and Pujāvaliya are also notable works of this period, which is considered to be the golden age of Sri Lankan literature.[343] The first modern-day novel, Meena, a work of Simon de Silva appeared in 1905,[339] and was followed by a number of revolutionary literary works. Martin Wickramasinghe, the author of Madol Doova is considered the iconic figure of Sri Lankan literature.[345]
+
+While the national sport in Sri Lanka is volleyball, by far the most popular sport in the country is cricket.[346] Rugby union also enjoys extensive popularity,[347] as do athletics, football (soccer), netball and tennis. Sri Lanka's schools and colleges regularly organise sports and athletics teams, competing on provincial and national levels.
+
+The Sri Lanka national cricket team achieved considerable success beginning in the 1990s, rising from underdog status to winning the 1996 Cricket World Cup.[348] They also won the 2014 ICC World Twenty20 played in Bangladesh, beating India in the final. In addition, Sri Lanka became the runners-up of the Cricket World Cup in 2007[349] and 2011,[350] and of the ICC World Twenty20 in 2009 and 2012.[351]
+
+Former Sri Lankan off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan has been rated as the greatest Test match bowler ever by Wisden Cricketers' Almanack,[352] and four Sri Lankan cricketers ranked 2nd (Sangakkara), 4th (Jayasuriya), 5th (Jayawardene) and 11th (Dilshan) highest ODI run scorers of all time, which is the second best by a team. Sri Lanka has won the Asia Cup in 1986,[353] 1997,[354] 2004,[355] 2008[356] and 2014.[357] Sri Lanka once held highest team score in all three formats of cricket, where currently holds Test team total.[358] The country co-hosted the Cricket World Cup in 1996 and 2011, and hosted the 2012 ICC World Twenty20.
+
+Sri Lankans have won two medals at Olympic Games, one silver, by Duncan White at 1948 London Olympics for men's 400 metres hurdles[359] and one silver by Susanthika Jayasinghe at 2000 Sydney Olympics for women's 200 metres.[360] In 1973, Muhammad Lafir won the World Billiards Championship, the highest feat by a Sri Lankan in a Cue sport.[361] Sri Lanka has also won the Carrom World Championship titles twice in 2012, 2016[362] and 2018, men's team becoming champions and women's team won second place. Aquatic sports such as boating, surfing, swimming, kitesurfing[363] and scuba diving on the coast, the beaches and backwaters attract many Sri Lankans and foreign tourists. There are two styles of martial arts native to Sri Lanka, Cheena di and Angampora.[364]
+
+The Sri Lanka national netball team has won the Asian Netball Championship five times and are the current Asian Champions as well.[citation needed]
+
+Government
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+Overviews and data
+
+History
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+Maps
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+Trade

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+The Schutzstaffel (SS; also stylized as ᛋᛋ with Armanen runes; German pronunciation: [ˈʃʊtsˌʃtafl̩] (listen); literally 'Protection Squadron') was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II. It began with a small guard unit known as the Saal-Schutz ("Hall Security") made up of NSDAP volunteers to provide security for party meetings in Munich. In 1925, Heinrich Himmler joined the unit, which had by then been reformed and given its final name. Under his direction (1929–1945) it grew from a small paramilitary formation during the Weimar Republic to one of the most powerful organizations in Nazi Germany. From the time of the Nazi Party’s rise to power until the regime’s collapse in 1945, the SS was the foremost agency of security, surveillance, and terror within Germany and German-occupied Europe.
+
+The two main constituent groups were the Allgemeine SS (General SS) and Waffen-SS (Armed SS). The Allgemeine SS was responsible for enforcing the racial policy of Nazi Germany and general policing, whereas the Waffen-SS consisted of combat units within Nazi Germany's military. A third component of the SS, the SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV; literally "Death's Head Units"[2]), ran the concentration camps and extermination camps. Additional subdivisions of the SS included the Gestapo and the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) organizations. They were tasked with the detection of actual or potential enemies of the Nazi state, the neutralization of any opposition, policing the German people for their commitment to Nazi ideology, and providing domestic and foreign intelligence.
+
+The SS was the organization most responsible for the genocidal killing of an estimated 5.5 to 6 million Jews and millions of other victims during the Holocaust.[3] Members of all of its branches committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during World War II (1939–45). The SS was also involved in commercial enterprises and exploited concentration camp inmates as slave labor. After Nazi Germany's defeat, the SS and the Nazi Party were judged by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg to be criminal organizations. Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the highest-ranking surviving SS main department chief, was found guilty of crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg trials and hanged in 1946.
+
+By 1923, the Nazi Party (NSDAP) led by Adolf Hitler had created a small volunteer guard unit known as the Saal-Schutz (Hall Security) to provide security at their meetings in Munich.[4][5] The same year, Hitler ordered the formation of a small bodyguard unit dedicated to his personal service. He wished it to be separate from the "suspect mass" of the party, including the paramilitary Sturmabteilung ("Storm Battalion"; SA), which he did not trust.[6] The new formation was designated the Stabswache (Staff Guard).[7] Originally the unit was composed of eight men, commanded by Julius Schreck and Joseph Berchtold, and was modeled after the Erhardt Naval Brigade, a Freikorps of the time. The unit was renamed Stoßtrupp (Shock Troops) in May 1923.[8][9]
+
+The Stoßtrupp was abolished after the failed 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, an attempt by the NSDAP to seize power in Munich.[10] In 1925, Hitler ordered Schreck to organize a new bodyguard unit, the Schutzkommando (Protection Command).[1] It was tasked with providing personal protection for Hitler at NSDAP functions and events. That same year, the Schutzkommando was expanded to a national organization and renamed successively the Sturmstaffel (Storm Squadron), and finally the Schutzstaffel (Protection Squad; SS).[11] Officially, the SS marked its foundation on 9 November 1925 (the second anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch).[12] The new SS protected NSDAP leaders throughout Germany. Hitler's personal SS protection unit was later enlarged to include combat units.[13]
+
+Schreck, a founding member of the SA and a close confidant of Hitler, became the first SS chief in March 1925.[14] On 15 April 1926, Joseph Berchtold succeeded him as chief of the SS. Berchtold changed the title of the office to Reichsführer-SS (Reich Leader-SS).[15] Berchtold was considered more dynamic than his predecessor, but became increasingly frustrated by the authority the SA had over the SS.[16] This led to him transferring leadership of the SS to his deputy, Erhard Heiden, on 1 March 1927.[17] Under Heiden's leadership, a stricter code of discipline was enforced than would have been tolerated in the SA.[16]
+
+Between 1925 and 1929, the SS was considered to be a small Gruppe (battalion) of the SA.[18] Except in the Munich area, the SS was unable to maintain any momentum in its membership numbers, which declined from 1,000 to 280 as the SA continued its rapid growth.[19] As Heiden attempted to keep the SS from dissolving, Heinrich Himmler became his deputy in September 1927. Himmler displayed good organizational abilities compared to Heiden.[18] The SS established a number of Gaus (regions or provinces). The SS-Gaus consisted of SS-Gau Berlin, SS-Gau Berlin Brandenburg, SS-Gau Franken, SS-Gau Niederbayern, SS-Gau Rheinland-Süd, and SS-Gau Sachsen.[20]
+
+With Hitler's approval, Himmler assumed the position of Reichsführer-SS in January 1929.[21][22] There are differing accounts of the reason for Heiden's dismissal from his position as head of the SS. The party announced that it was for "family reasons."[23] Under Himmler, the SS expanded and gained a larger foothold. He considered the SS an elite, ideologically driven National Socialist organization, a "conflation of Teutonic knights, the Jesuits, and Japanese Samurai".[24] His ultimate aim was to turn the SS into the most powerful organization in Germany and most influential branch of the party.[25] He expanded the SS to 3,000 members in his first year as its leader.[24]
+
+In 1929, the SS-Hauptamt (main SS office) was expanded and reorganized into five main offices dealing with general administration, personnel, finance, security, and race matters. At the same time, the SS-Gaue were divided into three SS-Oberführerbereiche areas, namely the SS-Oberführerbereich Ost, SS-Oberführerbereich West, and SS-Oberführerbereich Süd.[26] The lower levels of the SS remained largely unchanged. Although officially still considered a sub-organization of the SA and answerable to the Stabschef (SA Chief of Staff), it was also during this time that Himmler began to establish the independence of the SS from the SA.[27] The SS grew in size and power due to its exclusive loyalty to Hitler, as opposed to the SA, which was seen as semi-independent and a threat to Hitler's hegemony over the party, mainly because they demanded a "second revolution" beyond the one that brought the NSDAP to power.[28] By the end of 1933, the membership of the SS reached 209,000.[29] Under Himmler's leadership, the SS continued to gather greater power as more and more state and party functions were assigned to its jurisdiction. Over time the SS became answerable only to Hitler, a development typical of the organizational structure of the entire Nazi regime, where legal norms were replaced by actions undertaken under the Führerprinzip (leader principle), where Hitler's will was considered to be above the law.[30]
+
+In the latter half of 1934, Himmler oversaw the creation of SS-Junkerschule, institutions where SS officer candidates received leadership training, political and ideological indoctrination, and military instruction. The training stressed ruthlessness and toughness as part of the SS value system, which helped foster a sense of superiority among the men and taught them self-confidence.[31] The first schools were established at Bad Tölz and Braunschweig, with additional schools opening at Klagenfurt and Prague during the war.[32]
+
+The SS was regarded as the NSDAP's elite unit.[33] In keeping with the racial policy of Nazi Germany, in the early days all SS officer candidates had to provide proof of Aryan ancestry back to 1750 and for other ranks to 1800.[34] Once the war started and it became more difficult to confirm ancestry, the regulation was amended to just proving the candidate's grandparents were Aryan, as spelled out in the Nuremberg Laws.[35] Other requirements were complete obedience to the Führer and a commitment to the German people and nation.[36] Himmler also tried to institute physical criteria based on appearance and height, but these requirements were only loosely enforced, and over half the SS men did not meet the criteria.[37] Inducements such as higher salaries and larger homes were provided to members of the SS since they were expected to produce more children than the average German family as part of their commitment to NSDAP doctrine.[38]
+
+Commitment to SS ideology was emphasized throughout the recruitment, membership process, and training.[40] Members of the SS were indoctrinated in the racial policy of Nazi Germany, and were taught that it was necessary to remove from Germany people deemed by that policy as inferior.[41] Esoteric rituals and the awarding of regalia and insignia for milestones in the SS man's career suffused SS members even further with Nazi ideology.[42] Members were expected to renounce their Christian faith, and Christmas was replaced with a solstice celebration.[43] Church weddings were replaced with SS Ehewein, a pagan ceremony invented by Himmler.[44] These pseudo-religious rites and ceremonies often took place near SS-dedicated monuments or in special SS-designated places.[45] In 1933, Himmler bought Wewelsburg, a castle in Westphalia. He initially intended it to be used as an SS training center, but its role came to include hosting SS dinners and neo-pagan rituals.[46]
+
+The SS ideology included the application of brutality and terror as a solution to military and political problems.[47] The SS stressed total loyalty and obedience to orders unto death. Hitler used this as a powerful tool to further his aims and those of the NSDAP. The SS was entrusted with the commission of atrocities, illegal activities, and war crimes. Himmler once wrote that an SS man "hesitates not for a single instant, but executes unquestioningly ..." any Führer-Befehl (Führer order).[48] Their official motto was "Meine Ehre heißt Treue" (My Honour is Loyalty).[49]
+
+As part of its race-centric functions during World War II, the SS oversaw the isolation and displacement of Jews from the populations of the conquered territories, seizing their assets and deporting them to concentration camps and ghettos, where they were used as slave labor or immediately killed.[35] Chosen to implement the Final Solution ordered by Hitler, the SS were the main group responsible for the institutional killing and democide of more than 20 million people during the Holocaust, including approximately 5.2 million[50] to 6 million[3] Jews and 10.5 million Slavs.[50] A significant number of victims were members of other racial or ethnic groups such as the 258,000 Romani.[50] The SS was involved in killing people viewed as threats to race hygiene or Nazi ideology, including the mentally or physically handicapped, homosexuals, and political dissidents. Members of trade unions and those perceived to be affiliated with groups that opposed the regime (religious, political, social, and otherwise), or those whose views were contradictory to the goals of the NSDAP government, were rounded up in large numbers; these included clergy of all faiths, Jehovah's Witnesses, Freemasons, Communists, and Rotary Club members.[51] According to the judgments rendered at the Nuremberg trials, as well as many war crimes investigations and trials conducted since then, the SS was responsible for the majority of Nazi war crimes. In particular, it was the primary organization which carried out the Holocaust.[52]
+
+After Hitler and the NSDAP came to power on 30 January 1933, the SS was considered a state organization and a branch of the government.[53] Law enforcement gradually became the purview of the SS, and many SS organizations became de facto government agencies.[54]
+
+The SS established a police state within Nazi Germany, using the secret state police and security forces under Himmler's control to suppress resistance to Hitler.[55] In his role as Minister President of Prussia, Hermann Göring had in 1933 created a Prussian secret police force, the Geheime Staatspolizei or Gestapo, and appointed Rudolf Diels as its head. Concerned that Diels was not ruthless enough to use the Gestapo effectively to counteract the power of the SA, Göring handed over its control to Himmler on 20 April 1934.[56] Also on that date, in a departure from long-standing German practice that law enforcement was a state and local matter, Hitler appointed Himmler chief of all German police outside Prussia. Himmler named his deputy and protégé Reinhard Heydrich chief of the Gestapo on 22 April 1934. Heydrich also continued as head of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD; security service).[57]
+
+The Gestapo's transfer to Himmler was a prelude to the Night of the Long Knives, in which most of the SA leadership were arrested and subsequently executed.[58] The SS and Gestapo carried out most of the killings. On 20 July 1934, Hitler detached the SS from the SA, which was no longer an influential force after the purge. The SS became an elite corps of the NSDAP, answerable only to Hitler. Himmler's title of Reichsführer-SS now became his actual rank – and the highest rank in the SS, equivalent to the rank of field marshal in the army (his previous rank was Obergruppenführer).[59] As Himmler's position and authority grew, so in effect did his rank.[60]
+
+On 17 June 1936, all police forces throughout Germany were united under the purview of Himmler and the SS.[54] Himmler and Heydrich thus became two of the most powerful men in the country's administration.[61] Police and intelligence forces brought under their administrative control included the SD, Gestapo, Kriminalpolizei (Kripo; criminal investigative police), and Ordnungspolizei (Orpo; regular uniformed police).[62] In his capacity as police chief, Himmler was nominally subordinate to Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick. In practice, since the SS answered only to Hitler, the de facto merger of the SS and the police made the police independent of Frick's control.[53][63] In September 1939, the security and police agencies, including the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo; security police) and SD (but not the Orpo), were consolidated into the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA), headed by Heydrich.[64] This further increased the collective authority of the SS.[65]
+
+During Kristallnacht (9–10 November 1938), SS security services clandestinely coordinated violence against Jews as the SS, Gestapo, SD, Kripo, SiPo, and regular police did what they could to ensure that while Jewish synagogues and community centers were destroyed, Jewish-owned businesses and housing remained intact so that they could later be seized.[66] In the end, thousands of Jewish businesses, homes, and graveyards were vandalized and looted, particularly by members of the SA. Some 500 to 1,000 synagogues were destroyed, mostly by arson.[67] On 11 November, Heydrich reported a death toll of 36 people, but later assessments put the number of deaths at up to two thousand.[68][69] On Hitler's orders, around 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps by 16 November.[70] As many as 2,500 of these people died in the following months.[68] It was at this point that the SS state began in earnest its campaign of terror against political and religious opponents, who they imprisoned without trial or judicial oversight for the sake of "security, re-education, or prevention".[71][72]
+
+In September 1939, the authority of the SS expanded further when the senior SS officer in each military district also became its chief of police.[73] Most of these SS and police leaders held the rank of SS-Gruppenführer or above, and answered directly to Himmler in all SS matters within their district. Their role was to police the population and oversee the activities of the SS men within their district.[74] By declaring an emergency, they could bypass the district administrative offices for the SS, SD, SiPo, SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV; concentration camp guards), and Orpo, thereby gaining direct operational control of these groups.[75]
+
+As the SS grew in size and importance, so too did Hitler's personal protection forces.[76] Three main SS groups were assigned to protect Hitler. In 1933, his larger personal bodyguard unit (previously the 1st SS-Standarte) was called to Berlin to replace the Army Chancellery Guard, assigned to protect the Chancellor of Germany.[77] Sepp Dietrich commanded the new unit, previously known as SS-Stabswache Berlin; the name was changed to SS-Sonderkommando Berlin. In November 1933, the name was changed to Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler. In April 1934, Himmler modified the name to Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH). The LSSAH guarded Hitler's private residences and offices, providing an outer ring of protection for the Führer and his visitors.[78] LSSAH men manned sentry posts at the entrances to the old Reich Chancellery and the new Reich Chancellery.[79] The number of LSSAH guards was increased during special events.[80] At the Berghof, Hitler's residence in the Obersalzberg, a large contingent of the LSSAH patrolled an extensive cordoned security zone.[81]
+
+From 1941 forward, the Leibstandarte became four distinct entities, the Waffen-SS division (unconnected to Hitler's protection but a formation of the Waffen-SS), the Berlin Chancellory Guard, the SS security regiment assigned to the Obersalzberg, and a Munich-based bodyguard unit which protected Hitler when he visited his apartment and the Brown House NSDAP headquarters in Munich.[82][83] Although the unit was nominally under Himmler, Dietrich was the real commander and handled day-to-day administration.[84]
+
+Two other SS units composed the inner ring of Hitler's protection. The SS-Begleitkommando des Führers (Escort Command of the Führer), formed in February 1932, served as Hitler's protection escort while he was traveling. This unit consisted of eight men who served around the clock protecting Hitler in shifts.[85] Later the SS-Begleitkommando was expanded and became known as the Führerbegleitkommando (Führer Escort Command; FBK). It continued under separate command and remained responsible for Hitler's protection.[86] The Führer Schutzkommando (Führer Protection Command; FSK) was a protection unit founded by Himmler in March 1933.[87] Originally it was charged with protecting Hitler only while he was inside the borders of Bavaria. In early 1934, they replaced the SS-Begleitkommando for Hitler's protection throughout Germany.[88] The FSK was renamed the Reichssicherheitsdienst (Reich Security Service; RSD) in August 1935.[89] Johann Rattenhuber, chief of the RSD, for the most part, took his orders directly from Hitler.[89] The current FBK chief acted as his deputy. Wherever Hitler was in residence, members of the RSD and FBK would be present. RSD men patrolled the grounds and FBK men provided close security protection inside. The RSD and FBK worked together for security and personal protection during Hitler's trips and public events, but they operated as two groups and used separate vehicles.[90] By March 1938, both units wore the standard field grey uniform of the SS.[91] The RSD uniform had the SD diamond on the lower left sleeve.[92]
+
+The SS was closely associated with Nazi Germany's concentration camp system. On 26 June 1933, Himmler appointed SS-Oberführer Theodor Eicke as commandant of Dachau concentration camp, one of the first Nazi concentration camps.[93] It was created to consolidate the many small camps that had been set up by various police agencies and the NSDAP to house political prisoners.[94] The organizational structure Eicke instituted at Dachau stood as the model for all later concentration camps.[95] After 1934, Eicke was named commander of the SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV), the SS formation responsible for running the concentration camps under the authority of the SS and Himmler.[96] Known as the "Death's Head Units", the SS-TV was first organized as several battalions, each based at one of Germany's major concentration camps. Leadership at the camps was divided into five departments: commander and adjutant, political affairs division, protective custody, administration, and medical personnel.[97] By 1935, Himmler secured Hitler's approval and the finances necessary to establish and operate additional camps.[98] Six concentration camps[a] housing 21,400 inmates (mostly political prisoners) existed at the start of the war in September 1939.[100] By the end of the war, hundreds of camps of varying size and function had been created, holding nearly 715,000 people, most of whom were targeted by the regime because of their race.[101][102] The concentration camp population rose in tandem with the defeats suffered by the Nazi regime; the worse the catastrophe seemed, the greater the fear of subversion, prompting the SS to intensify their repression and terror.[103]
+
+By the outbreak of World War II, the SS had consolidated into its final form, which comprised three main organizations: the Allgemeine SS, SS-Totenkopfverbände, and the Waffen-SS, which was founded in 1934 as the SS-Verfügungstruppe (SS-VT) and renamed in 1940.[104][105] The Waffen-SS evolved into a second German army alongside the Wehrmacht and operated in tandem with them, especially with the Heer (German Army).[106] However, it never obtained total "independence of command", nor was it ever a "serious rival" to the German Army. Members were never able to join the ranks of the German High Command and it was dependent on the army for heavy weaponry and equipment.[107] Although SS ranks generally had equivalents in the other services, the SS rank system did not copy the terms and ranks used by the Wehrmacht's branches. Instead, it used the ranks established by the post-World War I Freikorps and the SA. This was primarily done to emphasize the SS as being independent of the Wehrmacht.[108]
+
+In the September 1939 invasion of Poland, the LSSAH and SS-VT fought as separate mobile infantry regiments.[109] The LSSAH became notorious for torching villages without military justification.[110] Members of the LSSAH committed atrocities in numerous towns, including the murder of 50 Polish Jews in Błonie and the massacre of 200 civilians, including children, who were machine-gunned in Złoczew. Shootings also took place in Bolesławiec, Torzeniec, Goworowo, Mława, and Włocławek.[111] Some senior members of the Wehrmacht were not convinced the units were fully prepared for combat. Its units took unnecessary risks and had a higher casualty rate than the army.[112] Generaloberst Fedor von Bock was quite critical; following an April 1940 visit of the SS-Totenkopf division, he found their battle training was "insufficient".[113] Hitler thought the criticism was typical of the army's "outmoded conception of chivalry."[114] In its defense, the SS insisted that its armed formations had been hampered by having to fight piecemeal and were improperly equipped by the army.[112]
+
+After the invasion, Hitler entrusted the SS with extermination actions codenamed Operation Tannenberg and AB-Aktion to remove potential leaders who could form a resistance to German occupation. The killings were committed by Einsatzgruppen (task forces; deployment groups), assisted by local paramilitary groups. Men for the Einsatzgruppen units were drawn from the SS, the SD, and the police.[115] Some 65,000 Polish civilians, including activists, intelligentsia, scholars, teachers, actors, former officers, and others, were killed by the end of 1939.[116][117] When the army leadership registered complaints about the brutality being meted out by the Einsatzgruppen, Heydrich informed them that he was acting "in accordance with the special order of the Führer."[118] The first systematic mass shooting of Jews by the Einsatzgruppen took place on 6 September 1939 during the attack on Kraków.[119]
+
+Satisfied with their performance in Poland, Hitler allowed further expansion of the armed SS formations, but insisted new units remain under the operational control of the army.[120] While the SS-Leibstandarte remained an independent regiment functioning as Hitler's personal bodyguards, the other regiments—SS-Deutschland, SS-Germania, and SS-Der Führer—were combined to form the SS-Verfügungs-Division.[121][112] A second SS division, the SS-Totenkopf, was formed from SS-TV concentration camp guards, and a third, the SS-Polizei, was created from police volunteers.[122][123] The SS gained control over its own recruitment, logistics, and supply systems for its armed formations at this time.[123] The SS, Gestapo, and SD were in charge of the provisional military administration in Poland until the appointment of Hans Frank as Governor-General on 26 October 1939.[124][125]
+
+On 10 May 1940, Hitler launched the Battle of France, a major offensive against France and the Low Countries.[126] The SS supplied two of the 89 divisions employed.[127] The LSSAH and elements of the SS-VT participated in the ground invasion of the Battle of the Netherlands.[128] Simultaneously, airborne troops were dropped to capture key Dutch airfields, bridges, and railways. In the five-day campaign, the LSSAH linked up with army units and airborne troops after several clashes with Dutch defenders.[128]
+
+SS troops did not take part in the thrust through the Ardennes and the river Meuse.[128] Instead, the SS-Totenkopf was summoned from the army reserve to fight in support of Generalmajor Erwin Rommel's 7th Panzer Division as they advanced toward the English Channel.[129] On 21 May, the British launched an armored counterattack against the flanks of the 7th Panzer Division and SS-Totenkopf. The Germans then trapped the British and French troops in a huge pocket at Dunkirk.[130] On 27 May, 4 Company, SS-Totenkopf perpetrated the Le Paradis massacre, where 97 men of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Norfolk Regiment were machine-gunned after surrendering, with survivors finished off with bayonets. Two men survived.[131] By 28 May the SS-Leibstandarte had taken Wormhout, 10 miles (16 km) from Dunkirk. There, soldiers of the 2nd Battalion were responsible for the Wormhoudt massacre, where 80 British and French soldiers were murdered after they surrendered.[132] According to historian Charles Sydnor, the "fanatical recklessness in the assault, suicidal defense against enemy attacks, and savage atrocities committed in the face of frustrated objectives" exhibited by the SS-Totenkopf division during the invasion were typical of the SS troops as a whole.[133]
+
+At the close of the campaign, Hitler expressed his pleasure with the performance of the SS-Leibstandarte, telling them: "Henceforth it will be an honor for you, who bear my name, to lead every German attack."[134] The SS-VT was renamed the Waffen-SS in a speech made by Hitler in July 1940.[105] Hitler then authorized the enlistment of "people perceived to be of related stock", as Himmler put it, to expand the ranks.[135] Danes, Dutch, Norwegians, Swedes, and Finns volunteered to fight in the Waffen-SS under the command of German officers.[136] They were brought together to form the new division SS-Wiking.[135] In January 1941, the SS-Verfügungs Division was renamed SS-Reich Division (Motorized), and was renamed as the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich when it was reorganized as a Panzergrenadier division in 1942.[137]
+
+In April 1941, the German Army invaded Yugoslavia and Greece. The LSSAH and Das Reich were attached to separate army Panzer corps. Fritz Klingenberg, a company commander in the Das Reich, led his men across Yugoslavia to the capital, Belgrade, where a small group in the vanguard accepted the surrender of the city on 13 April. A few days later Yugoslavia surrendered.[138][139] SS police units immediately began taking hostages and carrying out reprisals, a practice that became common. In some cases, they were joined by the Wehrmacht.[140] Similar to Poland, the war policies of the Nazis in the Balkans resulted in brutal occupation and racist mass murder. Serbia became the second country (after Estonia) declared Judenfrei (free of Jews).[141]
+
+In Greece, the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS encountered resistance from the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and Greek Army.[142] The fighting was intensified by the mountainous terrain, with its heavily defended narrow passes. The LSSAH was at the forefront of the German push.[143] The BEF evacuated by sea to Crete, but had to flee again in late May when the Germans arrived.[144] Like Yugoslavia, the conquest of Greece brought its Jews into danger, as the Nazis immediately took a variety of measures against them.[145] Initially confined in ghettos, most were transported to Auschwitz concentration camp in March 1943, where they were killed in the gas chambers on arrival. Of Greece's 80,000 Jews, only 20 percent survived the war.[146]
+
+On 22 June 1941, Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union.[147] The expanding war and the need to control occupied territories provided the conditions for Himmler to further consolidate the police and military organs of the SS.[148] Rapid acquisition of vast territories in the East placed considerable strain on the SS police organizations as they struggled to adjust to the changing security challenges.[149]
+
+The 1st and 2nd SS Infantry Brigades, which had been formed from surplus concentration camp guards of the SS-TV, and the SS Cavalry Brigade moved into the Soviet Union behind the advancing armies. At first, they fought Soviet partisans, but by the autumn of 1941, they left the anti-partisan role to other units and actively took part in the Holocaust. While assisting the Einsatzgruppen, they formed firing parties that participated in the liquidation of the Jewish population of the Soviet Union.[150][151]
+
+On 31 July 1941, Göring gave Heydrich written authorization to ensure the cooperation of administrative leaders of various government departments to undertake genocide of the Jews in territories under German control.[152] Heydrich was instrumental in carrying out these exterminations, as the Gestapo was ready to organize deportations in the West and his Einsatzgruppen were already conducting extensive killing operations in the East.[153] On 20 January 1942, Heydrich chaired a meeting, called the Wannsee Conference, to discuss the implementation of the plan.[154]
+
+During battles in the Soviet Union during 1941 and 1942, the Waffen-SS suffered enormous casualties. The LSSAH and Das Reich lost over half their troops to illness and combat casualties.[155] In need of recruits, Himmler began to accept soldiers that did not fit the original SS racial profile.[156] In early 1942, SS-Leibstandarte, SS-Totenkopf, and SS-Das Reich were withdrawn to the West to refit and were converted to Panzergrenadier divisions.[157] The SS-Panzer Corps returned to the Soviet Union in 1943 and participated in the Third Battle of Kharkov in February and March.[158]
+
+The SS was built on a culture of violence, which was exhibited in its most extreme form by the mass murder of civilians and prisoners of war on the Eastern Front.[159] Augmented by personnel from the Kripo, Orpo (Order Police), and Waffen-SS,[160] the Einsatzgruppen reached a total strength of 3,000 men. Einsatzgruppen A, B, and C were attached to Army Groups North, Centre, and South; Einsatzgruppe D was assigned to the 11th Army. The Einsatzgruppe for Special Purposes operated in eastern Poland starting in July 1941.[161] The historian Richard Rhodes describes them as being "outside the bounds of morality"; they were "judge, jury and executioner all in one", with the authority to kill anyone at their discretion.[162] Following Operation Barbarossa, these Einsatzgruppen units, together with the Waffen-SS and Order Police as well as with assistance from the Wehrmacht, engaged in the mass killing of the Jewish population in occupied eastern Poland and the Soviet Union.[162][163][164] The greatest extent of Einsatzgruppen action occurred in 1941 and 1942 in Ukraine and Russia.[165] Before the invasion there were five million registered Jews throughout the Soviet Union, with three million of those residing in the territories occupied by the Germans; by the time the war ended, over two million of these had been murdered.[166]
+
+The extermination activities of the Einsatzgruppen generally followed a standard procedure, with the Einsatzgruppen chief contacting the nearest Wehrmacht unit commander to inform him of the impending action; this was done so they could coordinate and control access to the execution grounds.[167] Initially, the victims were shot, but this method proved impracticable for an operation of this scale.[168] Also, after Himmler observed the shooting of 100 Jews at Minsk in August 1941, he grew concerned about the impact such actions were having on the mental health of his SS men. He decided that alternate methods of killing should be found, which led to introduction of gas vans.[169][170] However, these were not popular with the men, because removing the dead bodies from the van and burying them was a horrible ordeal. Prisoners or auxiliaries were often assigned to do this task so as to spare the SS men the trauma.[171]
+
+In response to the army's difficulties in dealing with Soviet partisans, Hitler decided in July 1942 to transfer anti-partisan operations to the police. This placed the matter under Himmler's purview.[172][173] As Hitler had ordered on 8 July 1941 that all Jews were to be regarded as partisans, the term "anti-partisan operations" was used as a euphemism for the murder of Jews as well as actual combat against resistance elements.[174][175] In July 1942 Himmler ordered that the term "partisan" should no longer be used; instead resisters to Nazi rule would be described as "bandits".[176]
+
+Himmler set the SS and SD to work on developing additional anti-partisan tactics and launched a propaganda campaign.[177] Sometime in June 1943, Himmler issued the Bandenbekämpfung (bandit fighting) order, simultaneously announcing the existence of the Bandenkampfverbände (bandit fighting formations), with SS-Obergruppenführer Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski as its chief. Employing troops primarily from the SS police and Waffen-SS, the Bandenkampfverbände had four principal operational components: propaganda, centralized control and coordination of security operations, training of troops, and battle operations.[178] Once the Wehrmacht had secured territorial objectives, the Bandenkampfverbände first secured communications facilities, roads, railways, and waterways. Thereafter, they secured rural communities and economic installations such as factories and administrative buildings. An additional priority was securing agricultural and forestry resources. The SS oversaw the collection of the harvest, which was deemed critical to strategic operations.[179] Any Jews in the area were rounded up and killed. Communists and people of Asiatic descent were killed presumptively under the assumption that they were Soviet agents.[180]
+
+After the start of the war, Himmler intensified the activity of the SS within Germany and in Nazi-occupied Europe. Increasing numbers of Jews and German citizens deemed politically suspect or social outsiders were arrested.[181] As the Nazi regime became more oppressive, the concentration camp system grew in size and lethal operation, and grew in scope as the economic ambitions of the SS intensified.[182]
+
+Intensification of the killing operations took place in late 1941 when the SS began construction of stationary gassing facilities to replace the use of Einsatzgruppen for mass killings.[183][184] Victims at these new extermination camps were killed with the use of carbon monoxide gas from automobile engines.[185] During Operation Reinhard, run by officers from the Totenkopfverbände, who were sworn to secrecy, three death camps were built in occupied Poland: Bełżec (operational by March 1942), Sobibór (operational by May 1942), and Treblinka (operational by July 1942),[186] with squads of Trawniki men (Eastern European collaborators) overseeing hundreds of Sonderkommando prisoners,[b] who were forced to work in the gas chambers and crematoria before being murdered themselves.[187] On Himmler's orders, by early 1942 the concentration camp at Auschwitz was greatly expanded to include the addition of gas chambers, where victims were killed using the pesticide Zyklon B.[188][189]
+
+For administrative reasons, all concentration camp guards and administrative staff became full members of the Waffen-SS in 1942. The concentration camps were placed under the command of the SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt (SS Main Economic and Administrative Office; WVHA) under Oswald Pohl.[190] Richard Glücks served as the Inspector of Concentration Camps, which in 1942 became office "D" under the WVHA.[191][192] Exploitation and extermination became a balancing act as the military situation deteriorated. The labor needs of the war economy, especially for skilled workers, meant that some Jews escaped the genocide.[193] On 30 October 1942, due to severe labor shortages, Himmler ordered that large numbers of able-bodied people in the Soviet-occupied territories should be taken prisoner and sent to Germany as forced labor.[194]
+
+By 1944, the SS-TV had been organized into three divisions: staff of the concentration camps in Germany and Austria, in the occupied territories, and of the extermination camps in Poland. By 1944, it became standard practice to rotate SS members in and out of the camps, partly based on manpower needs, but also to provide easier assignments to wounded Waffen-SS members.[195] This rotation of personnel meant that nearly the entire SS knew what was going on inside the concentration camps, making the entire organization liable for war crimes and crimes against humanity.[196]
+
+In 1934, Himmler founded the first SS business venture, Nordland-Verlag, a publishing house that released propaganda material and SS training manuals. Thereafter, he purchased Allach Porcelain, which then began to produce SS memorabilia.[197] Because of the labor shortage and a desire for financial gain, the SS started exploiting concentration camp inmates as slave labor.[198] Most of the SS businesses lost money until Himmler placed them under the administration of Pohl's Verwaltung und Wirtschaftshauptamt Hauptamt (Administration and Business office; VuWHA) in 1939.[192] Even then, most of the enterprises were poorly run and did not fare well, as SS men were not selected for their business experience, and the workers were starving.[199] In July 1940 Pohl established the Deutsche Wirtschaftsbetriebe GmbH (German Businesses Ltd; DWB), an umbrella corporation under which he took over administration of all SS business concerns.[200] Eventually, the SS founded nearly 200 holding companies for their businesses.[201]
+
+In May 1941 the VuWHA founded the Deutsche Ausrüstungswerke GmbH (German Equipment Works; DAW), which was created to integrate the SS business enterprises with the burgeoning concentration camp system.[202] Himmler subsequently established four major new concentration camps in 1941: Auschwitz, Gross-Rosen, Natzweiler-Struthof, and Neuengamme. Each had at least one factory or quarry nearby where the inmates were forced to work.[203] Himmler took a particular interest in providing laborers for IG Farben, which was constructing a synthetic rubber factory at Auschwitz III–Monowitz.[204] The plant was almost ready to commence production when it was overrun by Soviet troops in 1945.[205] The life expectancy of inmates at Monowitz averaged about three months.[206] This was typical of the camps, as inmates were underfed and lived under disastrously bad living conditions. Their workload was intentionally made impossibly high, under the policy of extermination through labor.[207]
+
+In 1942, Himmler consolidated all of the offices for which Pohl was responsible into one, creating the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office (Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt; WVHA).[190] The entire concentration camp system was placed under the authority of the WVHA.[191] The SS owned Sudetenquell GmbH, a mineral water producer in Sudetenland. By 1944, the SS had purchased 75 percent of the mineral water producers in Germany and were intending to acquire a monopoly.[208] Several concentration camps produced building materials such as stone, bricks, and cement for the SS-owned Deutsche Erd- und Steinwerke (German Earth And Stone Works; DEST).[209] In the occupied Eastern territories, the SS acquired a monopoly in brick production by seizing all 300 extant brickworks.[208] The DWB also founded the Ost-Deutsche Baustoffwerke (East German Building Supply Works; GmbH or ODBS) and Deutsche Edelmöbel GmbH (German Noble Furniture). These operated in factories the SS had confiscated from Jews and Poles.[210]
+
+The SS owned experimental farms, bakeries, meat packing plants, leather works, clothing and uniform factories, and small arms factories.[211][212] Under the direction of the WVHA, the SS sold camp labor to various factories at a rate of three to six Reichsmarks per prisoner per day.[213] The SS confiscated and sold the property of concentration camp inmates, confiscated their investment portfolios and their cash, and profited from their dead bodies by selling their hair to make felt and melting down their dental work to obtain gold from the fillings.[214] The total value of assets looted from the victims of Operation Reinhard alone (not including Auschwitz) was listed by Odilo Globocnik as 178,745,960.59 Reichsmarks. Items seized included 2,909.68 kilograms of gold worth 843,802.75 RM, as well as 18,733.69 kg of silver, 1,514 kg of platinum, 249,771.50 American dollars, 130 diamond solitaires, 2,511.87 carats of brilliants, 13,458.62 carats of diamonds, and 114 kg of pearls.[215] According to Nazi legislation, Jewish property belonged to the state, but many SS camp commandants and guards stole items such as diamonds or currency for personal gain or took seized foodstuffs and liquor to sell on the black market.[216]
+
+On 5 July 1943, the Germans launched the Battle of Kursk, an offensive designed to eliminate the Kursk salient.[217] The Waffen-SS by this time had been expanded to 12 divisions, and most took part in the battle.[218] Due to stiff Soviet resistance, Hitler halted the attack by the evening of 12 July. On 17 July he called off the operation and ordered a withdrawal.[219] Thereafter, the Germans were forced onto the defensive as the Red Army began the liberation of Western Russia.[220] The losses incurred by the Waffen-SS and the Wehrmacht during the Battle of Kursk occurred nearly simultaneously with the Allied assault into Italy, opening a two-front war for Germany.[221]
+
+Alarmed by the raids on St Nazaire and Dieppe in 1942, Hitler had ordered the construction of fortifications he called the Atlantic Wall all along the Atlantic coast, from Spain to Norway, to protect against an expected Allied invasion.[222] Concrete gun emplacements were constructed at strategic points along the coast, and wooden stakes, metal tripods, mines, and large anti-tank obstacles were placed on the beaches to delay the approach of landing craft and impede the movement of tanks.[223] In addition to several static infantry divisions, eleven panzer and Panzergrenadier divisions were deployed nearby.[224][225] Four of these formations were Waffen-SS divisions.[226] In addition, the SS-Das Reich was located in Southern France, the LSSAH was in Belgium refitting after fighting in the Soviet Union, and the newly formed panzer division SS-Hitlerjugend, consisting of 17- and 18-year-old Hitler Youth members supported by combat veterans and experienced NCOs, was stationed west of Paris.[227] The creation of the SS-Hitlerjugend was a sign of Hitler's desperation for more troops, especially ones with unquestioning obedience.[228]
+
+The Normandy landings took place beginning 6 June 1944. 21st Panzer Division under Generalmajor Edgar Feuchtinger, positioned south of Caen, was the only panzer division close to the beaches. The division included 146 tanks and 50 assault guns, plus supporting infantry and artillery.[229] At 02:00, Generalleutnant Wilhelm Richter, commander of the 716th Static Infantry Division, ordered 21st Panzer Division into position to counter-attack. However, as the division was part of the armored reserve, Feuchtinger was obliged to seek clearance from OKW before he could commit his formation.[230] Feuchtinger did not receive orders until nearly 09:00, but in the meantime, on his own initiative he put together a battle group (including tanks) to fight the British forces east of the Orne.[231] SS-Hitlerjugend began to deploy in the afternoon of 6 June, with its units undertaking defensive actions the following day. They also took part in the Battle for Caen (June–August 1944).[232] On 7–8 and 17 June, members of the SS-Hitlerjugend shot and killed twenty Canadian prisoners of war in the Ardenne Abbey massacre.[233]
+
+The Allies continued to make progress in the liberation of France, and on 4 August Hitler ordered a counter-offensive (Operation Lüttich) from Vire towards Avranches.[234] The operation included LSSAH, Das Reich, 2nd, and 116th Panzer Divisions, with support from infantry and elements of the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division Götz von Berlichingen under SS-Oberstgruppenf��hrer Paul Hausser. These forces were to mount an offensive near Mortain and drive west through Avranches to the coast. The Allied forces were prepared for this offensive, and an air assault on the combined German units proved devastating.[235] On 21 August, 50,000 German troops, including most of the LSSAH, were encircled by the Allies in the Falaise Pocket.[236] Remnants of the LSSAH which escaped were withdrawn to Germany for refitting.[237] Paris was liberated on 25 August, and the last of the German forces withdrew over the Seine by the end of August, ending the Normandy campaign.[238]
+
+Waffen-SS units that had survived the summer campaigns were withdrawn from the front line to refit. Two of them, the 9th SS and 10th SS Panzer Divisions, did so in the Arnhem region of Holland in early September 1944. Coincidentally, on 17 September, the Allies launched in the same area Operation Market Garden, a combined airborne and land operation designed to seize control of the lower Rhine.[239] The 9th and 10th Panzers were among the units that repulsed the attack.[240]
+
+In December 1944, Hitler launched the Ardennes Offensive, also known as the Battle of the Bulge, a significant counterattack against the western Allies through the Ardennes with the aim of reaching Antwerp while encircling the Allied armies in the area.[241] The offensive began with an artillery barrage shortly before dawn on 16 December. Spearheading the attack were two panzer armies composed largely of Waffen-SS divisions.[242] The battlegroups found advancing through the forests and wooded hills of the Ardennes difficult in the winter weather, but they initially made good progress in the northern sector. They soon encountered strong resistance from the US 2nd and 99th Infantry Divisions. By 23 December, the weather improved enough for Allied air forces to attack the German forces and their supply columns, causing fuel shortages. In increasingly difficult conditions, the German advance slowed and was stopped.[243] Hitler's failed offensive cost 700 tanks and most of their remaining mobile forces in the west,[244] as well as most of their irreplaceable reserves of manpower and materiel.[245]
+
+During the battle, SS-Obersturmbannführer Joachim Peiper left a path of destruction, which included Waffen-SS soldiers under his command murdering American POWs and unarmed Belgian civilians in the Malmedy massacre.[246] Captured SS soldiers who were part of Kampfgruppe Peiper were tried during the Malmedy massacre trial following the war for this massacre and several others in the area. Many of the perpetrators were sentenced to hang, but the sentences were commuted. Peiper was imprisoned for eleven years for his role in the killings.[247]
+
+In the east, the Red Army resumed its offensive on 12 January 1945. German forces were outnumbered twenty to one in aircraft, eleven to one in infantry, and seven to one in tanks on the Eastern Front.[248] By the end of the month, the Red Army had made bridgeheads across the Oder, the last geographic obstacle before Berlin.[249] The western Allies continued to advance as well, but not as rapidly as the Red Army.[250] The Panzer Corps conducted a successful defensive operation on 17–24 February at the Hron River, stalling the Allied advance towards Vienna.[251] The 1st and 2nd SS Panzer Corps made their way towards Austria, but were slowed by damaged railways.[252]
+
+Budapest fell on 13 February.[253] Hitler ordered Dietrich's 6th Panzer Army to move into Hungary to protect the Nagykanizsa oilfields and refineries, which he deemed the most strategically valuable fuel reserves on the Eastern Front.[254][251] Frühlingserwachsen (Operation Spring Awakening), the final German offensive in the east, took place in early March. German forces attacked near Lake Balaton, with 6th Panzer Army advancing north towards Budapest and 2nd Panzer Army moving east and south.[255] Dietrich's forces at first made good progress, but as they drew near the Danube, the combination of muddy terrain and strong Soviet resistance brought them to a halt.[256] By 16 March the battle was lost.[257] Enraged by the defeat, Hitler ordered the Waffen-SS units involved to remove their cuff titles as a mark of disgrace. Dietrich refused to carry out the order.[258]
+
+By this time, on both the Eastern and Western Front, the activities of the SS were becoming clear to the Allies, as the concentration and extermination camps were being overrun.[259] Allied troops were filled with disbelief and repugnance at the evidence of Nazi brutality in the camps.[260]
+
+On 9 April 1945 Königsberg fell to the Red Army, and on 13 April Dietrich's SS unit was forced out of Vienna.[261] The Battle of Berlin began at 03:30 on 16 April with a massive artillery barrage.[262] Within the week, fighting was taking place inside the city. Among the many elements defending Berlin were French, Latvian, and Scandinavian Waffen-SS troops.[263][264] Hitler, now living in the Führerbunker under the Reich Chancellery, still hoped that his remaining SS soldiers could rescue the capital. In spite of the hopelessness of the situation, members of the SS patrolling the city continued to shoot or hang soldiers and civilians for what they considered to be acts of cowardice or defeatism.[265] The Berlin garrison surrendered on 2 May, two days after Hitler committed suicide.[262] As members of SS expected little mercy from the Red Army, they attempted to move westward to surrender to the western Allies instead.[266]
+
+Heydrich held the title of Chef der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD (Chief of the Security Police and SD) until 27 September 1939, when he became chief of the newly established Reich Main Security Office (RSHA).[64][267] From that point forward, the RSHA was in charge of SS security services. It had under its command the SD, Kripo, and Gestapo, as well as several offices to handle finance, administration, and supply.[64] Heinrich Müller, who had been chief of operations for the Gestapo, was appointed Gestapo chief at this time.[268] Arthur Nebe was chief of the Kripo, and the two branches of SD were commanded by a series of SS officers, including Otto Ohlendorf and Walter Schellenberg. The SD was considered an elite branch of the SS, and its members were better educated and typically more ambitious than those within the ranks of the Allgemeine SS.[47] Members of the SD were specially trained in criminology, intelligence, and counter-intelligence. They also gained a reputation for ruthlessness and unwavering commitment to Nazi ideology.[269]
+
+Heydrich was attacked in Prague on 27 May 1942 by a British-trained team of Czech and Slovak soldiers who had been sent by the Czechoslovak government-in-exile to kill him in Operation Anthropoid. He died from his injuries a week later.[270][c] Himmler ran the RSHA personally until 30 January 1943, when Heydrich's positions were taken over by Ernst Kaltenbrunner.[272]
+
+Beginning in 1938 and throughout World War II, the SS enacted a procedure where offices and units of the SS could form smaller sub-units, known as SS-Sonderkommandos, to carry out special tasks, including large-scale murder operations. The use of SS-Sonderkommandos was widespread. According to former SS Sturmbannführer Wilhelm Höttl, not even the SS leadership knew how many SS-Sonderkommandos were constantly being formed, disbanded, and reformed for various tasks, especially on the Eastern Front.[273]
+
+An SS-Sonderkommando unit led by SS-Sturmbannführer Herbert Lange murdered 1,201 psychiatric patients at the Tiegenhof psychiatric hospital in the Free City of Danzig,[274] 1,100 patients in Owińska, 2,750 patients at Kościan, and 1,558 patients at Działdowo, as well as hundreds of Poles at Fort VII, where the mobile gas van and gassing bunker were developed.[275][276] In 1941–42, SS-Sonderkommando Lange set up and managed the first extermination camp, at Chełmno, where 152,000 Jews were killed using gas vans.[277]
+
+After the Battle of Stalingrad in February 1943, Himmler realized that Germany would likely lose the war, and ordered the formation of  Sonderkommando 1005, a special task force under SS-Standartenführer Paul Blobel. The unit's assignment was to visit mass graves on the Eastern Front to exhume bodies and burn them in an attempt to cover up the genocide. The task remained unfinished at the end of the war, and many mass graves remain unmarked and unexcavated.[278]
+
+The Eichmann Sonderkommando was a task force headed by Adolf Eichmann that arrived in Budapest on 19 March 1944, the same day that Axis forces invaded Hungary. Their task was to take a direct role in the deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz. The SS-Sonderkommandos enlisted the aid of antisemitic elements from the Hungarian gendarmerie and pro-German administrators from within the Hungarian Interior Ministry.[279] Round-ups began on 16 April, and from 14 May, four trains of 3,000 Jews per day left Hungary and traveled to the camp at Auschwitz II-Birkenau, arriving along a newly built spur line that terminated a few hundred meters from the gas chambers.[280][281] Between 10 and 25 percent of the people on each train were chosen as forced laborers; the rest were killed within hours of arrival.[280][282] Under international pressure, the Hungarian government halted deportations on 6 July 1944, by which time over 437,000 of Hungary's 725,000 Jews had died.[280][283]
+
+The Einsatzgruppen had its origins in the ad hoc Einsatzkommando formed by Heydrich following the Anschluss in Austria in March 1938.[284] Two units of Einsatzgruppen were stationed in the Sudetenland in October 1938. When military action turned out not to be necessary because of the Munich Agreement, the Einsatzgruppen were assigned to confiscate government papers and police documents. They secured government buildings, questioned senior civil servants, and arrested as many as 10,000 Czech communists and German citizens.[284][285] The Einsatzgruppen also followed Wehrmacht troops and killed potential partisans.[286] Similar groups were used in 1939 for the occupation of Czechoslovakia.[287]
+
+Hitler felt that the planned extermination of the Jews was too difficult and important to be entrusted to the military.[288] In 1941 the Einsatzgruppen were sent into the Soviet Union to begin large-scale genocide of Jews, Romani people, and communists.[289] Historian Raul Hilberg estimates that between 1941 and 1945 the Einsatzgruppen and related agencies killed more than two million people, including 1.3 million Jews.[290] The largest mass shooting perpetrated by the Einsatzgruppen was at Babi Yar outside Kiev, where 33,771 Jews were killed in a single operation on 29–30 September 1941.[291] In the Rumbula massacre (November–December 1941), 25,000 victims from the Riga ghetto were killed.[292] Another mass shooting early in 1942 claimed the lives of over 10,000 Jews in Kharkov.[293]
+
+The last Einsatzgruppen were disbanded in mid-1944 (although some continued to exist on paper until 1945) due to the German retreat on both fronts and the consequent inability to continue extermination activities. Former Einsatzgruppen members were either assigned duties in the Waffen-SS or concentration camps. Twenty-four Einsatzgruppen commanders were tried for war crimes following the war.[294]
+
+The SS Court Main Office (Hauptamt SS-Gericht) was an internal legal system for conducting investigations, trials, and punishment of the SS and police. It had more than 600 lawyers on staff in the main offices in Berlin and Munich. Proceedings were conducted at 38 regional SS courts throughout Germany. It was the only authority authorized to try SS personnel, except for SS members who were on active duty in the Wehrmacht (in such cases, the SS member in question was tried by a standard military tribunal). Its creation placed the SS beyond the reach of civilian legal authority. Himmler personally intervened as he saw fit regarding convictions and punishment.[295] The historian Karl Dietrich Bracher describes this court system as one factor in the creation of the Nazi totalitarian police state, as it removed objective legal procedures, rendering citizens defenseless against the "summary justice of the SS terror."[296]
+
+Shortly after Hitler seized power in 1933, most horse riding associations were taken over by the SA and SS.[297] Members received combat training to serve in the Reiter-SS (SS Cavalry Corps).[298] The first SS cavalry regiment, designated SS-Totenkopf Reitstandarte 1, was formed in September 1939. Commanded by then SS-Standartenführer Hermann Fegelein, the unit was assigned to Poland, where they took part in the extermination of Polish intelligentsia.[299][300] Additional squadrons were added in May 1940, for a total of fourteen.[301]
+
+The unit was split into two regiments in December 1939, with Fegelein in charge of both. By March 1941 their strength was 3,500 men.[302][303] In July 1941, they were assigned to the Pripyat swamps punitive operation, tasked with rounding up and exterminating Jews and partisans.[304] The two regiments were amalgamated into the SS Cavalry Brigade on 31 July, twelve days after the operation started.[305] Fegelein's final report, dated 18 September 1941, states that they killed 14,178 Jews, 1,001 partisans, and 699 Red Army soldiers, with 830 prisoners taken.[306][307] The historian Henning Pieper estimates the actual number of Jews killed was closer to 23,700.[308] The SS Cavalry Brigade took serious losses in November 1941 in the Battle of Moscow, with casualties of up to 60 percent in some squadrons.[309] Fegelein was appointed as commander of the 8th SS Cavalry Division Florian Geyer on 20 April 1943. This unit saw service in the Soviet Union in attacks on partisans and civilians.[310][311] In addition, SS Cavalry regiments served in Croatia and Hungary.[312]
+
+The SS Medical Corps were initially known as the Sanitätsstaffel (sanitary units). After 1931, the SS formed the headquarters office Amt  V as the central office for SS medical units. An SS medical academy was established in Berlin in 1938 to train Waffen-SS physicians.[313] SS medical personnel did not often provide actual medical care; their primary responsibility was medicalized genocide.[314] At Auschwitz, about three-quarters of new arrivals, including almost all children, women with small children, all the elderly, and all those who appeared on brief and superficial inspection by an SS doctor not to be completely fit were killed within hours of arrival.[315] In their role as Desinfektoren (disinfectors), SS doctors also made selections among existing prisoners as to their fitness to work and supervised the killing of those deemed unfit. Inmates in deteriorating health were examined by SS doctors, who decided whether or not they would be able to recover in less than two weeks. Those too ill or injured to recover in that time frame were killed.[316]
+
+At Auschwitz, the actual delivery of gas to the victims was always handled by the SS, on the order of the supervising SS doctor.[317][318] Many of the SS doctors also conducted inhumane medical experiments on camp prisoners.[319] The most infamous SS doctor, Josef Mengele, served as a medical officer at Auschwitz under the command of Eduard Wirths of the camp's medical corps.[320] Mengele undertook selections even when he was not assigned to do so in the hope of finding subjects for his experiments.[321] He was particularly interested in locating sets of twins.[322] In contrast to most of the doctors, who viewed undertaking selections as one of their most stressful and horrible duties, Mengele undertook the task with a flamboyant air, often smiling or whistling a tune.[323][324] After the war, many SS doctors were charged with war crimes for their inhumane medical experiments and for their role in gas chamber selections.[325]
+
+The Ahnenerbe (Ancestral Heritage Organization) was founded in 1935 by Himmler, and became part of the SS in 1939.[326] It was an umbrella agency for more than fifty organizations tasked with studying the German racial identity and ancient Germanic traditions and language.[326][327] The agency sponsored archaeological expeditions in Germany, Scandinavia, the Middle East, Tibet, and elsewhere to search for evidence of Aryan roots, influence, and superiority.[328] Further planned expeditions were postponed indefinitely at the start of the war.[329]
+
+The SS-Frauenkorps was an auxiliary reporting and clerical unit,[330] which included the SS-Helferinnenkorps (Women Helper Corps), made up of female volunteers. Members were assigned as administrative staff and supply personnel and served in command positions and as guards at women's concentration camps.[331][332] While female concentration and extermination camp guards were civilian employees of the SS, the SS-Helferinnen who completed training at the Reichsschule für SS-Helferinnen in Oberehnheim (Alsace) were members of the Waffen-SS.[333] Like their male equivalents in the SS, females participated in atrocities against Jews, Poles, and others.[334]
+
+In 1942, Himmler set up the Reichsschule für SS Helferinnen (Reich school for SS helpers) in Oberehnheim to train women in communications so that they could free up men for combat roles. Himmler also intended to replace all female civilian employees in his service with SS-Helferinnen members, as they were selected and trained according to Nazi ideology.[335][336] The school was closed on 22 November 1944 due to the Allied advance.[337]
+
+The SS-Mannschaften (Auxiliary-SS) were not considered regular SS members, but were conscripted from other branches of the German military, the NSDAP, SA, and the Volkssturm for service in concentration camps and extermination camps.[338]
+
+Beginning in 1940, Himmler opened up Waffen-SS recruiting to ethnic Germans that were not German citizens.[339] In March 1941, the SS Main Office established the Germanische Leitstelle (Germanic Guidance Office) to establish Waffen-SS recruiting offices in Nazi-occupied Europe.[340] The majority of the resulting foreign Waffen-SS units wore a distinctive national collar patch and preceded their SS rank titles with the prefix Waffen instead of SS. Volunteers from Scandinavian countries filled the ranks of two divisions, the SS-Wiking and SS-Nordland.[341] Swiss German speakers joined in substantial numbers.[342] Belgian Flemings joined Dutchmen to form the SS-Nederland legion,[343] and their Walloon compatriots joined the SS-Wallonien.[344] By the end of 1943 about a quarter of the SS were ethnic Germans from across Europe,[345] and by June 1944, half the Waffen-SS were foreign nationals.[346]
+
+Additional Waffen-SS units were added from the Ukrainians, Albanians from Kosovo, Serbians, Croatians, Turkic, Caucasians, Cossack, and Tatars. The Ukrainians and Tatars, who had suffered persecution under Stalin, were likely motivated primarily by opposition to the Soviet government rather than ideological agreement with the SS.[347] The exiled Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini was made an SS-Gruppenführer by Himmler in May 1943.[348] He subsequently used antisemitism and anti-Serb racism to recruit a Waffen-SS division of Bosnian Muslims, the SS-Handschar.[349] The year-long Soviet occupation of the Baltic states at the beginning of World War II resulted in volunteers for Latvian and Estonian Waffen-SS units. The Estonian Legion had 1,280 volunteers under training by the end of 1942.[350] Approximately 25,000 men served in the Estonian SS division, with thousands more conscripted into Police Front battalions and border guard units.[351] Most of the Estonians were fighting primarily to regain their independence and as many as 15,000 of them died fighting alongside the Germans.[352] In early 1944, Himmler even contacted Pohl to suggest releasing Muslim prisoners from concentration camps to supplement his SS troops.[353]
+
+The Indian Legion was a Wehrmacht unit formed in August 1942 chiefly from disaffected Indian soldiers of the British Indian Army captured in the North African Campaign. In August 1944 it was transferred to the auspices of the Waffen-SS as the Indische Freiwilligen-Legion der Waffen-SS.[354] There was also a French volunteer division, SS-Charlemagne, which was formed in 1944 mainly from the remnants of the Legion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism and French Sturmbrigade.[355]
+
+The SS established its own symbolism, rituals, customs, ranks, and uniforms to set itself apart from other organizations. Before 1929, the SS wore the same brown uniform as the SA, with the addition of a black tie and a black cap with a Totenkopf (death's head) skull and bones symbol, moving to an all-black uniform in 1932.[14][356] In 1935, the SS combat formations adopted a service uniform in field grey for everyday wear. The SS also developed its own field uniforms, which included reversible smocks and helmet covers printed with camouflage patterns.[357] Uniforms were manufactured in hundreds of licensed factories, with some workers being prisoners of war performing forced labor. Many were produced in concentration camps.[358]
+
+Hitler and the NSDAP understood the power of emblems and insignia to influence public opinion.[359] The stylized lightning bolt logo of the SS was chosen in 1932. The logo is a pair of runes from a set of 18 Armanen runes created by Guido von List in 1906. It is similar to the ancient Sowilō rune, which symbolizes the sun, but was renamed as "Sig" (victory) in List's iconography.[359] The Totenkopf symbolized the wearer's willingness to fight unto the death, and also served to frighten the enemy.[360]
+
+After 1933 a career in the SS became increasingly attractive to Germany's social elite, who began joining the movement in great numbers, usually motivated by political opportunism. By 1938 about one-third of the SS leadership were members of the upper middle class. The trend reversed after the first Soviet counter-offensive of 1942.[361]
+
+By 1942 all activities of the SS were managed through twelve main offices.[373][374]
+
+The term "Austrian SS" is often used to describe that portion of the SS membership from Austria, but it was never a recognized branch of the SS. In contrast to SS members from other countries, who were grouped into either the Germanic-SS or the Foreign Legions of the Waffen-SS, Austrian SS members were regular SS personnel. It was technically under the command of the SS in Germany but often acted independently concerning Austrian affairs. The Austrian SS was founded in 1930 and by 1934 was acting as a covert force to bring about the Anschluss with Germany, which occurred in March 1938. Early Austrian SS leaders were Kaltenbrunner and Arthur Seyss-Inquart.[375] Austrian SS members served in every branch of the SS. Political scientist David Art of Tufts University notes that Austrians constituted 8 percent of the Third Reich's population and 13 percent of the SS; he states that 40 percent of the staff and 75 percent of commanders at death camps were Austrian.[376]
+
+After the Anschluss, the Austrian SS was folded into SS-Oberabschnitt Donau. The third regiment of the SS-Verfügungstruppe (Der Führer) and the fourth Totenkopf regiment (Ostmark) were recruited in Austria shortly thereafter. On Heydrich's orders, mass arrests of potential enemies of the Reich began immediately after the Anschluss.[377] Mauthausen was the first concentration camp opened in Austria following the Anschluss.[378] Before the invasion of the Soviet Union, Mauthausen was the harshest of the camps in the Greater German Reich.[379]
+
+The Hotel Metropole was transformed into Gestapo headquarters in Vienna in April 1938. With a staff of 900 (80 percent of whom were recruited from the Austrian police), it was the largest Gestapo office outside Berlin. An estimated 50,000 people were interrogated or tortured there.[380] The Gestapo in Vienna was headed by Franz Josef Huber, who also served as chief of the Central Agency for Jewish Emigration in Vienna. Although its de facto leaders were Adolf Eichmann and later Alois Brunner, Huber was nevertheless responsible for the mass deportation of Austrian Jews.[381]
+
+Following Nazi Germany's collapse, the SS ceased to exist.[382] Numerous members of the SS, many of them still committed Nazis, remained at large in Germany and across Europe.[383] On 21 May 1945, the British captured Himmler, who was in disguise and using a false passport. At an internment camp near Lüneburg, he committed suicide by biting down on a cyanide capsule.[384] Several other leading members of the SS fled, but some were quickly captured. Kaltenbrunner, chief of the RSHA and the highest-ranking surviving SS main department chief upon Himmler's suicide, was captured and arrested in the Bavarian Alps.[385] He was among the 24 defendants put on trial at the International Military Tribunal in 1945–46.[386]
+
+Some SS members were subject to summary execution, torture, and beatings at the hands of freed prisoners, displaced persons, or Allied soldiers.[387][388] American soldiers of the 157th Regiment, who entered the concentration camp at Dachau in April 1945 and saw the human deprivation and cruelty committed by the SS, shot some of the remaining SS camp guards.[389] On 15 April 1945, British troops entered Bergen-Belsen. They placed the SS guards on starvation rations, made them work without breaks, forced them to deal with the remaining corpses, and stabbed them with bayonets or struck them with their rifle butts if they slowed their pace.[390] Some members of the US Army Counter Intelligence Corps delivered captured SS camp guards to displaced person camps, where they knew they would be subject to summary execution.[391]
+
+The Allies commenced legal proceedings against captured Nazis, establishing the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg in 1945.[392] The first war crimes trial of 24 prominent figures such as Hermann Göring, Albert Speer, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Alfred Rosenberg, Hans Frank, and Kaltenbrunner took place beginning in November 1945. They were accused of four counts: conspiracy, waging a war of aggression, war crimes, and crimes against humanity in violation of international law.[392] Twelve received the death penalty, including Kaltenbrunner, who was convicted of crimes against humanity and executed on 16 October 1946.[393] The former commandant at Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, who testified on behalf of Kaltenbrunner and others, was tried and executed in 1947.[394]
+
+Additional SS trials and convictions followed.[395] Many defendants attempted to exculpate themselves using the excuse that they were merely following superior orders, which they had to obey unconditionally as part of their sworn oath and duty. The courts did not find this to be a legitimate defense.[396] A trial of 40 SS officers and guards from Auschwitz took place in Kraków in November 1947. Most were found guilty, and 23 received the death penalty.[397] In addition to those tried by the Western allies, an estimated 37,000 members of the SS were tried and convicted in Soviet courts. Sentences included hangings and long terms of hard labor.[398] Piotr Cywiński, the director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, estimates that of the 70,000 members of the SS involved in crimes in concentration camps, only about 1,650 to 1,700 were tried after the war.[399] The International Military Tribunal declared the SS a criminal organization in 1946.[400]
+
+After the war, many former Nazis fled to South America, especially to Argentina, where they were welcomed by Juan Perón's regime.[401] In the 1950s, former Dachau inmate Lothar Hermann discovered that Buenos Aires resident Ricardo Klement was, in fact, Adolf Eichmann, who had in 1948 obtained false identification and a landing permit for Argentina through an organization directed by Bishop Alois Hudal, an Austrian cleric with Nazi sympathies, then residing in Italy.[402] Eichmann was captured in Buenos Aires on 11 May 1960 by Mossad, the Israel I intelligence agency. At his trial in Jerusalem in 1961, he was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. Eichmann was quoted as having stated, "I will jump into my grave laughing because the fact that I have the death of five million Jews [or Reich enemies, as he later claimed to have said] on my conscience gives me extraordinary satisfaction."[403] Franz Stangl, the commandant of Treblinka, also escaped to South America with the assistance of Hudal's network. He was deported to Germany in 1967 and was sentenced to life in prison in 1970. He died in 1971.[404]
+
+Mengele, worried that his capture would mean a death sentence, fled Germany on 17 April 1949.[405] Assisted by a network of former SS members, he traveled to Genoa, where he obtained a passport under the alias "Helmut Gregor" from the International Committee of the Red Cross. He sailed to Argentina in July.[406] Aware that he was still a wanted man, he moved to Paraguay in 1958 and Brazil in 1960. In both instances he was assisted by former Luftwaffe pilot Hans-Ulrich Rudel.[407] Mengele suffered a stroke while swimming and drowned in 1979.[408]
+
+Thousands of Nazis, including former SS members such as Trawniki guard Jakob Reimer and Circassian collaborator Tscherim Soobzokov, fled to the United States under the guise of refugees, sometimes using forged documents.[409] Other SS men, such as Soobzokov, SD officer Wilhelm Höttl, Eichmann aide Otto von Bolschwing, and accused war criminal Theodor Saevecke, were employed by American intelligence agencies against the Soviets. As CIA officer Harry Rositzke noted, "It was a visceral business of using any bastard so long as he was anti-Communist ... The eagerness or desire to enlist collaborators means that sure, you didn't look at their credentials too closely."[410] Similarly, the Soviets used SS personnel after the war; Operation Theo, for instance, disseminated "subversive rumours" in Allied-occupied Germany.[411]
+
+Simon Wiesenthal and others have speculated about the existence of a Nazi fugitive network code-named ODESSA (an acronym for Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen, Organization of former SS members) that allegedly helped war criminals find refuge in Latin America.[412] British writer Gitta Sereny, who conducted interviews with SS men, considers the story untrue and attributes the escapes to postwar chaos and Hudal's Vatican-based network. While the existence of ODESSA remains unproven, Sereny notes that "there certainly were various kinds of Nazi aid organizations after the war — it would have been astonishing if there hadn't been."[413]

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+The Schutzstaffel (SS; also stylized as ᛋᛋ with Armanen runes; German pronunciation: [ˈʃʊtsˌʃtafl̩] (listen); literally 'Protection Squadron') was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II. It began with a small guard unit known as the Saal-Schutz ("Hall Security") made up of NSDAP volunteers to provide security for party meetings in Munich. In 1925, Heinrich Himmler joined the unit, which had by then been reformed and given its final name. Under his direction (1929–1945) it grew from a small paramilitary formation during the Weimar Republic to one of the most powerful organizations in Nazi Germany. From the time of the Nazi Party’s rise to power until the regime’s collapse in 1945, the SS was the foremost agency of security, surveillance, and terror within Germany and German-occupied Europe.
+
+The two main constituent groups were the Allgemeine SS (General SS) and Waffen-SS (Armed SS). The Allgemeine SS was responsible for enforcing the racial policy of Nazi Germany and general policing, whereas the Waffen-SS consisted of combat units within Nazi Germany's military. A third component of the SS, the SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV; literally "Death's Head Units"[2]), ran the concentration camps and extermination camps. Additional subdivisions of the SS included the Gestapo and the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) organizations. They were tasked with the detection of actual or potential enemies of the Nazi state, the neutralization of any opposition, policing the German people for their commitment to Nazi ideology, and providing domestic and foreign intelligence.
+
+The SS was the organization most responsible for the genocidal killing of an estimated 5.5 to 6 million Jews and millions of other victims during the Holocaust.[3] Members of all of its branches committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during World War II (1939–45). The SS was also involved in commercial enterprises and exploited concentration camp inmates as slave labor. After Nazi Germany's defeat, the SS and the Nazi Party were judged by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg to be criminal organizations. Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the highest-ranking surviving SS main department chief, was found guilty of crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg trials and hanged in 1946.
+
+By 1923, the Nazi Party (NSDAP) led by Adolf Hitler had created a small volunteer guard unit known as the Saal-Schutz (Hall Security) to provide security at their meetings in Munich.[4][5] The same year, Hitler ordered the formation of a small bodyguard unit dedicated to his personal service. He wished it to be separate from the "suspect mass" of the party, including the paramilitary Sturmabteilung ("Storm Battalion"; SA), which he did not trust.[6] The new formation was designated the Stabswache (Staff Guard).[7] Originally the unit was composed of eight men, commanded by Julius Schreck and Joseph Berchtold, and was modeled after the Erhardt Naval Brigade, a Freikorps of the time. The unit was renamed Stoßtrupp (Shock Troops) in May 1923.[8][9]
+
+The Stoßtrupp was abolished after the failed 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, an attempt by the NSDAP to seize power in Munich.[10] In 1925, Hitler ordered Schreck to organize a new bodyguard unit, the Schutzkommando (Protection Command).[1] It was tasked with providing personal protection for Hitler at NSDAP functions and events. That same year, the Schutzkommando was expanded to a national organization and renamed successively the Sturmstaffel (Storm Squadron), and finally the Schutzstaffel (Protection Squad; SS).[11] Officially, the SS marked its foundation on 9 November 1925 (the second anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch).[12] The new SS protected NSDAP leaders throughout Germany. Hitler's personal SS protection unit was later enlarged to include combat units.[13]
+
+Schreck, a founding member of the SA and a close confidant of Hitler, became the first SS chief in March 1925.[14] On 15 April 1926, Joseph Berchtold succeeded him as chief of the SS. Berchtold changed the title of the office to Reichsführer-SS (Reich Leader-SS).[15] Berchtold was considered more dynamic than his predecessor, but became increasingly frustrated by the authority the SA had over the SS.[16] This led to him transferring leadership of the SS to his deputy, Erhard Heiden, on 1 March 1927.[17] Under Heiden's leadership, a stricter code of discipline was enforced than would have been tolerated in the SA.[16]
+
+Between 1925 and 1929, the SS was considered to be a small Gruppe (battalion) of the SA.[18] Except in the Munich area, the SS was unable to maintain any momentum in its membership numbers, which declined from 1,000 to 280 as the SA continued its rapid growth.[19] As Heiden attempted to keep the SS from dissolving, Heinrich Himmler became his deputy in September 1927. Himmler displayed good organizational abilities compared to Heiden.[18] The SS established a number of Gaus (regions or provinces). The SS-Gaus consisted of SS-Gau Berlin, SS-Gau Berlin Brandenburg, SS-Gau Franken, SS-Gau Niederbayern, SS-Gau Rheinland-Süd, and SS-Gau Sachsen.[20]
+
+With Hitler's approval, Himmler assumed the position of Reichsführer-SS in January 1929.[21][22] There are differing accounts of the reason for Heiden's dismissal from his position as head of the SS. The party announced that it was for "family reasons."[23] Under Himmler, the SS expanded and gained a larger foothold. He considered the SS an elite, ideologically driven National Socialist organization, a "conflation of Teutonic knights, the Jesuits, and Japanese Samurai".[24] His ultimate aim was to turn the SS into the most powerful organization in Germany and most influential branch of the party.[25] He expanded the SS to 3,000 members in his first year as its leader.[24]
+
+In 1929, the SS-Hauptamt (main SS office) was expanded and reorganized into five main offices dealing with general administration, personnel, finance, security, and race matters. At the same time, the SS-Gaue were divided into three SS-Oberführerbereiche areas, namely the SS-Oberführerbereich Ost, SS-Oberführerbereich West, and SS-Oberführerbereich Süd.[26] The lower levels of the SS remained largely unchanged. Although officially still considered a sub-organization of the SA and answerable to the Stabschef (SA Chief of Staff), it was also during this time that Himmler began to establish the independence of the SS from the SA.[27] The SS grew in size and power due to its exclusive loyalty to Hitler, as opposed to the SA, which was seen as semi-independent and a threat to Hitler's hegemony over the party, mainly because they demanded a "second revolution" beyond the one that brought the NSDAP to power.[28] By the end of 1933, the membership of the SS reached 209,000.[29] Under Himmler's leadership, the SS continued to gather greater power as more and more state and party functions were assigned to its jurisdiction. Over time the SS became answerable only to Hitler, a development typical of the organizational structure of the entire Nazi regime, where legal norms were replaced by actions undertaken under the Führerprinzip (leader principle), where Hitler's will was considered to be above the law.[30]
+
+In the latter half of 1934, Himmler oversaw the creation of SS-Junkerschule, institutions where SS officer candidates received leadership training, political and ideological indoctrination, and military instruction. The training stressed ruthlessness and toughness as part of the SS value system, which helped foster a sense of superiority among the men and taught them self-confidence.[31] The first schools were established at Bad Tölz and Braunschweig, with additional schools opening at Klagenfurt and Prague during the war.[32]
+
+The SS was regarded as the NSDAP's elite unit.[33] In keeping with the racial policy of Nazi Germany, in the early days all SS officer candidates had to provide proof of Aryan ancestry back to 1750 and for other ranks to 1800.[34] Once the war started and it became more difficult to confirm ancestry, the regulation was amended to just proving the candidate's grandparents were Aryan, as spelled out in the Nuremberg Laws.[35] Other requirements were complete obedience to the Führer and a commitment to the German people and nation.[36] Himmler also tried to institute physical criteria based on appearance and height, but these requirements were only loosely enforced, and over half the SS men did not meet the criteria.[37] Inducements such as higher salaries and larger homes were provided to members of the SS since they were expected to produce more children than the average German family as part of their commitment to NSDAP doctrine.[38]
+
+Commitment to SS ideology was emphasized throughout the recruitment, membership process, and training.[40] Members of the SS were indoctrinated in the racial policy of Nazi Germany, and were taught that it was necessary to remove from Germany people deemed by that policy as inferior.[41] Esoteric rituals and the awarding of regalia and insignia for milestones in the SS man's career suffused SS members even further with Nazi ideology.[42] Members were expected to renounce their Christian faith, and Christmas was replaced with a solstice celebration.[43] Church weddings were replaced with SS Ehewein, a pagan ceremony invented by Himmler.[44] These pseudo-religious rites and ceremonies often took place near SS-dedicated monuments or in special SS-designated places.[45] In 1933, Himmler bought Wewelsburg, a castle in Westphalia. He initially intended it to be used as an SS training center, but its role came to include hosting SS dinners and neo-pagan rituals.[46]
+
+The SS ideology included the application of brutality and terror as a solution to military and political problems.[47] The SS stressed total loyalty and obedience to orders unto death. Hitler used this as a powerful tool to further his aims and those of the NSDAP. The SS was entrusted with the commission of atrocities, illegal activities, and war crimes. Himmler once wrote that an SS man "hesitates not for a single instant, but executes unquestioningly ..." any Führer-Befehl (Führer order).[48] Their official motto was "Meine Ehre heißt Treue" (My Honour is Loyalty).[49]
+
+As part of its race-centric functions during World War II, the SS oversaw the isolation and displacement of Jews from the populations of the conquered territories, seizing their assets and deporting them to concentration camps and ghettos, where they were used as slave labor or immediately killed.[35] Chosen to implement the Final Solution ordered by Hitler, the SS were the main group responsible for the institutional killing and democide of more than 20 million people during the Holocaust, including approximately 5.2 million[50] to 6 million[3] Jews and 10.5 million Slavs.[50] A significant number of victims were members of other racial or ethnic groups such as the 258,000 Romani.[50] The SS was involved in killing people viewed as threats to race hygiene or Nazi ideology, including the mentally or physically handicapped, homosexuals, and political dissidents. Members of trade unions and those perceived to be affiliated with groups that opposed the regime (religious, political, social, and otherwise), or those whose views were contradictory to the goals of the NSDAP government, were rounded up in large numbers; these included clergy of all faiths, Jehovah's Witnesses, Freemasons, Communists, and Rotary Club members.[51] According to the judgments rendered at the Nuremberg trials, as well as many war crimes investigations and trials conducted since then, the SS was responsible for the majority of Nazi war crimes. In particular, it was the primary organization which carried out the Holocaust.[52]
+
+After Hitler and the NSDAP came to power on 30 January 1933, the SS was considered a state organization and a branch of the government.[53] Law enforcement gradually became the purview of the SS, and many SS organizations became de facto government agencies.[54]
+
+The SS established a police state within Nazi Germany, using the secret state police and security forces under Himmler's control to suppress resistance to Hitler.[55] In his role as Minister President of Prussia, Hermann Göring had in 1933 created a Prussian secret police force, the Geheime Staatspolizei or Gestapo, and appointed Rudolf Diels as its head. Concerned that Diels was not ruthless enough to use the Gestapo effectively to counteract the power of the SA, Göring handed over its control to Himmler on 20 April 1934.[56] Also on that date, in a departure from long-standing German practice that law enforcement was a state and local matter, Hitler appointed Himmler chief of all German police outside Prussia. Himmler named his deputy and protégé Reinhard Heydrich chief of the Gestapo on 22 April 1934. Heydrich also continued as head of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD; security service).[57]
+
+The Gestapo's transfer to Himmler was a prelude to the Night of the Long Knives, in which most of the SA leadership were arrested and subsequently executed.[58] The SS and Gestapo carried out most of the killings. On 20 July 1934, Hitler detached the SS from the SA, which was no longer an influential force after the purge. The SS became an elite corps of the NSDAP, answerable only to Hitler. Himmler's title of Reichsführer-SS now became his actual rank – and the highest rank in the SS, equivalent to the rank of field marshal in the army (his previous rank was Obergruppenführer).[59] As Himmler's position and authority grew, so in effect did his rank.[60]
+
+On 17 June 1936, all police forces throughout Germany were united under the purview of Himmler and the SS.[54] Himmler and Heydrich thus became two of the most powerful men in the country's administration.[61] Police and intelligence forces brought under their administrative control included the SD, Gestapo, Kriminalpolizei (Kripo; criminal investigative police), and Ordnungspolizei (Orpo; regular uniformed police).[62] In his capacity as police chief, Himmler was nominally subordinate to Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick. In practice, since the SS answered only to Hitler, the de facto merger of the SS and the police made the police independent of Frick's control.[53][63] In September 1939, the security and police agencies, including the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo; security police) and SD (but not the Orpo), were consolidated into the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA), headed by Heydrich.[64] This further increased the collective authority of the SS.[65]
+
+During Kristallnacht (9–10 November 1938), SS security services clandestinely coordinated violence against Jews as the SS, Gestapo, SD, Kripo, SiPo, and regular police did what they could to ensure that while Jewish synagogues and community centers were destroyed, Jewish-owned businesses and housing remained intact so that they could later be seized.[66] In the end, thousands of Jewish businesses, homes, and graveyards were vandalized and looted, particularly by members of the SA. Some 500 to 1,000 synagogues were destroyed, mostly by arson.[67] On 11 November, Heydrich reported a death toll of 36 people, but later assessments put the number of deaths at up to two thousand.[68][69] On Hitler's orders, around 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps by 16 November.[70] As many as 2,500 of these people died in the following months.[68] It was at this point that the SS state began in earnest its campaign of terror against political and religious opponents, who they imprisoned without trial or judicial oversight for the sake of "security, re-education, or prevention".[71][72]
+
+In September 1939, the authority of the SS expanded further when the senior SS officer in each military district also became its chief of police.[73] Most of these SS and police leaders held the rank of SS-Gruppenführer or above, and answered directly to Himmler in all SS matters within their district. Their role was to police the population and oversee the activities of the SS men within their district.[74] By declaring an emergency, they could bypass the district administrative offices for the SS, SD, SiPo, SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV; concentration camp guards), and Orpo, thereby gaining direct operational control of these groups.[75]
+
+As the SS grew in size and importance, so too did Hitler's personal protection forces.[76] Three main SS groups were assigned to protect Hitler. In 1933, his larger personal bodyguard unit (previously the 1st SS-Standarte) was called to Berlin to replace the Army Chancellery Guard, assigned to protect the Chancellor of Germany.[77] Sepp Dietrich commanded the new unit, previously known as SS-Stabswache Berlin; the name was changed to SS-Sonderkommando Berlin. In November 1933, the name was changed to Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler. In April 1934, Himmler modified the name to Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH). The LSSAH guarded Hitler's private residences and offices, providing an outer ring of protection for the Führer and his visitors.[78] LSSAH men manned sentry posts at the entrances to the old Reich Chancellery and the new Reich Chancellery.[79] The number of LSSAH guards was increased during special events.[80] At the Berghof, Hitler's residence in the Obersalzberg, a large contingent of the LSSAH patrolled an extensive cordoned security zone.[81]
+
+From 1941 forward, the Leibstandarte became four distinct entities, the Waffen-SS division (unconnected to Hitler's protection but a formation of the Waffen-SS), the Berlin Chancellory Guard, the SS security regiment assigned to the Obersalzberg, and a Munich-based bodyguard unit which protected Hitler when he visited his apartment and the Brown House NSDAP headquarters in Munich.[82][83] Although the unit was nominally under Himmler, Dietrich was the real commander and handled day-to-day administration.[84]
+
+Two other SS units composed the inner ring of Hitler's protection. The SS-Begleitkommando des Führers (Escort Command of the Führer), formed in February 1932, served as Hitler's protection escort while he was traveling. This unit consisted of eight men who served around the clock protecting Hitler in shifts.[85] Later the SS-Begleitkommando was expanded and became known as the Führerbegleitkommando (Führer Escort Command; FBK). It continued under separate command and remained responsible for Hitler's protection.[86] The Führer Schutzkommando (Führer Protection Command; FSK) was a protection unit founded by Himmler in March 1933.[87] Originally it was charged with protecting Hitler only while he was inside the borders of Bavaria. In early 1934, they replaced the SS-Begleitkommando for Hitler's protection throughout Germany.[88] The FSK was renamed the Reichssicherheitsdienst (Reich Security Service; RSD) in August 1935.[89] Johann Rattenhuber, chief of the RSD, for the most part, took his orders directly from Hitler.[89] The current FBK chief acted as his deputy. Wherever Hitler was in residence, members of the RSD and FBK would be present. RSD men patrolled the grounds and FBK men provided close security protection inside. The RSD and FBK worked together for security and personal protection during Hitler's trips and public events, but they operated as two groups and used separate vehicles.[90] By March 1938, both units wore the standard field grey uniform of the SS.[91] The RSD uniform had the SD diamond on the lower left sleeve.[92]
+
+The SS was closely associated with Nazi Germany's concentration camp system. On 26 June 1933, Himmler appointed SS-Oberführer Theodor Eicke as commandant of Dachau concentration camp, one of the first Nazi concentration camps.[93] It was created to consolidate the many small camps that had been set up by various police agencies and the NSDAP to house political prisoners.[94] The organizational structure Eicke instituted at Dachau stood as the model for all later concentration camps.[95] After 1934, Eicke was named commander of the SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV), the SS formation responsible for running the concentration camps under the authority of the SS and Himmler.[96] Known as the "Death's Head Units", the SS-TV was first organized as several battalions, each based at one of Germany's major concentration camps. Leadership at the camps was divided into five departments: commander and adjutant, political affairs division, protective custody, administration, and medical personnel.[97] By 1935, Himmler secured Hitler's approval and the finances necessary to establish and operate additional camps.[98] Six concentration camps[a] housing 21,400 inmates (mostly political prisoners) existed at the start of the war in September 1939.[100] By the end of the war, hundreds of camps of varying size and function had been created, holding nearly 715,000 people, most of whom were targeted by the regime because of their race.[101][102] The concentration camp population rose in tandem with the defeats suffered by the Nazi regime; the worse the catastrophe seemed, the greater the fear of subversion, prompting the SS to intensify their repression and terror.[103]
+
+By the outbreak of World War II, the SS had consolidated into its final form, which comprised three main organizations: the Allgemeine SS, SS-Totenkopfverbände, and the Waffen-SS, which was founded in 1934 as the SS-Verfügungstruppe (SS-VT) and renamed in 1940.[104][105] The Waffen-SS evolved into a second German army alongside the Wehrmacht and operated in tandem with them, especially with the Heer (German Army).[106] However, it never obtained total "independence of command", nor was it ever a "serious rival" to the German Army. Members were never able to join the ranks of the German High Command and it was dependent on the army for heavy weaponry and equipment.[107] Although SS ranks generally had equivalents in the other services, the SS rank system did not copy the terms and ranks used by the Wehrmacht's branches. Instead, it used the ranks established by the post-World War I Freikorps and the SA. This was primarily done to emphasize the SS as being independent of the Wehrmacht.[108]
+
+In the September 1939 invasion of Poland, the LSSAH and SS-VT fought as separate mobile infantry regiments.[109] The LSSAH became notorious for torching villages without military justification.[110] Members of the LSSAH committed atrocities in numerous towns, including the murder of 50 Polish Jews in Błonie and the massacre of 200 civilians, including children, who were machine-gunned in Złoczew. Shootings also took place in Bolesławiec, Torzeniec, Goworowo, Mława, and Włocławek.[111] Some senior members of the Wehrmacht were not convinced the units were fully prepared for combat. Its units took unnecessary risks and had a higher casualty rate than the army.[112] Generaloberst Fedor von Bock was quite critical; following an April 1940 visit of the SS-Totenkopf division, he found their battle training was "insufficient".[113] Hitler thought the criticism was typical of the army's "outmoded conception of chivalry."[114] In its defense, the SS insisted that its armed formations had been hampered by having to fight piecemeal and were improperly equipped by the army.[112]
+
+After the invasion, Hitler entrusted the SS with extermination actions codenamed Operation Tannenberg and AB-Aktion to remove potential leaders who could form a resistance to German occupation. The killings were committed by Einsatzgruppen (task forces; deployment groups), assisted by local paramilitary groups. Men for the Einsatzgruppen units were drawn from the SS, the SD, and the police.[115] Some 65,000 Polish civilians, including activists, intelligentsia, scholars, teachers, actors, former officers, and others, were killed by the end of 1939.[116][117] When the army leadership registered complaints about the brutality being meted out by the Einsatzgruppen, Heydrich informed them that he was acting "in accordance with the special order of the Führer."[118] The first systematic mass shooting of Jews by the Einsatzgruppen took place on 6 September 1939 during the attack on Kraków.[119]
+
+Satisfied with their performance in Poland, Hitler allowed further expansion of the armed SS formations, but insisted new units remain under the operational control of the army.[120] While the SS-Leibstandarte remained an independent regiment functioning as Hitler's personal bodyguards, the other regiments—SS-Deutschland, SS-Germania, and SS-Der Führer—were combined to form the SS-Verfügungs-Division.[121][112] A second SS division, the SS-Totenkopf, was formed from SS-TV concentration camp guards, and a third, the SS-Polizei, was created from police volunteers.[122][123] The SS gained control over its own recruitment, logistics, and supply systems for its armed formations at this time.[123] The SS, Gestapo, and SD were in charge of the provisional military administration in Poland until the appointment of Hans Frank as Governor-General on 26 October 1939.[124][125]
+
+On 10 May 1940, Hitler launched the Battle of France, a major offensive against France and the Low Countries.[126] The SS supplied two of the 89 divisions employed.[127] The LSSAH and elements of the SS-VT participated in the ground invasion of the Battle of the Netherlands.[128] Simultaneously, airborne troops were dropped to capture key Dutch airfields, bridges, and railways. In the five-day campaign, the LSSAH linked up with army units and airborne troops after several clashes with Dutch defenders.[128]
+
+SS troops did not take part in the thrust through the Ardennes and the river Meuse.[128] Instead, the SS-Totenkopf was summoned from the army reserve to fight in support of Generalmajor Erwin Rommel's 7th Panzer Division as they advanced toward the English Channel.[129] On 21 May, the British launched an armored counterattack against the flanks of the 7th Panzer Division and SS-Totenkopf. The Germans then trapped the British and French troops in a huge pocket at Dunkirk.[130] On 27 May, 4 Company, SS-Totenkopf perpetrated the Le Paradis massacre, where 97 men of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Norfolk Regiment were machine-gunned after surrendering, with survivors finished off with bayonets. Two men survived.[131] By 28 May the SS-Leibstandarte had taken Wormhout, 10 miles (16 km) from Dunkirk. There, soldiers of the 2nd Battalion were responsible for the Wormhoudt massacre, where 80 British and French soldiers were murdered after they surrendered.[132] According to historian Charles Sydnor, the "fanatical recklessness in the assault, suicidal defense against enemy attacks, and savage atrocities committed in the face of frustrated objectives" exhibited by the SS-Totenkopf division during the invasion were typical of the SS troops as a whole.[133]
+
+At the close of the campaign, Hitler expressed his pleasure with the performance of the SS-Leibstandarte, telling them: "Henceforth it will be an honor for you, who bear my name, to lead every German attack."[134] The SS-VT was renamed the Waffen-SS in a speech made by Hitler in July 1940.[105] Hitler then authorized the enlistment of "people perceived to be of related stock", as Himmler put it, to expand the ranks.[135] Danes, Dutch, Norwegians, Swedes, and Finns volunteered to fight in the Waffen-SS under the command of German officers.[136] They were brought together to form the new division SS-Wiking.[135] In January 1941, the SS-Verfügungs Division was renamed SS-Reich Division (Motorized), and was renamed as the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich when it was reorganized as a Panzergrenadier division in 1942.[137]
+
+In April 1941, the German Army invaded Yugoslavia and Greece. The LSSAH and Das Reich were attached to separate army Panzer corps. Fritz Klingenberg, a company commander in the Das Reich, led his men across Yugoslavia to the capital, Belgrade, where a small group in the vanguard accepted the surrender of the city on 13 April. A few days later Yugoslavia surrendered.[138][139] SS police units immediately began taking hostages and carrying out reprisals, a practice that became common. In some cases, they were joined by the Wehrmacht.[140] Similar to Poland, the war policies of the Nazis in the Balkans resulted in brutal occupation and racist mass murder. Serbia became the second country (after Estonia) declared Judenfrei (free of Jews).[141]
+
+In Greece, the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS encountered resistance from the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and Greek Army.[142] The fighting was intensified by the mountainous terrain, with its heavily defended narrow passes. The LSSAH was at the forefront of the German push.[143] The BEF evacuated by sea to Crete, but had to flee again in late May when the Germans arrived.[144] Like Yugoslavia, the conquest of Greece brought its Jews into danger, as the Nazis immediately took a variety of measures against them.[145] Initially confined in ghettos, most were transported to Auschwitz concentration camp in March 1943, where they were killed in the gas chambers on arrival. Of Greece's 80,000 Jews, only 20 percent survived the war.[146]
+
+On 22 June 1941, Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union.[147] The expanding war and the need to control occupied territories provided the conditions for Himmler to further consolidate the police and military organs of the SS.[148] Rapid acquisition of vast territories in the East placed considerable strain on the SS police organizations as they struggled to adjust to the changing security challenges.[149]
+
+The 1st and 2nd SS Infantry Brigades, which had been formed from surplus concentration camp guards of the SS-TV, and the SS Cavalry Brigade moved into the Soviet Union behind the advancing armies. At first, they fought Soviet partisans, but by the autumn of 1941, they left the anti-partisan role to other units and actively took part in the Holocaust. While assisting the Einsatzgruppen, they formed firing parties that participated in the liquidation of the Jewish population of the Soviet Union.[150][151]
+
+On 31 July 1941, Göring gave Heydrich written authorization to ensure the cooperation of administrative leaders of various government departments to undertake genocide of the Jews in territories under German control.[152] Heydrich was instrumental in carrying out these exterminations, as the Gestapo was ready to organize deportations in the West and his Einsatzgruppen were already conducting extensive killing operations in the East.[153] On 20 January 1942, Heydrich chaired a meeting, called the Wannsee Conference, to discuss the implementation of the plan.[154]
+
+During battles in the Soviet Union during 1941 and 1942, the Waffen-SS suffered enormous casualties. The LSSAH and Das Reich lost over half their troops to illness and combat casualties.[155] In need of recruits, Himmler began to accept soldiers that did not fit the original SS racial profile.[156] In early 1942, SS-Leibstandarte, SS-Totenkopf, and SS-Das Reich were withdrawn to the West to refit and were converted to Panzergrenadier divisions.[157] The SS-Panzer Corps returned to the Soviet Union in 1943 and participated in the Third Battle of Kharkov in February and March.[158]
+
+The SS was built on a culture of violence, which was exhibited in its most extreme form by the mass murder of civilians and prisoners of war on the Eastern Front.[159] Augmented by personnel from the Kripo, Orpo (Order Police), and Waffen-SS,[160] the Einsatzgruppen reached a total strength of 3,000 men. Einsatzgruppen A, B, and C were attached to Army Groups North, Centre, and South; Einsatzgruppe D was assigned to the 11th Army. The Einsatzgruppe for Special Purposes operated in eastern Poland starting in July 1941.[161] The historian Richard Rhodes describes them as being "outside the bounds of morality"; they were "judge, jury and executioner all in one", with the authority to kill anyone at their discretion.[162] Following Operation Barbarossa, these Einsatzgruppen units, together with the Waffen-SS and Order Police as well as with assistance from the Wehrmacht, engaged in the mass killing of the Jewish population in occupied eastern Poland and the Soviet Union.[162][163][164] The greatest extent of Einsatzgruppen action occurred in 1941 and 1942 in Ukraine and Russia.[165] Before the invasion there were five million registered Jews throughout the Soviet Union, with three million of those residing in the territories occupied by the Germans; by the time the war ended, over two million of these had been murdered.[166]
+
+The extermination activities of the Einsatzgruppen generally followed a standard procedure, with the Einsatzgruppen chief contacting the nearest Wehrmacht unit commander to inform him of the impending action; this was done so they could coordinate and control access to the execution grounds.[167] Initially, the victims were shot, but this method proved impracticable for an operation of this scale.[168] Also, after Himmler observed the shooting of 100 Jews at Minsk in August 1941, he grew concerned about the impact such actions were having on the mental health of his SS men. He decided that alternate methods of killing should be found, which led to introduction of gas vans.[169][170] However, these were not popular with the men, because removing the dead bodies from the van and burying them was a horrible ordeal. Prisoners or auxiliaries were often assigned to do this task so as to spare the SS men the trauma.[171]
+
+In response to the army's difficulties in dealing with Soviet partisans, Hitler decided in July 1942 to transfer anti-partisan operations to the police. This placed the matter under Himmler's purview.[172][173] As Hitler had ordered on 8 July 1941 that all Jews were to be regarded as partisans, the term "anti-partisan operations" was used as a euphemism for the murder of Jews as well as actual combat against resistance elements.[174][175] In July 1942 Himmler ordered that the term "partisan" should no longer be used; instead resisters to Nazi rule would be described as "bandits".[176]
+
+Himmler set the SS and SD to work on developing additional anti-partisan tactics and launched a propaganda campaign.[177] Sometime in June 1943, Himmler issued the Bandenbekämpfung (bandit fighting) order, simultaneously announcing the existence of the Bandenkampfverbände (bandit fighting formations), with SS-Obergruppenführer Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski as its chief. Employing troops primarily from the SS police and Waffen-SS, the Bandenkampfverbände had four principal operational components: propaganda, centralized control and coordination of security operations, training of troops, and battle operations.[178] Once the Wehrmacht had secured territorial objectives, the Bandenkampfverbände first secured communications facilities, roads, railways, and waterways. Thereafter, they secured rural communities and economic installations such as factories and administrative buildings. An additional priority was securing agricultural and forestry resources. The SS oversaw the collection of the harvest, which was deemed critical to strategic operations.[179] Any Jews in the area were rounded up and killed. Communists and people of Asiatic descent were killed presumptively under the assumption that they were Soviet agents.[180]
+
+After the start of the war, Himmler intensified the activity of the SS within Germany and in Nazi-occupied Europe. Increasing numbers of Jews and German citizens deemed politically suspect or social outsiders were arrested.[181] As the Nazi regime became more oppressive, the concentration camp system grew in size and lethal operation, and grew in scope as the economic ambitions of the SS intensified.[182]
+
+Intensification of the killing operations took place in late 1941 when the SS began construction of stationary gassing facilities to replace the use of Einsatzgruppen for mass killings.[183][184] Victims at these new extermination camps were killed with the use of carbon monoxide gas from automobile engines.[185] During Operation Reinhard, run by officers from the Totenkopfverbände, who were sworn to secrecy, three death camps were built in occupied Poland: Bełżec (operational by March 1942), Sobibór (operational by May 1942), and Treblinka (operational by July 1942),[186] with squads of Trawniki men (Eastern European collaborators) overseeing hundreds of Sonderkommando prisoners,[b] who were forced to work in the gas chambers and crematoria before being murdered themselves.[187] On Himmler's orders, by early 1942 the concentration camp at Auschwitz was greatly expanded to include the addition of gas chambers, where victims were killed using the pesticide Zyklon B.[188][189]
+
+For administrative reasons, all concentration camp guards and administrative staff became full members of the Waffen-SS in 1942. The concentration camps were placed under the command of the SS-Wirtschafts-Verwaltungshauptamt (SS Main Economic and Administrative Office; WVHA) under Oswald Pohl.[190] Richard Glücks served as the Inspector of Concentration Camps, which in 1942 became office "D" under the WVHA.[191][192] Exploitation and extermination became a balancing act as the military situation deteriorated. The labor needs of the war economy, especially for skilled workers, meant that some Jews escaped the genocide.[193] On 30 October 1942, due to severe labor shortages, Himmler ordered that large numbers of able-bodied people in the Soviet-occupied territories should be taken prisoner and sent to Germany as forced labor.[194]
+
+By 1944, the SS-TV had been organized into three divisions: staff of the concentration camps in Germany and Austria, in the occupied territories, and of the extermination camps in Poland. By 1944, it became standard practice to rotate SS members in and out of the camps, partly based on manpower needs, but also to provide easier assignments to wounded Waffen-SS members.[195] This rotation of personnel meant that nearly the entire SS knew what was going on inside the concentration camps, making the entire organization liable for war crimes and crimes against humanity.[196]
+
+In 1934, Himmler founded the first SS business venture, Nordland-Verlag, a publishing house that released propaganda material and SS training manuals. Thereafter, he purchased Allach Porcelain, which then began to produce SS memorabilia.[197] Because of the labor shortage and a desire for financial gain, the SS started exploiting concentration camp inmates as slave labor.[198] Most of the SS businesses lost money until Himmler placed them under the administration of Pohl's Verwaltung und Wirtschaftshauptamt Hauptamt (Administration and Business office; VuWHA) in 1939.[192] Even then, most of the enterprises were poorly run and did not fare well, as SS men were not selected for their business experience, and the workers were starving.[199] In July 1940 Pohl established the Deutsche Wirtschaftsbetriebe GmbH (German Businesses Ltd; DWB), an umbrella corporation under which he took over administration of all SS business concerns.[200] Eventually, the SS founded nearly 200 holding companies for their businesses.[201]
+
+In May 1941 the VuWHA founded the Deutsche Ausrüstungswerke GmbH (German Equipment Works; DAW), which was created to integrate the SS business enterprises with the burgeoning concentration camp system.[202] Himmler subsequently established four major new concentration camps in 1941: Auschwitz, Gross-Rosen, Natzweiler-Struthof, and Neuengamme. Each had at least one factory or quarry nearby where the inmates were forced to work.[203] Himmler took a particular interest in providing laborers for IG Farben, which was constructing a synthetic rubber factory at Auschwitz III–Monowitz.[204] The plant was almost ready to commence production when it was overrun by Soviet troops in 1945.[205] The life expectancy of inmates at Monowitz averaged about three months.[206] This was typical of the camps, as inmates were underfed and lived under disastrously bad living conditions. Their workload was intentionally made impossibly high, under the policy of extermination through labor.[207]
+
+In 1942, Himmler consolidated all of the offices for which Pohl was responsible into one, creating the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office (Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt; WVHA).[190] The entire concentration camp system was placed under the authority of the WVHA.[191] The SS owned Sudetenquell GmbH, a mineral water producer in Sudetenland. By 1944, the SS had purchased 75 percent of the mineral water producers in Germany and were intending to acquire a monopoly.[208] Several concentration camps produced building materials such as stone, bricks, and cement for the SS-owned Deutsche Erd- und Steinwerke (German Earth And Stone Works; DEST).[209] In the occupied Eastern territories, the SS acquired a monopoly in brick production by seizing all 300 extant brickworks.[208] The DWB also founded the Ost-Deutsche Baustoffwerke (East German Building Supply Works; GmbH or ODBS) and Deutsche Edelmöbel GmbH (German Noble Furniture). These operated in factories the SS had confiscated from Jews and Poles.[210]
+
+The SS owned experimental farms, bakeries, meat packing plants, leather works, clothing and uniform factories, and small arms factories.[211][212] Under the direction of the WVHA, the SS sold camp labor to various factories at a rate of three to six Reichsmarks per prisoner per day.[213] The SS confiscated and sold the property of concentration camp inmates, confiscated their investment portfolios and their cash, and profited from their dead bodies by selling their hair to make felt and melting down their dental work to obtain gold from the fillings.[214] The total value of assets looted from the victims of Operation Reinhard alone (not including Auschwitz) was listed by Odilo Globocnik as 178,745,960.59 Reichsmarks. Items seized included 2,909.68 kilograms of gold worth 843,802.75 RM, as well as 18,733.69 kg of silver, 1,514 kg of platinum, 249,771.50 American dollars, 130 diamond solitaires, 2,511.87 carats of brilliants, 13,458.62 carats of diamonds, and 114 kg of pearls.[215] According to Nazi legislation, Jewish property belonged to the state, but many SS camp commandants and guards stole items such as diamonds or currency for personal gain or took seized foodstuffs and liquor to sell on the black market.[216]
+
+On 5 July 1943, the Germans launched the Battle of Kursk, an offensive designed to eliminate the Kursk salient.[217] The Waffen-SS by this time had been expanded to 12 divisions, and most took part in the battle.[218] Due to stiff Soviet resistance, Hitler halted the attack by the evening of 12 July. On 17 July he called off the operation and ordered a withdrawal.[219] Thereafter, the Germans were forced onto the defensive as the Red Army began the liberation of Western Russia.[220] The losses incurred by the Waffen-SS and the Wehrmacht during the Battle of Kursk occurred nearly simultaneously with the Allied assault into Italy, opening a two-front war for Germany.[221]
+
+Alarmed by the raids on St Nazaire and Dieppe in 1942, Hitler had ordered the construction of fortifications he called the Atlantic Wall all along the Atlantic coast, from Spain to Norway, to protect against an expected Allied invasion.[222] Concrete gun emplacements were constructed at strategic points along the coast, and wooden stakes, metal tripods, mines, and large anti-tank obstacles were placed on the beaches to delay the approach of landing craft and impede the movement of tanks.[223] In addition to several static infantry divisions, eleven panzer and Panzergrenadier divisions were deployed nearby.[224][225] Four of these formations were Waffen-SS divisions.[226] In addition, the SS-Das Reich was located in Southern France, the LSSAH was in Belgium refitting after fighting in the Soviet Union, and the newly formed panzer division SS-Hitlerjugend, consisting of 17- and 18-year-old Hitler Youth members supported by combat veterans and experienced NCOs, was stationed west of Paris.[227] The creation of the SS-Hitlerjugend was a sign of Hitler's desperation for more troops, especially ones with unquestioning obedience.[228]
+
+The Normandy landings took place beginning 6 June 1944. 21st Panzer Division under Generalmajor Edgar Feuchtinger, positioned south of Caen, was the only panzer division close to the beaches. The division included 146 tanks and 50 assault guns, plus supporting infantry and artillery.[229] At 02:00, Generalleutnant Wilhelm Richter, commander of the 716th Static Infantry Division, ordered 21st Panzer Division into position to counter-attack. However, as the division was part of the armored reserve, Feuchtinger was obliged to seek clearance from OKW before he could commit his formation.[230] Feuchtinger did not receive orders until nearly 09:00, but in the meantime, on his own initiative he put together a battle group (including tanks) to fight the British forces east of the Orne.[231] SS-Hitlerjugend began to deploy in the afternoon of 6 June, with its units undertaking defensive actions the following day. They also took part in the Battle for Caen (June–August 1944).[232] On 7–8 and 17 June, members of the SS-Hitlerjugend shot and killed twenty Canadian prisoners of war in the Ardenne Abbey massacre.[233]
+
+The Allies continued to make progress in the liberation of France, and on 4 August Hitler ordered a counter-offensive (Operation Lüttich) from Vire towards Avranches.[234] The operation included LSSAH, Das Reich, 2nd, and 116th Panzer Divisions, with support from infantry and elements of the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division Götz von Berlichingen under SS-Oberstgruppenf��hrer Paul Hausser. These forces were to mount an offensive near Mortain and drive west through Avranches to the coast. The Allied forces were prepared for this offensive, and an air assault on the combined German units proved devastating.[235] On 21 August, 50,000 German troops, including most of the LSSAH, were encircled by the Allies in the Falaise Pocket.[236] Remnants of the LSSAH which escaped were withdrawn to Germany for refitting.[237] Paris was liberated on 25 August, and the last of the German forces withdrew over the Seine by the end of August, ending the Normandy campaign.[238]
+
+Waffen-SS units that had survived the summer campaigns were withdrawn from the front line to refit. Two of them, the 9th SS and 10th SS Panzer Divisions, did so in the Arnhem region of Holland in early September 1944. Coincidentally, on 17 September, the Allies launched in the same area Operation Market Garden, a combined airborne and land operation designed to seize control of the lower Rhine.[239] The 9th and 10th Panzers were among the units that repulsed the attack.[240]
+
+In December 1944, Hitler launched the Ardennes Offensive, also known as the Battle of the Bulge, a significant counterattack against the western Allies through the Ardennes with the aim of reaching Antwerp while encircling the Allied armies in the area.[241] The offensive began with an artillery barrage shortly before dawn on 16 December. Spearheading the attack were two panzer armies composed largely of Waffen-SS divisions.[242] The battlegroups found advancing through the forests and wooded hills of the Ardennes difficult in the winter weather, but they initially made good progress in the northern sector. They soon encountered strong resistance from the US 2nd and 99th Infantry Divisions. By 23 December, the weather improved enough for Allied air forces to attack the German forces and their supply columns, causing fuel shortages. In increasingly difficult conditions, the German advance slowed and was stopped.[243] Hitler's failed offensive cost 700 tanks and most of their remaining mobile forces in the west,[244] as well as most of their irreplaceable reserves of manpower and materiel.[245]
+
+During the battle, SS-Obersturmbannführer Joachim Peiper left a path of destruction, which included Waffen-SS soldiers under his command murdering American POWs and unarmed Belgian civilians in the Malmedy massacre.[246] Captured SS soldiers who were part of Kampfgruppe Peiper were tried during the Malmedy massacre trial following the war for this massacre and several others in the area. Many of the perpetrators were sentenced to hang, but the sentences were commuted. Peiper was imprisoned for eleven years for his role in the killings.[247]
+
+In the east, the Red Army resumed its offensive on 12 January 1945. German forces were outnumbered twenty to one in aircraft, eleven to one in infantry, and seven to one in tanks on the Eastern Front.[248] By the end of the month, the Red Army had made bridgeheads across the Oder, the last geographic obstacle before Berlin.[249] The western Allies continued to advance as well, but not as rapidly as the Red Army.[250] The Panzer Corps conducted a successful defensive operation on 17–24 February at the Hron River, stalling the Allied advance towards Vienna.[251] The 1st and 2nd SS Panzer Corps made their way towards Austria, but were slowed by damaged railways.[252]
+
+Budapest fell on 13 February.[253] Hitler ordered Dietrich's 6th Panzer Army to move into Hungary to protect the Nagykanizsa oilfields and refineries, which he deemed the most strategically valuable fuel reserves on the Eastern Front.[254][251] Frühlingserwachsen (Operation Spring Awakening), the final German offensive in the east, took place in early March. German forces attacked near Lake Balaton, with 6th Panzer Army advancing north towards Budapest and 2nd Panzer Army moving east and south.[255] Dietrich's forces at first made good progress, but as they drew near the Danube, the combination of muddy terrain and strong Soviet resistance brought them to a halt.[256] By 16 March the battle was lost.[257] Enraged by the defeat, Hitler ordered the Waffen-SS units involved to remove their cuff titles as a mark of disgrace. Dietrich refused to carry out the order.[258]
+
+By this time, on both the Eastern and Western Front, the activities of the SS were becoming clear to the Allies, as the concentration and extermination camps were being overrun.[259] Allied troops were filled with disbelief and repugnance at the evidence of Nazi brutality in the camps.[260]
+
+On 9 April 1945 Königsberg fell to the Red Army, and on 13 April Dietrich's SS unit was forced out of Vienna.[261] The Battle of Berlin began at 03:30 on 16 April with a massive artillery barrage.[262] Within the week, fighting was taking place inside the city. Among the many elements defending Berlin were French, Latvian, and Scandinavian Waffen-SS troops.[263][264] Hitler, now living in the Führerbunker under the Reich Chancellery, still hoped that his remaining SS soldiers could rescue the capital. In spite of the hopelessness of the situation, members of the SS patrolling the city continued to shoot or hang soldiers and civilians for what they considered to be acts of cowardice or defeatism.[265] The Berlin garrison surrendered on 2 May, two days after Hitler committed suicide.[262] As members of SS expected little mercy from the Red Army, they attempted to move westward to surrender to the western Allies instead.[266]
+
+Heydrich held the title of Chef der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD (Chief of the Security Police and SD) until 27 September 1939, when he became chief of the newly established Reich Main Security Office (RSHA).[64][267] From that point forward, the RSHA was in charge of SS security services. It had under its command the SD, Kripo, and Gestapo, as well as several offices to handle finance, administration, and supply.[64] Heinrich Müller, who had been chief of operations for the Gestapo, was appointed Gestapo chief at this time.[268] Arthur Nebe was chief of the Kripo, and the two branches of SD were commanded by a series of SS officers, including Otto Ohlendorf and Walter Schellenberg. The SD was considered an elite branch of the SS, and its members were better educated and typically more ambitious than those within the ranks of the Allgemeine SS.[47] Members of the SD were specially trained in criminology, intelligence, and counter-intelligence. They also gained a reputation for ruthlessness and unwavering commitment to Nazi ideology.[269]
+
+Heydrich was attacked in Prague on 27 May 1942 by a British-trained team of Czech and Slovak soldiers who had been sent by the Czechoslovak government-in-exile to kill him in Operation Anthropoid. He died from his injuries a week later.[270][c] Himmler ran the RSHA personally until 30 January 1943, when Heydrich's positions were taken over by Ernst Kaltenbrunner.[272]
+
+Beginning in 1938 and throughout World War II, the SS enacted a procedure where offices and units of the SS could form smaller sub-units, known as SS-Sonderkommandos, to carry out special tasks, including large-scale murder operations. The use of SS-Sonderkommandos was widespread. According to former SS Sturmbannführer Wilhelm Höttl, not even the SS leadership knew how many SS-Sonderkommandos were constantly being formed, disbanded, and reformed for various tasks, especially on the Eastern Front.[273]
+
+An SS-Sonderkommando unit led by SS-Sturmbannführer Herbert Lange murdered 1,201 psychiatric patients at the Tiegenhof psychiatric hospital in the Free City of Danzig,[274] 1,100 patients in Owińska, 2,750 patients at Kościan, and 1,558 patients at Działdowo, as well as hundreds of Poles at Fort VII, where the mobile gas van and gassing bunker were developed.[275][276] In 1941–42, SS-Sonderkommando Lange set up and managed the first extermination camp, at Chełmno, where 152,000 Jews were killed using gas vans.[277]
+
+After the Battle of Stalingrad in February 1943, Himmler realized that Germany would likely lose the war, and ordered the formation of  Sonderkommando 1005, a special task force under SS-Standartenführer Paul Blobel. The unit's assignment was to visit mass graves on the Eastern Front to exhume bodies and burn them in an attempt to cover up the genocide. The task remained unfinished at the end of the war, and many mass graves remain unmarked and unexcavated.[278]
+
+The Eichmann Sonderkommando was a task force headed by Adolf Eichmann that arrived in Budapest on 19 March 1944, the same day that Axis forces invaded Hungary. Their task was to take a direct role in the deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz. The SS-Sonderkommandos enlisted the aid of antisemitic elements from the Hungarian gendarmerie and pro-German administrators from within the Hungarian Interior Ministry.[279] Round-ups began on 16 April, and from 14 May, four trains of 3,000 Jews per day left Hungary and traveled to the camp at Auschwitz II-Birkenau, arriving along a newly built spur line that terminated a few hundred meters from the gas chambers.[280][281] Between 10 and 25 percent of the people on each train were chosen as forced laborers; the rest were killed within hours of arrival.[280][282] Under international pressure, the Hungarian government halted deportations on 6 July 1944, by which time over 437,000 of Hungary's 725,000 Jews had died.[280][283]
+
+The Einsatzgruppen had its origins in the ad hoc Einsatzkommando formed by Heydrich following the Anschluss in Austria in March 1938.[284] Two units of Einsatzgruppen were stationed in the Sudetenland in October 1938. When military action turned out not to be necessary because of the Munich Agreement, the Einsatzgruppen were assigned to confiscate government papers and police documents. They secured government buildings, questioned senior civil servants, and arrested as many as 10,000 Czech communists and German citizens.[284][285] The Einsatzgruppen also followed Wehrmacht troops and killed potential partisans.[286] Similar groups were used in 1939 for the occupation of Czechoslovakia.[287]
+
+Hitler felt that the planned extermination of the Jews was too difficult and important to be entrusted to the military.[288] In 1941 the Einsatzgruppen were sent into the Soviet Union to begin large-scale genocide of Jews, Romani people, and communists.[289] Historian Raul Hilberg estimates that between 1941 and 1945 the Einsatzgruppen and related agencies killed more than two million people, including 1.3 million Jews.[290] The largest mass shooting perpetrated by the Einsatzgruppen was at Babi Yar outside Kiev, where 33,771 Jews were killed in a single operation on 29–30 September 1941.[291] In the Rumbula massacre (November–December 1941), 25,000 victims from the Riga ghetto were killed.[292] Another mass shooting early in 1942 claimed the lives of over 10,000 Jews in Kharkov.[293]
+
+The last Einsatzgruppen were disbanded in mid-1944 (although some continued to exist on paper until 1945) due to the German retreat on both fronts and the consequent inability to continue extermination activities. Former Einsatzgruppen members were either assigned duties in the Waffen-SS or concentration camps. Twenty-four Einsatzgruppen commanders were tried for war crimes following the war.[294]
+
+The SS Court Main Office (Hauptamt SS-Gericht) was an internal legal system for conducting investigations, trials, and punishment of the SS and police. It had more than 600 lawyers on staff in the main offices in Berlin and Munich. Proceedings were conducted at 38 regional SS courts throughout Germany. It was the only authority authorized to try SS personnel, except for SS members who were on active duty in the Wehrmacht (in such cases, the SS member in question was tried by a standard military tribunal). Its creation placed the SS beyond the reach of civilian legal authority. Himmler personally intervened as he saw fit regarding convictions and punishment.[295] The historian Karl Dietrich Bracher describes this court system as one factor in the creation of the Nazi totalitarian police state, as it removed objective legal procedures, rendering citizens defenseless against the "summary justice of the SS terror."[296]
+
+Shortly after Hitler seized power in 1933, most horse riding associations were taken over by the SA and SS.[297] Members received combat training to serve in the Reiter-SS (SS Cavalry Corps).[298] The first SS cavalry regiment, designated SS-Totenkopf Reitstandarte 1, was formed in September 1939. Commanded by then SS-Standartenführer Hermann Fegelein, the unit was assigned to Poland, where they took part in the extermination of Polish intelligentsia.[299][300] Additional squadrons were added in May 1940, for a total of fourteen.[301]
+
+The unit was split into two regiments in December 1939, with Fegelein in charge of both. By March 1941 their strength was 3,500 men.[302][303] In July 1941, they were assigned to the Pripyat swamps punitive operation, tasked with rounding up and exterminating Jews and partisans.[304] The two regiments were amalgamated into the SS Cavalry Brigade on 31 July, twelve days after the operation started.[305] Fegelein's final report, dated 18 September 1941, states that they killed 14,178 Jews, 1,001 partisans, and 699 Red Army soldiers, with 830 prisoners taken.[306][307] The historian Henning Pieper estimates the actual number of Jews killed was closer to 23,700.[308] The SS Cavalry Brigade took serious losses in November 1941 in the Battle of Moscow, with casualties of up to 60 percent in some squadrons.[309] Fegelein was appointed as commander of the 8th SS Cavalry Division Florian Geyer on 20 April 1943. This unit saw service in the Soviet Union in attacks on partisans and civilians.[310][311] In addition, SS Cavalry regiments served in Croatia and Hungary.[312]
+
+The SS Medical Corps were initially known as the Sanitätsstaffel (sanitary units). After 1931, the SS formed the headquarters office Amt  V as the central office for SS medical units. An SS medical academy was established in Berlin in 1938 to train Waffen-SS physicians.[313] SS medical personnel did not often provide actual medical care; their primary responsibility was medicalized genocide.[314] At Auschwitz, about three-quarters of new arrivals, including almost all children, women with small children, all the elderly, and all those who appeared on brief and superficial inspection by an SS doctor not to be completely fit were killed within hours of arrival.[315] In their role as Desinfektoren (disinfectors), SS doctors also made selections among existing prisoners as to their fitness to work and supervised the killing of those deemed unfit. Inmates in deteriorating health were examined by SS doctors, who decided whether or not they would be able to recover in less than two weeks. Those too ill or injured to recover in that time frame were killed.[316]
+
+At Auschwitz, the actual delivery of gas to the victims was always handled by the SS, on the order of the supervising SS doctor.[317][318] Many of the SS doctors also conducted inhumane medical experiments on camp prisoners.[319] The most infamous SS doctor, Josef Mengele, served as a medical officer at Auschwitz under the command of Eduard Wirths of the camp's medical corps.[320] Mengele undertook selections even when he was not assigned to do so in the hope of finding subjects for his experiments.[321] He was particularly interested in locating sets of twins.[322] In contrast to most of the doctors, who viewed undertaking selections as one of their most stressful and horrible duties, Mengele undertook the task with a flamboyant air, often smiling or whistling a tune.[323][324] After the war, many SS doctors were charged with war crimes for their inhumane medical experiments and for their role in gas chamber selections.[325]
+
+The Ahnenerbe (Ancestral Heritage Organization) was founded in 1935 by Himmler, and became part of the SS in 1939.[326] It was an umbrella agency for more than fifty organizations tasked with studying the German racial identity and ancient Germanic traditions and language.[326][327] The agency sponsored archaeological expeditions in Germany, Scandinavia, the Middle East, Tibet, and elsewhere to search for evidence of Aryan roots, influence, and superiority.[328] Further planned expeditions were postponed indefinitely at the start of the war.[329]
+
+The SS-Frauenkorps was an auxiliary reporting and clerical unit,[330] which included the SS-Helferinnenkorps (Women Helper Corps), made up of female volunteers. Members were assigned as administrative staff and supply personnel and served in command positions and as guards at women's concentration camps.[331][332] While female concentration and extermination camp guards were civilian employees of the SS, the SS-Helferinnen who completed training at the Reichsschule für SS-Helferinnen in Oberehnheim (Alsace) were members of the Waffen-SS.[333] Like their male equivalents in the SS, females participated in atrocities against Jews, Poles, and others.[334]
+
+In 1942, Himmler set up the Reichsschule für SS Helferinnen (Reich school for SS helpers) in Oberehnheim to train women in communications so that they could free up men for combat roles. Himmler also intended to replace all female civilian employees in his service with SS-Helferinnen members, as they were selected and trained according to Nazi ideology.[335][336] The school was closed on 22 November 1944 due to the Allied advance.[337]
+
+The SS-Mannschaften (Auxiliary-SS) were not considered regular SS members, but were conscripted from other branches of the German military, the NSDAP, SA, and the Volkssturm for service in concentration camps and extermination camps.[338]
+
+Beginning in 1940, Himmler opened up Waffen-SS recruiting to ethnic Germans that were not German citizens.[339] In March 1941, the SS Main Office established the Germanische Leitstelle (Germanic Guidance Office) to establish Waffen-SS recruiting offices in Nazi-occupied Europe.[340] The majority of the resulting foreign Waffen-SS units wore a distinctive national collar patch and preceded their SS rank titles with the prefix Waffen instead of SS. Volunteers from Scandinavian countries filled the ranks of two divisions, the SS-Wiking and SS-Nordland.[341] Swiss German speakers joined in substantial numbers.[342] Belgian Flemings joined Dutchmen to form the SS-Nederland legion,[343] and their Walloon compatriots joined the SS-Wallonien.[344] By the end of 1943 about a quarter of the SS were ethnic Germans from across Europe,[345] and by June 1944, half the Waffen-SS were foreign nationals.[346]
+
+Additional Waffen-SS units were added from the Ukrainians, Albanians from Kosovo, Serbians, Croatians, Turkic, Caucasians, Cossack, and Tatars. The Ukrainians and Tatars, who had suffered persecution under Stalin, were likely motivated primarily by opposition to the Soviet government rather than ideological agreement with the SS.[347] The exiled Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini was made an SS-Gruppenführer by Himmler in May 1943.[348] He subsequently used antisemitism and anti-Serb racism to recruit a Waffen-SS division of Bosnian Muslims, the SS-Handschar.[349] The year-long Soviet occupation of the Baltic states at the beginning of World War II resulted in volunteers for Latvian and Estonian Waffen-SS units. The Estonian Legion had 1,280 volunteers under training by the end of 1942.[350] Approximately 25,000 men served in the Estonian SS division, with thousands more conscripted into Police Front battalions and border guard units.[351] Most of the Estonians were fighting primarily to regain their independence and as many as 15,000 of them died fighting alongside the Germans.[352] In early 1944, Himmler even contacted Pohl to suggest releasing Muslim prisoners from concentration camps to supplement his SS troops.[353]
+
+The Indian Legion was a Wehrmacht unit formed in August 1942 chiefly from disaffected Indian soldiers of the British Indian Army captured in the North African Campaign. In August 1944 it was transferred to the auspices of the Waffen-SS as the Indische Freiwilligen-Legion der Waffen-SS.[354] There was also a French volunteer division, SS-Charlemagne, which was formed in 1944 mainly from the remnants of the Legion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism and French Sturmbrigade.[355]
+
+The SS established its own symbolism, rituals, customs, ranks, and uniforms to set itself apart from other organizations. Before 1929, the SS wore the same brown uniform as the SA, with the addition of a black tie and a black cap with a Totenkopf (death's head) skull and bones symbol, moving to an all-black uniform in 1932.[14][356] In 1935, the SS combat formations adopted a service uniform in field grey for everyday wear. The SS also developed its own field uniforms, which included reversible smocks and helmet covers printed with camouflage patterns.[357] Uniforms were manufactured in hundreds of licensed factories, with some workers being prisoners of war performing forced labor. Many were produced in concentration camps.[358]
+
+Hitler and the NSDAP understood the power of emblems and insignia to influence public opinion.[359] The stylized lightning bolt logo of the SS was chosen in 1932. The logo is a pair of runes from a set of 18 Armanen runes created by Guido von List in 1906. It is similar to the ancient Sowilō rune, which symbolizes the sun, but was renamed as "Sig" (victory) in List's iconography.[359] The Totenkopf symbolized the wearer's willingness to fight unto the death, and also served to frighten the enemy.[360]
+
+After 1933 a career in the SS became increasingly attractive to Germany's social elite, who began joining the movement in great numbers, usually motivated by political opportunism. By 1938 about one-third of the SS leadership were members of the upper middle class. The trend reversed after the first Soviet counter-offensive of 1942.[361]
+
+By 1942 all activities of the SS were managed through twelve main offices.[373][374]
+
+The term "Austrian SS" is often used to describe that portion of the SS membership from Austria, but it was never a recognized branch of the SS. In contrast to SS members from other countries, who were grouped into either the Germanic-SS or the Foreign Legions of the Waffen-SS, Austrian SS members were regular SS personnel. It was technically under the command of the SS in Germany but often acted independently concerning Austrian affairs. The Austrian SS was founded in 1930 and by 1934 was acting as a covert force to bring about the Anschluss with Germany, which occurred in March 1938. Early Austrian SS leaders were Kaltenbrunner and Arthur Seyss-Inquart.[375] Austrian SS members served in every branch of the SS. Political scientist David Art of Tufts University notes that Austrians constituted 8 percent of the Third Reich's population and 13 percent of the SS; he states that 40 percent of the staff and 75 percent of commanders at death camps were Austrian.[376]
+
+After the Anschluss, the Austrian SS was folded into SS-Oberabschnitt Donau. The third regiment of the SS-Verfügungstruppe (Der Führer) and the fourth Totenkopf regiment (Ostmark) were recruited in Austria shortly thereafter. On Heydrich's orders, mass arrests of potential enemies of the Reich began immediately after the Anschluss.[377] Mauthausen was the first concentration camp opened in Austria following the Anschluss.[378] Before the invasion of the Soviet Union, Mauthausen was the harshest of the camps in the Greater German Reich.[379]
+
+The Hotel Metropole was transformed into Gestapo headquarters in Vienna in April 1938. With a staff of 900 (80 percent of whom were recruited from the Austrian police), it was the largest Gestapo office outside Berlin. An estimated 50,000 people were interrogated or tortured there.[380] The Gestapo in Vienna was headed by Franz Josef Huber, who also served as chief of the Central Agency for Jewish Emigration in Vienna. Although its de facto leaders were Adolf Eichmann and later Alois Brunner, Huber was nevertheless responsible for the mass deportation of Austrian Jews.[381]
+
+Following Nazi Germany's collapse, the SS ceased to exist.[382] Numerous members of the SS, many of them still committed Nazis, remained at large in Germany and across Europe.[383] On 21 May 1945, the British captured Himmler, who was in disguise and using a false passport. At an internment camp near Lüneburg, he committed suicide by biting down on a cyanide capsule.[384] Several other leading members of the SS fled, but some were quickly captured. Kaltenbrunner, chief of the RSHA and the highest-ranking surviving SS main department chief upon Himmler's suicide, was captured and arrested in the Bavarian Alps.[385] He was among the 24 defendants put on trial at the International Military Tribunal in 1945–46.[386]
+
+Some SS members were subject to summary execution, torture, and beatings at the hands of freed prisoners, displaced persons, or Allied soldiers.[387][388] American soldiers of the 157th Regiment, who entered the concentration camp at Dachau in April 1945 and saw the human deprivation and cruelty committed by the SS, shot some of the remaining SS camp guards.[389] On 15 April 1945, British troops entered Bergen-Belsen. They placed the SS guards on starvation rations, made them work without breaks, forced them to deal with the remaining corpses, and stabbed them with bayonets or struck them with their rifle butts if they slowed their pace.[390] Some members of the US Army Counter Intelligence Corps delivered captured SS camp guards to displaced person camps, where they knew they would be subject to summary execution.[391]
+
+The Allies commenced legal proceedings against captured Nazis, establishing the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg in 1945.[392] The first war crimes trial of 24 prominent figures such as Hermann Göring, Albert Speer, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Alfred Rosenberg, Hans Frank, and Kaltenbrunner took place beginning in November 1945. They were accused of four counts: conspiracy, waging a war of aggression, war crimes, and crimes against humanity in violation of international law.[392] Twelve received the death penalty, including Kaltenbrunner, who was convicted of crimes against humanity and executed on 16 October 1946.[393] The former commandant at Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, who testified on behalf of Kaltenbrunner and others, was tried and executed in 1947.[394]
+
+Additional SS trials and convictions followed.[395] Many defendants attempted to exculpate themselves using the excuse that they were merely following superior orders, which they had to obey unconditionally as part of their sworn oath and duty. The courts did not find this to be a legitimate defense.[396] A trial of 40 SS officers and guards from Auschwitz took place in Kraków in November 1947. Most were found guilty, and 23 received the death penalty.[397] In addition to those tried by the Western allies, an estimated 37,000 members of the SS were tried and convicted in Soviet courts. Sentences included hangings and long terms of hard labor.[398] Piotr Cywiński, the director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, estimates that of the 70,000 members of the SS involved in crimes in concentration camps, only about 1,650 to 1,700 were tried after the war.[399] The International Military Tribunal declared the SS a criminal organization in 1946.[400]
+
+After the war, many former Nazis fled to South America, especially to Argentina, where they were welcomed by Juan Perón's regime.[401] In the 1950s, former Dachau inmate Lothar Hermann discovered that Buenos Aires resident Ricardo Klement was, in fact, Adolf Eichmann, who had in 1948 obtained false identification and a landing permit for Argentina through an organization directed by Bishop Alois Hudal, an Austrian cleric with Nazi sympathies, then residing in Italy.[402] Eichmann was captured in Buenos Aires on 11 May 1960 by Mossad, the Israel I intelligence agency. At his trial in Jerusalem in 1961, he was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. Eichmann was quoted as having stated, "I will jump into my grave laughing because the fact that I have the death of five million Jews [or Reich enemies, as he later claimed to have said] on my conscience gives me extraordinary satisfaction."[403] Franz Stangl, the commandant of Treblinka, also escaped to South America with the assistance of Hudal's network. He was deported to Germany in 1967 and was sentenced to life in prison in 1970. He died in 1971.[404]
+
+Mengele, worried that his capture would mean a death sentence, fled Germany on 17 April 1949.[405] Assisted by a network of former SS members, he traveled to Genoa, where he obtained a passport under the alias "Helmut Gregor" from the International Committee of the Red Cross. He sailed to Argentina in July.[406] Aware that he was still a wanted man, he moved to Paraguay in 1958 and Brazil in 1960. In both instances he was assisted by former Luftwaffe pilot Hans-Ulrich Rudel.[407] Mengele suffered a stroke while swimming and drowned in 1979.[408]
+
+Thousands of Nazis, including former SS members such as Trawniki guard Jakob Reimer and Circassian collaborator Tscherim Soobzokov, fled to the United States under the guise of refugees, sometimes using forged documents.[409] Other SS men, such as Soobzokov, SD officer Wilhelm Höttl, Eichmann aide Otto von Bolschwing, and accused war criminal Theodor Saevecke, were employed by American intelligence agencies against the Soviets. As CIA officer Harry Rositzke noted, "It was a visceral business of using any bastard so long as he was anti-Communist ... The eagerness or desire to enlist collaborators means that sure, you didn't look at their credentials too closely."[410] Similarly, the Soviets used SS personnel after the war; Operation Theo, for instance, disseminated "subversive rumours" in Allied-occupied Germany.[411]
+
+Simon Wiesenthal and others have speculated about the existence of a Nazi fugitive network code-named ODESSA (an acronym for Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen, Organization of former SS members) that allegedly helped war criminals find refuge in Latin America.[412] British writer Gitta Sereny, who conducted interviews with SS men, considers the story untrue and attributes the escapes to postwar chaos and Hudal's Vatican-based network. While the existence of ODESSA remains unproven, Sereny notes that "there certainly were various kinds of Nazi aid organizations after the war — it would have been astonishing if there hadn't been."[413]

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+A stalactite (UK:  /ˈstæləktaɪt/, US: /stəˈlæktaɪt/; from the Greek stalasso, (σταλάσσω), "to drip", and meaning "that which drips") is a type of formation that hangs from the ceiling of caves, hot springs, or manmade structures such as bridges and mines. Any material that is soluble, can be deposited as a colloid, or is in suspension, or is capable of being melted, may form a stalactite. Stalactites may be composed of lava, minerals, mud, peat, pitch, sand, sinter, and amberat (crystallized urine of pack rats).[1][2] A stalactite is not necessarily a speleothem, though speleothems are the most common form of stalactite because of the abundance of limestone caves.[1][3]
+
+The corresponding formation on the floor of the cave is known as a stalagmite.  Mnemonics have been developed for which word refers to which type of formation; one is that stalactite has a C for "ceiling", and stalagmite has a G for "ground".[4]
+
+The most common stalactites are speleothems, which occur in limestone caves. They form through deposition of calcium carbonate and other minerals, which is precipitated from mineralized water solutions. Limestone is the chief form of calcium carbonate rock which is dissolved by water that contains carbon dioxide, forming a calcium bicarbonate solution in caverns.[5]  The chemical formula for this reaction is:[6]
+
+This solution travels through the rock until it reaches an edge and if this is on the roof of a cave it will drip down.  When the solution comes into contact with air the chemical reaction that created it is reversed and particles of calcium carbonate are deposited.  The reversed reaction is:[6]
+
+An average growth rate is 0.13 mm (0.0051 inches) a year.  The quickest growing stalactites are those formed by a constant supply of slow dripping water rich in calcium carbonate (CaCO3) and carbon dioxide (CO2), which can grow at 3 mm (0.12 inches) per year.[7][8] The drip rate must be slow enough to allow the CO2 to degas from the solution into the cave atmosphere, resulting in deposition of CaCO3 on the stalactite. Too fast a drip rate and the solution, still carrying most of the CaCO3, falls to the cave floor where degassing occurs and CaCO3 is deposited as a stalagmite.
+
+All limestone stalactites begin with a single mineral-laden drop of water. When the drop falls, it deposits the thinnest ring of calcite. Each subsequent drop that forms and falls deposits another calcite ring. Eventually, these rings form a very narrow (≈4 to 5 mm diameter), hollow tube commonly known as a "soda straw" stalactite. Soda straws can grow quite long, but are very fragile. If they become plugged by debris, water begins flowing over the outside, depositing more calcite and creating the more familiar cone-shaped stalactite.  The same water drops that fall from the tip of a stalactite deposit more calcite on the floor below, eventually resulting in a rounded or cone-shaped stalagmite. Unlike stalactites, stalagmites never start out as hollow "soda straws".  Given enough time, these formations can meet and fuse to create pillars of calcium carbonate known as a "column".
+
+Stalactite formation generally begins over a large area, with multiple paths for the mineral rich water to flow.  As minerals are dissolved in one channel slightly more than other competing channels, the dominant channel begins to draw more and more of the available water, which speeds its growth, ultimately resulting in all other channels being choked off.  This is one reason why formations tend to have minimum distances from one another.  The larger the formation, the greater the interformation distance.
+
+Another type of stalactite is formed in lava tubes while lava is still active inside.[9] The mechanism of formation is the deposition of material on the ceilings of caves, however with lava stalactites formation happens very quickly in only a matter of hours, days, or weeks, whereas limestone stalactites may take up to thousands of years. A key difference with lava stalactites is that once the lava has ceased flowing, so too will the stalactites cease to grow. This means that if the stalactite were to be broken it would never grow back.[1]
+
+The generic term lavacicle has been applied to lava stalactites and stalagmites indiscriminately and evolved from the word icicle.[1]
+
+Like limestone stalactites, they can leave lava drips on the floor that turn into lava stalagmites and may eventually fuse with the corresponding stalactite to form a column.
+
+Shark tooth stalactites The shark tooth stalactite is broad and tapering in appearance. It may begin as a small driblet of lava from a semi-solid ceiling, but then grows by accreting layers as successive flows of lava rise and fall in the lava tube, coating and recoating the stalactite with more material. They can vary from a few millimeters to over a meter in length.[10]
+
+Splash stalactites
+As lava flows through a tube, material will be splashed up on the ceiling and ooze back down, hardening into a stalactite. This type of formation results in an irregularly-shaped stalactite, looking somewhat like stretched taffy[clarification needed]. Often they may be of a different color than the original lava that formed the cave.[10]
+
+Tubular lava stalactites
+When the roof of a lava tube is cooling, a skin will form that traps semi-molten material inside. Trapped gases force lava to extrude out through small openings that result in hollow, tubular stalactites analogous to the soda straws formed as depositional speleothems in solution caves,  The longest known is almost 2 meters in length. These are common in Hawaiian lava tubes and are often associated with a drip stalagmite that forms below as material is carried through the tubular stalactite and piles up on the floor beneath. Sometimes the tubular form collapses near the distal end, most likely when the pressure of escaping gases decreased and still-molten portions of the stalactites deflated and cooled.
+Often these tubular stalactites will acquire a twisted, vermiform appearance as bits of lava crystallize and force the flow in different directions. These tubular lava helictites may also be influenced by air currents through a tube and point downwind.[10]
+
+A common stalactite found seasonally or year round in many caves is the ice stalactite, commonly referred to as icicles, especially on the surface.[11] Water seepage from the surface will penetrate into a cave and if temperatures are below freezing the water will form stalactites. Creation may also be done by the freezing of water vapor.[12] Similar to lava stalactites, ice stalactites form very quickly within hours or days. Unlike lava stalactites however, they may grow back as long as water and temperatures are suitable.
+
+Ice stalactites can also form under sea ice when saline water is introduced to ocean water. These specific stalactites are referred to as brinicles.
+
+Ice stalactites may also form corresponding stalagmites below them and given time may grow together to form an ice column.
+
+Stalactites can also form on concrete, and on plumbing where there is a slow leak and calcium, magnesium or other ions in the water supply, although they form much more rapidly there than in the natural cave environment.  These secondary deposits, such as stalactites, stalagmites, flowstone and others, which are derived from the lime, mortar or other calcareous material in concrete, outside of the "cave" environment, can not be classified as "speleothems" due to the definition of the term.[8] The term "calthemite" is used to encompass the secondary deposits which mimic the shapes and forms of speleothems outside the cave environment.[13]
+
+The way stalactites form on concrete is due to different chemistry than those that form naturally in limestone caves and is due of the presence of calcium oxide in cement.  Concrete is made from aggregate, sand and cement. When water is added to the mix, the calcium oxide in the cement reacts with water to form calcium hydroxide (Ca(OH)2). The chemical formula for this is:[6]
+
+Over time, any rainwater that penetrates cracks in set (hard) concrete will carry any free calcium hydroxide in solution to the edge of the concrete. Stalactites can form when the solution emerges on the underside of the concrete structure where it is suspended in the air, for example, on a ceiling or a beam.  When the solution comes into contact with air on the underside of the concrete structure, another chemical reaction takes place.  The solution reacts with carbon dioxide in the air and precipitates calcium carbonate.[6]
+
+When this solution drops down it leaves behind particles of calcium carbonate and over time these form into a stalactite.  They are normally a few centimeters long and with a diameter of approximately 4 to 5 mm (0.16 to 0.20 inches).[6]  The growth rate of stalactites is significantly influenced by supply continuity of Ca2+ saturated solution and the drip rate. A straw shaped stalactite which has formed under a concrete structure can grow as much as 2 mm per day in length, when the drip rate is approximately 11 minutes between drops.[13] Changes in leachate solution pH can facilitate additional chemical reactions, which may also influence calthemite stalactite growth rates.[13]
+
+The White Chamber in the Jeita Grotto's upper cavern in Lebanon contains an 8.2 m (27 ft) limestone stalactite which is accessible to visitors and is claimed to be the longest stalactite in the world. Another such claim is made for a 20 m (66 ft) limestone stalactite that hangs in the Chamber of Rarities in the Gruta Rei do Mato (Sete Lagoas, Minas Gerais, Brazil). However, vertical cavers have often encountered longer stalactites while exploring. One of the longest stalactites viewable by the general public is in Pol an Ionain (Doolin Cave), County Clare, Ireland, in a karst region known as The Burren; what makes it more impressive is the fact that the stalactite is held on by a section of calcite less than 0.3 m2 (3.2 sq ft).[14]
+
+Stalactites are first mentioned (though not by name) by the Roman natural historian Pliny in a text which also mentions stalagmites and columns and refers to their creation by the dripping of water. The term "stalactite" was coined in the 17th century by the Danish Physician Ole Worm,[15] who coined the Latin word from the Greek word σταλακτός (stalaktos, "dripping") and the Greek suffix -ίτης (-ites, connected with or belonging to).[16]
+
+Stalactites at the Puerto Princesa Underground River, Palawan, Philippines.
+
+Mineralized water drop forming at bottom of stalactites.
+
+Stalactites of the type called "soda straws" from the Choranche caves in the Vercors, France
+
+Tubular lava stalactites
+
+A tubular lava helictite

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+
+
+The Next Generation films
+
+Reboot (Kelvin Timeline) films
+
+Streaming series
+
+Star Trek is an American media franchise based on the science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry. The first television series, called Star Trek and now known as "The Original Series", debuted on September 8, 1966, and aired for three seasons on NBC. It followed the voyages of the starship USS Enterprise on its five-year mission, the purpose of which was "to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before". The USS Enterprise was a space exploration vessel built by the United Federation of Planets in the 23rd century. The Star Trek canon includes the Original Series, an animated series, six spin-off television series, the film franchise, and further adaptations in several media.
+
+In creating Star Trek, Roddenberry was inspired by C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower series of novels, Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, and television westerns such as Wagon Train. These adventures continued in the 22-episode Star Trek: The Animated Series and six feature films. Six new television series were eventually produced: Star Trek: The Next Generation follows the crew of a new starship Enterprise a century after the original series; Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager are set contemporaneously with the Next Generation, and Enterprise, set before the original series in the early days of human interstellar travel. The most recent Star Trek television series, Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard, stream exclusively on digital platforms. The adventures of the Next Generation crew continued in four additional feature films. In 2009, the film franchise underwent a reboot called the Kelvin Timeline. Three films were made in this alternate universe. Two additional television series are in development for CBS All Access, Star Trek: Lower Decks, an animated series scheduled to debut in 2020; and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, featuring the previous crew of the Enterprise prior to the original series, tentatively set to debut in 2021.[1][2]
+
+Star Trek has been a cult phenomenon for decades.[3] Fans of the franchise are called "Trekkies" or "Trekkers". The franchise spans a wide range of spin-offs including games, figurines, novels, toys, and comics. Star Trek had a themed attraction in Las Vegas that opened in 1998 and closed in September 2008. At least two museum exhibits of props travel the world. The series has its own full-fledged constructed language, Klingon. Several parodies have been made of Star Trek. In addition, viewers have produced several fan productions. As of July 2016, the franchise had generated $10 billion in revenue, making Star Trek one of the highest-grossing media franchises of all time.[4]
+Star Trek is noted for its cultural influence beyond works of science fiction.[5] The franchise is also noted for its progressive civil rights stances.[6] The Original Series included one of television's first multiracial casts.
+
+As early as 1964, Gene Roddenberry drafted a proposal for the science fiction series that would become Star Trek. Although he publicly marketed it as a Western in outer space—a so-called "Wagon Train to the Stars"—he privately told friends that he was modeling it on Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, intending each episode to act on two levels: as a suspenseful adventure story and as a morality tale.[7][8][9][10]
+
+Most Star Trek stories depict the adventures of humans[b] and aliens who serve in Starfleet, the space-borne humanitarian and peacekeeping armada of the United Federation of Planets. The protagonists have altruistic values, and must apply these ideals to difficult dilemmas.
+
+Many of the conflicts and political dimensions of Star Trek are allegories of contemporary cultural realities. The Original Series addressed issues of the 1960s, just as later spin-offs have tackled issues of their respective decades.[11] Issues depicted in the various series include war and peace, the value of personal loyalty, authoritarianism, imperialism, class warfare, economics, racism, religion, human rights, sexism, feminism, and the role of technology.[12]:57 Roddenberry stated: "[By creating] a new world with new rules, I could make statements about sex, religion, Vietnam, politics, and intercontinental missiles. Indeed, we did make them on Star Trek: we were sending messages and fortunately they all got by the network."[12]:79 "If you talked about purple people on a far off planet, they (the television network) never really caught on. They were more concerned about cleavage. They actually would send a censor down to the set to measure a woman's cleavage to make sure too much of her breast wasn't showing"[13]
+
+Roddenberry intended the show to have a progressive political agenda reflective of the emerging counter-culture of the youth movement, though he was not fully forthcoming to the networks about this. He wanted Star Trek to show what humanity might develop into, if it would learn from the lessons of the past, most specifically by ending violence. An extreme example is the alien species, the Vulcans, who had a violent past but learned to control their emotions. Roddenberry also gave Star Trek an anti-war message and depicted the United Federation of Planets as an ideal, optimistic version of the United Nations.[14] His efforts were opposed by the network because of concerns over marketability, e.g., they opposed Roddenberry's insistence that Enterprise have a racially diverse crew.[15]
+
+The central trio of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy from the Original Series was modeled on classical mythological storytelling.[16]
+
+There is a mythological component [to pop culture], especially with science fiction. It's people looking for answers – and science fiction offers to explain the inexplicable, the same as religion tends to do... If we accept the premise that it has a mythological element, then all the stuff about going out into space and meeting new life – trying to explain it and put a human element to it – it's a hopeful vision. All these things offer hope and imaginative solutions for the future.
+
+
+
+In early 1964, Roddenberry presented a brief treatment for a television series to Desilu Productions, calling it "a Wagon Train to the stars."[18] Desilu worked with Roddenberry to develop the treatment into a script, which was then pitched to NBC.[19]
+
+NBC paid to make a pilot, "The Cage", starring Jeffrey Hunter as Enterprise Captain Christopher Pike. NBC rejected The Cage, but the executives were still impressed with the concept, and made the unusual decision to commission a second pilot: "Where No Man Has Gone Before".[19]
+
+While the show initially enjoyed high ratings, the average rating of the show at the end of its first season dropped to 52nd out of 94 programs. Unhappy with the show's ratings, NBC threatened to cancel the show during its second season.[20] The show's fan base, led by Bjo Trimble, conducted an unprecedented letter-writing campaign, petitioning the network to keep the show on the air.[20][21] NBC renewed the show, but moved it from primetime to the "Friday night death slot", and substantially reduced its budget.[22] In protest, Roddenberry resigned as producer and reduced his direct involvement in Star Trek, which led to Fred Freiberger becoming producer for the show's third and final season.[c] Despite another letter-writing campaign, NBC canceled the series after three seasons and 79 episodes.[19]
+
+After the original series was canceled, Desilu, which by then had been renamed Paramount Television, licensed the broadcast syndication rights to help recoup the production losses. Reruns began in late 1969 and by the late 1970s the series aired in over 150 domestic and 60 international markets. This helped Star Trek develop a cult following greater than its popularity during its original run.[23]
+
+One sign of the series' growing popularity was the first Star Trek convention which occurred on January 21–23, 1972 in New York City. Although the original estimate of attendees was only a few hundred, several thousand fans turned up. Star Trek fans continue to attend similar conventions worldwide.[24]
+
+The series' newfound success led to the idea of reviving the franchise.[25] Filmation with Paramount Television produced the first post original series show, Star Trek: The Animated Series. It ran on NBC for 22 half-hour episodes over two seasons on Saturday mornings from 1973 to 1974.[26]:208 Although short-lived, typical for animated productions in that time slot during that period, the series garnered the franchise's only "Best Series" Emmy Award as opposed to the franchise's later technical ones. Paramount Pictures and Roddenberry began developing a new series, Star Trek: Phase II, in May 1975 in response to the franchise's newfound popularity. Work on the series ended when the proposed Paramount Television Service folded.
+
+Following the success of the science fiction movies Star Wars [d] and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Paramount adapted the planned pilot episode of Phase II into the feature film Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The film opened in North America on December 7, 1979, with mixed reviews from critics. The film earned $139 million worldwide, below expectations but enough for Paramount to create a sequel. The studio forced Roddenberry to relinquish creative control of future sequels.
+
+The success of the sequel, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, reversed the fortunes of the franchise. While the sequel grossed less than the first movie, The Wrath of Khan's lower production costs made it net more profit. Paramount produced six Star Trek feature films between 1979 and 1991.
+
+In response to the popularity of Star Trek feature films, the franchise returned to television with Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1987. Paramount chose to distribute it as a first-run syndication show rather than a network show.[9]:545
+
+Following Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Roddenberry's role was changed from producer to creative consultant with minimal input to the films while being heavily involved with the creation of The Next Generation. Roddenberry died on October 24, 1991, giving executive producer Rick Berman control of the franchise.[12]:268[9]:591–593 Star Trek had become known to those within Paramount as "the franchise", because of its great success and recurring role as a tent pole for the studio when other projects failed.[27] The Next Generation had the highest ratings of any Star Trek series and became the most syndicated show during the last years of its original seven-season run.[28] In response to the Next Generation's success, Paramount released a spin-off series Deep Space Nine in 1993. While never as popular as the Next Generation, the series had sufficient ratings for it to last seven seasons.
+
+In January 1995, a few months after the Next Generation ended, Paramount released a fourth television series, Voyager. Star Trek saturation reached a peak in the mid-1990s with Deep Space Nine and Voyager airing concurrently and three of the four Next Generation-based feature films released in 1994, 1996, and 1998. By 1998, Star Trek was Paramount's most important property; the enormous profits of "the franchise" funded much of the rest of the studio's operations.[29] Voyager became the flagship show of the new United Paramount Network (UPN) and thus the first major network Star Trek series since the original.[30]
+
+After Voyager ended, UPN produced Enterprise, a prequel series. Enterprise did not enjoy the high ratings of its predecessors and UPN threatened to cancel it after the series' third season. Fans launched a campaign reminiscent of the one that saved the third season of the Original Series. Paramount renewed Enterprise for a fourth season, but moved it to the Friday night death slot.[31] Like the Original Series, Enterprise ratings dropped during this time slot, and UPN cancelled Enterprise at the end of its fourth season. Enterprise aired its final episode on May 13, 2005.[32] A fan group, "Save Enterprise", attempted to save the series and tried to raise $30 million to privately finance a fifth season of Enterprise.[33] Though the effort garnered considerable press, the fan drive failed to save the series. The cancellation of Enterprise ended an eighteen-year continuous production run of Star Trek programming on television. The poor box office performance in 2002 of the film Nemesis cast an uncertain light upon the future of the franchise. Paramount relieved Berman, the franchise producer, of control of Star Trek.
+
+In 2005, Paramount's parent company Viacom split into two companies, the CBS Corporation owner of CBS Television Studios, and Viacom owner of Paramount Pictures. CBS owned the film brand while Paramount owned the film library and would continue the film franchise. Paramount was the first company to try to revive the franchise by hiring a new creative team to reinvigorate in 2007. Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman and producer J. J. Abrams had the freedom to reinvent the feel of the franchise.
+
+The team created the franchise's eleventh film, Star Trek, releasing it in May 2009. The film featured a new cast portraying the crew of the original show. Star Trek was a prequel of the original series set in an alternate timeline, later named the Kelvin Timeline. This gave the film and sequels freedom from the need to conform to the franchise's canonical timeline. The eleventh Star Trek film's marketing campaign targeted non-fans, even stating in the film's advertisements that "this is not your father's Star Trek".[34] It also would not interfere with CBS's franchise.
+
+The film earned considerable critical and financial success, grossing (in inflation-adjusted dollars) more box office sales than any previous Star Trek film.[35] The plaudits include the franchise's first Academy Award (for makeup). The film's major cast members are contracted for two sequels.[36] Paramount's sequel to the 2009 film, Star Trek Into Darkness, premiered in Sydney, Australia, on April 23, 2013, but the film did not release in the United States until May 17, 2013.[37] While the film was not as successful in the North American box office as its predecessor, internationally, in terms of box office receipts, Into Darkness was the most successful of the franchise.[38] The thirteenth film, Star Trek Beyond, was released on July 22, 2016.[39] The film had many pre-production problems and its script went through several rewrites. While receiving positive reviews, Star Trek Beyond disappointed in the box office.[40]
+
+CBS turned down several proposals in the mid-2000s to restart the franchise. These included pitches from film director Bryan Singer, Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski, and Trek actors Jonathan Frakes and William Shatner.[41][42][43] The company also turned down an animated web series.[44]
+
+Despite the franchise's absence from network television, the Star Trek film library would become highly accessible to the average viewer due to the rise of streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. To capitalize on this trend, CBS brought the franchise back to the small screen with the series Star Trek: Discovery to help launch and draw subscribers to its streaming service CBS All Access.[45] The first season premiered on September 24, 2017 and a second season premiered in January 2019.[46] A third Discovery season was announced on February 27, 2019.[47] While Discovery is shown in the United States exclusively on CBS All Access, Netflix, in exchange for funding the production costs of the show, owns the international screening rights for the show.[48]
+
+A second All Access series, Star Trek: Picard, features Patrick Stewart reprising the show's namesake character. Picard premiered on January 23, 2020. Unlike Discovery, Amazon Prime Video will stream Picard internationally.[49] CBS has also released two seasons of Star Trek: Short Treks, a series of standalone mini-episodes which air between Discovery and Picard seasons. An additional streaming series following the crew of the Enterprise under the command of Captain Pike featured in Discovery's second season, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, was announced on May 15, 2020.[1][2]
+
+Additional All Access series are under development including the Star Trek: Lower Decks adult animated series, and a show centered around the Discovery character Philippa Georgiou. CBS's goal is to have new Star Trek content year-round on All Access.[50][51][52]
+
+Eight television series and one short-form companion series make up the bulk of the Star Trek mythos: Original Series, Animated Series, Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise, Discovery, Short Treks and Picard. All the series in total amount to 774 episodes across 35 seasons of television.[e]
+
+Star Trek: The Original Series, frequently abbreviated as TOS,[f] debuted on NBC on September 8, 1966.[53] The show tells the tale of the crew of the starship USS Enterprise and its five-year mission "to boldly go where no man has gone before". During the series initial run, it was nominated for Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation multiple times, and won twice.[26]:231 Cast included:
+
+NBC canceled the show after three seasons; the last original episode aired on June 3, 1969.[54] A petition near the end of the second season to save the show signed by many Caltech students and its multiple Hugo nominations would, however, indicate that despite low Nielsen ratings, it was highly popular with science fiction fans and engineering students.[55] The series later became popular in reruns and found a cult following.[53]
+
+Star Trek: The Animated Series, produced by Filmation, ran for two seasons from 1973 to 1974. Most of the original cast performed the voices of their characters from the Original Series, and some of the writers who worked on the Original Series returned. While the animated format allowed the producers to create more exotic alien landscapes and life forms, animation errors and liberal reuse of shots and musical cues have tarnished the series' reputation.[56] Gene Roddenberry often spoke of it as non-canon.[57]:232 The cast included:
+
+The Animated Series won Star Trek's first Emmy Award on May 15, 1975.[58] The series briefly returned to television in the mid-1980s on the children's cable network Nickelodeon, and again on Sci-Fi Channel in the mid-90s. The complete series was released on LaserDisc during the 1980s.[59] The complete series was first released in the U.S. on eleven volumes of VHS tapes in 1989. All 22 episodes were released on DVD in 2006.
+
+Star Trek: The Next Generation, frequently abbreviated as TNG, takes place about a century after the Original Series (2364–2370). It features a new starship, Enterprise (NCC-1701-D), and a new crew:
+
+The series premiered on September 28, 1987, and ran for seven seasons. It had the highest ratings of any of the Star Trek series and became the highest rated syndicated show near the end of its run, allowing it to act as a springboard for other series. Many relationships and races introduced in the Next Generation became the basis for episodes in Deep Space Nine and Voyager.[28] The series earned several Emmy awards and nominations—including Best Dramatic Series for its final season—two Hugo Awards, and a Peabody Award for Outstanding Television Programming for one episode.[60]
+
+Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, frequently abbreviated as DS9, takes place during the last years and immediately after the Next Generation (2369–2375). It debuted the week of January 3, 1993, and ran for seven seasons. Unlike the other Star Trek series, Deep Space Nine was set primarily on a space station of the same name rather than aboard a starship. The cast included:
+
+The show begins after the brutal Cardassian occupation of the planet Bajor. The liberated Bajoran people ask the United Federation of Planets to help run a space station near Bajor. After the Federation takes control of the station, the protagonists of the show discover a uniquely stable wormhole that provides immediate access to the distant Gamma Quadrant, making Bajor and the station a strategically important location.[61] The show chronicles the events of the station's crew, led by Commander Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks), and Major Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor).
+
+Deep Space Nine stands apart from earlier Trek series for its lengthy serialized storytelling, character conflicts, and religious themes—all elements critics and audiences praised but were forbidden by Roddenberry while a producer of the original series and the Next Generation.[62]
+
+Star Trek: Voyager ran for seven seasons, airing from January 16, 1995 to May 23, 2001. It features Kate Mulgrew as Captain Kathryn Janeway, the first female commanding officer in a leading role of a Star Trek series.[63] Cast included:
+
+Voyager takes place at about the same time period as Deep Space Nine and the years following that show's end (2371–2378). The premiere episode has the USS Voyager and its crew pursue a Maquis (Federation rebels) ship. Both ships become stranded in the Delta Quadrant about 70,000 light-years from Earth.[64] Faced with a 75-year voyage to Earth, the crew must learn to work together to overcome challenges on their long and perilous journey home while also seeking ways to shorten the voyage.
+
+Like Deep Space Nine, early seasons of Voyager feature more conflict between its crew members than seen in later episodes. Such conflict often arose from friction between "by-the-book" Starfleet crew and rebellious Maquis fugitives forced by circumstance to work together. The starship Voyager, isolated from its home, faced new cultures and dilemmas not possible in shows based in the Alpha Quadrant. Later seasons brought in an influx of characters and cultures from prior shows, such as the Borg, Q, the Ferengi, Romulans, Klingons, Cardassians and cast members of the Next Generation.
+
+Star Trek: Enterprise, originally titled Enterprise, is a prequel to the original Star Trek series. It aired from September 26, 2001 to May 13, 2005 on UPN.[65] Enterprise is set during the 2150s, ninety years after Zefram Cochrane's first warp flight, and approximately ten years before the creation of the Coalition of Planets which became the United Federation of Planets. The show follows the crew of Earth's first Warp-5 capable starship, Enterprise (NX-01). Cast included:
+
+Initially, Enterprise featured self-contained episodes, much like the Original Series, Next Generation and Voyager. The third season comprised a single narrative arc. The fourth and final season consisted of several three and four episode arcs, which explored the origins of some elements of previous series, and resolved some continuity errors with The Original Series.
+
+Ratings for Enterprise started strong but declined rapidly. Although critics received the fourth season well, both fans and the cast reviled the series finale, partly because of the episode's focus on the guest appearance of members of the Next Generation cast.[66][67][68] The cancellation of Enterprise ended an 18-year run of new Star Trek series, which began with the Next Generation in 1987.
+
+Star Trek: Discovery is a direct prequel to the Original Series, set roughly ten years prior.[69] It premiered September 24, 2017 in the United States and Canada on CBS.[46] The series is CBS All Access exclusive in the United States. Netflix distributes the series worldwide, except for Canada.[70]
+
+The series primary protagonist is Lt. Commander Michael Burnham, portrayed by Martin-Green. This is a departure from previous Star Trek series whose lead character is traditionally the "captain of the ship". The series opened with a conflict between the United Federation of Planets and the Klingon T'Kuvma, who is attempting to unite the twenty-four Klingon factions called the Great Houses.[71][72]
+
+Star Trek: Short Treks is a short film anthology companion series initially exploring settings and characters from Discovery. More recent episodes feature the crew of the Enterprise under the command of Christopher Pike.[73]
+
+Star Trek: Picard is the ninth series in the Star Trek franchise and centers on the character Jean-Luc Picard at the end of the 24th century, 18 years after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis (2002).
+
+CBS All Access has two animated and two live-action television series that are currently in development.[74]
+
+Two seasons have been ordered for Lower Decks, an animated adult comedy series created by the Rick and Morty writer Mike McMahan. The series will follow the support crew of "one of Starfleet's least important ships."[75] Nickelodeon has commissioned an animated children's series, to be produced as a joint-venture with CBS,[76] titled Prodigy and set for a premiere in 2021.[77]
+
+A series titled Strange New Worlds has been announced, starring Ethan Peck, Anson Mount and Rebecca Romijn reprising their Star Trek: Discovery season 2 roles as Spock, Captain Pike and Number One respectively.[78][2] Michelle Yeoh will reprise her role as the mirror universe's Philippa Georgiou of Section 31 from Discovery in a separate still-untitled series.[79][80]
+
+Paramount Pictures has produced thirteen Star Trek feature films, the most recent being released in July 2016.[81] The first six films continue the adventures of the cast of the Original Series; the seventh film, Generations was intended as a transition from original cast to the cast of the Next Generation; the next three films, focused completely on the Next Generation cast.[g]
+
+The eleventh film and its sequels occur in an alternate timeline with a new cast portraying the Original Series characters. Leonard Nimoy portrayed an elderly Spock in the  films, providing a narrative link to what became known as the Prime Timeline. The alternate reality was christened the Kelvin Timeline by Michael and Denise Okuda, in honor of the starship USS Kelvin which was first seen in the 2009 film.[82]
+
+An R-rated Star Trek film, to be directed by Quentin Tarantino, was announced as in-development in December 2017. In a December 2019 interview with Consequence of Sound, Tarantino indicated he may not direct the film.[83] He later confirmed he would not direct any future Star Trek film in a January 2020 interview with Deadline, effectively ending development.[84] In November 2019, a new, unrelated film was announced as in-development, to be directed by Noah Hawley.[85]
+
+Star Trek has an on-going tradition of actors returning to reprise their roles in other spin-off series. In some instances, actors have portrayed potential ancestors, descendants, or relatives of characters they originated. Characters have also been recast for later appearances.
+
+Below is an incomplete list:
+
+Many licensed products are based on the Star Trek franchise. Merchandising is very lucrative for both studio and actors; by 1986 Nimoy had earned more than $500,000 from royalties.[86] Products include novels, comic books, video games, and other materials, which are generally considered non-canon. Star Trek merchandise generated $4 billion for Paramount by 2002.[87]
+
+Since 1967, hundreds of original novels, short stories, and television and movie adaptations have been published. The first original Star Trek novel was Mission to Horatius by Mack Reynolds, which was published in hardcover by Whitman Books in 1968.[57]:131
+
+Among the most recent is the Star Trek Collection of Little Golden Books. Three titles were published by Random House in 2019, a fourth is scheduled for July 2020.
+
+The first publisher of Star Trek fiction aimed at adult readers was Bantam Books. James Blish wrote adaptations of episodes of the original series in twelve volumes from 1967 to 1977; in 1970, he wrote the first original Star Trek novel published by Bantam, Spock Must Die!.[57]:xi
+
+Pocket Books published subsequent Star Trek novels. Prolific Star Trek novelists include Peter David, Diane Carey, Keith DeCandido, J.M. Dillard, Diane Duane, Michael Jan Friedman, and Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens. Several actors from the television series have also written or co-written books featuring their respective characters: William Shatner, John de Lancie, Andrew J. Robinson, J. G. Hertzler and Armin Shimerman. Voyager producer Jeri Taylor wrote two novels detailing the personal histories of Voyager characters. Screenplay writers David Gerrold, D. C. Fontana, and Melinda Snodgrass have also penned books.[57]:213
+
+A 2014 scholarly work Newton Lee discussed the actualization of Star Trek's holodeck in the future by making extensive use of artificial intelligence and cyborgs.[88]
+
+Star Trek-based comics have been issued almost continuously since 1967, published by Marvel, DC, Malibu, Wildstorm, and Gold Key, among others. In 2009, Tokyopop produced an anthology of Next Generation-based stories presented in the style of Japanese manga.[89] In 2006, IDW Publishing secured publishing rights to Star Trek comics and issued a prequel to the 2009 film, Star Trek: Countdown.[90] In 2012, IDW published the first volume of Star Trek – The Newspaper Strip, featuring the work of Thomas Warkentin.[91] As of 2020, IDS continues to produce new titles. [92]
+
+The Star Trek franchise has numerous games in many formats. Beginning in 1967 with a board game based on the original series and continuing through today with online and DVD games, Star Trek games continue to be popular among fans.
+
+Video games based on the series include Star Trek: Legacy and Star Trek: Conquest. An MMORPG based on Star Trek called Star Trek Online was developed by Cryptic Studios and published by Perfect World. It is set during the Next Generation era, about 30 years after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis.[93] The most recent video game was set in the alternate timeline from Abrams's Star Trek.
+
+On June 8, 2010, WizKids announced the development of a Star Trek collectible miniatures game using the HeroClix game system.[94]
+
+Star Trek has led directly or indirectly to the creation of a number of magazines which focus either on science fiction or specifically on Star Trek. Starlog was a magazine which was founded in the 1970s.[57]:13 Initially, its focus was on Star Trek actors, but then it expanded its scope.[57]:80 Star Trek: The Magazine was a magazine published in the U.S. that ceased publication in 2003. Star Trek Magazine, originally published as Star Trek Monthly by Titan Magazines for the United Kingdom market, began in February 1995. The magazine has since expanded to worldwide distribution.
+
+Other magazines through the years included professional, as well well as magazines published by fans, or fanzines.
+
+The Star Trek media franchise is a multibillion-dollar industry, owned by ViacomCBS.[95] Gene Roddenberry sold Star Trek to NBC as a classic adventure drama; he pitched the show as "Wagon Train to the Stars" and as Horatio Hornblower in Space.[16] The opening line, "to boldly go where no man has gone before," was taken almost verbatim from a U.S. White House booklet on space produced after the Sputnik flight in 1957.[96] The central trio of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy was modeled on classical mythological storytelling.[16]
+
+Star Trek and its spin-offs have proven highly popular in syndication and was broadcast worldwide.[97] The show's cultural impact goes far beyond its longevity and profitability. Star Trek conventions have become popular among its fans, who call themselves "trekkie" or "trekkers".[98] An entire subculture has grown up around the franchise, which was documented in the film Trekkies. Star Trek was ranked most popular cult show by TV Guide.[99] The franchise has also garnered many comparisons of the Star Wars franchise being rivals in the science fiction genre with many fans and scholars.[100][101][102]
+
+The Star Trek franchise inspired some designers of technologies, the Palm PDA and the handheld mobile phone.[103][104] Michael Jones, Chief technologist of Google Earth, has cited the tricorder's mapping capability as one inspiration in the development of Keyhole/Google Earth.[105] The Tricorder X Prize, a contest to build a medical tricorder device was announced in 2012. Ten finalists were selected in 2014, and the winner was to be selected in January 2016. However, no team managed to reach the required criteria. Star Trek also brought teleportation to popular attention with its depiction of "matter-energy transport", with the famously misquoted phrase "Beam me up, Scotty" entering the vernacular.[106] The Star Trek replicator is credited in the scientific literature with inspiring the field of diatom nanotechnology.[107] In 1976, following a letter-writing campaign, NASA named its prototype space shuttle Enterprise, after the fictional starship.[108] Later, the introductory sequence to Star Trek: Enterprise included footage of this shuttle which, along with images of a naval sailing vessel called Enterprise, depicted the advancement of human transportation technology. Additionally, some contend that the Star Trek society resembles communism.[109][110]
+
+Beyond Star Trek's fictional innovations, its contributions to television history included a multicultural and multiracial cast. While more common in subsequent years, in the 1960s it was controversial to feature an Enterprise crew that included a Japanese helmsman, a Russian navigator, a black female communications officer, and a human–Vulcan first officer. Captain Kirk's and Lt. Uhura's kiss, in the episode "Plato's Stepchildren", was also daring, and is often mis-cited as being American television's first scripted, interracial kiss, even though several other interracial kisses predated this one. Nichelle Nichols, who played the communications officer, said that the day after she told Roddenberry of her plan to leave the series, she was told a big fan wanted to meet her while attending a NAACP dinner party:
+
+I thought it was a Trekkie, and so I said, 'Sure.' I looked across the room, and there was Dr. Martin Luther King walking towards me with this big grin on his face. He reached out to me and said, 'Yes, Ms. Nichols, I am your greatest fan.' He said that Star Trek was the only show that he, and his wife Coretta, would allow their three little children to stay up and watch. [She told King about her plans to leave the series.] I never got to tell him why, because he said, 'You can't. You're part of history.'
+
+Computer engineer and entrepreneur Steve Wozniak credited watching Star Trek and attending Star Trek conventions in his youth as a source of inspiration for co-founding Apple Inc. in 1976. Apple later became the world's largest information technology company by revenue and the world's third-largest mobile phone manufacturer.[112]
+
+Early parodies of Star Trek included a famous sketch on Saturday Night Live titled "The Last Voyage of the Starship Enterprise", with John Belushi as Kirk, Chevy Chase as Spock and Dan Aykroyd as McCoy.[113] In the 1980s, Saturday Night Live did a sketch with William Shatner reprising his Captain Kirk role in The Restaurant Enterprise, preceded by a sketch in which he played himself at a Trek convention angrily telling fans to "Get a Life", a phrase that has become part of Trek folklore.[114] In Living Color continued the tradition in a sketch where Captain Kirk is played by a fellow Canadian Jim Carrey.[115]
+
+A feature-length film that indirectly parodies Star Trek is Galaxy Quest. This film is based on the premise that aliens monitoring the broadcast of an Earth-based television series called Galaxy Quest, modeled heavily on Star Trek, believe that what they are seeing is real.[116] Many Star Trek actors have been quoted saying that Galaxy Quest was a brilliant parody.[117][118]
+
+Star Trek has been blended with Gilbert and Sullivan at least twice. The North Toronto Players presented a Star Trek adaptation of Gilbert & Sullivan titled H.M.S. Starship Pinafore: The Next Generation in 1991 and an adaptation by Jon Mullich of Gilbert and Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore that sets the operetta in the world of Star Trek has played in Los Angeles and was attended by series luminaries Nichelle Nichols,[citation needed] D.C. Fontana and David Gerrold.[119] A similar blend of Gilbert and Sullivan and Star Trek was presented as a benefit concert in San Francisco by the Lamplighters in 2009. The show was titled Star Drek: The Generation After That. It presented an original story with Gilbert and Sullivan melodies.[120]
+
+The Simpsons and Futurama television series and others have had many individual episodes parodying Star Trek or with Trek allusions.[121] Black Mirror's Star Trek parody episode, "USS Callister", won four Emmy Awards, including the Outstanding Television Movie and Writing for a Limited Series, Movie or Drama, and was nominated for three more.[122]
+
+In August 2010, the members of the Internal Revenue Service created a Star Trek themed training video for a conference. Revealed to the public in 2013, the spoof along with parodies of other media franchises was cited as an example of the misuse of taxpayer funds in a congressional investigation.[123][124]
+
+Star Trek has been parodied in several non-English movies, including the German Traumschiff Surprise – Periode 1 which features a gay version of the Original Series bridge crew and a Turkish film that spoofs that same series' episode "The Man Trap" in one of the series of films based on the character Turist Ömer.[citation needed] An entire series of films and novel parodies titled Star Wreck has been created in Finnish.[125]
+
+The Orville is a comedy-drama science fiction television series created by Seth MacFarlane that premiered on September 10, 2017, on Fox. MacFarlane, a longtime fan of the franchise who previously guest-starred on an episode of Enterprise, created the series with a similar look and feel as the Star Trek series.[126] MacFarlane has made references to Star Trek on his animated series Family Guy, where the Next Generation cast guest-starred in the episode "Not All Dogs Go to Heaven".
+
+Until 2016, Paramount Pictures and CBS permitted fan-produced films and episode-like clips to be produced. Several veteran Star Trek actors and writers participated in many of these productions. Several producers turned to crowdfunding, such as Kickstarter, to help with production and other costs.[127]
+
+Popular productions include: New Voyages (2004–2016) and Star Trek Continues (2013–2017). Additional productions include: Of Gods and Men (2008), originally released as a three-part web series, and Prelude to Axanar.[128] Audio dramatizations such as The Continuing Mission (2007–2016) have also been published by fans.
+
+In 2016, CBS published guidelines which restricted the scope of fan productions, such as limiting the length of episodes or films to fifteen minutes, limiting production budgets to $50,000, and preventing actors and technicians from previous Star Trek productions from participating.[129] A number of highly publicized productions have since been cancelled or have gone abeyant.[130]
+
+Star Trek inspired the popularity of slash fiction, a genre of fan-produced, in-universe fiction where normally platonic, same-sex characters are portrayed as being a romantic couple. The most notable being Kirk/Spock stories.[131]:799[132]
+
+Over the intervening decades, especially with the advent of the Internet, fan fiction has become its own thriving fandom.[133][131]:798
+
+Of the various science fiction awards for drama, only the Hugo Award dates back as far as the original series.[i] In 1968, all five nominees for a Hugo Award were individual episodes of Star Trek, as were three of the five nominees in 1967.[j][26]:231 The only Star Trek series not to receive a Hugo Award nomination are the Animated Series and Voyager, though the Original Series and Next Generation never won in any nominated category. No Star Trek feature film has ever won a Hugo Award. In 2008, the fan-made Star Trek: New Voyages episode "World Enough and Time" was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Short Drama.
+
+Star Trek (2009) won the Academy Award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling, the franchise's first Academy Award. In 2016, the franchise was listed in the Guinness World Records as the most successful science fiction television franchise in the world.[134]
+
+In 1996, TV Guide published the following as the ten best Star Trek episodes for the franchise's 30th anniversary: [135]
+
+At the 50th Anniversary Star Trek Las Vegas (STLV) convention, in 2016, the following were voted by fans as the best episodes: [136]
+
+Additionally, fans voted the following as the worst episodes: [137]
+
+Star Trek began as a joint-production of Norway Productions, owned by Roddenberry, and Desilu, owned by Desi Arnaz. The profit-sharing agreement for the series split proceeds between Norway, Desilu—later Paramount Television, William Shatner's production company, and the broadcast network, NBC. However, Star Trek lost money during its initial broadcast, and NBC did not expect to recoup its losses by selling the series into syndication, nor did Paramount. With NBC's approval, Paramount offered its share of the series to Roddenberry sometime in 1970. However, Roddenberry could not raise the $150,000 (equivalent to $987,532 in 2019) offered by the studio.[19] Paramount would go on to license the series to television syndicators worldwide. NBC's remaining broadcast and distribution rights eventually returned to Paramount and Roddenberry sometime before 1986, which coincided with the development of what would become The Next Generation.
+
+As for Desilu, the studio was acquired by Gulf+Western. It was then reorganized as the television production division of Paramount Pictures, which Gulf+Western had acquired in 1966. Gulf+Western sold its remaining industrial assets in 1989, renaming itself Paramount Communications. Sometime before 1986, Sumner Redstone had acquired a controlling stake of Viacom via his family's theater chain, National Amusements. Viacom was established in 1952 as a division of CBS responsible for syndicating the network's in-house productions, originally called CBS Films. In 1994, Viacom and Paramount Communications were merged.[19] Viacom then merged with its former parent, CBS Corporation, in 1999. National Amusements and the Redstone family increased their stake in the combined company between 1999 and 2005.
+
+In 2005, the Redstone family reorganized Viacom, spinning off the conglomerate's assets as two independent groups: the new Viacom, and the new CBS Corporation. National Amusements and the Redstone family retained approximately 80% ownership of both CBS and Viacom.[138] Star Trek was split between the two entities. The terms of this split were not known. However, CBS held all copyrights, marks, production assets, and film negatives, to all Star Trek television series. CBS also retained the rights to all likenesses, characters, names and settings, and stories, and the right to license Star Trek, and its spin-offs, to merchandisers, and publishers, etc.[139] The rights were exercised via the new  CBS Television Studios, which was carved out of the former Paramount Television.
+
+Viacom, which housed Paramount Pictures, retained the feature film library, and exclusive rights to produce new feature films for a limited time.[citation needed] Viacom also retained home video distribution rights for all television series produced before 2005.[19][140] However, home video editions of the various television series released after the split, as well as streaming video versions of episodes available worldwide, carried variants of the new CBS Television Studios livery in addition to the original Paramount Television Studios livery. It was unclear who retained the synchronization or streaming rights.[citation needed]
+
+Rights and distribution issues, and the fraught relationship between the leadership at CBS, Viacom, and the National Amusements' board of directors, resulted in a number of delayed and or cancelled Star Trek productions between 2005 and 2019.[141] Additionally, the development and release of the new Star Trek film, in 2009, was met with resistance by executives at CBS, as was Into Darkness (2013) and Beyond (2016), which affected merchandising, tie-in media, and promotion for the new films.[142] During this period, both CBS and Viacom continued to list Star Trek as an important asset in their prospectus to investors, and in corporate filings made to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
+
+The competitive nature of the entertainment industry led to negotiations between Viacom and CBS on a potential merger, with CBS as the acquiring party, which would realign the stakeholders of the franchise under one corporate umbrella.[143] After several failed attempts at a merger between 2009 and 2014, negotiations restarted between CBS and Viacom in 2019, led by Shari Redstone, chairman of National Amusements, and Joe Ianniello, then CEO of Viacom.[144] On August 13, 2019, CBS and Viacom boards of directors reached an agreement to reunite the conglomerates as a single entity called ViacomCBS.[145] National Amusements' board of directors approved the merger on October 28, 2019, which was finalized on December 4.[146][147][148]

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+Star Wars is an American epic space-opera media franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has been expanded into various films and other media, including television series, video games, novels, comic books, theme park attractions, and themed areas, comprising an all-encompassing fictional universe.[b] The franchise holds a Guinness World Records title for the "Most successful film merchandising franchise."[2] In 2020, the Star Wars franchise's total value was estimated at US$70 billion, and it is currently the fifth-highest-grossing media franchise of all time.
+
+The original film, retroactively subtitled Episode IV: A New Hope, was followed by the sequels Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983), forming the original Star Wars trilogy. A prequel trilogy was later released, consisting of Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999), Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002), and Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005). In 2012, Lucas sold his production company to Disney, relinquishing his ownership of the franchise. The subsequently produced sequel trilogy consists of Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), and Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (2019). Together, the three trilogies form what has been referred to as the "Skywalker saga". All nine films were nominated for Academy Awards (with wins going to the first two released) and were commercially successful. Together with the theatrical spin-off films Rogue One (2016) and Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), the combined box office revenue of the films equates to over US$10 billion,[3] and it is currently the second-highest-grossing film franchise.[4]
+
+The Star Wars franchise depicts the adventures of characters "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away",[5] in which humans and many species of aliens (often humanoid) co-exist with robots, or 'droids', who may assist them in their daily routines; space travel between planets is common due to lightspeed hyperspace technology.[6][7][8] Spacecraft range from small starfighters, to huge capital ships such as the Star Destroyers, to space stations such as the moon-sized Death Stars. Telecommunication includes two-way audio and audiovisual screens, and holographic projections.
+
+A mystical power known as the Force is described in the original film as "an energy field created by all living things ... [that] binds the galaxy together".[9] Through training and meditation, those whom "the Force is strong with" are able to perform various superpowers (such as telekinesis, precognition, telepathy, and manipulation of physical energy).[10] The Force is wielded by two major knighthood orders at conflict with each other: the Jedi, peacekeepers of the Galactic Republic who act on the light side of the Force through non-attachment and arbitration, and the Sith, who use the dark side by manipulating fear and aggression. While Jedi Knights can be numerous, the Dark Lords of the Sith (or 'Darths') are intended to be limited to two: a master and their apprentice.[11]
+
+Force-wielders are very limited in numbers in comparison to the average population. The Jedi and Sith prefer the use of a weapon called a lightsaber, a blade of energy that can cut through virtually any surface and deflect energy bolts. The rest of the population, as well as renegades and soldiers, use laser-powered blaster firearms. In the outer reaches of the galaxy, crime syndicates such as the Hutt cartel are dominant. Bounty hunters are often employed by both gangsters and governments. Illicit activities include smuggling and slavery.
+
+The Star Wars canon fictional universe spans multiple eras, including three focused around each of the film trilogies:[12]
+
+The Expanded Universe of spin-off media depicts different levels of continuity, which were deemed non-canonical and rebranded as 'Legends' on April 25, 2014, to make most subsequent works align to the episodic films and The Clone Wars film and television series.[1]
+
+The Star Wars film series centers around three sets of trilogies, which are collectively referred to as the "Skywalker saga".[22] They were produced non-chronologically, with Episodes IV–VI (the original trilogy) being released between 1977 and 1983, Episodes I–III (the prequel trilogy) being released between 1999 and 2005, and Episodes VII–IX (the sequel trilogy), being released between 2015 and 2019. Each trilogy focuses on a generation of the Force-sensitive Skywalker family. The original trilogy depicts the heroic development of Luke Skywalker, the prequels tell the backstory of his father Anakin, while the sequels star Luke's nephew, Kylo Ren.
+
+An anthology series set between the main episodes entered development in parallel to the production of the sequel trilogy,[23] described by Disney CFO Jay Rasulo as origin stories.[24] The first entry, Rogue One (2016), tells the story of the rebels who steal the Death Star plans directly before Episode IV.[25][26] Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) focuses on Han Solo's backstory, also featuring original trilogy co-protagonists Chewbacca and Lando Calrissian and involving prequel trilogy villain Darth Maul.
+
+Lucasfilm has a number of Star Wars movies in development, including a trilogy which will be written by The Last Jedi writer/director Rian Johnson[27] and be independent from the Skywalker saga.[28] Additionally, a film based on the Knights of the Old Republic video games was reported to be in development with Laeta Kalogridis writing the script.[29] In September 2019, it was announced that Kennedy and Kevin Feige will collaborate to develop a Star Wars film.[30] In January 2020, a film set in the era of The High Republic was announced to be in development.[31] In February 2020, a film was announced to be in development from director J. D. Dillard, and writer Matt Owens.[32] In May 2020, Lucasfilm announced that Taika Waititi had been hired to direct a Star Wars film from a script he is co-writing with Krysty Wilson-Cairns.[33]
+
+In 1971, George Lucas wanted to film an adaptation of the Flash Gordon serial, but could not obtain the rights, so he began developing his own space opera.[34][f] After directing American Graffiti (1973), he wrote a two-page synopsis, which 20th Century Fox decided to invest in.[35][36][37] By 1974, he had expanded the story into the first draft of a screenplay.[38] The subsequent movie's success led Lucas to make it the basis of an elaborate film serial.[39] With the backstory he created for the sequel, Lucas decided that the series would be a trilogy of trilogies.[40] Most of the main cast would return for the two additional installments of the original trilogy, which were self-financed by Lucasfilm.
+
+Star Wars was released on May 25, 1977, and first subtitled Episode IV: A New Hope in the 1979 book The Art of Star Wars.[41] Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back was released on May 21, 1980, also achieving wide financial and critical success. The final film in the trilogy, Episode VI: Return of the Jedi was released on May 25, 1983. The story of the original trilogy focuses on Luke Skywalker's quest to become a Jedi, his struggle with the evil Imperial agent Darth Vader, and the struggle of the Rebel Alliance to free the galaxy from the clutches of the Galactic Empire.
+
+According to producer Gary Kurtz, loose plans for a prequel trilogy were developed during the outlining of the original two films.[42] In 1980, Lucas confirmed that he had the nine-film series plotted,[43] but due to the stress of producing the original trilogy, he had decided to cancel further sequels by 1981.[44] In 1983, Lucas explained that "There was never a script completed that had the entire story as it exists now ... As the stories unfolded, I would take certain ideas and save them ... I kept taking out all the good parts, and I just kept telling myself I would make other movies someday."[45]
+
+Technical advances in the late 1980s and early 1990s, including the ability to create computer-generated imagery (CGI), inspired Lucas to consider that it might be possible to revisit his saga. In 1989, Lucas stated that the prequels would be "unbelievably expensive."[46] In 1992, he acknowledged that he had plans to create the prequel trilogy.[47] A theatrical rerelease of the original trilogy in 1997 "updated" the 20-year-old films with the style of CGI envisioned for the new trilogy.
+
+Episode I: The Phantom Menace was released on May 19, 1999, and Episode II: Attack of the Clones on May 16, 2002. Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, the first PG-13 film in the franchise, was released on May 19, 2005.[48] The first two movies were met with mixed reviews, with the third being received somewhat more positively. The trilogy begins 32 years before Episode IV and follows the Jedi training of Anakin Skywalker, Luke's father, and his eventual fall from grace and transformation into the Sith lord Darth Vader, as well as the corruption of the Galactic Republic and rise of the Empire led by Darth Sidious. Together with the original trilogy, Lucas has collectively referred to the first six episodic films of the franchise as "the tragedy of Darth Vader".[49]
+
+Prior to releasing the original film, and made possible by its success, Lucas planned "three trilogies of nine films."[40][50] He announced this to Time in 1978,[51] and confirmed that he had outlined them in 1981.[52] At various stages of development, the sequel trilogy was to focus on the rebuilding of the Republic,[53] the return of Luke in a role similar to that of Obi-Wan in the original trilogy,[50] Luke's sister (not yet determined to be Leia),[42] Han, Leia,[54] R2-D2 and C-3PO.[40][55] However, after beginning work on the prequel trilogy, Lucas insisted that Star Wars was meant to be a six-part series and that there would be no sequel trilogy.[56][57]
+
+Lucas decided to leave the franchise in the hands of other filmmakers, announcing in January 2012 that he would make no more Star Wars films.[58] In October of that year, The Walt Disney Company agreed to buy Lucasfilm and announced that Episode VII would be released in 2015.[59] The co-chairman of Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy, became president of the company and served as executive producer of new Star Wars feature films.[60] Lucas provided Kennedy his story treatments for the sequels during the 2012 sale,[61] but in 2015 it was revealed Lucas's sequel outline had been discarded.[62][63] The sequel trilogy also meant the end of the existing Star Wars Expanded Universe, which was discarded from canon to give "maximum creative freedom to the filmmakers and also preserve an element of surprise and discovery for the audience."[1]
+
+Episode VII: The Force Awakens was released on December 16, 2015, Episode VIII: The Last Jedi on December 13, 2017, and Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker on December 18, 2019, in many countries.[h] Episode VII was met with both critical and box office success, and Episode VIII, while also meeting critical and financial success, had a mixed reception from audiences.[64] Episode IX received a mixed reception from critics and fans, although audiences leaned more positively.[65] The sequel trilogy starts 30 years after Episode VI and focuses on the journey of the Force-sensitive orphan Rey, guided by Luke Skywalker. Along with ex-stormtrooper Finn and ace X-Wing pilot Poe Dameron, Rey helps the Resistance, led by Leia, fight the First Order, commanded by Han and Leia's son (and Luke's nephew), Kylo Ren.
+
+Lucasfilm and Kennedy have stated that the standalone films would be referred to as the Star Wars anthology series[25] (though the word anthology has not been used in any of the titles, instead carrying the promotional "A Star Wars Story" subtitle). Focused on how the Rebels obtained the Death Star plans introduced in the 1977 film, the first anthology film, Rogue One, was released on December 16, 2016, to favorable reviews and box office success. The second, Solo, centered on a young Han Solo with Chewbacca and Lando as supporting characters, was released on May 25, 2018, to generally favorable reviews and underperformance at the box office. Despite this, more anthology films are expected to be released,[66] following a hiatus after 2019's The Rise of Skywalker.[67]
+
+The Star Wars franchise has been spun off to various television productions, including two animated series released in the mid-1980s. Further animated series began to be released in the 2000s, the first two of which focused on the Clone Wars. After Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm, only the later one remained canon. Three live-action Star Wars series will be released on Disney+. The first, The Mandalorian, premiered on November 12, 2019. Star Wars won the 2020 Webby Award for Television & Film in the category Social.[68]
+
+From 1976 to 2014, the term Expanded Universe (EU) was an umbrella term for all officially licensed Star Wars storytelling material set outside the events depicted within the theatrical films, including novels, comics, and video games.[89] Lucasfilm maintained internal continuity between the films and television content and the EU material until April 25, 2014, when the company announced all of the EU works would cease production. Existing works would no longer be considered canon to the franchise and subsequent reprints would be rebranded under the Star Wars Legends label,[89] with downloadable content for the massively multiplayer online game The Old Republic the only Legends material to still be produced. The Star Wars canon was subsequently restructured to only include the existing six feature films, the animated film The Clone Wars (2008), and its companion animated series. All future projects and creative developments across all types of media would be overseen and coordinated by the story group, announced as a division of Lucasfilm created to maintain continuity and a cohesive vision on the storytelling of the franchise.[1] Multiple comics series from Marvel and novels published by Del Rey were produced after the announcement.
+
+Star Wars in print predates the release of the first film, with the December 1976 novelization of Star Wars, initially subtitled "From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker". Credited to Lucas, it was ghostwritten by Alan Dean Foster.[90] The first "Expanded Universe" story appeared in Marvel Comics' Star Wars #7 in January 1978 (the first six issues being an adaptation of the film), followed by Foster's sequel novel Splinter of the Mind's Eye the following month.
+
+After penning the novelization of the original film, Foster followed it with the sequel Splinter of the Mind's Eye (1978). The novelizations of The Empire Strikes Back (1980) by Donald F. Glut and Return of the Jedi (1983) by James Kahn followed, as well as The Han Solo Adventures trilogy (1979–1980) by Brian Daley,[91] and The Adventures of Lando Calrissian trilogy (1983) by L. Neil Smith.[92][93]
+
+Timothy Zahn's bestselling Thrawn trilogy (1991–1993) reignited interest in the franchise and introduced the popular characters Grand Admiral Thrawn, Mara Jade, Talon Karrde, and Gilad Pellaeon.[94][95][96][97] The first novel, Heir to the Empire, reached #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list,[98] and the series finds Luke, Leia, and Han facing off against tactical genius Thrawn, who is plotting to retake the galaxy for the Empire.[99] In The Courtship of Princess Leia (1994) by Dave Wolverton, set immediately before the Thrawn trilogy, Leia considers an advantageous political marriage to Prince Isolder of the planet Hapes,  but she and Han ultimately marry.[100][101] Steve Perry's Shadows of the Empire (1996), set between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, was part of a multimedia campaign that included a comic book series and video game.[102][103] The novel introduced the crime lord Prince Xizor, another popular character who would appear in multiple other works.[102][104] Other notable series from Bantam include the Jedi Academy trilogy (1994) by Kevin J. Anderson,[105][106] the 14-book Young Jedi Knights series (1995–1998) by Anderson and Rebecca Moesta,[106][107] and the X-wing series (1996–2012) by Michael A. Stackpole and Aaron Allston.[108][109][110]
+
+Del Rey took over Star Wars book publishing in 1999, releasing what would become a 19-installment novel series called The New Jedi Order (1999–2003). Written by multiple authors, the series was set 25 to 30 years after the original films and introduced the Yuuzhan Vong, a powerful alien race attempting to invade and conquer the entire galaxy.[111][112] The bestselling multi-author series Legacy of the Force (2006–2008) chronicles the crossover of Han and Leia's son Jacen Solo to the dark side of the Force; among his evil deeds, he kills Luke's wife Mara Jade as a sacrifice to join the Sith. Although no longer canon, the story is paralleled in The Force Awakens with Han and Leia's son Ben Solo, who has become the dark Kylo Ren.[113][114][115][116]
+
+Three series set in the prequel era were introduced for younger audiences: the 18-book Jedi Apprentice (1999–2002) chronicles the adventures of Obi-Wan Kenobi and his master Qui-Gon Jinn in the years before The Phantom Menace; the 11-book Jedi Quest (2001–2004) follows Obi-Wan and his own apprentice, Anakin Skywalker in between The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones; and the 10-book The Last of the Jedi (2005–2008), set almost immediately after Revenge of the Sith, features Obi-Wan and the last few surviving Jedi.
+
+Although Thrawn had been designated a Legends character in 2014, he was reintroduced into the canon in the 2016 third season of Rebels, with Zahn returning to write more novels based in the character, and set in the new canon.[117][118]
+
+Marvel Comics published a Star Wars comic book series from 1977 to 1986.[119][120][121][122] Original Star Wars comics were serialized in the Marvel magazine Pizzazz between 1977 and 1979. The 1977 installments were the first original Star Wars stories not directly adapted from the films to appear in print form, as they preceded those of the Star Wars comic series.[123] From 1985–1987, the animated children's series Ewoks and Droids inspired comic series from Marvel's Star Comics line.[124][125][126] According to Marvel comics former Editor-In-Chief Jim Shooter, the strong sales of Star Wars comics saved Marvel financially in 1977 and 1978.[127] Marvel's Star Wars series was one of the industry's top selling titles in 1979 and 1980.[128] The only downside for Marvel was that the 100,000 copy sales quota was surpassed quickly, allowing Lippincott to renegotiate the royalty arrangements from a position of strength.[129]
+
+In the late 1980s, Marvel dropped a new Star Wars comic it had in development, which was picked up by Dark Horse Comics and published as the popular Dark Empire series (1991–1995).[130] Dark Horse subsequently launched dozens of series set after the original film trilogy, including Tales of the Jedi (1993–1998), X-wing Rogue Squadron (1995–1998), Star Wars: Republic (1998–2006), Star Wars Tales (1999–2005), Star Wars: Empire (2002–2006), and Knights of the Old Republic (2006–2010).[131][132]
+
+After Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm, it was announced in January 2014 that in 2015 the Star Wars comics license would return to Marvel Comics,[133] whose parent company, Marvel Entertainment, Disney had purchased in 2009.[134] Launched in 2015, the first three publications were titled Star Wars, Darth Vader, and the limited series Princess Leia.[135][136][137]
+
+First announced as Project Luminous at Star Wars Celebration in April 2019, full details of a publishing initiative called Star Wars: The High Republic were revealed in a press conference in February 2020. Involving the majority of the current officially licensed publishers, a new era set 200 years before the Skywalker Saga will be explored in various books and comics. These include ongoing titles by Marvel and IDW Publishing, written by Cavan Scott and Daniel José Older respectively, that will both premiere in August 2020.[138]
+
+John Williams composed the soundtracks for the nine episodic films; he has stated that he will retire from the franchise with The Rise of Skywalker.[139] He also composed Han Solo's theme for Solo: A Star Wars Story, which John Powell adapted and composed the rest of the score of.[140] Michael Giacchino composed the score of Rogue One.[140] Williams also created the main theme for Galaxy's Edge.
+
+The first Star Wars audio work is The Story of Star Wars, an LP using audio samples from the original film and a new narration to retell the story, released in 1977. Most later printed novels were adapted into audio novels, usually released on cassette tape and re-released on CD. More recently, audio-only novels have been released, not directly based on printed media.[citation needed]
+
+Radio adaptations of the films were also produced. Lucas, a fan of the NPR-affiliated campus radio station of his alma mater the University of Southern California, licensed the Star Wars radio rights to KUSC-FM for US$1. The production used John Williams's original film score, along with Ben Burtt's sound effects.[141][142]
+
+The first was written by science-fiction author Brian Daley and directed by John Madden. It was broadcast on National Public Radio in 1981, adapting the original 1977 film into 13 episodes.[143][141][142] Mark Hamill and Anthony Daniels reprised their film roles.[143][141]
+
+The overwhelming success, led to a 10-episode adaptation of The Empire Strikes Back debuted in 1983.[144] Billy Dee Williams joined the other two stars, reprising his role as Lando Calrissian.[145]
+
+In 1983, Buena Vista Records released an original, 30-minute Star Wars audio drama titled Rebel Mission to Ord Mantell, written by Daley.[142][146] In the 1990s, Time Warner Audio Publishing adapted several Star Wars series from Dark Horse Comics into audio dramas: the three-part Dark Empire saga, Tales of the Jedi, Dark Lords of the Sith, the Dark Forces trilogy, and Crimson Empire (1998).[146] Return of the Jedi was adapted into 6-episodes in 1996, featuring Daniels.[141][146]
+
+The Star Wars franchise has spawned over one hundred[147] computer, video, and board games, dating back to some of the earliest home consoles. Some are based directly on the movie material, while others rely heavily on the non-canonical Expanded Universe (rebranded as Star Wars Legends and removed from the canon in 2014). Star Wars games have gone through three significant development eras, marked by a change in leadership among the developers: the early licensed games, those developed after the creation of LucasArts, and those created after the closure of the Lucasfilm division by Disney and the transfer of the license to Electronic Arts.
+
+The first era began with the first officially licensed electronic Star Wars game: Kenner's 1979 table-top Star Wars Electronic Battle Command.[148][149] In 1982, Parker Brothers published the first Star Wars video game for the Atari 2600, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back,[150] followed soon the year later by Star Wars: Jedi Arena, the first video game to depict lightsaber combat. They were followed in 1983 by Atari's rail shooter arcade game Star Wars, with vector graphics to replicate the Death Star trench run scene from the 1977 film.[151] The next game, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (1984), has more traditional raster graphics,[152] while the following Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1985) has vector graphics.[153]
+
+Nintendo's Star Wars in 1987, a different Star Wars in 1991 and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back in 1992 are platform games for the Nintendo Entertainment System, but the first one never saw release outside Japan. Super Star Wars in 1992 is a platform game for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, with two sequels over the next two years.
+
+The beginning of the second era is marked by the prominence of LucasArts and modern self-published games. LucasArts was founded after Star Wars creator George Lucas took interest in the increasing success of the video game market. Wanting to have more creative control over the games and their narratives, Lucas founded his own video-game development company, LucasArts. During this era, improved video game graphics allowed games to tell complex narratives, which allowed for the retelling of the films, and eventually original narratives set in the same continuity as the films, with voice-overs and CGI cutscenes. Lucasfilm had founded its own video game company in 1982, becoming best known for adventure games and World War II flight combat games. In 1993, LucasArts released Star Wars: X-Wing, the first self-published Star Wars video game and the first space flight simulator based on the franchise.[154] It was one of the best-selling video games of 1993 and established its own series of games.[154] The Rogue Squadron series was released between 1998 and 2003, also focusing on space battles set during the films.
+
+Dark Forces (1995), a hybrid adventure game incorporating puzzles and strategy,[155] was the first Star Wars first-person shooter.[156] It featured gameplay and graphical features not then common in other games, made possible by LucasArts' custom-designed game engine, the Jedi.[156][155][157][158] The game was well received,[159][160][161] and it was followed by four sequels.[162][163] The series introduced Kyle Katarn, who would appear in multiple games, novels, and comics.[164] Katarn is a former stormtrooper who joins the Rebellion and becomes a Jedi,[156][165][166] a plot arc similar to that of Finn in the later sequel trilogy films.[113] A massively multiplayer online role-playing game, Star Wars Galaxies, was in operation from 2003 until 2011. After Disney bought Lucasfilm in 2012, the games developed during the first two eras were discarded from the canon in 2014 and reassigned to the non-canonical Star Wars Legends label. LucasArts ceased its role as a developer in 2013, although it still operates as a licensor.[167]
+
+After its acquisition by Disney, LucasArts ceased being a developer and video game rights were reassigned to Electronic Arts, marking the start of the third era. Games made during this era are considered canonical, and feature more influence from the Star Wars filmmakers. Disney partnered with Lenovo to create the augmented reality video game Jedi Challenges, released in November 2017.[168][169] In August 2018, it was announced that Zynga would publish free-to-play Star Wars mobile games.[170] The Battlefront games received a canonical reboot in 2017. Jedi: Fallen Order was released in November 2019.
+
+In addition to the Disneyland ride Star Tours (1987) and its successor, Star Tours: The Adventures Continue (2011), many live attractions have been held at Disney parks, including the travelling exhibition Where Science Meets Imagination, the Space Mountain spin-off Hyperspace Mountain, a walkthrough Launch Bay, and the night-time A Galactic Spectacular. An immersive themed area called Galaxy's Edge (2019) opened at Disneyland and opened at Walt Disney World in mid-2019.[171]  A themed hotel, Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser, is currently under construction at Walt Disney World.[172]
+
+A multimedia project involves works released across multiple types of media. Shadows of the Empire (1996) was a multimedia project set between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi that included a novel by Steve Perry, a comic book series, a video game, and action figures.[102][103] The Force Unleashed (2008–2010) was a similar project set between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope that included a novel, a 2008 video game and its 2010 sequel, a graphic novel, a role-playing game supplement, and toys.[173][174]
+
+The success of the Star Wars films led the franchise to become one of the most merchandised franchises in the world. While filming the original 1977 film, George Lucas decided to take a $500,000 pay cut to his salary as director in exchange for full ownership of the franchise's merchandising rights. By  1987, the first three films have made US$2.6 billion in merchandising revenue.[175] By 2012, the first six films produced approximately US$20 billion in merchandising revenue.[176]
+
+Kenner made the first Star Wars action figures to coincide with the release of the film, and today the original figures are highly valuable. Since the 1990s, Hasbro holds the rights to create action figures based on the saga. Pez dispensers began to be produced in 1997.[177] Star Wars was the first intellectual property to be licensed in Lego history.[178] Lego has produced animated parody short films and mini-series to promote their Star Wars sets.[179] The Lego Star Wars video games are critically acclaimed bestsellers.[180][181]
+
+In 1977, the board game Star Wars: Escape from the Death Star was released,[182] not to be confused with the board game with the same name published in 1990.[183] A Star Wars Monopoly and themed versions of Trivial Pursuit and Battleship were released in 1997, with updated versions released in subsequent years. The board game Risk has been adapted in two editions by Hasbro: The Clone Wars Edition (2005)[184] and the Original Trilogy Edition (2006).[185] Three Star Wars tabletop role-playing games have been developed: a version by West End Games in the 1980s and 1990s, one by Wizards of the Coast in the 2000s, and one by Fantasy Flight Games in the 2010s.
+
+Star Wars Trading Cards have been published since the first "blue" series, by Topps, in 1977.[186] Dozens of series have been produced, with Topps being the licensed creator in the United States. Each card series are of film stills or original art. Many of the cards have become highly collectible with some very rare "promos", such as the 1993 Galaxy Series II "floating Yoda" P3 card often commanding US$1,000 or more. While most "base" or "common card" sets are plentiful, many "insert" or "chase cards" are very rare.[187] From 1995 until 2001, Decipher, Inc. had the license for, created, and produced the Star Wars Customizable Card Game.
+
+Star Wars features elements such as knighthood, chivalry, and Jungian archetypes such as "the shadow".[188]
+There are also many references to Christianity, such as in the appearance of Darth Maul, whose design draws heavily from traditional depictions of the devil.[189] Anakin was conceived of a virgin birth, and is assumed to be the "Chosen One", a messianic individual. However, unlike Jesus, Anakin falls from grace, remaining evil as Darth Vader until Return of the Jedi. According to Adam Driver, sequel trilogy villain Kylo Ren, who idolizes Vader, believes he is "doing what he thinks is right".[190] George Lucas has said that the theme of the saga is redemption.[191]
+
+The saga draws heavily from the hero's journey, an archetypical template developed by comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell.[189] Each character—primarily Anakin, Luke, and Rey—follows the steps of the cycle or undergoes its reversal, becoming the villain.[192] A defining step of the journey is "Atonement with the Father".[193] Obi-Wan's loss of a father figure could have impacted his relationship with Anakin,[194] whom both Obi-Wan and Palpatine are fatherlike mentors to.[195] Luke's discovery that Vader is his father has strong repurcussions on the saga and is regarded as one of the most influential plot twists in cinema.[196] Supreme Leader Snoke encourages Kylo Ren to kill his father, Han Solo.[190] Kylo uses the fact that Rey is an orphan to tempt her into joining the dark side.[197] According to Inverse, the final scene in The Last Jedi, which depicts servant children playing with a toy of Luke and one boy using the Force, symbolizes that "the Force can be found in people with humble beginnings."[198]
+
+Political science has been an important element of Star Wars since the franchise launched in 1977, focusing on a struggle between democracy and dictatorship. Battles featuring the Ewoks and Gungans against the Empire and Trade Federation, respectively, represent the clash between a primitive society and a more advanced one, similar to the Vietnam-American War.[199][200] Darth Vader's design was initially inspired by Samurai armor, and also incorporated a German military helmet.[201][202] Originally, Lucas conceived of the Sith as a group that served the Emperor in the same way that the Schutzstaffel served Adolf Hitler; this was condensed into one character in the form of Vader.[203] Stormtroopers borrow the name of World War I German "shock" troopers. Imperial officers wear uniforms resembling those of German forces during World War II,[204] and political and security officers resemble the black-clad SS down to the stylized silver death's head on their caps. World War II terms were used for names in the films; e.g. the planets Kessel (a term that refers to a group of encircled forces) and Hoth (after a German general who served on the snow-laden Eastern Front).[205] Shots of the commanders looking through AT-AT walker viewscreens in The Empire Strikes Back resemble tank interiors,[206] and space battles in the original film were based on World War I and World War II dogfights.[207]
+
+Palpatine being a chancellor before becoming the Emperor in the prequel trilogy alludes to Hitler's role before appointing himself Führer.[204] Lucas has also drawn parallels to historical dictators such as Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, and politicians like Richard Nixon.[208][209][i] The Great Jedi Purge mirrors the events of the Night of the Long Knives.[211] The corruption of the Galactic Republic is modeled after the fall of the democratic Roman Republic and the formation of an empire.[212][213]
+
+On the inspiration for the First Order formed "from the ashes of the Empire", The Force Awakens director J. J. Abrams spoke of conversations the writers had about how the Nazis could have escaped to Argentina after WWII and "started working together again."[20]
+
+The aerial warfare of WWII inspired the space fights
+
+The flag and symbolism of the Empire resembles those of the Nazis
+
+The Star Wars saga has had a significant impact on popular culture,[214] with references to its fictional universe deeply embedded in everyday life.[215] Phrases like "evil empire" and "May the Force be with you" have become part of the popular lexicon.[216] The first Star Wars film in 1977 was a cultural unifier,[217] enjoyed by a wide spectrum of people.[218] The film can be said to have helped launch the science-fiction boom of the late 1970s and early 1980s, making science-fiction films a mainstream genre.[219] The widespread impact made it a prime target for parody works and homages, with popular examples including Hardware Wars, Spaceballs, The Family Guy Trilogy and Robot Chicken: Star Wars.
+
+In 1989, the Library of Congress selected the original Star Wars film for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry, as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."[220] The Empire Strikes Back, was selected in 2010.[221][222] 35mm reels of the 1997 Special Editions were the versions initially presented for preservation because of the difficulty of transferring from the original prints,[223][224] but it was later revealed that the Library possesses a copyright deposit print of the original theatrical releases.[225]
+
+The original Star Wars film was a huge success for 20th Century Fox, and was credited for reinvigorating the company. Within three weeks of the film's release, the studio's stock price doubled to a record high. Prior to 1977, 20th Century Fox's greatest annual profits were $37 million, while in 1977, the company broke that record by posting a profit of $79 million.[207] The franchise helped Fox to change from an almost bankrupt production company to a thriving media conglomerate.[226]
+
+Star Wars fundamentally changed the aesthetics and narratives of Hollywood films, switching the focus of Hollywood-made films from deep, meaningful stories based on dramatic conflict, themes and irony to sprawling special-effects-laden blockbusters, as well as changing the Hollywood film industry in fundamental ways. Before Star Wars, special effects in films had not appreciably advanced since the 1950s.[227] The commercial success of Star Wars created a boom in state-of-the-art special effects in the late 1970s.[226] Along with Jaws, Star Wars started the tradition of the summer blockbuster film in the entertainment industry, where films open on many screens at the same time and profitable franchises are important.[228][218] It created the model for the major film trilogy and showed that merchandising rights on a film could generate more money than the film itself did.[217]
+
+Film critic Roger Ebert wrote in his book The Great Movies, "Like The Birth of a Nation and Citizen Kane, Star Wars was a technical watershed that influenced many of the movies that came after." It began a new generation of special effects and high-energy motion pictures. The film was one of the first films to link genres together to invent a new, high-concept genre for filmmakers to build upon.[229] Finally, along with Steven Spielberg's Jaws, it shifted the film industry's focus away from personal filmmaking of the 1970s and towards fast-paced, big-budget blockbusters for younger audiences.[207][230][231]
+
+Some critics have blamed Star Wars and Jaws for "ruining" Hollywood by shifting its focus from "sophisticated" films such as The Godfather, Taxi Driver, and Annie Hall to films about spectacle and juvenile fantasy, and for the industry shift from stand-alone, one and done films, towards blockbuster franchises with multiple sequels and prequels.[232] One such critic, Peter Biskind, complained, "When all was said and done, Lucas and Spielberg returned the 1970s audience, grown sophisticated on a diet of European and New Hollywood films, to the simplicities of the pre-1960s Golden Age of movies... They marched backward through the looking-glass."[232][233] In an opposing view, Tom Shone wrote that through Star Wars and Jaws, Lucas and Spielberg "didn't betray cinema at all: they plugged it back into the grid, returning the medium to its roots as a carnival sideshow, a magic act, one big special effect", which was "a kind of rebirth".[231]
+
+The original Star Wars trilogy is widely considered one of the best film trilogies in history.[234] Numerous filmmakers have been influenced by Star Wars, including Damon Lindelof, Dean Devlin, Roland Emmerich, John Lasseter,[235] David Fincher, Joss Whedon, John Singleton, Kevin Smith,[229] and later Star Wars directors J. J. Abrams and Gareth Edwards.[236] Lucas's concept of a "used universe" particularly influenced Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982) and Alien (1979), James Cameron's Aliens (1986) as well as The Terminator (1984), George Miller's Mad Max 2 (1981), and Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001–2003).[229] Christopher Nolan cited Star Wars as an influence when making the 2010 blockbuster film Inception.[237]
+
+The Star Wars saga has inspired many fans to create their own non-canon material set in the Star Wars galaxy. In recent years, this has ranged from writing fan fiction to creating fan films. In 2002, Lucasfilm sponsored the first annual Official Star Wars Fan Film Awards, officially recognizing filmmakers and the genre. Because of concerns over potential copyright and trademark issues, however, the contest was initially open only to parodies, mockumentaries, and documentaries. Fan fiction films set in the Star Wars universe were originally ineligible, but in 2007, Lucasfilm changed the submission standards to allow in-universe fiction entries.[238] Lucasfilm has allowed but not endorsed the creation of fan fiction, as long as it does not attempt to make a profit.[239]
+
+As the characters and the storyline of the original trilogy are so well known, educators have used the films in the classroom as a learning resource.  For example, a project in Western Australia honed elementary school students storytelling skills by role-playing action scenes from the movies and later creating props and audio/visual scenery to enhance their performance.[240]  Others have used the films to encourage second-level students to integrate technology in the science classroom by making prototype lightsabers.[241] Similarly, psychiatrists in New Zealand and the US have advocated their use in the university classroom to explain different types of psychopathology.[242][243]

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+Star Wars is an American epic space-opera media franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has been expanded into various films and other media, including television series, video games, novels, comic books, theme park attractions, and themed areas, comprising an all-encompassing fictional universe.[b] The franchise holds a Guinness World Records title for the "Most successful film merchandising franchise."[2] In 2020, the Star Wars franchise's total value was estimated at US$70 billion, and it is currently the fifth-highest-grossing media franchise of all time.
+
+The original film, retroactively subtitled Episode IV: A New Hope, was followed by the sequels Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983), forming the original Star Wars trilogy. A prequel trilogy was later released, consisting of Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999), Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002), and Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005). In 2012, Lucas sold his production company to Disney, relinquishing his ownership of the franchise. The subsequently produced sequel trilogy consists of Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), and Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (2019). Together, the three trilogies form what has been referred to as the "Skywalker saga". All nine films were nominated for Academy Awards (with wins going to the first two released) and were commercially successful. Together with the theatrical spin-off films Rogue One (2016) and Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), the combined box office revenue of the films equates to over US$10 billion,[3] and it is currently the second-highest-grossing film franchise.[4]
+
+The Star Wars franchise depicts the adventures of characters "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away",[5] in which humans and many species of aliens (often humanoid) co-exist with robots, or 'droids', who may assist them in their daily routines; space travel between planets is common due to lightspeed hyperspace technology.[6][7][8] Spacecraft range from small starfighters, to huge capital ships such as the Star Destroyers, to space stations such as the moon-sized Death Stars. Telecommunication includes two-way audio and audiovisual screens, and holographic projections.
+
+A mystical power known as the Force is described in the original film as "an energy field created by all living things ... [that] binds the galaxy together".[9] Through training and meditation, those whom "the Force is strong with" are able to perform various superpowers (such as telekinesis, precognition, telepathy, and manipulation of physical energy).[10] The Force is wielded by two major knighthood orders at conflict with each other: the Jedi, peacekeepers of the Galactic Republic who act on the light side of the Force through non-attachment and arbitration, and the Sith, who use the dark side by manipulating fear and aggression. While Jedi Knights can be numerous, the Dark Lords of the Sith (or 'Darths') are intended to be limited to two: a master and their apprentice.[11]
+
+Force-wielders are very limited in numbers in comparison to the average population. The Jedi and Sith prefer the use of a weapon called a lightsaber, a blade of energy that can cut through virtually any surface and deflect energy bolts. The rest of the population, as well as renegades and soldiers, use laser-powered blaster firearms. In the outer reaches of the galaxy, crime syndicates such as the Hutt cartel are dominant. Bounty hunters are often employed by both gangsters and governments. Illicit activities include smuggling and slavery.
+
+The Star Wars canon fictional universe spans multiple eras, including three focused around each of the film trilogies:[12]
+
+The Expanded Universe of spin-off media depicts different levels of continuity, which were deemed non-canonical and rebranded as 'Legends' on April 25, 2014, to make most subsequent works align to the episodic films and The Clone Wars film and television series.[1]
+
+The Star Wars film series centers around three sets of trilogies, which are collectively referred to as the "Skywalker saga".[22] They were produced non-chronologically, with Episodes IV–VI (the original trilogy) being released between 1977 and 1983, Episodes I–III (the prequel trilogy) being released between 1999 and 2005, and Episodes VII–IX (the sequel trilogy), being released between 2015 and 2019. Each trilogy focuses on a generation of the Force-sensitive Skywalker family. The original trilogy depicts the heroic development of Luke Skywalker, the prequels tell the backstory of his father Anakin, while the sequels star Luke's nephew, Kylo Ren.
+
+An anthology series set between the main episodes entered development in parallel to the production of the sequel trilogy,[23] described by Disney CFO Jay Rasulo as origin stories.[24] The first entry, Rogue One (2016), tells the story of the rebels who steal the Death Star plans directly before Episode IV.[25][26] Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) focuses on Han Solo's backstory, also featuring original trilogy co-protagonists Chewbacca and Lando Calrissian and involving prequel trilogy villain Darth Maul.
+
+Lucasfilm has a number of Star Wars movies in development, including a trilogy which will be written by The Last Jedi writer/director Rian Johnson[27] and be independent from the Skywalker saga.[28] Additionally, a film based on the Knights of the Old Republic video games was reported to be in development with Laeta Kalogridis writing the script.[29] In September 2019, it was announced that Kennedy and Kevin Feige will collaborate to develop a Star Wars film.[30] In January 2020, a film set in the era of The High Republic was announced to be in development.[31] In February 2020, a film was announced to be in development from director J. D. Dillard, and writer Matt Owens.[32] In May 2020, Lucasfilm announced that Taika Waititi had been hired to direct a Star Wars film from a script he is co-writing with Krysty Wilson-Cairns.[33]
+
+In 1971, George Lucas wanted to film an adaptation of the Flash Gordon serial, but could not obtain the rights, so he began developing his own space opera.[34][f] After directing American Graffiti (1973), he wrote a two-page synopsis, which 20th Century Fox decided to invest in.[35][36][37] By 1974, he had expanded the story into the first draft of a screenplay.[38] The subsequent movie's success led Lucas to make it the basis of an elaborate film serial.[39] With the backstory he created for the sequel, Lucas decided that the series would be a trilogy of trilogies.[40] Most of the main cast would return for the two additional installments of the original trilogy, which were self-financed by Lucasfilm.
+
+Star Wars was released on May 25, 1977, and first subtitled Episode IV: A New Hope in the 1979 book The Art of Star Wars.[41] Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back was released on May 21, 1980, also achieving wide financial and critical success. The final film in the trilogy, Episode VI: Return of the Jedi was released on May 25, 1983. The story of the original trilogy focuses on Luke Skywalker's quest to become a Jedi, his struggle with the evil Imperial agent Darth Vader, and the struggle of the Rebel Alliance to free the galaxy from the clutches of the Galactic Empire.
+
+According to producer Gary Kurtz, loose plans for a prequel trilogy were developed during the outlining of the original two films.[42] In 1980, Lucas confirmed that he had the nine-film series plotted,[43] but due to the stress of producing the original trilogy, he had decided to cancel further sequels by 1981.[44] In 1983, Lucas explained that "There was never a script completed that had the entire story as it exists now ... As the stories unfolded, I would take certain ideas and save them ... I kept taking out all the good parts, and I just kept telling myself I would make other movies someday."[45]
+
+Technical advances in the late 1980s and early 1990s, including the ability to create computer-generated imagery (CGI), inspired Lucas to consider that it might be possible to revisit his saga. In 1989, Lucas stated that the prequels would be "unbelievably expensive."[46] In 1992, he acknowledged that he had plans to create the prequel trilogy.[47] A theatrical rerelease of the original trilogy in 1997 "updated" the 20-year-old films with the style of CGI envisioned for the new trilogy.
+
+Episode I: The Phantom Menace was released on May 19, 1999, and Episode II: Attack of the Clones on May 16, 2002. Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, the first PG-13 film in the franchise, was released on May 19, 2005.[48] The first two movies were met with mixed reviews, with the third being received somewhat more positively. The trilogy begins 32 years before Episode IV and follows the Jedi training of Anakin Skywalker, Luke's father, and his eventual fall from grace and transformation into the Sith lord Darth Vader, as well as the corruption of the Galactic Republic and rise of the Empire led by Darth Sidious. Together with the original trilogy, Lucas has collectively referred to the first six episodic films of the franchise as "the tragedy of Darth Vader".[49]
+
+Prior to releasing the original film, and made possible by its success, Lucas planned "three trilogies of nine films."[40][50] He announced this to Time in 1978,[51] and confirmed that he had outlined them in 1981.[52] At various stages of development, the sequel trilogy was to focus on the rebuilding of the Republic,[53] the return of Luke in a role similar to that of Obi-Wan in the original trilogy,[50] Luke's sister (not yet determined to be Leia),[42] Han, Leia,[54] R2-D2 and C-3PO.[40][55] However, after beginning work on the prequel trilogy, Lucas insisted that Star Wars was meant to be a six-part series and that there would be no sequel trilogy.[56][57]
+
+Lucas decided to leave the franchise in the hands of other filmmakers, announcing in January 2012 that he would make no more Star Wars films.[58] In October of that year, The Walt Disney Company agreed to buy Lucasfilm and announced that Episode VII would be released in 2015.[59] The co-chairman of Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy, became president of the company and served as executive producer of new Star Wars feature films.[60] Lucas provided Kennedy his story treatments for the sequels during the 2012 sale,[61] but in 2015 it was revealed Lucas's sequel outline had been discarded.[62][63] The sequel trilogy also meant the end of the existing Star Wars Expanded Universe, which was discarded from canon to give "maximum creative freedom to the filmmakers and also preserve an element of surprise and discovery for the audience."[1]
+
+Episode VII: The Force Awakens was released on December 16, 2015, Episode VIII: The Last Jedi on December 13, 2017, and Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker on December 18, 2019, in many countries.[h] Episode VII was met with both critical and box office success, and Episode VIII, while also meeting critical and financial success, had a mixed reception from audiences.[64] Episode IX received a mixed reception from critics and fans, although audiences leaned more positively.[65] The sequel trilogy starts 30 years after Episode VI and focuses on the journey of the Force-sensitive orphan Rey, guided by Luke Skywalker. Along with ex-stormtrooper Finn and ace X-Wing pilot Poe Dameron, Rey helps the Resistance, led by Leia, fight the First Order, commanded by Han and Leia's son (and Luke's nephew), Kylo Ren.
+
+Lucasfilm and Kennedy have stated that the standalone films would be referred to as the Star Wars anthology series[25] (though the word anthology has not been used in any of the titles, instead carrying the promotional "A Star Wars Story" subtitle). Focused on how the Rebels obtained the Death Star plans introduced in the 1977 film, the first anthology film, Rogue One, was released on December 16, 2016, to favorable reviews and box office success. The second, Solo, centered on a young Han Solo with Chewbacca and Lando as supporting characters, was released on May 25, 2018, to generally favorable reviews and underperformance at the box office. Despite this, more anthology films are expected to be released,[66] following a hiatus after 2019's The Rise of Skywalker.[67]
+
+The Star Wars franchise has been spun off to various television productions, including two animated series released in the mid-1980s. Further animated series began to be released in the 2000s, the first two of which focused on the Clone Wars. After Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm, only the later one remained canon. Three live-action Star Wars series will be released on Disney+. The first, The Mandalorian, premiered on November 12, 2019. Star Wars won the 2020 Webby Award for Television & Film in the category Social.[68]
+
+From 1976 to 2014, the term Expanded Universe (EU) was an umbrella term for all officially licensed Star Wars storytelling material set outside the events depicted within the theatrical films, including novels, comics, and video games.[89] Lucasfilm maintained internal continuity between the films and television content and the EU material until April 25, 2014, when the company announced all of the EU works would cease production. Existing works would no longer be considered canon to the franchise and subsequent reprints would be rebranded under the Star Wars Legends label,[89] with downloadable content for the massively multiplayer online game The Old Republic the only Legends material to still be produced. The Star Wars canon was subsequently restructured to only include the existing six feature films, the animated film The Clone Wars (2008), and its companion animated series. All future projects and creative developments across all types of media would be overseen and coordinated by the story group, announced as a division of Lucasfilm created to maintain continuity and a cohesive vision on the storytelling of the franchise.[1] Multiple comics series from Marvel and novels published by Del Rey were produced after the announcement.
+
+Star Wars in print predates the release of the first film, with the December 1976 novelization of Star Wars, initially subtitled "From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker". Credited to Lucas, it was ghostwritten by Alan Dean Foster.[90] The first "Expanded Universe" story appeared in Marvel Comics' Star Wars #7 in January 1978 (the first six issues being an adaptation of the film), followed by Foster's sequel novel Splinter of the Mind's Eye the following month.
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+After penning the novelization of the original film, Foster followed it with the sequel Splinter of the Mind's Eye (1978). The novelizations of The Empire Strikes Back (1980) by Donald F. Glut and Return of the Jedi (1983) by James Kahn followed, as well as The Han Solo Adventures trilogy (1979–1980) by Brian Daley,[91] and The Adventures of Lando Calrissian trilogy (1983) by L. Neil Smith.[92][93]
+
+Timothy Zahn's bestselling Thrawn trilogy (1991–1993) reignited interest in the franchise and introduced the popular characters Grand Admiral Thrawn, Mara Jade, Talon Karrde, and Gilad Pellaeon.[94][95][96][97] The first novel, Heir to the Empire, reached #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list,[98] and the series finds Luke, Leia, and Han facing off against tactical genius Thrawn, who is plotting to retake the galaxy for the Empire.[99] In The Courtship of Princess Leia (1994) by Dave Wolverton, set immediately before the Thrawn trilogy, Leia considers an advantageous political marriage to Prince Isolder of the planet Hapes,  but she and Han ultimately marry.[100][101] Steve Perry's Shadows of the Empire (1996), set between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, was part of a multimedia campaign that included a comic book series and video game.[102][103] The novel introduced the crime lord Prince Xizor, another popular character who would appear in multiple other works.[102][104] Other notable series from Bantam include the Jedi Academy trilogy (1994) by Kevin J. Anderson,[105][106] the 14-book Young Jedi Knights series (1995–1998) by Anderson and Rebecca Moesta,[106][107] and the X-wing series (1996–2012) by Michael A. Stackpole and Aaron Allston.[108][109][110]
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+Del Rey took over Star Wars book publishing in 1999, releasing what would become a 19-installment novel series called The New Jedi Order (1999–2003). Written by multiple authors, the series was set 25 to 30 years after the original films and introduced the Yuuzhan Vong, a powerful alien race attempting to invade and conquer the entire galaxy.[111][112] The bestselling multi-author series Legacy of the Force (2006–2008) chronicles the crossover of Han and Leia's son Jacen Solo to the dark side of the Force; among his evil deeds, he kills Luke's wife Mara Jade as a sacrifice to join the Sith. Although no longer canon, the story is paralleled in The Force Awakens with Han and Leia's son Ben Solo, who has become the dark Kylo Ren.[113][114][115][116]
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+Three series set in the prequel era were introduced for younger audiences: the 18-book Jedi Apprentice (1999–2002) chronicles the adventures of Obi-Wan Kenobi and his master Qui-Gon Jinn in the years before The Phantom Menace; the 11-book Jedi Quest (2001–2004) follows Obi-Wan and his own apprentice, Anakin Skywalker in between The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones; and the 10-book The Last of the Jedi (2005–2008), set almost immediately after Revenge of the Sith, features Obi-Wan and the last few surviving Jedi.
+
+Although Thrawn had been designated a Legends character in 2014, he was reintroduced into the canon in the 2016 third season of Rebels, with Zahn returning to write more novels based in the character, and set in the new canon.[117][118]
+
+Marvel Comics published a Star Wars comic book series from 1977 to 1986.[119][120][121][122] Original Star Wars comics were serialized in the Marvel magazine Pizzazz between 1977 and 1979. The 1977 installments were the first original Star Wars stories not directly adapted from the films to appear in print form, as they preceded those of the Star Wars comic series.[123] From 1985–1987, the animated children's series Ewoks and Droids inspired comic series from Marvel's Star Comics line.[124][125][126] According to Marvel comics former Editor-In-Chief Jim Shooter, the strong sales of Star Wars comics saved Marvel financially in 1977 and 1978.[127] Marvel's Star Wars series was one of the industry's top selling titles in 1979 and 1980.[128] The only downside for Marvel was that the 100,000 copy sales quota was surpassed quickly, allowing Lippincott to renegotiate the royalty arrangements from a position of strength.[129]
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+In the late 1980s, Marvel dropped a new Star Wars comic it had in development, which was picked up by Dark Horse Comics and published as the popular Dark Empire series (1991–1995).[130] Dark Horse subsequently launched dozens of series set after the original film trilogy, including Tales of the Jedi (1993–1998), X-wing Rogue Squadron (1995–1998), Star Wars: Republic (1998–2006), Star Wars Tales (1999–2005), Star Wars: Empire (2002–2006), and Knights of the Old Republic (2006–2010).[131][132]
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+After Disney's acquisition of Lucasfilm, it was announced in January 2014 that in 2015 the Star Wars comics license would return to Marvel Comics,[133] whose parent company, Marvel Entertainment, Disney had purchased in 2009.[134] Launched in 2015, the first three publications were titled Star Wars, Darth Vader, and the limited series Princess Leia.[135][136][137]
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+First announced as Project Luminous at Star Wars Celebration in April 2019, full details of a publishing initiative called Star Wars: The High Republic were revealed in a press conference in February 2020. Involving the majority of the current officially licensed publishers, a new era set 200 years before the Skywalker Saga will be explored in various books and comics. These include ongoing titles by Marvel and IDW Publishing, written by Cavan Scott and Daniel José Older respectively, that will both premiere in August 2020.[138]
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+John Williams composed the soundtracks for the nine episodic films; he has stated that he will retire from the franchise with The Rise of Skywalker.[139] He also composed Han Solo's theme for Solo: A Star Wars Story, which John Powell adapted and composed the rest of the score of.[140] Michael Giacchino composed the score of Rogue One.[140] Williams also created the main theme for Galaxy's Edge.
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+The first Star Wars audio work is The Story of Star Wars, an LP using audio samples from the original film and a new narration to retell the story, released in 1977. Most later printed novels were adapted into audio novels, usually released on cassette tape and re-released on CD. More recently, audio-only novels have been released, not directly based on printed media.[citation needed]
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+Radio adaptations of the films were also produced. Lucas, a fan of the NPR-affiliated campus radio station of his alma mater the University of Southern California, licensed the Star Wars radio rights to KUSC-FM for US$1. The production used John Williams's original film score, along with Ben Burtt's sound effects.[141][142]
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+The first was written by science-fiction author Brian Daley and directed by John Madden. It was broadcast on National Public Radio in 1981, adapting the original 1977 film into 13 episodes.[143][141][142] Mark Hamill and Anthony Daniels reprised their film roles.[143][141]
+
+The overwhelming success, led to a 10-episode adaptation of The Empire Strikes Back debuted in 1983.[144] Billy Dee Williams joined the other two stars, reprising his role as Lando Calrissian.[145]
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+In 1983, Buena Vista Records released an original, 30-minute Star Wars audio drama titled Rebel Mission to Ord Mantell, written by Daley.[142][146] In the 1990s, Time Warner Audio Publishing adapted several Star Wars series from Dark Horse Comics into audio dramas: the three-part Dark Empire saga, Tales of the Jedi, Dark Lords of the Sith, the Dark Forces trilogy, and Crimson Empire (1998).[146] Return of the Jedi was adapted into 6-episodes in 1996, featuring Daniels.[141][146]
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+The Star Wars franchise has spawned over one hundred[147] computer, video, and board games, dating back to some of the earliest home consoles. Some are based directly on the movie material, while others rely heavily on the non-canonical Expanded Universe (rebranded as Star Wars Legends and removed from the canon in 2014). Star Wars games have gone through three significant development eras, marked by a change in leadership among the developers: the early licensed games, those developed after the creation of LucasArts, and those created after the closure of the Lucasfilm division by Disney and the transfer of the license to Electronic Arts.
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+The first era began with the first officially licensed electronic Star Wars game: Kenner's 1979 table-top Star Wars Electronic Battle Command.[148][149] In 1982, Parker Brothers published the first Star Wars video game for the Atari 2600, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back,[150] followed soon the year later by Star Wars: Jedi Arena, the first video game to depict lightsaber combat. They were followed in 1983 by Atari's rail shooter arcade game Star Wars, with vector graphics to replicate the Death Star trench run scene from the 1977 film.[151] The next game, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (1984), has more traditional raster graphics,[152] while the following Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1985) has vector graphics.[153]
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+Nintendo's Star Wars in 1987, a different Star Wars in 1991 and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back in 1992 are platform games for the Nintendo Entertainment System, but the first one never saw release outside Japan. Super Star Wars in 1992 is a platform game for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, with two sequels over the next two years.
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+The beginning of the second era is marked by the prominence of LucasArts and modern self-published games. LucasArts was founded after Star Wars creator George Lucas took interest in the increasing success of the video game market. Wanting to have more creative control over the games and their narratives, Lucas founded his own video-game development company, LucasArts. During this era, improved video game graphics allowed games to tell complex narratives, which allowed for the retelling of the films, and eventually original narratives set in the same continuity as the films, with voice-overs and CGI cutscenes. Lucasfilm had founded its own video game company in 1982, becoming best known for adventure games and World War II flight combat games. In 1993, LucasArts released Star Wars: X-Wing, the first self-published Star Wars video game and the first space flight simulator based on the franchise.[154] It was one of the best-selling video games of 1993 and established its own series of games.[154] The Rogue Squadron series was released between 1998 and 2003, also focusing on space battles set during the films.
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+Dark Forces (1995), a hybrid adventure game incorporating puzzles and strategy,[155] was the first Star Wars first-person shooter.[156] It featured gameplay and graphical features not then common in other games, made possible by LucasArts' custom-designed game engine, the Jedi.[156][155][157][158] The game was well received,[159][160][161] and it was followed by four sequels.[162][163] The series introduced Kyle Katarn, who would appear in multiple games, novels, and comics.[164] Katarn is a former stormtrooper who joins the Rebellion and becomes a Jedi,[156][165][166] a plot arc similar to that of Finn in the later sequel trilogy films.[113] A massively multiplayer online role-playing game, Star Wars Galaxies, was in operation from 2003 until 2011. After Disney bought Lucasfilm in 2012, the games developed during the first two eras were discarded from the canon in 2014 and reassigned to the non-canonical Star Wars Legends label. LucasArts ceased its role as a developer in 2013, although it still operates as a licensor.[167]
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+After its acquisition by Disney, LucasArts ceased being a developer and video game rights were reassigned to Electronic Arts, marking the start of the third era. Games made during this era are considered canonical, and feature more influence from the Star Wars filmmakers. Disney partnered with Lenovo to create the augmented reality video game Jedi Challenges, released in November 2017.[168][169] In August 2018, it was announced that Zynga would publish free-to-play Star Wars mobile games.[170] The Battlefront games received a canonical reboot in 2017. Jedi: Fallen Order was released in November 2019.
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+In addition to the Disneyland ride Star Tours (1987) and its successor, Star Tours: The Adventures Continue (2011), many live attractions have been held at Disney parks, including the travelling exhibition Where Science Meets Imagination, the Space Mountain spin-off Hyperspace Mountain, a walkthrough Launch Bay, and the night-time A Galactic Spectacular. An immersive themed area called Galaxy's Edge (2019) opened at Disneyland and opened at Walt Disney World in mid-2019.[171]  A themed hotel, Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser, is currently under construction at Walt Disney World.[172]
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+A multimedia project involves works released across multiple types of media. Shadows of the Empire (1996) was a multimedia project set between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi that included a novel by Steve Perry, a comic book series, a video game, and action figures.[102][103] The Force Unleashed (2008–2010) was a similar project set between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope that included a novel, a 2008 video game and its 2010 sequel, a graphic novel, a role-playing game supplement, and toys.[173][174]
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+The success of the Star Wars films led the franchise to become one of the most merchandised franchises in the world. While filming the original 1977 film, George Lucas decided to take a $500,000 pay cut to his salary as director in exchange for full ownership of the franchise's merchandising rights. By  1987, the first three films have made US$2.6 billion in merchandising revenue.[175] By 2012, the first six films produced approximately US$20 billion in merchandising revenue.[176]
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+Kenner made the first Star Wars action figures to coincide with the release of the film, and today the original figures are highly valuable. Since the 1990s, Hasbro holds the rights to create action figures based on the saga. Pez dispensers began to be produced in 1997.[177] Star Wars was the first intellectual property to be licensed in Lego history.[178] Lego has produced animated parody short films and mini-series to promote their Star Wars sets.[179] The Lego Star Wars video games are critically acclaimed bestsellers.[180][181]
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+In 1977, the board game Star Wars: Escape from the Death Star was released,[182] not to be confused with the board game with the same name published in 1990.[183] A Star Wars Monopoly and themed versions of Trivial Pursuit and Battleship were released in 1997, with updated versions released in subsequent years. The board game Risk has been adapted in two editions by Hasbro: The Clone Wars Edition (2005)[184] and the Original Trilogy Edition (2006).[185] Three Star Wars tabletop role-playing games have been developed: a version by West End Games in the 1980s and 1990s, one by Wizards of the Coast in the 2000s, and one by Fantasy Flight Games in the 2010s.
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+Star Wars Trading Cards have been published since the first "blue" series, by Topps, in 1977.[186] Dozens of series have been produced, with Topps being the licensed creator in the United States. Each card series are of film stills or original art. Many of the cards have become highly collectible with some very rare "promos", such as the 1993 Galaxy Series II "floating Yoda" P3 card often commanding US$1,000 or more. While most "base" or "common card" sets are plentiful, many "insert" or "chase cards" are very rare.[187] From 1995 until 2001, Decipher, Inc. had the license for, created, and produced the Star Wars Customizable Card Game.
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+Star Wars features elements such as knighthood, chivalry, and Jungian archetypes such as "the shadow".[188]
+There are also many references to Christianity, such as in the appearance of Darth Maul, whose design draws heavily from traditional depictions of the devil.[189] Anakin was conceived of a virgin birth, and is assumed to be the "Chosen One", a messianic individual. However, unlike Jesus, Anakin falls from grace, remaining evil as Darth Vader until Return of the Jedi. According to Adam Driver, sequel trilogy villain Kylo Ren, who idolizes Vader, believes he is "doing what he thinks is right".[190] George Lucas has said that the theme of the saga is redemption.[191]
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+The saga draws heavily from the hero's journey, an archetypical template developed by comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell.[189] Each character—primarily Anakin, Luke, and Rey—follows the steps of the cycle or undergoes its reversal, becoming the villain.[192] A defining step of the journey is "Atonement with the Father".[193] Obi-Wan's loss of a father figure could have impacted his relationship with Anakin,[194] whom both Obi-Wan and Palpatine are fatherlike mentors to.[195] Luke's discovery that Vader is his father has strong repurcussions on the saga and is regarded as one of the most influential plot twists in cinema.[196] Supreme Leader Snoke encourages Kylo Ren to kill his father, Han Solo.[190] Kylo uses the fact that Rey is an orphan to tempt her into joining the dark side.[197] According to Inverse, the final scene in The Last Jedi, which depicts servant children playing with a toy of Luke and one boy using the Force, symbolizes that "the Force can be found in people with humble beginnings."[198]
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+Political science has been an important element of Star Wars since the franchise launched in 1977, focusing on a struggle between democracy and dictatorship. Battles featuring the Ewoks and Gungans against the Empire and Trade Federation, respectively, represent the clash between a primitive society and a more advanced one, similar to the Vietnam-American War.[199][200] Darth Vader's design was initially inspired by Samurai armor, and also incorporated a German military helmet.[201][202] Originally, Lucas conceived of the Sith as a group that served the Emperor in the same way that the Schutzstaffel served Adolf Hitler; this was condensed into one character in the form of Vader.[203] Stormtroopers borrow the name of World War I German "shock" troopers. Imperial officers wear uniforms resembling those of German forces during World War II,[204] and political and security officers resemble the black-clad SS down to the stylized silver death's head on their caps. World War II terms were used for names in the films; e.g. the planets Kessel (a term that refers to a group of encircled forces) and Hoth (after a German general who served on the snow-laden Eastern Front).[205] Shots of the commanders looking through AT-AT walker viewscreens in The Empire Strikes Back resemble tank interiors,[206] and space battles in the original film were based on World War I and World War II dogfights.[207]
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+Palpatine being a chancellor before becoming the Emperor in the prequel trilogy alludes to Hitler's role before appointing himself Führer.[204] Lucas has also drawn parallels to historical dictators such as Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, and politicians like Richard Nixon.[208][209][i] The Great Jedi Purge mirrors the events of the Night of the Long Knives.[211] The corruption of the Galactic Republic is modeled after the fall of the democratic Roman Republic and the formation of an empire.[212][213]
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+On the inspiration for the First Order formed "from the ashes of the Empire", The Force Awakens director J. J. Abrams spoke of conversations the writers had about how the Nazis could have escaped to Argentina after WWII and "started working together again."[20]
+
+The aerial warfare of WWII inspired the space fights
+
+The flag and symbolism of the Empire resembles those of the Nazis
+
+The Star Wars saga has had a significant impact on popular culture,[214] with references to its fictional universe deeply embedded in everyday life.[215] Phrases like "evil empire" and "May the Force be with you" have become part of the popular lexicon.[216] The first Star Wars film in 1977 was a cultural unifier,[217] enjoyed by a wide spectrum of people.[218] The film can be said to have helped launch the science-fiction boom of the late 1970s and early 1980s, making science-fiction films a mainstream genre.[219] The widespread impact made it a prime target for parody works and homages, with popular examples including Hardware Wars, Spaceballs, The Family Guy Trilogy and Robot Chicken: Star Wars.
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+In 1989, the Library of Congress selected the original Star Wars film for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry, as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."[220] The Empire Strikes Back, was selected in 2010.[221][222] 35mm reels of the 1997 Special Editions were the versions initially presented for preservation because of the difficulty of transferring from the original prints,[223][224] but it was later revealed that the Library possesses a copyright deposit print of the original theatrical releases.[225]
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+The original Star Wars film was a huge success for 20th Century Fox, and was credited for reinvigorating the company. Within three weeks of the film's release, the studio's stock price doubled to a record high. Prior to 1977, 20th Century Fox's greatest annual profits were $37 million, while in 1977, the company broke that record by posting a profit of $79 million.[207] The franchise helped Fox to change from an almost bankrupt production company to a thriving media conglomerate.[226]
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+Star Wars fundamentally changed the aesthetics and narratives of Hollywood films, switching the focus of Hollywood-made films from deep, meaningful stories based on dramatic conflict, themes and irony to sprawling special-effects-laden blockbusters, as well as changing the Hollywood film industry in fundamental ways. Before Star Wars, special effects in films had not appreciably advanced since the 1950s.[227] The commercial success of Star Wars created a boom in state-of-the-art special effects in the late 1970s.[226] Along with Jaws, Star Wars started the tradition of the summer blockbuster film in the entertainment industry, where films open on many screens at the same time and profitable franchises are important.[228][218] It created the model for the major film trilogy and showed that merchandising rights on a film could generate more money than the film itself did.[217]
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+Film critic Roger Ebert wrote in his book The Great Movies, "Like The Birth of a Nation and Citizen Kane, Star Wars was a technical watershed that influenced many of the movies that came after." It began a new generation of special effects and high-energy motion pictures. The film was one of the first films to link genres together to invent a new, high-concept genre for filmmakers to build upon.[229] Finally, along with Steven Spielberg's Jaws, it shifted the film industry's focus away from personal filmmaking of the 1970s and towards fast-paced, big-budget blockbusters for younger audiences.[207][230][231]
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+Some critics have blamed Star Wars and Jaws for "ruining" Hollywood by shifting its focus from "sophisticated" films such as The Godfather, Taxi Driver, and Annie Hall to films about spectacle and juvenile fantasy, and for the industry shift from stand-alone, one and done films, towards blockbuster franchises with multiple sequels and prequels.[232] One such critic, Peter Biskind, complained, "When all was said and done, Lucas and Spielberg returned the 1970s audience, grown sophisticated on a diet of European and New Hollywood films, to the simplicities of the pre-1960s Golden Age of movies... They marched backward through the looking-glass."[232][233] In an opposing view, Tom Shone wrote that through Star Wars and Jaws, Lucas and Spielberg "didn't betray cinema at all: they plugged it back into the grid, returning the medium to its roots as a carnival sideshow, a magic act, one big special effect", which was "a kind of rebirth".[231]
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+The original Star Wars trilogy is widely considered one of the best film trilogies in history.[234] Numerous filmmakers have been influenced by Star Wars, including Damon Lindelof, Dean Devlin, Roland Emmerich, John Lasseter,[235] David Fincher, Joss Whedon, John Singleton, Kevin Smith,[229] and later Star Wars directors J. J. Abrams and Gareth Edwards.[236] Lucas's concept of a "used universe" particularly influenced Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982) and Alien (1979), James Cameron's Aliens (1986) as well as The Terminator (1984), George Miller's Mad Max 2 (1981), and Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001–2003).[229] Christopher Nolan cited Star Wars as an influence when making the 2010 blockbuster film Inception.[237]
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+The Star Wars saga has inspired many fans to create their own non-canon material set in the Star Wars galaxy. In recent years, this has ranged from writing fan fiction to creating fan films. In 2002, Lucasfilm sponsored the first annual Official Star Wars Fan Film Awards, officially recognizing filmmakers and the genre. Because of concerns over potential copyright and trademark issues, however, the contest was initially open only to parodies, mockumentaries, and documentaries. Fan fiction films set in the Star Wars universe were originally ineligible, but in 2007, Lucasfilm changed the submission standards to allow in-universe fiction entries.[238] Lucasfilm has allowed but not endorsed the creation of fan fiction, as long as it does not attempt to make a profit.[239]
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+As the characters and the storyline of the original trilogy are so well known, educators have used the films in the classroom as a learning resource.  For example, a project in Western Australia honed elementary school students storytelling skills by role-playing action scenes from the movies and later creating props and audio/visual scenery to enhance their performance.[240]  Others have used the films to encourage second-level students to integrate technology in the science classroom by making prototype lightsabers.[241] Similarly, psychiatrists in New Zealand and the US have advocated their use in the university classroom to explain different types of psychopathology.[242][243]